Yesterday: by Oswald Chambers

You shall not go out with haste,…for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard. —Isaiah 52:12

Security from Yesterday. “…God requires an account of what is past” (Ecclesiastes 3:15). At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God’s grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present.

Security for Tomorrow. “…the Lord will go before you….” This is a gracious revelation— that God will send His forces out where we have failed to do so. He will keep watch so that we will not be tripped up again by the same failures, as would undoubtedly happen if He were not our “rear guard.” And God’s hand reaches back to the past, settling all the claims against our conscience.

Security for Today. “You shall not go out with haste….” As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, forgetful delight, nor with the quickness of impulsive thoughtlessness. But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays hold broken and irreversible things for us. It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ.

Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.

Be Captured by Christ: by TA Sparks

For to me to live is Christ. (Philippians 1:21)

That is the good news of the all-captivating Christ. When Christ really captivates, everything happens and anything can happen. That is how it was with Paul and with these people. Christ had just captivated them. They had no other thought in life than Christ. They may have had their businesses, their trades, their professions, their different walks of life and occupations in the world, but they had one all-dominating thought, concern and interest – Christ. Christ rested, for them, upon everything. There is no other word for it. He just captivated them.

And I see, dear friends, that that – simple as it may sound – explains everything. It explains Paul... it explains these believers, it explains their mutual love. It solved all their problems, cleared up all their difficulties. Oh, this is what we need! If only you and I were like this, if we really after all were captivated by Christ! I cannot convey that to you, but as I have looked at that truth – looked at it, read it, thought about it – I have felt something moved in me, something inexplicable. After all, nine-tenths of all our troubles can be traced to the fact that we have other personal interests influencing us, governing us and controlling us – other aspects of life than Christ. If only it could be true that Christ had captured and captivated and mastered us, and become – yes, I will use the word – an obsession, a glorious obsession!

When it is like that, we are filled with joy. There are no regrets at having to "give up" things. We are filled with joy, filled with victory. There is no spirit of defeatism at all. It is the joy of a great triumph. It is the triumph of Christ over the life. Yes, it has been, and because it has been, it can be again. But this needs something more than just a kind of mental appraisement. We can so easily miss the point. We may admire the words, the ideas; we may fall to it as a beautiful presentation; but, oh, we need the captivating to wipe out our selves – our reputations, everything that is associated with us and our own glory – that the One who captivates may be the only One in view, the only One with a reputation, and we at His feet. This is the gospel, the good news – that when Christ really captivates, the kind of thing that is in this letter happens, it really happens. Shall we ask the Lord for that life captivation of His beloved Son? 

The Root of All Theology and Truth: by AW Tozer

He came.... John 1:11
"He came"—these two simple words are at the root of all theology and of all truth!
Before Christ came in the incarnation, there had been only the eternal past. Then from the time of creation, we have such hints as "In the beginning he was God" and "In him was light" and "all things were made by him" and "In him was life."
Now it says, "He came!"
We are struck by the wonder of these simple words.
All of the pity that God is capable of feeling, all of the mercy that God is capable of showing, and all of the redeeming love and grace that He could pour out of His divine being—all are at least suggested in the fact that Jesus came!
Then too, all of the hopes and longings and aspirations and dreams of immortality that lie in the human breast had their fulfillment in these two words, "He came!"
The message is more profound than all philosophy. It may be a superlative statement, but I believe it to be a balanced and accurate statement, to insist that the impact of these two words, understood in their high spiritual context, is wiser than all of man's learning.
Because He is "the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world," man's long night of darkness is dispelled. We celebrate with Milton the delight that "This is the happy morn wherein the Son of heaven's eternal king, of wedded maid and virgin mother born, our great redemption from above did bring!"

My King: by SM Lockridge

The Bible says my King is the King of the Jews. He’s the King of Israel. He’s the King of Righteousness. He’s the King of the Ages. He’s the King of Heaven. He’s the King of Glory. He’s the King of kings, and He’s the Lord of lords. That’s my King.

