The Ministry Of The Unnoticed

By Oswald Chambers

      'Blessed are the poor in spirit.'
      Matthew 5:3

The New Testament notices things which from our standards do not seem to count. "Blessed are the poor in spirit," literally - Blessed are the paupers - an exceedingly commonplace thing! The preaching of to-day is apt to emphasize strength of will, beauty of character - the things that are easily noticed. The phrase we bear so often, Decide for Christ, is an emphasis on something Our Lord never trusted. He never asks us to decide for Him, but to yield to Him - a very different thing. At the basis of Jesus Christ's Kingdom is the unaffected loveliness of the commonplace. The thing I am blessed in is my poverty. If I know I have no strength of will, no nobility of disposition, then Jesus says - Blessed are you, because it is through this poverty that I enter His Kingdom. I cannot enter His Kingdom as a good man or woman, I can only enter it as a complete pauper.

The true character of the loveliness that tells for God is always unconscious. Conscious influence is priggish and un-Christian. If I say - I wonder if I am of any use - I instantly lose the bloom of the touch of the Lord. "He that believeth in me, out of him shall flow rivers of living water." If I examine the outflow, I lose the touch of the Lord.

Which are the people who have influenced us most? Not the ones who thought they did, but those who had not the remotest notion that they were influencing us. In the Christian life the implicit is never conscious, if it is conscious it ceases to have this unaffected loveliness which is the characteristic of the touch of Jesus. We always know when Jesus is at work because He produces in the commonplace something that is inspiring.

I Will Not Offer to God that which Cost me Nothing

With New Testament Eyes: 33 - I Will Not Offer to God that which Cost me Nothing

By Henry Mahan

      2 Samuel 24:10-24

      Regardless of the circumstances found in Verse One, a condition which we find hard to explain, David sinned in numbering Israel (v. 10). The Lord gave David a choice of three punishments: seven years of famine, three months of fleeing before his enemies, or three days of pestilence in the land (vv. 12-13). David refused to make a choice but rather said, 'Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great; let me not fall into the hand of man' (v. 14). The Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel and destroyed 70,000 men (v. 15). When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord said, 'It is enough' (v. 16); and David was commanded to build an altar at the threshingfloor of Araunah, the Jebusite (vv. 18-19). When Araunah saw David and his servants coming to him, he bowed himself before the king and asked his mission. David said, 'I am come to buy your threshingfloor to build an altar unto the Lord, that the plague may be stopped' (vv. 20-21). Araunah replied, 'Here is the threshingfloor, the wood, and the oxen; take them all without charge; they are yours' (vv. 22-23). The king said, 'No! but I will buy it of thee at a price; I will not offer burnt offerings unto the Lord of that which cost me nothing.'

A thankful heart will not come to God bearing a gift which cost him nothing. If it is of no value to you, it will not be received nor blessed of God.

      When the Apostle Paul taught the early church the grace of giving (2 Cor. 8:7-9), he referred to the gift of Christ for us-- Christ gave himself. 'Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.' This is the reason our Lord commended the widow's gift (Mark 12:41- 44). She gave sacrificially, she gave what she needed and was of great value, and she gave all she had! Like David, her love for God demanded a gift worthy of him--her all!

How the Rich Man Became Poor

 By Brownlow North

     "And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off . . . and he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me . . . for I am tormented in this flame." (Luke 16:22-24, KJV)

      The Scripture gives a brief summation of two men's lives and deaths, one rich and one a poor beggar. It is not said that the beggar had any funeral. Man paid him no honor, but he had the honor that comes only from God: the beggar died and "the angels carried him to heaven." It is expressly recorded, however, that the rich man was buried. Doubtless the pomp and pageantry of his funeral was all that he would have desired if had been on earth. But while the appointed mourners followed the dead body to the burying place and fixed the flattering monument in its place, where was the rich man himself?

      Jesus tells us that the rich man was confined in hell's torments. Both the beggar and the rich man died, but how different to each the judgment that followed! The beggar died and, by the judgment of God, went immediately to heaven. The rich man died and, by the judgment of God, went immediately to hell.

      This passage of Scripture clearly contradicts the unscriptural doctrine that there is no hell. Let no man deceive you. There is no repentance in the grave. Once a man is dead, the teaching of the Bible is that there can never again be any place found for mercy. As it was with the rich man and the beggar, so will it be with us all. Immediately after death, our portions will be fixed in heaven or in hell unchangeably and forever.

      Seeing that we have arrived at the reality that the rich man was lost, there arises the all-important question: What was his sin? That it was soul destroying is quite clear, for it barred him from heaven and sank him in everlasting ruin. But what was it? His riches were not his sin. It is no sin to be rich. Abraham, called in Scripture the friend of God (2 Chron. 20:7), was rich. So were David, Solomon, Joseph, and many other saints in the Bible. Yet these were all saved when they died. No, it was not his wealth that kept the rich man out of heaven. What, then, was his sin?

