The Master of Your Home: by Watchman Nee

“But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the some image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:18

Not only does the Spirit of God indwell regenerate man; he is ceaselessly at work refashioning him according to the image of Christ. We are wrong to treat the Holy Spirit merely as an honored guest when in fact he has been living in his house for ten or twenty years. He is the active owner-occupier, fashioning, building, reshaping, until the marks of his workmanship are unmistakable. That is how it should be.

When a house has been occupied by someone for a long while, it begins to reveal his personality, his tastes, his pleasures and fulfillments, and we see this often when we go into homes. Just so, the fruits of the Spirit begin to appear where he is dwelling, as old features of the believer give way, step by step, to the likeness of Christ. The man is changed from glory to glory when the Lord the Spirit is at work.

Decreasing for His Purpose: by Oswald Chambers

HE MUST INCREASE, BUT I MUST DECREASE. —JOHN 3:30

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If you become a necessity to someone else’s life, you are out of God’s will. As a servant, your primary responsibility is to be a “friend of the bridegroom” (John 3:29). When you see a person who is close to grasping the claims of Jesus Christ, you know that your influence has been used in the right direction. And when you begin to see that person in the middle of a difficult and painful struggle, don’t try to prevent it, but pray that his difficulty will grow even ten times stronger, until no power on earth or in hell could hold him away from Jesus Christ. Over and over again, we try to be amateur providences in someone’s life. We are indeed amateurs, coming in and actually preventing God’s will and saying, “This person should not have to experience this difficulty.” Instead of being friends of the Bridegroom, our sympathy gets in the way. One day that person will say to us, “You are a thief; you stole my desire to follow Jesus, and because of you I lost sight of Him.”

Beware of rejoicing with someone over the wrong thing, but always look to rejoice over the right thing. “…the friend of the bridegroom…rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:29-30). This was spoken with joy, not with sadness— at last they were to see the Bridegroom! And John said this was his joy. It represents a stepping aside, an absolute removal of the servant, never to be thought of again.

Listen intently with your entire being until you hear the Bridegroom’s voice in the life of another person. And never give any thought to what devastation, difficulties, or sickness it will bring. Just rejoice with godly excitement that His voice has been heard. You may often have to watch Jesus Christ wreck a life before He saves it (see Matthew 10:34).

Rest in Jesus: by TA Sparks

Come to Me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28

What did He mean? The burden of the law was upon the people, indeed, it was a heavy burden for them. The Pharisees gave more than two thousand interpretations to the law of Moses, and said: "The law of Moses does not mean that you have only to keep ten commandments; it means that you have to keep two thousand." There was not a point in all their human life where this law was not applied and made their lives difficult. And all this was gathered up into the Sabbath: "You must not make your bed on the Sabbath! You must not carry your bed on the Sabbath! You must not poke your fire on the Sabbath! You must do nothing on the Sabbath – you may not even walk more than three miles." Two thousand regulations for their lives! The one thing that they were meeting every day, and especially on the Sabbath, was "You may not."

"Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). What has happened? Jesus has appropriated the Sabbath to Himself. It is no longer a day of the week – it is a divine Person. (If the Seventh Day Adventists saw that, the whole of their system would go in five minutes!) No, Jesus is God's Sabbath. He is the end of God's works, and in Him God has entered into His rest. This is the "rest which remains for the children of God" – not a day of the week or on the calendar, but a divine Person, the Son of God. In Him we come to rest, and that which was our bondage is now our servant. In Him, that against which we were always struggling is now our victory. Oh yes, Jesus is the Sabbath, and if we live in Him we shall not spoil the Sabbath. Every day should be a day of rest to our souls. Oh, this is a mighty thing that the Lord Jesus has done!

God's Greatness: by Andrew Murray

For thou art great, and does wondrous things: thou art God alone. Psalm 86:10

When anyone begins an important work, he takes time and gives his attention to consider the greatness of his undertaking. Scientists, in studying nature, require years of labor to grasp the magnitude of, for instance, the sun, the stars, and the planets. Is not our glorious God worthy that we should take time to know and adore His greatness?

Yet how superficial our knowledge of God's greatness is! We do not allow ourselves time to bow before Him and to come under the deep impression of His incomprehensible majesty and glory.

