Shaping Our Character: by John Eldredge

Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Isaiah 64:8

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How does God shape our character?

We hate the answer but we know it to be true: affliction.  

If you say that God does not intend to use affliction, then what in your mind does he then use? Joy does wonderful things for our souls—it soothes, and strengthens, and heals. But joy does not transform people’s characters in the same way affliction does. You do not grow when life is good. Any parent knows this. The child wants ice cream and video games. But the child will grow to be a narcissist if they are allowed nothing but ice cream and video games. The most radiant holiness, the most genuine and glorious love is expressed by those whose lives have known affliction. Jesus best among them.  

Our longing for life keeps confusing us about the purpose of life.  

We ache for life to come together as it was meant to be. And it will, friends; it will. Very soon. But in the meantime, the purpose of life in this hour is not escaping to Hawaii, or whatever your version of happiness may be. Our “education” in this hour, the goal of our maturing is holiness, the beauty of Jesus Christ formed in us, which is something that requires a great deal of maturity to accept (you see how few accept it). By all that is holy and beautiful—clearly the purpose of life is not the removal of all affliction, or would we put ourselves above Jesus?

The Way to Knowledge: by Oswald Chambers

If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine… —John 7:17

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The golden rule to follow to obtain spiritual understanding is not one of intellectual pursuit, but one of obedience. If a person wants scientific knowledge, then intellectual curiosity must be his guide. But if he desires knowledge and insight into the teachings of Jesus Christ, he can only obtain it through obedience. If spiritual things seem dark and hidden to me, then I can be sure that there is a point of disobedience somewhere in my life. Intellectual darkness is the result of ignorance, but spiritual darkness is the result of something that I do not intend to obey.

No one ever receives a word from God without instantly being put to the test regarding it. We disobey and then wonder why we are not growing spiritually. Jesus said, “If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). He is saying, in essence, “Don’t say another word to me; first be obedient by making things right.” The teachings of Jesus hit us where we live. We cannot stand as impostors before Him for even one second. He instructs us down to the very last detail. The Spirit of God uncovers our spirit of self-vindication and makes us sensitive to things that we have never even thought of before.

When Jesus drives something home to you through His Word, don’t try to evade it. If you do, you will become a religious impostor. Examine the things you tend simply to shrug your shoulders about, and where you have refused to be obedient, and you will know why you are not growing spiritually. As Jesus said, “First…go….” Even at the risk of being thought of as fanatical, you must obey what God tells you.

Love the Sinner... by CS Lewis

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  John 3:16

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." Mark 12:30-31

Now that I come to think of it, I remember Christian teachers telling me long ago that I must hate a bad man's actions, but not hate the bad man: or, as they would say, hate the sin but not the sinner.

For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life—namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things. Consequently, Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere he can be cured and made human again.

Revelation: by TA Sparks

I received my message from no human source, and no one taught me. Instead, I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ. Galatians 1:12

For strength to overcome and press on, only a revelation by the Holy Spirit in us can suffice – but it can! A revelation that is within one's spirit and not a mental appreciation of truth, even though it is truth about God. Oh, the power to be able to say "I KNOW," not "I have heard or read," but "I KNOW." It is an experience nothing can rob us of. It is absolutely essential to have this revelation by the Holy Spirit because we have to meet forces of evil against which nothing can stand save that which is of God. "In pressure Thou hast enlarged me." How? Because of the constant uprising of the Life within. Trouble, trial, sorrow... we are subject to these things, they are common to all men, but we rise above them through the "strength of His might" within. We are strong because of the Light given in the knowledge of God – Eph. 1:19. This is a growing revelation. Paul is writing to the Ephesian saints, and what a wonderful history these had! See Paul's words to them in parting (Acts 20:17-38). To such he says, "That ye may be strengthened to apprehend," showing the necessity for the mighty power of God in bringing through revelation. The enemy mightily withstands revelation; to mar or hinder that, he'll stop at nothing!

Light and Strength go together; endurance is by revelation, "I know." Establishment in the truth by revelation of the truth, this brings an impact on Satan and his hosts; light leading to might. When the Lord opens eyes you see what happens, "the eyes of your heart being enlightened, that ye may know" this is the result of opened eyes.

"Knowing that He that raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also with Jesus" – 2 Corinthians 4:14.

Our Position: Believing God, Defying the Devil: by AW Tozer

" ... Resist the devil and he will flee from you" (James 4:7)
It is a gracious thing to be humbled under the loving, chastening hand of God, but when the devil starts tampering with you, dare to resist him!
Brethren, God never meant for us to be kicked around like a football. I stand for believing in God and defying the devil - and our God loves that kind of courage.
It is for us to trust, to trust wholly in the Lord Jesus! This is the only way in which we can conquer fear and live in blessed victory.
I have had times in my life and ministry when the burdens and the pressures seemed to be too much. At these times it seems that even in prayer it is impossible to rise above the load. More than once, by faith that seemed to have been imparted directly from heaven, the Lord has enabled me to claim all that I needed for body, soul and spirit.
On my knees, I have been given freedom and strength to pray, "Now, Lord, I have had enough of this - I refuse to take any more of this heaviness and oppression! This does not come from God - this comes from my enemy, the devil. Lord, in Jesus' name, I will not take it any longer, through Jesus Christ I am victor!"
Will God answer?
At these times, great burdens have just melted, all at once! As the burden rolls away, He answers: "Child, I have waited long to hear you confess that Jesus is victor and in Him you overcome!"

Sure, I'll Pray for You: by John Eldredge

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Ephesians 6:18

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I’ve come to the place where I have had to stop telling people, “I’ll pray for you.” 