      The answer to this question will bring to light the sin--the fundamental cause of the destruction of every man who has or ever will perish. In order to answer this important question, we must first explore in what condition the rich man really was. In respect to his wealth, his circumstances were unlike the majority of others. Few, comparatively, are placed as he was in such a position of ease and affluence as to enable him to command at will all the good things of this world. Despite his position of privilege, the rich man shared a need in common with the rest of humanity. Though he probably never knew it while on earth, he was born with the greatest of all needs, a need that no person, whether rich or poor, has ever been born without--the rich man was born without God.

      

The need for God is the universal need of every human being. Whatever may be the differences among people, in this every person is alike. We are all born into the world without God, and, unless between our birth and our grave we are born again of God the Spirit, we live and die without God. In such a case, though we have gained the whole world, it would have been better for us if we had never been born at all.

      Paul, in writing to the converts he had made at Ephesus, describes to them what they were like before they were converted. His description fits every person ever to live. "At that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world" (Eph. 2:12). Now this little verse can be summed up in two words: "without God." The person without Christ is an alien and a stranger to all true good. If he has any other hope for the future, it is unscriptural and soul deceiving, for as sure as he dies without God, he will perish, as did the rich man. This kind of person, no matter what may be the prosperity of his worldly circumstances, is a far more miserable and pitiable object than the beggar ever was.

Forgiving One Another

By Charles Stanley

      Ephesians 4:29-32

      An unforgiving spirit is like an insidious cancer that eats away at a person until it has a devastating impact. But while physical cancer often can't be seen or felt until it is a real danger, the cancer of unforgiveness often steals a person's joy for years. Yet there is a sure healing process for this cancer:

      Repentance: You must assume responsibility for your unforgiving spirit toward someone and then have a change of mind. You must ask forgiveness for your unforgiveness, and then you must forgive the person in mind.

      Release: No longer should you hold over someone the debt you feel they owe you. This release is an act of the will. Feelings have nothing to do with it, though some people sense a "release" of their own at this point.

      Recognition: You acknowledge that the person's wrongdoing toward you exposed a weakness in your life. Your resentment, hostility, bitterness, and desire to seek vengeance are areas God wishes to whittle away.

      Remembrance:: You should remember continuously how often God forgives you. How many times have you asked His forgiveness? How many times has He said no? 

You cannot truly experience the joy of God's forgiveness until you follow His model and forgive those who have wronged you. Life is so much sweeter when the heart is tender and not tainted.

The Undeviating Test

By Oswald Chambers

      'For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.'
      Matthew 7:2

      This statement is not a haphazard guess, it is an eternal law of God. Whatever judgment you give, it is measured to you again. There is a difference between retaliation and retribution. Jesus says that the basis of life is retribution - "with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." If you have been shrewd in finding out the defects in others, remember that will be exactly the measure given to you. Life serves back in the coin you pay. This law works from God's throne downwards (cf. Psalm 18:25-26).

      Romans 2 applies it in a still more definite way, and says that the one who criticizes another is guilty of the very same thing. God looks not only at the act, He looks at the possibility. We do not believe the statements of the Bible to begin with. For instance, do we believe this statement, that the things we criticize in others we are guilty of ourselves? The reason we see hypocrisy and fraud and unreality in others is because they are all in our own hearts. The great characteristic of a saint is humility - Yes, all those things and other evils would have been manifested in me but for the grace of God, therefore I have no right to judge.

      Jesus says - "Judge not, that ye be not judged" if you do judge, it will be measured to you exactly as you have judged. Who of us would dare to stand before God and say - "My God, judge me as I have judged my fellow men?" We have judged our fellow men as sinners; if God should judge us like that we would be in hell. God judges us through the marvellous Atonement of Jesus Christ.

They which receive abundance of grace

By A.B. Simpson

      God's people sometimes fight tremendous battles to attain to righteousness in trying circumstances. Perhaps they feel guilt because temptation has been allowed to overcome them or, at least, to turn them aside from their singleness of purpose toward God. The resulting conflict is a terrible one as they seek to adjust and be right with God. They find themselves baffled by spiritual foes, and they are helpless and perplexed. How dark and dreary the struggle! 

At such times how helpless and ineffectual we seem to be! We are almost sure to strive in the spirit of the law; such striving will always result in condemnation and failure. Every disobedience is met by a blow of wrath and discouragement, and we are close to despair. If the tempted and struggling one could only understand, or remember what perhaps he has learned before, that Christ is our righteousness, and that it is not by law but by grace alone that we conquer. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace (Romans 6:14). That is the secret of the battle.

A GOD ORDERED LIFE

A GOD ORDERED LIFE
Angus M. Gunn

"Ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good"
Genesis 50:20

GOD is always right. That is perhaps the simplest way of describing the term, The Righteousness of God. Joseph's story tells us how a man came to know that righteousness in a very personal way. In the record of Genesis we have the beginning of God's great promise in the life of Abraham and then the line of promise coming through Isaac and Jacob, but Joseph comes on the scene without anything other than the fact that he was his father's favourite son. He is not specified to be in the line of promise but comes on the scene without any credentials. He has no special place in the line of promise, but appears just as one of many. Nevertheless, before we finish the book of Genesis, he is seen to be the saviour of the entire people of God.

