Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow aspects of life are not ordained by God; they are ordained by Him equally as much as the profound. We sometimes refuse to be shallow, not out of our deep devotion to God but because we wish to impress other people with the fact that we are not shallow. This is a sure sign of spiritual pride. We must be careful, for this is how contempt for others is produced in our lives. And it causes us to be a walking rebuke to other people because they are more shallow than we are. Beware of posing as a profound person— God became a baby.

To be shallow is not a sign of being sinful, nor is shallowness an indication that there is no depth to your life at all— the ocean has a shore. Even the shallow things of life, such as eating and drinking, walking and talking, are ordained by God. These are all things our Lord did. He did them as the Son of God, and He said, “A disciple is not above his teacher . . .” (Matthew 10:24).

We are safeguarded by the shallow things of life. We have to live the surface, commonsense life in a commonsense way. Then when God gives us the deeper things, they are obviously separated from the shallow concerns. Never show the depth of your life to anyone but God. We are so nauseatingly serious, so desperately interested in our own character and reputation, we refuse to behave like Christians in the shallow concerns of life.

Make a determination to take no one seriously except God. You may find that the first person you must be the most critical with, as being the greatest fraud you have ever known, is yourself.

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November 22, 2010

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

I have begun to take others’ spiritual guidance and direction with a grain of salt….that is unless I am quickened by the Spirit of God and or their guidance is supported by the word of God. Whenever Oswald Chambers or anyone else tells me “beware” of doing this or that, I will read it, digest it and then allow the Holy Spirit of God to bring it into my consciousness. Like most things in my world, I try to hold guidance and direction in an open palm waiting for direction from the Holy Spirit. If I hear the same message over again and again, and or find the message resonating with me, I will then share it with David or another brother and we will prayerfully examine the direction and its application.

And God says…”My son, don’t believe everything you hear or read. Carefully weigh and examine what people write and tell you.  Not every Godly piece of advice or direction is for you at this particular time and not everyone who talks about God comes from God…..remember to test everything you hear with the word of God and with the Spirit of God living within you. And also remember that there is a time for everything. If you want to hear My voice and My confirmation, simply listen for Me. Knock and the door will be answered, ask and you shall receive. My sheep know my voice, listen for Me and do what I ask.”

“And know this; you are My child bought with the blood and sacrifice of Jesus. You are too valuable for Me to leave without specific direction. When you are not certain of My voice and direction, simply wait. I will never leave or forsake you.”

Very few of us know anything about conviction of sin. We know the experience of being disturbed because we have done wrong things. But conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit blots out every relationship on earth and makes us aware of only one— “Against You, You only, have I sinned . . .” (Psalm 51:4). When a person is convicted of sin in this way, he knows with every bit of his conscience that God would not dare to forgive him. If God did forgive him, then this person would have a stronger sense of justice than God. God does forgive, but it cost the breaking of His heart with grief in the death of Christ to enable Him to do so. The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so. It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love. Once we have been convicted of sin, we will never say this again. The love of God means Calvary— nothing less! The love of God is spelled out on the Cross and nowhere else. The only basis for which God can forgive me is the Cross of Christ. It is there that His conscience is satisfied.

Forgiveness doesn’t merely mean that I am saved from hell and have been made ready for heaven (no one would accept forgiveness on that level). Forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a newly created relationship which identifies me with God in Christ. The miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of Himself, the Holy One. He does this by putting into me a new nature, the nature of Jesus Christ.

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November 19, 2010

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

How is it that I am being transformed into Jesus when I do and say things that Jesus would never do or say? When is this great transformation taking place? How can I be certain that it will actually occur? If I am to judge my own failures, it is clear that I am not transformed yet. How long do I wait? When does the metamorphosis actually happen? How long can God tolerate me in my current condition?

