Vacillation? By TA Sparks

How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him. (1 Kings 18:21 ESV)

That word was never addressed to the unsaved. It was never intended for them. It is only rarely that the unsaved are in the position of two opinions. More often than not they are of no opinion. This is what the prophet really said to the people: "How long limp ye from one side to another?" He viewed them as lame, and lamed by uncertainty, lamed by indecision, paralyzed by an unsettled issue. Oh, how an unsettled issue does paralyze the life. Have a controversy with the Lord, an unsettled issue with the Lord, and your whole life is lamed, is paralyzed; you are limping first one way and then the other; there is no sense of stability about your way.

So the prophet called for the issue to be settled. How long limp ye from one side to the other? Settle this issue one way or the other. If Jehovah be God, let Him have His place, His full rights; settle it once and for all. If Baal is god, well then let us be settled. But until that is done you are crippled, you are paralyzed, and the whole secret of your being in that weak, indefinite, unstable, uncertain place is that God is not having His full rights; there is a dividedness in your life, a dividedness in your own soul, because other interests and considerations are in view. The dividedness may be in your home life, where you have power, authority and influence, and you are not standing one hundred percent for the Lord’s interests there. It may be working in other directions, but wherever it is present the result is that deep down in your being you are not satisfied, you are not at rest. You may be busy, you may be occupied, you may be rushing hither and thither in the Lord’s name, but you know that deep down there is a lack, an uncertainty, an unsettled state; your spiritual life is limited and paralyzed. It will always be so until the issue is settled and God has His place in fullness in every part and relationship of your life. It is a question of zeal for the Lord, jealousy for the Lord.

Praying for Fearless Boldness: by Andrew Murray

Christ lives in you, and this is your assurance that you will share in His glory Colossians 1:27
Words from God: All this newness of life is from God, who brought us back to himself through what Christ did. And God has given us the task of reconcilingpeople to Him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting peoples sins against them. This is the wonderful message he has given us to tell others... Be reconciled to God! For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:8-12) The home and the life are to be bulit on this foundation: Christ lives in you, and this is your assurance that you will share in His glory (Colossians 1:27). Christ is our life.Until the believers were brought to understand and experience what it meant to have Christ dwelling in their hearts and revealed in their lives, Paul could not satisfied. The very center truth of his preaching to the Gentiles is to have the Spirit of Christ every day dwelling within them, controlling their whole being, and living out His life in them.The Christian life is a life in which Jesus Christ Himself absolutely and increasingly lives. Following His example is nothing but the natural outcome of His presence within. This high and holy calling  surrender to Christ and fellowship with Him needs to be total and habitual.

The Witness of the Spirit: from Oswald Chambers (My Utmost for His Highest)

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit . . . —Romans 8:16

We are in danger of getting into a bargaining spirit with God when we come to Him—we want the witness of the Spirit before we have done what God tells us to do.

Why doesn’t God reveal Himself to you? He cannot. It is not that He will not, but He cannot, because you are in the way as long as you won’t abandon yourself to Him in total surrender. Yet once you do, immediately God witnesses to Himself—He cannot witness to you, but He instantly witnesses to His own nature in you. If you received the witness of the Spirit before the reality and truth that comes from obedience, it would simply result in sentimental emotion. But when you act on the basis of redemption, and stop the disrespectfulness of debating with God, He immediately gives His witness. As soon as you abandon your own reasoning and arguing, God witnesses to what He has done, and you are amazed at your total disrespect in having kept Him waiting. If you are debating as to whether or not God can deliver from sin, then either let Him do it or tell Him that He cannot. Do not quote this or that person to Him. Simply obey Matthew 11:28 , “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden . . . .” Come, if you are weary, and ask, if you know you are evil (see Luke 11:9-13).

The Spirit of God witnesses to the redemption of our Lord, and to nothing else. He cannot witness to our reason. We are inclined to mistake the simplicity that comes from our natural commonsense decisions for the witness of the Spirit, but the Spirit witnesses only to His own nature, and to the work of redemption, never to our reason. If we are trying to make Him witness to our reason, it is no wonder that we are in darkness and uncertainty. Throw it all overboard, trust in Him, and He will give you the witness of the Spirit.