He is a magnificent picture of Jesus Christ, perhaps more vividly so than any other Bible character we might study. In the course of his lifetime he went through enormous sufferings for no apparent reason. His life is shown to be a beautiful clean record of faithfulness to God, and yet he really had to go through the mill. We may well ask why this had to be so.

The whole destiny of Israel, the whole promise to Abraham and his descendants, hinged on the faithfulness of this one man. That is exactly the story of Joseph and shows him to give a picture of the Lord Jesus Himself. There are many little things in Joseph's life which make him like Jesus Christ. He is the beloved son of the father; he is the person who is hated by his brothers. He is sold for silver, just as Jesus was sold, and is later stripped of all he has and later found in the company of two malefactors, one of whom was saved while the other was lost. This reminds us of the fact that Jesus was crucified between two thieves, one of whom was saved while the other was not. Many other details of Joseph's life correspond with the story of the Lord Jesus. Joseph was full of wisdom, he knew the future; full control of the world was given to him and he alone could succour and feed the starving multitudes. In Joseph's life we see mirrored characteristics which were found in their full perfection in the Lord Jesus. It is significant that in Genesis more space is given to him than to any other except Abraham.

If Joseph's life points on to the Lord Jesus, we may be sure that it is given to us not only for that purpose but also to illustrate for us how God works in every life which is committed to Him and which He plans to conform to the image of His Son. We therefore consider Joseph's story in order to learn more of God's ways in His dealings with us.

God's Overruling

The first thrust of the message is that God is in sovereign control of the ways of such a man: his is an ordered life. For years it seemed otherwise. He was hated by his brothers, he was sold into slavery, he was falsely accused and cruelly forgotten, yet when his terrified brothers came to plead for mercy, he was able to say to them: "Do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life" (45:5). What is more, he was able to affirm: "So it was not you who sent me here but God".

It took time for Joseph to appreciate how marvellously God had ordered his life. He was hated, he was sold into slavery by his brothers, he was thrown into prison because of the lying lust of Potiphar's wife and, being there, he was forgotten by the one man who ought to have spoken up for him. Finally, however, he was [16/17] exalted to the throne, and then he was able to understand what had been God's purpose in allowing all those sufferings and wrong accusations. He was able to compass the whole of those painful years with the explanation that they represented the divine programme for his life. "As for you", he frankly told his brothers, "you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good ...". God did more than permit it; He meant it! There was never a moment when He was not in full charge.

Man's Co-operation

Unlike Joseph, we are not yet privileged to see the end of God's dealings with us but, as we look back over all the evil and hurtful things which have happened to us, things which were hard to understand and difficult to forgive, we may perhaps lose all our bitterness and questioning if we are able by faith to affirm that it has all been a part of God's perfect plan. We get the victory if we really believe that God is always right. It may help us to do this if we consider the contribution which Joseph made through it all. It was two-fold:

i. Commitment to what was right 

So far as the record goes, we are not able to fault Joseph. At the beginning of his life he was associated with his brothers who were a devious bunch, but he would have nothing to do with their bad ways. He reported their behaviour to their father, which made them hate him, and he also told them his dreams. We might say that this was rather foolish, but at least it shows that he was open and transparent. He retained that attitude all through, never deviating from a life of simple commitment to what was right in God's sight. He did this to such effect in Potiphar's house that he was entrusted with rule there where he doubtless learned lessons on the language and general comportment which were essential in his later vocation. For the moment, however, further sufferings awaited him by reason of his simple integrity, but he maintained that integrity even amid the injustice of his prison life. When at last he confronted his guilty brothers, his behaviour did not spring from any personal pique but only to be sure that there really was a different spirit among them.

ii. Vision 

The other feature of his whole life can be described by the one word, vision. At the beginning he had a vision of the whole purpose of God for his own life and, as he suffered under God's hand, he came to see how that vision had been worked out. When his brothers came down to Egypt he was able to see how wise God had been to send him there first: "God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance" (45:7). Increasing vision showed him that the personal element was insignificant compared with God's purpose to keep His chosen people alive and even to bring them down to Egypt. At the end of his life, many years later, he disclosed that he was looking beyond the 400 years' story of Israel in Egypt, so that he could speak positively of the exodus and give commandment that his bones should accompany God's people when they went back to the land. He saw not only the immediate but the ultimate of God's purpose for his life. 

All this helps to remind us that if we are wholly committed to what we know to be true and have a vision which is larger than our own well-being, God can do for us what He did for Joseph -- make every circumstance and happening of life contribute to His divine purpose. Romans 8:28 is absolutely true. "We know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose".