And God says…”I cannot tolerate even one white lie told for the benefit of the other person. I cannot tolerate the wonderful things you do for me and others and recall proudly. I cannot tolerate your random acts of kindness spoken of casually so that others may know of your charity. And I cannot tolerate you noticing another’s failures and speaking of them to yourself and others. But I can and do tolerate, love and adore Jesus. And He is who I see when I look at you. And you can be certain that you are being transformed into Jesus because I have told you it is so”

If there is even a trace of individual self-satisfaction left in us, it always says, “I can’t surrender,” or “I can’t be free.” But the spiritual part of our being never says “I can’t”; it simply soaks up everything around it. Our spirit hungers for more and more. It is the way we are built. We are designed with a great capacity for God, but sin, our own individuality, and wrong thinking keep us from getting to Him. God delivers us from sin— we have to deliver ourselves from our individuality. This means offering our natural life to God and sacrificing it to Him, so He may transform it into spiritual life through our obedience.

God pays no attention to our natural individuality in the development of our spiritual life. His plan runs right through our natural life. We must see to it that we aid and assist God, and not stand against Him by saying, “I can’t do that.” God will not discipline us; we must discipline ourselves. God will not bring our “arguments . . . and every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5)— we have to do it. Don’t say, “Oh, Lord, I suffer from wandering thoughts.” Don’t suffer from wandering thoughts. Stop listening to the tyranny of your individual natural life and win freedom into the spiritual life.

“If the Son makes you free . . . .” Do not substitute Savior for Son in this passage. The Savior has set us free from sin, but this is the freedom that comes from being set free from myself by the Son. It is what Paul meant in Galatians 2:20  when he said, “I have been crucified with Christ . . . .” His individuality had been broken and his spirit had been united with his Lord; not just merged into Him, but made one with Him. “. . . you shall be free indeed”— free to the very core of your being; free from the inside to the outside. We tend to rely on our own energy, instead of being energized by the power that comes from identification with Jesus.

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November 18, 2010

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Whenever I read Oswald Chambers or another writer that tells me God has saved me from sin, but I am to provide my own day to day discipline after my salvation and “pull myself up from my spiritual bootstraps” I feel isolated and alone. Am I the only one that needs saving day to day to day? Can everyone else discipline themselves into growth and maturity after their salvation?

And God says…”My power is made perfect in your weakness. Where did you get the notion that salvation was an event and not a lifetime process? Your guarantee of an everlasting life occurred at the point  of your decision to surrender your life to Me, but your complete salvation and life more abundantly comes in being continuously rescued from your disconnection from me (and as my friend Brian McLaren says) and My adventures for your life. Your abundant life is a race you run, not a finish line you cross. And as you stumble and fall, and stumble and fall you will, remember Jesus came to save you every day and in every way. Drown in His ocean of grace and look back and notice how the discipline He provided produces changes in you.”

In the Scriptures, the great miracle of the incarnation slips into the ordinary life of a child; the great miracle of the transfiguration fades into the demon-possessed valley below; the glory of the resurrection descends into a breakfast on the seashore. This is not an anticlimax, but a great revelation of God.

We have a tendency to look for wonder in our experience, and we mistake heroic actions for real heroes. It’s one thing to go through a crisis grandly, yet quite another to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to us. If we are not looking for halos, we at least want something that will make people say, “What a wonderful man of prayer he is!” or, “What a great woman of devotion she is!” If you are properly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached the lofty height where no one would ever notice you personally. All that is noticed is the power of God coming through you all the time.

We want to be able to say, “Oh, I have had a wonderful call from God!” But to do even the most humbling tasks to the glory of God takes the Almighty God Incarnate working in us. To be utterly unnoticeable requires God’s Spirit in us making us absolutely humanly His. The true test of a saint’s life is not successfulness but faithfulness on the human level of life. We tend to set up success in Christian work as our purpose, but our purpose should be to display the glory of God in human life, to live a life “hidden with Christ in God” in our everyday human conditions (Colossians 3:3). Our human relationships are the very conditions in which the ideal life of God should be exhibited.

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November 16, 2010

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

God, please give me some indication that I am on the right track, the right path. I feel like I am walking around in circles sometimes, hoping and praying that I am right where you want me to be. If my circumstances have not changed, if life does not seem to be getting any better, how do I know you are still there if I cannot feel you and know you are near?