He Died… I Died: by TA Sparks

We were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life. Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. (2 Corinthians 1:8,9)

It is a part of the nature of things that we never learn in a vital way by information. We really only come into the good of things by being "pressed out of measure." So the Lord has to take much time to make spiritual history. When at length our eyes are open, we cry, "Oh, why did I not see it before!" But everything else had to prove insufficient before we could really be shown, and that takes time. Thus it was that we were turned in that dark hour to Romans chapter six, and, almost as though He spoke in audible language, the Lord said: "When I died, you died. When I went to the Cross I not only took your sins, but I took you. When I took you, I not only took you as the sinner that you might regard yourself to be, but I took you as being all that you are by nature; your good (?) as your bad; your abilities as well as your disabilities; yes, every resource of yours. I took you as a 'worker,' a 'preacher,' an organizer! My Cross means that not even for Me can you be or do anything out from yourself, but if there is to be anything at all it must be out from Me, and that means a life of absolute dependence and faith."

At this point, therefore, we awoke to the fundamental principle of our Lord's own life while here, and it became the law of everything for us from that time. That principle was: "nothing of (out from) Himself", but "all things of (out from) God." "The Son can do nothing of (out from) Himself, but what He sees the Father doing: for what things soever He does, then the Son also does in like manner" (John 5:19). Such a revelation, if it is to be a staggering and breaking thing, so that there is no strength left in us, requires a background of much vain effort. But then, it carries with it a great implication. While an end is written large in the Cross, and while that end is to be accepted as our end indeed, so that there can be no more of anything so far as we are concerned, Jesus lives! And that means boundless possibilities.

First Things First: by Andrew Murray

The Sovereign LORD has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.  Isaiah 50:4

Morning has always been considered the time best suited for personal worship by God's servants. Most Christians regard it as a duty and a privilege to devote some portion of the beginning of the day to seek fellowship with God. Many Christians observe the morning watch, while others speak of it as the quiet hour, the still hour, or the quiet time. All these, whether they think of a whole hour or half an hour or a quarter of an hour, agree with the Psalmist when he says, "My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning, O Yahweh".

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MORNING WATCH

In speaking of the extreme importance of this daily time of quiet for prayer and meditation on God's Word, a well-known Christian leader has said: "Next to receiving Christ as Saviour and claiming the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we know of no act that brings greater good to ourselves or others than the determination to keep the morning watch, and spend the first half hour of the day alone with God." At first glance this statement appears too strong. The firm determination to keep the morning watch hardly appears sufficiently important to be compared to receiving Christ and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. However, it is true that it is impossible to live our daily Christian life, or maintaining a walk in the leading and power of the Holy Spirit, without a daily, close fellowship with God. The morning watch is the key to the position in which the surrender to Christ and the Holy Spirit can be unceasingly maintained.

The morning watch must not be regarded as an end in itself. Although it gives us a blessed time for prayer and Bible study and brings us a certain measure of refreshment and help, that is not enough. It is to serve to secure the presence of Christ for the whole day.

Personal devotion to a friend or a pursuit means that they will always hold a place in our heart, even when other people and things occupy our attention. Personal devotion to Jesus means that we allow nothing to separate us from Him for a moment. To abide in Him and His love, to be kept by Him and His grace, to be doing His will and pleasing Him- this cannot possibly be an irregular practice if we are truly devoted to Him.

"I need Thee every hour," "Moment by moment I am kept in His love." These hymns are the language of life and truth. "In Thy name shall they rejoice all the day" (Psalm 89:16). "I Yahweh do keep it; I will water it every moment" (Isaiah 27:3). These are words of divine power. The believer cannot stand for one moment without Christ. Personal devotion to Him refuses to be content with anything less than to abide always in His love and His will. This is the true scriptural Christian life. The importance and blessedness and true aim of the morning watch can only be realized as our personal devotion becomes its chief purpose.

SECURING HIS PRESENCE

The clearer the objective of our pursuit, the better we will be able to adapt to attain it. Consider the morning watch now as the means to this great end: I want to secure the presence of Christ all the day, to do nothing that can interfere with it. I feel that my success during the day will depend upon my time spent alone with Him in the morning. Meditation and prayer and the Word are secondary to this purpose: renewing the link for the day between Christ and me in the morning hour.

Concern for the day ahead, with all its possible cares, pleasures, and temptations, may seem to disturb the rest I have enjoyed in my quiet devotion. This is possible, but it will be no loss. True Christianity aims at having the character of Christ so formed in us, that in our most ordinary activities His temperament and attitudes reveal themselves. The Spirit and the will of Christ should so possess us that in our relationships with people, in our leisure time, and in our daily business it will be second nature to act like Him. All this is possible because Christ Himself, as the Living One, lives in us.

Do not be disturbed if at first this goal appears too difficult and occupies too much of your time in the hour of private prayer. The time you give to bring your daily concerns to the Lord will be richly rewarded. You will return to prayer and Scripture reading with new purpose and new faith. As the morning watch begins to have its effects on the day, the day will respond to its first half hour, and fellowship with Christ will have new meaning and power.