The Righteousness of God

Joseph shows us that no harmful thing which comes to us can interfere with the outworking of God's will for our lives, provided that we are not found in a way of deliberate disobedience. We live on the basis of God's righteousness. Of course, the beautiful thing about Joseph's life as it is recorded for us is that he did not make any mistakes. We cannot claim to have such a record, and because we do blunder we are prone to be discouraged though we are not really surprised by calamities which we feel we have brought on ourselves. What does perplex us, though, is when we have no sense of having done anything to deserve them, we yet have to suffer wrong and injustice. It was so with Joseph, and it was then that he learned to triumph by faith. We have his story so that we can get the victory by faith. There is no need for us to be thinking hard thoughts about those who have wronged us. To hold a grudge is something inwardly destructive; its bitterness eats into us and diverts us from God's purpose for our life. Never mind our puny righteousness. Let us find our rest in the rightness of God's ways with us and get on with His business and purpose. [17/18]

Authority for God

When the brothers met Joseph in Egypt they were powerless before him for in him they came face to face with the righteousness of God. It was no longer a matter of Joseph's goodness, whether what he did or experienced was right, but he now knew the righteousness of God. This is what came to him during those years in Egypt. His first son, who was born before the years of famine, was given the name of Manasseh, for he said: "God hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father's house" (41:51). His early dreams had gone down the tube. All the hopes of his life had gone. He had come to an end of himself. All that related to his old life -- however good it may nave seemed -- had had to go down into a grave so that he would live on a new and resurrection basis. He had had burned into the depths of his being that there is another righteousness which alone can conquer the power of evil.

We are told that during his bruising and sufferings, the Word of the Lord had tried him (Psalm 105:19). By the hard route (one translation tells us that 'the iron entered into his soul'), he learned and appropriated for himself the truth that God is always right. During his years in prison he must often have wondered if his original vision had been God-given, and if so why it seemed so to have miscarried. It was a hard lesson and at times his faith wavered, as when he complained to his fellow prisoner that he had done nothing to merit what had happened to him. He had to learn -- as we all do -- that human righteousness is not enough; it is tainted and it is inadequate and must be replaced by God's righteousness.

Even at the end of his life Paul was found saying: "That I might have a righteousness not my own". Here was a man who had more integrity and better quality in his life than most of us, and yet he was gripped by the realisation that the righteousness of God is infinitely greater than the best than man can provide. It is more than a quality, it is a Person, even Jesus Christ our Lord. The supreme thing is to know Him (Philippians 3:9-10). Human righteousness is not enough. It will collapse when faced by some social upheaval, some personal trial or some pressure of enemy activity. Nothing less than God's righteousness can face and vanquish the assaults of evil.

Joseph was a man who moved on with God while his brothers were stuck in the mud of their evil consciences. All through the years they had carried with them a burden of guilt which was never resolved. Their first encounter with Joseph in Egypt brought the remembrance of their sin to the surface. Reuben tried to excuse himself by reminding the others that he had wanted to act differently but had been overruled. As they feared before Joseph and squabbled among themselves, they never got into the clear light of God in which Joseph had walked. He, however, was to be their saviour.

Joseph represents the person who pioneers a new way with God and helps his brothers by his own experiences under God's hand. Through him in the end they got some idea of what God is like. At the end of the story we are confronted by the contrast between Joseph and his brothers (50:15-21). When the brothers saw that their father was dead they feared that Joseph would pay them back for the wrong they had done him, so they sent a bogus message to him purporting to say that Jacob had insisted that they should be forgiven. When the message came to Joseph he wept, as he might well do, for they were still shallow and narrow in their outlook. He assured them that he would never come in between them and God and, in the power of God's righteousness, he was able to reassure and speak kindly to them. Though they did not understand or deserve it, he had really suffered for their sakes, to pioneer a way for their preservation and destiny.

This, then, shows something of the value to God and to other people of a truly God ordered life. The one concerned will find that the Lord is able to pick up all the hurts of the years, all the weaknesses and injustices, all the painful mysteries and use them for His glory and for the blessing of others. In the end we will find that God was not just permitting things or accommodating Himself to them, but using them in a purposeful way. Over everything in such a life it may be written, GOD MEANT IT FOR GOOD.

----------------

The Desires of Your Heart

Devotional Hours with the Bible, Volume 3: Chapter 12 - The Desires of Your Heart

By J.R. Miller

      Psalm 37:4

      "Delight yourself in the LORD--and He will give you the desires of your heart!"

      The young people who have read "The Arabian Nights" will remember the strange story of 'Aladdin', who possessed a magic lamp--which commanded the services of certain genie. By rubbing the lamp, Aladdin got whatever he wished--and grew rich and great. But that is only an impossible story of fantasy.

      Yet in this Psalm, we have a promise which seems to tell us of a way in which we can get anything we wish. "Delight yourself in the LORD--and He will give you the desires of your heart!" It is not by rubbing a magic lamp, however, that we can get what we desire. True religion is not magic. Yet some people seem almost to think that it is. Simon Magus thought so, and tried to buy the secret. A man who has lived a wicked life, never giving God a thought, when thinking that he is about to die--is greatly alarmed, sends for a minister, thinking that thus he can have heaven opened for his soul. It is not in this way--that a desire for heavenly blessedness can be gratified.