I wonder, do you know Him?

My King is a sovereign King. No means of measure can define His limitless love. He’s enduringly strong. He’s entirely sincere. He’s eternally steadfast. He’s immortally graceful. He’s imperially powerful. He’s impartially merciful.

Do you know Him?

He’s the greatest phenomenon that has ever crossed the horizon of this world. He’s God’s Son. He’s the sinner’s Saviour. He’s the centrepiece of civilization. He’s unparalleled. He’s unprecedented. He is the loftiest idea in literature. He’s the highest personality in philosophy. He’s the fundamental doctrine of true theology. He’s the only one qualified to be an all sufficient Saviour.

I wonder if you know Him today?

He supplies strength for the weak. He’s available for the tempted and the tried. He sympathizes and He saves. He strengthens and sustains. He guards and He guides. He heals the sick. He cleansed the lepers. He forgives sinners. He discharges debtors. He delivers the captive. He defends the feeble. He blesses the young. He serves the unfortunate. He regards the aged. He rewards the diligent. And He beautifies the meek.

I wonder if you know Him?

He’s the key to knowledge. He’s the wellspring of wisdom. He’s the doorway of deliverance. He’s the pathway of peace. He’s the roadway of righteousness. He’s the highway of holiness. He’s the gateway of glory.

Do you know Him? Well…

His life is matchless. His goodness is limitless. His mercy is everlasting. His love never changes. His Word is enough. His grace is sufficient. His reign is righteous. And His yoke is easy. And His burden is light.

I wish I could describe Him to you. Yes…

He’s indescribable! He’s incomprehensible. He’s invincible. He’s irresistible. You can’t get Him out of your mind. You can’t get Him off of your hand. You can’t outlive Him, and you can’t live without Him. Well, the Pharisees couldn’t stand Him, but they found out they couldn’t stop Him. Pilate couldn’t find any fault in Him. Herod couldn’t kill Him. Death couldn’t handle Him, and the grave couldn’t hold Him.

Yeah! That’s my King, that’s my King.

Amen!

The Central Thought of God: by TA Sparks

His name is the Word of God. (Revelation 19:13)

There is one all-governing fact which runs right through the ages. It is that Christ is in all the thoughts and ways of God. That is a statement that is comprehensive. Through all the ages, in all the thoughts of God, and in all the ways of God, Christ is central, Christ is supreme. Everything relates to Him, and everything connects with Him; Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning. If we could stand by the side of God and see through God’s eyes, and become governed by God’s mentality, we should recognize that God has but one thought and that one thought is influencing Him in every one of His dealings with men, with nations, and with the world throughout all the ages. That one thought centers in His Son, Jesus Christ, and therefore the very essence of revelation, and the very heart of spiritual enlightenment is that you see Christ in all those thoughts and ways of God as they are expressed in His Word and in His activities.

If you ask: "What is revelation, what is it to have spiritual enlightenment?" The answer is this: that you are able to see in a living and ever-growing way God’s thoughts as centered in Christ. We could put that in another way, and say that you are growingly able to see Christ and His place and His meaning in this universe, that this universe is interpreted and explained in the light of Christ, and that everything in our own lives in God’s dealings with us, is connected with Christ in some way. If that is true universally, and if that is true sovereignly and providentially; if that is true not only in the whole history of things in this universe, but true in a special way in human life, it is true, perhaps, in the most essential way in the Word of God as the expression of God’s thought. So that revelation, spiritual illumination, is to see Christ in all the Word of God; not truths, not doctrines, but Christ.... The question then, that we ever need to ask, is: In what way does this or that lead us to Christ? In what way does this mean an increase of Christ, a knowledge of Him in a living and experimental way? We are looking for what is of Christ. 

Wise Christians Use Every Means of Grace: by AW Tozer

That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Titus 3:7

Every human being is in a state of passing from what he was to what he is to be—and this is as true of the Christian as of every other person.

