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

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43:18-19

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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.

Continuous Conversion: by Oswald Chambers

unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. —Matthew 18:3

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These words of our Lord refer to our initial conversion, but we should continue to turn to God as children, being continuously converted every day of our lives. If we trust in our own abilities, instead of God’s, we produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. When God through His sovereignty brings us into new situations, we should immediately make sure that our natural life submits to the spiritual, obeying the orders of the Spirit of God. Just because we have responded properly in the past is no guarantee that we will do so again. The response of the natural to the spiritual should be continuous conversion, but this is where we so often refuse to be obedient. No matter what our situation is, the Spirit of God remains unchanged and His salvation unaltered. But we must “put on the new man…” (Ephesians 4:24). God holds us accountable every time we refuse to convert ourselves, and He sees our refusal as willful disobedience. Our natural life must not rule— God must rule in us.

To refuse to be continuously converted puts a stumbling block in the growth of our spiritual life. There are areas of self-will in our lives where our pride pours contempt on the throne of God and says, “I won’t submit.” We deify our independence and self-will and call them by the wrong name. What God sees as stubborn weakness, we call strength. There are whole areas of our lives that have not yet been brought into submission, and this can only be done by this continuous conversion. Slowly but surely we can claim the whole territory for the Spirit of God.

The Grand Miracle: by CS Lewis (from Miracles)

Isaiah 7:14
 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
Matthew 1:23
 "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us."

The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this. Just as every natural event is the manifestation at a particular place and moment of Nature's total character, so every particular Christian miracle manifests at a particular place and moment the character and significance of the Incarnation. There is no question in Christianity of arbitrary interferences just scattered about. It relates not a series of disconnected raids on Nature but the various steps of a strategically coherent invasion—an invasion which intends complete conquest and 'occupation'. The fitness, and therefore credibility, of the particular miracles depends on their relation to the Grand Miracle; all discussion of them in isolation from it is futile.

The fitness or credibility of the Grand Miracle itself cannot, obviously, be judged by the same standard. And let us admit at once that it is very difficult to find a standard by which it can be judged. If the thing happened, it was the central event in the history of the Earth—the very thing that the whole story has been about. .... It is easier to argue, on historical grounds, that the Incarnation actually occurred than to show, on philosophical grounds, the probability of its occurrence. The historical difficulty of giving for the life, sayings and influence of Jesus any explanation that is not harder than the Christian explanation, is very great. The discrepancy between the depth and sanity and (let me add) shrewdness of His moral teaching and the rampant megalomania which must lie behind His theological teaching unless He is indeed God, has never been satisfactorily got over.

The Continued Revelation of Jesus Christ: by TA Sparks

But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, Galatians 1:15-16

It is always futile and dangerous to advise people to leave one thing until they have a revelation of the fuller, and only such a revelation will accomplish the true emancipation.... It may not be applicable to many of us, but the principle is what I want you to recognize. You may not need to be emancipated from anything like Judaism or legalism, but the principle is this, that for all increase, progress, enlargement, growth, and maturity, it is essential that there should be in the heart a continuous unveiling of Jesus Christ, and you and I will never get to the end of that unveiling. It is possible for some of us to say with truth that this year we have seen more of the meaning of the Lord Jesus than in all the previous years of our lives. Can you say that?

It is the most blessed and most wonderful thing to be able to recognize that there is a growing revelation of Jesus Christ within; you see more and more of what He means from God’s standpoint, and as that is so, there comes this increase of the Lord Jesus... the fruit of the Spirit – love. An increase of the revelation of Jesus Christ in the heart is an increase of the love of the Lord Jesus, the fruit of the Spirit. You are conscious that your heart is coming more and more under the constraint of His love and that unloveliness is becoming subordinate to His love. There is more joy in the Lord Jesus today than ever, because you are seeing more of what He is. It is practical. That is spiritual growth: “It pleased God... to reveal His Son in me....” It is so important that there should be this continual, living unveiling of Christ in the heart if we are to reach God’s full end.

The Obstinate Tin Soldier: by CS Lewis

John 1:1
 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:14
 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Did you ever think, when you were a child, what fun it would be if your toys could come to life? Well suppose you could really have brought them to life. Imagine turning a tin soldier into a real little man. It would involve turning the tin into flesh. And suppose the tin soldier did not like it. He is not interested in flesh: all he sees is that the tin is being spoilt. He thinks you are killing him. He will do everything he can to prevent you. He will not be made into a man if he can help it.

What you would have done about that tin soldier I do not know. But what God did about us was this. The Second Person in God, the Son, became human Himself: was born into the world as an actual man—a real man of a particular height, with hair of a particular colour, speaking a particular language, weighing so many stone. The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that) a baby, and before that a fetus inside a Woman's body. If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.

LISTENING: by Sarah Young "Jesus Calling"

Isaiah 50:4
 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.
Revelation 2:4
 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.
Isaiah 60:2
 See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you.

I am speaking in the depths of your being. Be still so that you can hear My voice. I speak in the language of Love; My words fill you with Life and Peace, Joy and hope. I desire to talk with all of my children, but many are too busy to listen. The "work ethic" has them tied up in knots. They submit wholeheartedly to this taskmaster, wondering why they feel so distant from Me.

Living close to Me requires making Me your [First Love]---your highest priority. As you seek My Presence above all else, you experience Peace and Joy in full measure. I also am blessed when you make Me first in your life. While you journey through life in My Presence, [My Glory brightens the world around you].

Repentance; by Oswald Chambers

Godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation… 2 Corinthians 7:10

My sins, my sins, my Savior, How sad on Thee they fall.

Conviction of sin is one of the most uncommon things that ever happens to a person. It is the beginning of an understanding of God. Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came He would convict people of sin (see John 16:8). And when the Holy Spirit stirs a person’s conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not that person’s relationship with others that bothers him but his relationship with God— “Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in your sight…” (Psalm 51:4). The wonders of conviction of sin, forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven person who is truly holy. He proves he is forgiven by being the opposite of what he was previously, by the grace of God. Repentance always brings a person to the point of saying, “I have sinned.” The surest sign that God is at work in his life is when he says that and means it. Anything less is simply sorrow for having made foolish mistakes— a reflex action caused by self-disgust.

The entrance into the kingdom of God is through the sharp, sudden pains of repentance colliding with man’s respectable “goodness.” Then the Holy Spirit, who produces these struggles, begins the formation of the Son of God in the person’s life (see Galatians 4:19). This new life will reveal itself in conscious repentance followed by unconscious holiness, never the other way around. The foundation of Christianity is repentance. Strictly speaking, a person cannot repent when he chooses— repentance is a gift of God. The old Puritans used to pray for “the gift of tears.” If you ever cease to understand the value of repentance, you allow yourself to remain in sin. Examine yourself to see if you have forgotten how to be truly repentant.

The Morning Hour: by Andrew Murray

Psalm 5:3
 In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.
Isaiah 50:4
 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.

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 there 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 Lord.”

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 Savior and claiming the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we know of no act that bring 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 maintain a walk in the leading and power of the Holy Spirit can be unceasingly and fully 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 true.  “In Thy name shall they rejoice all the day”(Psalm 89:16).  “I the Lord 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.

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.