      What is it to delight ourselves in the Lord? It means to love God--to love to be with Him, to love to please Him, to love His ways, to love His service.

      We know what it is to delight ourselves in a friend. You love your friend so much that when you are with him, you are perfectly happy. You have no wish ungratified; you need nothing else to complete your contentment; your soul finds its home in him.

      This is the ideal in marriage--that the two who wed shall delight in each other. They should meet each other's desires and yearnings. They should be one in interest, in purpose, in the aims of life.

      Yesterday I had a letter from the Pacific Coast, from one I have never seen--but whom I have sought to help. She is considering the question of marriage and she writes of the young man: "I love him very dearly and yet I hesitate to give my life into his keeping. He is noble and kind and worthy--but in some respects he is far from being the man I have always had in mind in thinking of marriage. There is something lacking. There is a need in my life which is not met in his--the perfect union in consecration to God." There may be true love there--but there is not yet full, undisturbed delight in the friend. There is not complete accord, there is not perfect confidence, there is not absolute trust. All these elements are essential in delight in a friend.

      To delight in God, also implies the qualities of love, trust, confidence, accord of will. There is a cluster of counsels in this Psalm which belong together:

      "Trust in the Lord."
      "Delight yourself also in the Lord."
      "Commit your way unto the Lord."
      "Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him."

      "Trust in the Lord." You cannot delight yourself in God--if you do not trust Him. Trust implies confidence. John leaned upon his Master's bosom that dark night of the betrayal. The distress of the disciples was terrible. They could not understand. It looked as if all their hopes were in ruin. Yet see John leaning on Jesus' bosom--calm, quiet, unafraid. You remember, too, what Jesus said to His disciples that night, as He comforted them: "Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me." They could not understand, and He could not explain the mystery of their sorrow, so that they could understand. Then He asked them to trust in the darkness, just to believe that nothing was going wrong. We must trust God--if we would delight in Him. If there is not absolute trust, there cannot be delight.

      "Delight yourself also in the Lord." Delight means joy, and if there is the slightest fear, there will be pain, a feeling of insecurity, a dread of something going wrong, or that something will go wrong. Trust in the Lord is necessary, to delight in Him.

      "Commit your way unto the Lord." There will come hours of uncertainty in every life, Hours when we shall not know what to do, which way to take, where to find help. Then it is, that we should learn that Christ is not only our Savior from sin--but the Lord also who orders all our ways. There seem to be a great many people who can trust God for the salvation of their souls--but who have not learned to trust Him with the choosing of their ways, the direction of their affairs, the care of their lives. They fret and worry continually. We have not learned the full meaning of trust--until we have formed the habit of committing all our way unto the Lord. The reason for worrying, which is so common a habit, even among Christians, is that people do not roll their way upon God. If they only knew this blessed secret--they would not worry any more. Only think what it would mean to worrying people, if they understood this and instead of being anxious about every little thing--would take it to the Lord in prayer and let the peace of God keep their hearts and their thoughts in holy quiet.

Crucified Life

By Watchman Nee

      You believe in the death of the Lord Jesus and you believe in the death of the thieves with Him. Now what about your own death? Your crucifixion is more intimate than theirs. They were crucified at the same time as the Lord but on different crosses, whereas you were crucified on the selfsame cross as He, for you were in Him when He died. How can you know? You can know for the one sufficient reason that God said so. It does not depend on your feelings. If you feel that Christ has died, He has died; and if you do not feel that He has died, He had died. If you feel that you have died, you have died; and if you do not feel that you have died, you have nevertheless just as surely died. These are divine facts. That Christ has died is a fact, that the two thieves have died is a fact, and that you have died is a fact also. Let me tell you, You have died! You are done with! You are ruled out! The self you loathe is on the Cross of Christ. And "he that is dead is freed from sin" (Romans 6:7 Amplified). This is the Gospel for Christians.

      

Our crucifixion can never be made effective by will or by effort, but only by accepting what the Lord Jesus did on the Cross. Our eyes must be opened to see the finished work of Calvary. Some of you, prior to your salvation, may have tried to save yourselves. You read the Bible, prayed, went to church, gave alms. Then one day your eyes were opened and you saw that a full salvation had already been provided for you on the Cross. You just accepted that and thanked God, and peace and joy flowed into your heart. And now the good news is that sanctification is made possible for you on exactly the same basis as that initial salvation. You are offered deliverance from sin as no less a gift of God's grace than was the forgiveness of sins.

      For God's way of deliverance is altogether different from man's way. Man's way is to try to suppress sin by seeking to overcome it; God's way is to remove the sinner. Many Christians mourn over their weakness, thinking that if only they were stronger all would be well. . . If we are preoccupied with the power of sin and with our inability to meet it, then we naturally conclude that to gain the victory over sin we must have more power. . .