And God says…”Nothing can separate you from My love. Nothing, not even you or the circumstances you create. When it seems as if no one else knows how you feel, My love for you is proven real; over and over. Simply wait on Me and know that when you do your hope will always be rewarded…….you can’t round up enough containers to hold everything I generously pour into your life through the Holy Spirit! ………”

“Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Acknowledge the Lord in all your ways and He will make your paths straight. Seek first the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you.” 

One of the hardest lessons to learn comes from our stubborn refusal to refrain from interfering in other people’s lives. It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur providence, that is, interfering with God’s plan for others. You see someone suffering and say, “He will not suffer, and I will make sure that he doesn’t.” You put your hand right in front of God’s permissive will to stop it, and then God says, “What is that to you?” Is there stagnation in your spiritual life? Don’t allow it to continue, but get into God’s presence and find out the reason for it. You will possibly find it is because you have been interfering in the life of another— proposing things you had no right to propose, or advising when you had no right to advise. When you do have to give advice to another person, God will advise through you with the direct understanding of His Spirit. Your part is to maintain the right relationship with God so that His discernment can come through you continually for the purpose of blessing someone else.

Most of us live only within the level of consciousness— consciously serving and consciously devoted to God. This shows immaturity and the fact that we’re not yet living the real Christian life. Maturity is produced in the life of a child of God on the unconscious level, until we become so totally surrendered to God that we are not even aware of being used by Him. When we are consciously aware of being used as broken bread and poured-out wine, we have yet another level to reach— a level where all awareness of ourselves and of what God is doing through us is completely eliminated. A saint is never consciously a saint— a saint is consciously dependent on God.

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November 15, 2010

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Dear God, why is it that I can be living life right along and enjoying life and our relationship and then without any warning at all, make a wrong choice, and damage my connection?

And God says…”It is in your nature to seek your own choices. It is in your inner core, to seek your own answers to your questions about life and it is in your nature to try to avoid pain and increase your peace and pleasure. Although your choices never bring the results you seek, you make the choice to be independent of Me over and over. That is why the grace you find in Jesus is never ending and the magnitude of the sacrifice so overwhelming. You can only find your life when you lose it, and you come to our connection only when you reach the end of yourself. Forget your failures, and drown yourself in My ocean of grace.  Focus on Me and be transformed.”  

 “As the Apostle said… ’And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate[a] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.’ 2 Corinthians 3:18

God’s command is, “Take now,” not later. It is incredible how we debate! We know something is right, but we try to find excuses for not doing it immediately. If we are to climb to the height God reveals, it can never be done later— it must be done now. And the sacrifice must be worked through our will before we actually perform it.

“So Abraham rose early in the morning . . . and went to the place of which God had told him” (Genesis 22:3). Oh, the wonderful simplicity of Abraham! When God spoke, he did not “confer with flesh and blood” (Galatians 1:16). Beware when you want to “confer with flesh and blood” or even your own thoughts, insights, or understandings— anything that is not based on your personal relationship with God. These are all things that compete with and hinder obedience to God.

Abraham did not choose what the sacrifice would be. Always guard against self-chosen service for God. Self-sacrifice may be a disease that impairs your service. If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; or even if He has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him. If the providential will of God means a hard and difficult time for you, go through it. But never decide the place of your own martyrdom, as if to say, “I will only go to there, but no farther.” God chose the test for Abraham, and Abraham neither delayed nor protested, but steadily obeyed. If you are not living in touch with God, it is easy to blame Him or pass judgment on Him. You must go through the trial before you have any right to pronounce a verdict, because by going through the trial you learn to know God better. God is working in us to reach His highest goals until His purpose and our purpose become one.

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November 11, 2010

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Last night during the men’s Bible Study we shared what Jesus means to us. Each one of us took a turn and talked about Jesus in his life. We all had a different way of explaining our different positions and yet we all were saying the same thing. Jesus we said is the answer, the lover of our souls, our conviction, our Savior and Lord, and best friend and brother. We each saw Jesus differently and yet it was clear that Jesus was for each of us exactly what God needed Him to be in our separate and individual lives. Thank you Lord for Jesus, and His sacrifice and willingness to be our all in all.