Meditate on the following Scriptures and you are filled with a sense of what a glorious being God  is:

"Great is the LORD,  and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable" Psalm 145:3

"I will declare t1!) greatness. They shall abundantly utter the memory of Thy great goodness" V6,7

Do not imagine that it is easy to grasp the meaning of these words. Take time for them to master your heart, until you bow in what may be speechless adoration before God.

“Ah Lord God!... There is nothing too hard far thee....The Great, the Mighty  God, the LORD of hosts, is his name, great in counsel, and mighty in work" Jeremiah 32:17-19

To this God answers, "Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there a'!)' thing too hard far me?" V27

The right understanding of God's greatness will take time. But if we give God the honor that is His due, and if our faith grows strong in the knowledge of what a great and powerful God we have, we will be led to wait in the inner chamber, to bow in humble  worship  before this great and mighty God. In His abundant  mercy, He will  teach  us  through the Holy Spirit to say,

"For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods.. . . O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker" Psalm 95:3, 6.

Yielding: by Oswald Chambers

…you are that one’s slaves whom you obey… —Romans 6:16

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The first thing I must be willing to admit when I begin to examine what controls and dominates me is that I am the one responsible for having yielded myself to whatever it may be. If I am a slave to myself, I am to blame because somewhere in the past I yielded to myself. Likewise, if I obey God I do so because at some point in my life I yielded myself to Him.

If a child gives in to selfishness, he will find it to be the most enslaving tyranny on earth. There is no power within the human soul itself that is capable of breaking the bondage of the nature created by yielding. For example, yield for one second to anything in the nature of lust, and although you may hate yourself for having yielded, you become enslaved to that thing. (Remember what lust is— “I must have it now,” whether it is the lust of the flesh or the lust of the mind.) No release or escape from it will ever come from any human power, but only through the power of redemption. You must yield yourself in utter humiliation to the only One who can break the dominating power in your life, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ. “…He has anointed Me…to proclaim liberty to the captives…”

 "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, Luke 4:18
 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, Isaiah 61:1

When you yield to something, you will soon realize the tremendous control it has over you. Even though you say, “Oh, I can give up that habit whenever I like,” you will know you can’t. You will find that the habit absolutely dominates you because you willingly yielded to it. It is easy to sing, “He will break every fetter,” while at the same time living a life of obvious slavery to yourself. But yielding to Jesus will break every kind of slavery in any person’s life.

Fullness in Christ: by TA Sparks

In Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. Colossians 2:9,10

If you and I, dear friends, are going to make anything like the progress that Paul made as a young convert and as a growing Christian, and if we are going to have anything of the weight that he has had in spiritual impress and impact, and if we are going to count in any degree as he counted in the work of the Lord; one thing is absolutely essential and do get hold of this. The youngest Christian get hold of this and everybody else; that if we take our salvation, our conversion or anything that has to do with it as something in itself, there's going to be limitation.

We have got to see everything in the light of the Person, Jesus Christ! That is, we have not to take this as a gift – salvation as a gift – or anything else of the Christian life as a gift in itself; we have got to look at that and say: "What does that signify as to the Giver? What does that signify as to Christ? What does that mean as to the Source of my salvation?" You may not grasp the point but it is of infinite importance because all progress in the Christian life and all power in Christian service comes from not the grasping, the apprehending, and the enjoyment of salvation as such, but seeing Jesus! Because, you see, Jesus is the sum total of ALL Divine fullness.

Christ in Me (Really) by Watchman Nee

"It is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me. " Galatians 2:20

God has not constituted Christ our example to be copied. He is not giving us his strength to help us imitate Christ. He has not even planted Christ within us to help us to be Christlike. Galatians 2:20 is not our standard for record breaking endeavor. It is not a high aim to be aspired to through long seeking and patient progress. No, it is not God's aim at all, but God's method.
When Paul says "Christ lives within me,” he is showing us the life that gives God satisfaction in the believer, and there is no substitute. "Not I, but Christ" means Christ instead of me. When Paul uses these words, he is not claiming to have attained something his readers have not yet reached to. He is defining the Christian life. The Christian life is the Christ-life. God gives Christ to become my life and to live His life in me.