      But this is altogether a fallacy; it is not Christianity. God's means of delivering us from sin is not by making us stronger and stronger, but by making us weaker and weaker. That is surely rather a peculiar way of victory, you say; but it is the divine way. God sets us free from the dominion of sin, not by strengthening our old man but by crucifying him; not by helping him to do anything, but by removing him from the scene of action.

For years, maybe, you have tried fruitlessly to exercise control over yourself, and perhaps this is still your experience; but when once you see the truth you will recognize that you are indeed powerless to do anything, but that in setting you aside altogether God has done it all. Such discovery brings human striving and self-effort to an end (The Normal Christian Life, pp. 35-37).

The Revelatory Light of Scripture

By A.W. Tozer

       Among men, questions usually have more than one side; sometimes they have many. Pros and cons are often balanced so finely against each other that it is virtually impossible to know where the right lies. But with God there is only one side. God's side is good and holy and all other sides are wrong, the degree and seriousness of the wrong increasing as we move away from the center of God's will. 

      Our desire for moral self-preservation should dictate that we come over immediately onto God's side and stay there even if (as is likely) it may result in our being out of accord with man's philosophies and man's moral codes. We cannot win when we work against God, and we cannot lose when we work with Him.

      Now, how can we know for certain which side is God's side? No one in this late day should need to ask that question, but since it is being asked in all sincerity by many, we are glad to give the answer. There is a Book which says of itself, "And God spoke all these words," and about which it is said, "Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up to glory" (1 Timothy 3:16). Acquaintance with this Book will bring light to all dark paths and show us the right side of all questions. Of course, that Book is the Bible.

What glory gilds the sacred page, Majestic like the sun! It gives a light to every age; It gives, but borrows none.

The Glory That Excels

By Oswald Chambers

      'The Lord ... hath sent me that thou mightest receive thy sight.'
      Acts 9:17

      When Paul received his sight, he received spiritually an insight into the Person of Jesus Christ, and the whole of his subsequent life and preaching was nothing but Jesus Christ - "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." No attraction was ever allowed to hold the mind and soul of Paul save the face of Jesus Christ.

      We have to learn to maintain an unimpaired state of character up to the last notch revealed in the vision of Jesus Christ.

      The abiding characteristic of a spiritual man is the interpretation of the Lord Jesus Christ to himself, and the interpretation to others of the purposes of God. The one concentrated passion of the life is Jesus Christ. Whenever you meet this note in a man, you feel he is a man after God's own heart.

      Never allow anything to deflect you from insight into Jesus Christ. It is the test of whether you are spiritual or not. To be unspiritual means that other things have a growing fascination for you.

      "Since mine eyes have looked on Jesus,

      I've lost sight of all beside,
      So enchained my spirit's vision,
      Gazing on the Crucified."

Building For Eternity

By Oswald Chambers

      'For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?'
      Luke 14:28

      Our Lord refers not to a cost we have to count, but to a cost which He has counted. The cost was those thirty years in Nazareth, those three years of popularity, scandal and hatred, the deep unfathomable agony in Gethsemane, and the onslaught at Calvary - the pivot upon which the whole of Time and Eternity turns. Jesus Christ has counted the cost. Men are not going to laugh at Him at last and say - "This man began to build, and was not able to finish."

      

The conditions of discipleship laid down by Our Lord in vv. 26, 27 and 33 mean that the men and women He is going to use in His mighty building enterprises are those in whom He has done everything. "If any man come to Me, and hate not...he cannot be My disciple." Our Lord implies that the only men and women He will use in His building enterprises are those who love Him personally, passionately and devotedly beyond any of the closest ties on earth. The conditions are stern, but they are glorious.

All that we build is going to be inspected by God. Is God going to detect in His searching fire that we have built on the foundation of Jesus some enterprise of our own? These are days of tremendous enterprises, days when we are trying to work for God, and therein is the snare. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus takes us over for His enterprises, His building schemes entirely, and no soul has any right to claim where he shall be put.

Living With Eternity's Values In View

By A.W. Tozer 

The spiritual man habitually makes eternity-judgments instead of time-judgments. By faith he rises above the tug of earth and the flow of time and learns to think and feel as one who has already left the world and gone to join the innumerable company of angels and the general assembly and Church of the First-born which are written in heaven.

Such a man would rather be useful than famous and would rather serve than be served. And all this must be by the operation of the Holy Spirit within him. No man can become spiritual by himself. Only the free Spirit can make a man spiritual.

James Smith - The Omnipotent Savior! (Christian devotional)

Charles Spurgeon Sermon - A Lecture for Little Faith

WITH CHRIST IN HIS THRONE

WITH CHRIST IN HIS THRONE

Harry Foster

"To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne,
even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. " Revelation 3:21

WHEN a man of Laodicea opened his heart's door to let the Saviour in, he had every reason to expect a thrilling session of glad fellowship with his Lord. What, perhaps, he did not expect was that Christ should immediately introduce the subject of conflict, making an earnest appeal to him not only to enjoy sweet interchange around the supper table but to put on his spiritual armour and throw himself into the battle for the throne.