I simply know that despite my good intentions—and these promises are almost always spoken with good intent—I know that nine times out of ten I just don’t remember to follow through. Not until maybe a week or two later, and then I feel guilty that I forgot. I don’t like promising something I probably won’t live up to. You know how these stories go: someone you care about tells you of their pain, need, or struggle, and you respond with, “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that; I’ll pray for you.” But then, most of the time, we never do. If all the prayers that were promised were actually prayed, this would be a different world by now.

So instead of promising future prayer, what I try to do nowadays is stop, right there in the moment, and pray. Right then and there. It’s funny how many Christians this actually throws off guard. “You mean, right now?” “Yes—absolutely. Let’s pray.” In the restaurant, in the car, on the plane, wherever. If it’s a text or e-mail request, I’ll start praying as I type my response, typing out a prayer for them right then and there. Not only does it help me follow through, but it helps them to agree right along with what I have prayed, and agreement is mighty powerful as we know.

Jesus the Crucified: by Andrew Murray

"God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." Acts 2:36.

        We have spoken of Christ as King in more than one respect. But there is one word more that may not be lacking. This King is none other than the crucified Jesus. All that we have to say of Him, His divine power, His abiding presence, His wonderful love, does not teach us to know Him aright unless we maintain the deep consciousness: This our King is the crucified Jesus. God hath placed Him in the midst of His throne as a Lamb, as it had been slain, and it is thus that the hosts of heaven adore Him. It is thus that we worship Him as a King.

        Christ’s cross is His highest glory. It is through this that He has conquered every enemy and gained His place on the throne of God. And it is this that He will impart to us too if we are to know fully what the victory over sin is to mean. When Paul wrote: "I have been crucified with Christ, Christ liveth in me," he taught us that it was as the crucified One that Christ ruled on the throne of His heart, and that the spirit of the cross would triumph over us as it did in Him.

        This was true of the disciples. This was their deepest preparation for receiving the Holy Spirit. They had with their Lord been crucified to the world. The old man had been crucified: in Him they were dead to sin and their life was hid with Christ in God. Each one of us needs to experience this fellowship with Christ in His cross if the Spirit of Pentecost is really to take possession of us. It was through the Eternal Spirit that Christ gave Himself a sacrifice and became the King on the throne of God. It is as we become "comformable to His death," in the entire surrender of our will, in the entire self-denial of our old nature, in the entire separation from the spirit of this world, that we can become the worthy servants of a crucified King, and our hearts the worthy temples of His glory.

CHRIST: My Life: by TA Sparks

To me, to live is Christ. Philippians 1:21

I wonder very often if the fact that our tremendous knowledge about Christ, our tremendous doctrinal apprehension, failing to lead us into triumphant joy, failing to result in something of this contagious spirit of triumph that was about Paul, does not imply that it is something which is not Christ personally with which we are occupied and taken up. We are getting to know Christ purely by a book knowledge, and a Conference knowledge, an address knowledge, an historic knowledge; that really, apart from our Conferences, our books, our studies, our addresses, and all these things; in the secret place, in the secret history back of it all, we are not living on Christ Himself, and out from Christ, and knowing Christ. So much of our Christian life is a matter of teaching, of things about Him.

We recognise the simplicity of that word, but we are quite sure that you understand what we mean, because you have known a very great deal about Christ in doctrine, and then you have discovered something of the Lord Himself, and you have discovered the tremendous difference. There is nothing more uplifting than to come into a personal experience of the Lord, a knowledge of the Lord, in a living way, to have Christ ministered to your heart by the Holy Spirit. Then you discover that there is something there which is more than all your suffering, and which makes suffering worthwhile, and which robs suffering of its deadly sting. It is Christ. Paul lived on Christ: “For me to live is Christ.” Now, what might have been put afterward? For me to live is to be able to go to meetings! For me to live is to be able to have fellowship with other believers! If I am cut off from them I cannot live! If I cannot go to the meetings I cannot live! You can put in anything else: For me to live is to have encouragement in the work, to see results for my labours! You can cover a great deal of ground, if you are going to cover the ground of our demands in order to be triumphant. But Paul looked out, and he saw his work being injured, damaged, outwardly destroyed, his old friends being alienated and led to doubt and suspect him. Oh, he saw enough to take the heart out of any man at the end of such a life, but he did not say: “for me to live is to see my life work standing as a monument, intact; to have all my old friends faithful and around me; to know that my message has had universal acceptance and appreciation!” No! “For me to live is (when all these things, and many others, have gone) Christ!”

Slaves of Righteousness: by Henry Blackaby

And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.      Romans 6:18

Before you were a Christian you were a slave, in bondage to sin. Even when you did not want to sin, you were unable to do otherwise (Rom. 7:15-24). When God saved you, He freed you from sin, but you remained a slave. Now, rather than being bound to sin, you are bound to righteousness. In every area of your life you are obligated to do what honors God.

There are some who believe that when Christ sets them free, they are free to do whatever they want. That is not so. The apostle Paul realized that when he began following Christ he became a “bondservant” of Christ, and his life was no longer his own (Rom. 1:1). Now, rather than being enslaved to sin, he was enslaved to God and His righteousness. When people mistreated him, he had forfeited the right to respond from his natural feelings but was compelled to offer a righteous response. When he was tempted, he was no longer free to succumb to his feelings. Paul could not enter the workplace and act selfishly. He understood that, as a slave of righteousness, he was obligated to live a holy life, honoring his Master.

Righteous living is not an option for a Christian. Nor is it something we must try to do over time. It is an obligation, mandatory for every child of God. Our freedom in Christ is not freedom to do what we want. It is freedom to live righteously, something we could not do when we were in bondage to sin. Now that we are free to live righteously, we must allow the Holy Spirit to produce in us a holy, sanctified life (1 John 3:7).