WHOLEHEARTED DETERMINATION

As we seek to have this unbroken fellowship with God in Christ throughout the day, we will realize that only a definite meeting time with Christ will secure His presence for the day. The one essential thing to having this daily quiet time is wholehearted determination, whatever effort or self-denial it may cost, to win the prize. In academic study or in athletics, every student needs determined purpose to succeed. Christianity requires, and indeed deserves, not less but more intense devotion. If anything, surely the love of Christ needs the whole heart.

It is this fixed decision to secure Christ's presence that will overcome every temptation to be unfaithful or superficial in the keeping of our pledges. This determination will make the morning watch itself a mighty force in strengthening our character and giving us boldness to resist self-indulgence. It will enable us to enter the inner chamber and shut the door for our communion with Christ. From the morning watch on, this firm resolution will become the keynote of our daily life.

In the world it is often said: Great things are possible to any man who knows what he wills and wills it with all his heart. The believer who has made personal devotion to Christ his watchword will find in the morning hour the place where day by day the insight into his holy calling is renewed. During this quiet time, his will is fortified to walk worthy of his calling. His faith is rewarded by the presence of Christ who is waiting to meet him and take charge of him for the day. We are more than conquerors through Him who loves us. A living Christ waits to meet us. 

Divine Fellowship: TA Sparks

Though we are many, we all eat from one loaf of bread, showing that we are one body. 1 Corinthians 10:17

We do feed upon Christ in prayer. To put that in another way, there is an imparting of Himself to His Own in prayer. We may go to prayer in weariness, and rise in freshness; we may go to prayer exhausted, and rise renewed. Is it that we have simply uttered some form of prayer, prayed some prayer? We know quite well if that is so we do not get up very much invigorated. Formal praying does not bring very much Life. Going through a form of prayers sometimes only ministers death. But really seeking the Lord, reaching out, taking hold of the Lord, giving ourselves up to the Lord in prayer, never fails to have renewing, uplifting, strengthening results. You say prayer may wear you out? Yes, but there is a wonderful strength that comes by wearing out prayer. There is vitality given to the spiritual life even in prayer that tires us physically, and we go in the strength of it. Yes, prayer is a way in which Christ is ministered to us by the Holy Spirit. Prayer is a way in which we feed upon Christ; He becomes our Life....

We feed upon the Lord, and He becomes our Life when we recognize the Divine order of spiritual fellowship. That is a Divine order. You have it brought in with Acts: "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers." There is a tremendous means of grace, a tremendous enrichment of Christ in the fellowship of the Lord's people. I believe the enemy will get believers, when they are together, to talk about anything under the sun rather than about the Lord. It is easy when you meet together with the Lord's people to be carried off with all kinds of matters of interest, and not to begin to talk about the Lord; but if you do there is always an enrichment, always a strengthening, always a building up; it is the Divine way. Fellowship is a means of imparting Christ to the believer. And wherever spiritual fellowship is possible, you and I ought to seek it, look after it, and cherish it. There are all too many of the Lord's children today, who have no chance of spiritual fellowship, and who would give anything to have it. The Lord would have us at least two together. That is His order, and there is something in ministering Christ to one another. There will be something lost unless that is so. These are ways in which we feed upon the Lord.

You in Christ and Christ in You: by TA Sparks

You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. Romans 8:9

Perhaps the major problem of most of the Lord’s people is to keep that line of division between what we are in ourselves and what Christ is in us. The great line of attack on the part of the enemy is to bring what we are ourselves continually up into view and occupy us with that, and by so doing obscure Christ. The great object of the Holy Spirit in His opposing of Satan is to bring Christ into view and to occupy us with Him to the obscuring of ourselves. That is where the great difficulty arises for most of the Lord’s people. There is always this beat back, this drive back to get us occupied with ourselves, as to what we are, to keep us from being occupied with Christ and what He is; in some way to get that gap, that gulf, that separation filled up, and the line of demarcation obliterated, so that there is confusion. God begins with the Firstborn. That implies something altogether other than what we are, and it is important to see what God says, and how God views those who are represented as being in Christ, and in whom Christ is....

When Christ is in us, God views us through Christ. Oh, that we might recognize this, that in Christ in us, there is the embodiment of God’s thought, and He is able to speak so of us. His activities with us are all in relation to the Christ who is now by the Holy Spirit in us, and in Whom we are. The fact that the Firstborn is invariably connected with death and resurrection is God’s way of saying that what we are in ourselves by nature is buried from His standpoint, and it is His Son alone who obtains where we are concerned as a risen One, the only One who lives before Him. All else are dead and buried in the sight of God, and God would have us take that attitude. Remember that we are dead and buried