Perhaps we are right in using Revelation 3:21 as a gospel appeal. Certainly we are correct in affirming that when Christ is truly welcomed into a heart or a situation, the result is a rich feast of personal, satisfying fellowship. Our mistake, however, has been to make the feast the sole end and object of the operation, when it is clear that the Lord Jesus has higher and more important issues in mind. He desires to see the satisfied saint become a warrior. He wants not only to come into a believer's life to transform it, but He also wants that believer to come into His life, to share in the joys and responsibilities of His destiny, to sit down with Him in His throne.

"... as I ... overcame ..."

Now no preacher has the right to demand of others what he himself has not experienced -- through many do! Paul would not have done so, and nor would John. In this case, though, it was not Paul who was speaking, and although John was acting as intermediary, it was not he who was making the appeal. No, this rallying call to battle and this promise of the throne came from none other than the Son of God himself. He was able to back it up by the reminder that in His own case He had reached the Father's throne by the hard way; He had had to fight and win through. He, of all people then, has the right to preach to us, because He is the very embodiment of His message.

Now it is true that at the start He was protected and spared responsibility. There were satanic attacks on Him from His birth -- as there are upon us from our new birth -- but in His early days here on earth He was cared for in Bethlehem, in Egypt and in Nazareth, by Joseph, who had been provided by God as His human protector. It is equally true that in the early stages of our faith we have human helpers to protect us and special providential acts of God to deliver us. God knows how much we need such fatherly care, and He never fails to provide it.

The time came, however, when once the Son had received the special enduement of the Spirit at His baptism, that He had to face the full fury of Satan, and from that time onwards until in death He finally committed His spirit to the Father, there was daily, hourly conflict. Life for Him was a battlefield, and in a thousand matters great and small, the destiny of the throne had to be decided by victory or defeat. In His case there were no defeats; it was victory all the way. There never could be any question as to His right to sit down with the Father in His throne, for He was able to claim that by overcoming, He had won the right to the place which He now occupies. [68/69]


"... sup ... with me ..."

This was apparently what they discussed over the supper table of the Laodicean believer, and it is a relevant subject for each of us who has gladly received the Lord into his heart and is enjoying the perpetual feast of His presence and love. When Christ made the comparison that we should overcome as He has overcome, He did not intend that we should just try to copy His behaviour -- we should never succeed if we tried -- but rather that we should rely on His victory as the basis for our own. He did not make use of resources which are not available to us as human beings. Though truly God, He never availed Himself of the prerogatives of His deity to get the better of the enemy. This we can well understand, for God never has to wrestle with anyone, not even with Lucifer himself. For Him there can be no need for conflict, since one word from His mouth would utterly and finally crush the whole kingdom of darkness.

He has never uttered this word -- not yet -- and when it is uttered it will come through a Man. This is the higher purpose of God's heart which makes the conflict necessary and underlines its supreme importance, this desire and plan to have sons who can share His rule with Him, men who can sit down with Christ in His throne. For this very reason God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ, so that the battle for the throne could be fought out and decisively won in human experience. The Lord Jesus, the representative Man, exposed Himself to the battle, fought and overcame, and then, as Man, returned to take His place in the partnership of the throne.

A HARD TASK FOR THE TRINITY

A HARD TASK FOR THE TRINITY
Harry Foster

"It is hard for the righteous to be saved" 1 Peter 4:18 N.I.V.

MOST versions give a rendering which argues that the righteous is scarcely saved. This is a statement which is not easy to understand. It is apparently a quotation from Proverbs 11:31, but that verse does not give us much assistance in seeking its true meaning. The word "scarcely" cannot indicate an experience of only just scraping in, for that would be unworthy of the gospel. We find it in Romans 5:7, where the stress seems to be on the great difficulties involved: "Scarcely for a righteous man would one die". It is used here to indicate the unlikeliness of the matter, that it is so hard as to be almost impossible. For this reason the N.I.V. translation: "It is hard", is a more helpful one, the stress being on the costliness rather than on the narrowness of the escape.

Young's Concordance renders the word, "with toil and fatigue"; Darby has it: "It is with difficulty"; while the NEB reads: "It is hard enough ...". "Scarcely" does not appear to convey the right idea to us, for it is unlikely that Peter would pass from writing about the believer's portion of fullness of glory to suggest that after all the redeemed sinner has only just scraped into heaven by the skin of his teeth. The apostle preferred to contemplate "an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom" (2 Peter 1:11).

Yet the fact remains that here he writes of salvation being "hard". To whom was it hard? Not, surely, to the sinner. Had not Peter spent his life trying to convince men of how easy it is to be saved (Acts 2:39 & 10:43)? No, salvation is not hard for the trusting sinner; for him it is free, as any gospel preacher knows. Then for whom is it hard? Not for the saved, but for the Saviour. Our salvation has been the most difficult and most costly operation ever undertaken by the Triune God. It is free for us but it is not cheap. It is very simple for the repentant sinner but it was indescribably hard for his gracious Saviour.