The new birth does not produce the finished product. The new thing that is born of God is as far from completeness as the new baby born into this world an hour ago.

That new human being, the moment he is born, is placed in the hands of powerful molding forces that go far to determine whether he shall be an upright citizen or a criminal. The one hope for him is that he can later choose which forces shall shape him, and by the exercise of his own power of choice he can place himself in the right hands.

It is not otherwise with the Christian. He can fashion himself by placing himself in the hands first of the supreme Artist, God, and then by subjecting himself to such holy influences and such formative powers as shall make him into a man of God.

Or he may foolishly trust himself to unworthy hands and become at last a misshapen and inartistic vessel, of little use to mankind and a poor example of the skill of the heavenly Potter.

The wise Christian will take advantage of every proper means of grace: he has but to cooperate with God in embracing the good. God Himself will do the rest!

Spiritual Sense: by TA Sparks

Solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. (Hebrews 5:14)

In our natural, physical man we have five senses. We have our sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Those are the five senses of our physical natural life. But there is also an inner man called the "hidden man of the heart," and that inward man has what corresponds to the outer man's five senses. There is a faculty of spiritual sight, of spiritual hearing, of spiritual smelling or sensing, of spiritual taste and spiritual touch, and these senses are very important to the life of the inward man – yes, more important even than the senses of the physical man.

We know how we feel the tragedy of people who have lost any of those outward senses. It is a great loss; it is an imperfect life, a life of limitation. But it is equally true of the inward man. To be without spiritual sight is a tragic loss and a terrible limitation; or without spiritual hearing, that capacity for answering to the Spirit – "he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith": if there is no capacity for hearing, that is a desperate situation. What loss there is if there is no sensing – sensing as in the matter of smell, so that you at once scent things. I know how wrongly that has been used, in an everlasting attempt to scent heresy and fault and wrong, but there is a right faculty of spiritual scent which is very important. I believe it was to that that reference was made concerning our Lord – "His scent shall be in the fear of the Lord" (Isa. 11:3, A.R.M.) – quick of scent, right on the mark in scenting what the Lord wanted. And how true it was of His heavenly life: what it saved Him to scent the enemy and what the enemy was up to, to scent what the Father wanted and when He did not want things. It is important to be quick of scent. And so with our taste and with our touch – our contact, and what we register by contact. This is a very real inward man, and these are the senses which form the basis of spiritual capacity: these are the things to be exercised, to be "put through it" for increase and development.

Losing God amid the Wonders of His Word: by AW Tozer

…To be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Romans 8:29

The doctrine of justification by faith—a biblical truth, and a blessed relief from sterile legalism and unavailing self-effort—has in our time fallen into evil company and been interpreted by many in such a manner as actually to bar men and women from the knowledge of God.

The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless. Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego. Christ may be “received” without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver. The man is “saved” but he is not hungry or thirsty after God!

The modern scientist has lost God amid the wonders of this world; we Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His Word! We have almost forgotten that God is a Person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can.

God is a Person and in the deep of His mighty nature He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires and suffers as any other person may. In making Himself known to us He stays by the familiar pattern of personality.

Religion, so far as it is genuine, is in essence the response of created personalities to the Creating Personality, God, so “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”