And God says…” Jesus is the way, the truth and the light. He is the living water for your life, regardless of your circumstance. When you seek the Kingdom of God, you find the step by step direction in Jesus. When you come to Jesus and surrender yourself, He can and will meet you right at the point of your need, and because the needs of each man are different, Jesus can and will be described differently. But He is the same. He is everything you need, right when you need it and remember God provides for all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.”

After sanctification, it is difficult to state what your purpose in life is, because God has moved you into His purpose through the Holy Spirit. He is using you now for His purposes throughout the world as He used His Son for the purpose of our salvation. If you seek great things for yourself, thinking, “God has called me for this and for that,” you barricade God from using you. As long as you maintain your own personal interests and ambitions, you cannot be completely aligned or identified with God’s interests. This can only be accomplished by giving up all of your personal plans once and for all, and by allowing God to take you directly into His purpose for the world. Your understanding of your ways must also be surrendered, because they are now the ways of the Lord.

I must learn that the purpose of my life belongs to God, not me. God is using me from His great personal perspective, and all He asks of me is that I trust Him. I should never say, “Lord, this causes me such heartache.” To talk that way makes me a stumbling block. When I stop telling God what I want, He can freely work His will in me without any hindrance. He can crush me, exalt me, or do anything else He chooses. He simply asks me to have absolute faith in Him and His goodness. Self-pity is of the devil, and if I wallow in it I cannot be used by God for His purpose in the world. Doing this creates for me my own cozy “world within the world,” and God will not be allowed to move me from it because of my fear of being “frost-bitten.”

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November 10, 2010

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

I am once again in need of your grace today. I seem to always find it right where you placed it, with and in Jesus. Thank you for providing never ending grace in the person of Jesus Christ and allowing me to always find your grace and everything I can and will ever need right at the foot of the cross.

And God says…”All things are possible and available in Christ Jesus. I save you in Christ Jesus and have known your beginning and ending and all that you do and do not over your entire life, and I love you. The grace of Jesus covers you as He comes to give you life and life more abundantly. Look to Jesus for all your answers and for your direction. Trust in the Lord, seek first His Kingdom, delight yourself in Him and your life shall be full as you share the fullness with others.”

The Christian worker has to be a sacred “go-between.” He must be so closely identified with his Lord and the reality of His redemption that Christ can continually bring His creating life through him. I am not referring to the strength of one individual’s personality being superimposed on another, but the real presence of Christ coming through every aspect of the worker’s life. When we preach the historical facts of the life and death of our Lord as they are conveyed in the New Testament, our words are made sacred. God uses these words, on the basis of His redemption, to create something in those who listen which otherwise could never have been created. If we simply preach the effects of redemption in the human life instead of the revealed, divine truth regarding Jesus Himself, the result is not new birth in those who listen. The result is a refined religious lifestyle, and the Spirit of God cannot witness to it because such preaching is in a realm other than His. We must make sure that we are living in such harmony with God that as we proclaim His truth He can create in others those things which He alone can do.

When we say, “What a wonderful personality, what a fascinating person, and what wonderful insight!” then what opportunity does the gospel of God have through all of that? It cannot get through, because the attraction is to the messenger and not the message. If a person attracts through his personality, that becomes his appeal. If, however, he is identified with the Lord Himself, then the appeal becomes what Jesus Christ can do. The danger is to glory in men, yet Jesus says we are to lift up only Him (see John 12:32).

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November 9, 2010

Journal Entry for Today-JDV

Just about the time I begin to feel  holy and righteous, because I have come so far as a believer, I do something that painfully reminds me of how far I have not come; I decide to do something outside of God’s will…..and I  remind myself of of Adam and Eve and their blatant disobedience.

And God says…”Those things you do not wish to do, you will do. And those things that you wish to do you will not do. Who will save you from this never-ending predicament? Jesus has already provided the salvation and as you look to Him He will keep saving you, (sanctifying you) day by day by day. When you slip and fall get right back up, acknowledge your disobedience, truly repent and I will forgive you over and over and over and over and over toward an eternal definition of grace.”

“And all the while, as you focus on Jesus and the cross, by the power of the Holy Spirit within you, you will be changing from the inside out. Your disobedience slowly becomes a fading memory as you become more and more like Christ, until it is no longer you that lives, but Christ in you.”