The rest of the verse asks quite logically what hope there is for the one who does not avail himself of this salvation. If God had so to extend Himself to make it possible, what hope can any man have who does not know His saving grace? Where shall he appear? Where indeed! All of us were "scarcely" saved in the sense that we might so easily have been lost. Only a faithful Creator who made Himself into a sacrificial Redeemer delivered us from our predicament. But at what a cost! The Triune God was extended to the full to get us justified.

It Was Hard for the Father

It was easy for God to create the world. He just spoke and it was done. It was not difficult for Him to bring the human race into being. He used His hands to form Adam and He breathed His life to animate him, but this entailed no remarkable effort for such a One. But how hard it must have been for Him when man treacherously broke away from His love and entered into league with Satan, His sworn enemy! We feel for the wretched humans, expelled from God's lovely garden, but should we not rather feel for the outraged God of love? There is a sense in which we can describe Genesis 3 as the Father's great sorrow.

And the heartache continued until Jesus was born. At the time of the Flood we are told that God was broken-hearted: "It repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart" (Genesis 6:6). Looking back on those forty wilderness years of His amazing goodness to Israel in the wilderness, God had to confess: "Forty years long was I grieved with that generation" (Psalm 95:10), and later on the prophets bore witness to the continuing tragedy of God's unrequited love: "The more I called them, the more they went from me" (Hosea 11:2). Our right appreciation of the serene majesty of our eternal God must never make us think of Him as unfeeling. In a world like ours supreme holiness must entail deep suffering.

It must have been hard for the Father to keep on loving such an unlovely world as ours. It must have been hard for Him to bear with each of us, as guilty as Adam and as ungrateful as Israel. Think of the strain on His patience! [1/2] Far from being unfeeling, His reaction about Israel was to say to Moses: "Let me alone ... that I may consume them" (Exodus 32:10). Through Isaiah He protested: "I cannot away with iniquity ... your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth ... I am weary to bear them" (Isaiah 1:13-14). It was as though even God Himself could not stand any more. He did, though, but none of us will ever know how sorely His patience must have been tried. His last Old Testament words were a well-justified threat to smite this selfishly ugly world with a curse. But He did not do so. He moved into the New Testament with the gift of His Son. Thousands of years of treacherous ingratitude on man's part had not exhausted His patience. But it must have been very hard -- even for God.

And then the New Testament brings us to the hardest part of all -- the sacrificial sending of His Son to this sinful earth. It is not easy for us to appreciate how much pain the Father bore from the Incarnation to the Cross. Foolish men -- even foolish Christians -- have attributed to Jehovah a cold, judicial or even vindictive attitude which was only pacified by the intervention of the compassionate Jesus. Such ideas are an insult to His name of Father. Let us never forget that it was God who so loved the world that He gave ... May we not reverently suggest that this was the hardest thing that almighty God ever did?

Now God loves a cheerful giver, for that is what He is like. It follows, therefore, that He accompanied His most sacrificial giving with a song. The angel sang at Bethlehem, though for a time heaven had been emptied of the glorious presence of the well-beloved Son. And even when that Son made His final choice to go to the cruel cross, the Father did not complain but spoke from heaven about glory coming to His name (John 12:28). But, if God rejoiced, He also suffered. We would be foolish to a degree and unappreciative, too, if we did not pause to ask ourselves how hard it must have been for the Father to share in this sacrifice at Calvary.

Rejoice In The Word

By Warren Wiersbe

      The secret of Christian joy is to believe what God says in His Word and act upon it. Faith that isn't based on the Word is not faith at all; it is presumption or superstition. Joy that isn't the result of faith is not joy at all; it is only a "good feeling" that will soon disappear. Faith based on the Word will produce joy that will weather the storms of life.

      It isn't enough for us to read the Word or receive the Word as others expound it; we must also rejoice in the Word. "I rejoice at Your word as one who finds great treasure" (Ps. 119:162). In Bible days, people sometimes hid their wealth in jars buried in the ground (Matt. 13:44; Jer. 41:8). If a farmer plowing his field suddenly discovered a jar filled with gold, he would certainly rejoice. There are great treasures buried in God's Word, and you and I must diligently "dig" for them as we read, meditate, and pray; and when we find these treasures, we should rejoice and give thanks.

      If we read and study the Word of God only from a sense of duty, then its treasures may never be revealed to us. It is the believer who rejoices in the Word, who delights to read and study it day by day, who will find God's hidden treasures. "Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who finds great delight in his commands" (Ps. 112:1, niv). "But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night" (Ps. 1:2).

      Do you delight in God's Word? Would you rather have God's Word than food (Ps. 119:103; Luke 10:38-42), or sleep (Ps. 119:55, 62, 147-148), or wealth (vv. 14, 72, 137, 162)? 

True of you? "Oh, how I love Your law! I meditate on it all day long. . . . Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path" (Psalm 119:97, 105, niv).