God The Son: by Andrew Murray

  "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 1:7

        It is remarkable that the Apostle Paul in each of his thirteen Epistles writes: "Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ." He had such a deep sense of the inseparable oneness of the Father and the Son in the work of grace, that in each opening benediction he refers to both.
        This is a lesson for us of the utmost importance. There may be times in the Christian life when one thinks chiefly of God the Father, and prays to Him. But later on we realize that it may cause spiritual loss if we do not grasp the truth that each day and each hour it is only through faith in Christ and in living union with Him, that we can enjoy a full and abiding fellowship with God.
        Remember what we read of the Lamb in the midst of the throne. John had seen One sitting on a throne. "And the four living creatures rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come" (Rev. iv. 3,8).
        Later (Rev. 5: 6) he sees "in the midst of the throne a Lamb as it had been slain:" Of all the worshipping multitude none could see God, but he first saw Christ the Lamb of God. And none could see Christ without seeing the glory of God, the Father and Son inseparably One.
        O Christian, if you would know and worship God aright, seek Him and worship Him in Christ. And if you seek Christ, seek Him and worship Him in God. Then you will understand what it is to have "your life hid with Christ in God," and you will experience that the fellowship and adoration of Christ is indispensable to the full knowledge of the love and holiness of God.
        Be still, O soul, and speak these words in deepest reverence: "Grace and peace" all I can desire "from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."
        Take time to meditate, and believe, to expect all from God the Father who sits upon the throne, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb in the midst of the throne. Then you will learn truly to worship God. Return frequently to this sacred scene, to give "Glory to Him that sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb" (Rev. v. 13).

The Opposition of the Natural: Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. —Galatians 5:24

The natural life itself is not sinful. But we must abandon sin, having nothing to do with it in any way whatsoever. Sin belongs to hell and to the devil. I, as a child of God, belong to heaven and to God. It is not a question of giving up sin, but of giving up my right to myself, my natural independence, and my self-will. This is where the battle has to be fought. The things that are right, noble, and good from the natural standpoint are the very things that keep us from being God’s best. Once we come to understand that natural moral excellence opposes or counteracts surrender to God, we bring our soul into the center of its greatest battle. Very few of us would debate over what is filthy, evil, and wrong, but we do debate over what is good. It is the good that opposes the best. The higher up the scale of moral excellence a person goes, the more intense the opposition to Jesus Christ. “Those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh….” The cost to your natural life is not just one or two things, but everything. Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself…” (Matthew 16:24). That is, he must deny his right to himself, and he must realize who Jesus Christ is before he will bring himself to do it. Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence.

The natural life is not spiritual, and it can be made spiritual only through sacrifice. If we do not purposely sacrifice the natural, the supernatural can never become natural to us. There is no high or easy road. Each of us has the means to accomplish it entirely in his own hands. It is not a question of praying, but of sacrificing, and thereby performing His will.

God Has an Interest in Making Us Righteous: by AW Tozer

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the working of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. Titus 3:5

A whole new generation of Christians has come up believing that it is possible to “accept” Christ without forsaking the world.

But what saith the Holy Ghost? “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4), and “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).

This requires no comment, only obedience.

It is an error to assume that we can experience justification without transformation. Justification and regeneration are not the same; they may be thought apart in theology but they can never be experienced apart in fact!

When God declares a man righteous He instantly sets about to make him righteous.

The error today is that we do not expect a converted man to be a transformed man, and as a result of this error our churches are full of substandard Christians. Many of these go on day after day assuming that salvation is possible without repentance and that they can find some value in religion without righteousness.

A revival is, among other things, a return to the belief that real faith invariably produces holiness of heart and righteousness of life!

The Desire for God: by Andrew Murray

“All night long I search for You’. Isaiah 26:9

What is the best and most glorious thing that a man needs every day and can do every day? Nothing less than to seek, to know, to love, and to praise God Himself. As glorious as God is, so is the glory which begins to work in the hearts and lives of people who give themselves to live for God.

Have you learned to seek this God, to meet Him, to worship
Him, to live for Him and for His glory? It is a great step forward in the life of a Christian when we truly see this and consider fellowship with God every day.

Take the time to ask yourself whether knowing your God and loving Him with your whole heart is the utmost desire of your heart. You can be certain that God greatly desires that you should live in this intimate fellowship with Him. He will, in answer to your prayer, enable you to do so.

Begin today by speaking these words to God in the stillness of your soul: “O God, You are my God; I earnestly search for You. My soul thirsts for You; my whole body longs for You.