TRUTH vs lies: by TA Sparks

 

Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the One who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him. John 7:18

You and I are going to face God sometime. We are going to come face to face with God literally in eternity and then the question is going to arise, has God at any point failed us? Shall we be able, on any detail, to say, "Lord, You failed me, You were not true to Your word"? Such a position is unthinkable, that ever any being should be able to lay a charge like that at God's door, to have any question as to God's truth, reality, and faithfulness. The Holy Spirit has been sent as the Spirit of truth to guide us into all the truth, so that there shall be no shadow whatever between God and ourselves as to His absolute faithfulness, His truth to Himself, and to all His word. The Holy Spirit has come for that. If that is true, then the Holy Spirit will deal with all disciples in the School of Christ to undercut everything that is not true, that is not genuine, to make every such disciple to stand upon a foundation which can abide before God in the day of His absolute and utter vindication. But in order that this may be so, you and I, under the Holy Spirit's teaching, have to be dealt with very faithfully, and have to come to the place where we are perfectly adjustable before God, where there is all responsiveness to the Holy Spirit, and nothing in us that resists or refuses the Holy Spirit, but where we are perfectly open and ready for the biggest consequence of the Holy Spirit putting His finger upon anything in our lives needing to be dealt with and adjusted. He is here for that.

The alternative to such a work of the Holy Spirit being allowed to be done in us is that we shall find ourselves in a false position, and it is far, far too costly to find ourselves in a false position, even though it only be on certain points. This is a false world we are living in, a world that is carried on upon lies. The whole constitution of this world is a lie, and it is in the very nature of man, though multitudes do not know it, but think they are true. They are trying to build the world on a false foundation. The Kingdom of God is altogether other. It is built upon Jesus Christ, the Truth.

The Mystery of Thankfulness by Sarah Young: JESUS Calling

 

Ephesians 5:20
giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ
Psalm 118:1
Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    for his steadfast love endures forever!

Thankfulness takes the sting out of adversity. That is why I have instructed you to give thanks for everything. There is an element of mystery in this transaction: You give Me thanks (regardless of your feelings), and I give you joy (regardless of your circumstances). This is a spiritual act of obedience--at times, blind obedience. To people who don't know Me intimately, it can seem irrational and even impossible to thank Me for heartrending hardships. Nonetheless, those who obey Me in this way are invariably blessed, even though difficulties may remain.
     Thankfulness opens your heart to My Presence and your mind to My thoughts. You may still be in the same place, with the same set of circumstances, but it is as if a light has been switched on, enabling you to see from My perspective. It is this Light of My Presence that removes the sting from adversity.

Psalm 89:15
Blessed are the people who know the festal shout,
    who walk, O Lord, in the light of your face,

A Thankful Heart Cannot Also Be Cynical: by AW Tozer

 

Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians 5:20

Let me recommend the cultivation of the habit of thankfulness as an effective cure for the cynical, sour habits of faultfinding among Christian believers.

Thanksgiving has great curative power. The heart that is constantly overflowing with gratitude will be safe from those attacks of resentfulness and gloom that bother so many religious persons. A thankful heart cannot be cynical!

Please be aware that I am not recommending any of the “applied psychology” nostrums so popular in liberal circles. We who have been introduced to God through the miracle of the new birth realize that there is good scriptural authority for the cultivation of gratitude as a cure for spiritual sourness. Further, experience teaches us that it works!

We should never take any blessing for granted, but accept everything as a gift from the Father of Lights. We should write on a tablet, one by one, the things for which we are grateful to God and to our fellow men.

Personally, I have gotten great help from the practice of talking over with God the many kindnesses I have received. I like to begin with thanking Him for His thoughts of me back to creation; for giving His Son to die for me when I was still a sinner; for giving the Bible and His blessed Spirit who inwardly gives us understanding of it. I thank Him for my parents, teachers, statesmen, patriots.

I am grateful to God for all of these and more—and I shall not let God forget that I am!

Give Thanks ALWAYS: from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

 

Luke 24:36
As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!”
Matthew 28:20
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

Thank Me throughout this day for My Presence and My Peace. These are gifts of supernatural proportions. Ever since the resurrection, I have comforted My followers with these messages: Peace be with you, and I will with you always. Listen as I offer you My Peace and Presence in full measure. The best way to receive these glorious gifts is to thank Me for them.
     It is impossible to spend too much time thanking and praising Me. I created you first and foremost to glorify Me. Thanksgiving and praise put you in proper relationship with Me, opening the way for My riches to flow into you. As you thank Me for My Presence and Peace, you appropriate My richest parts.

Hebrews 13:15
Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.

For His Counsel: by Andrew Murray

 

They soon forgot His works; they waited not for His counsel.
—Psalm 106:13

This refers to God’s people in the wilderness. He had redeemed them and was prepared to supply their every need. But, when the time of need came, “they waited not for His counsel.” They did not think that the almighty God was their Leader and Provider. They did not ask what His plans might be. They simply thought the thoughts of their own hearts, and provoked God by their unbelief.

How this has been the sin of God’s people in all ages! In the land of Canaan, in the days of Joshua, the only three failures of which we read were owing to this one sin. In going up against Ai, in making a covenant with the Gibeonites, in settling down without going up to possess the whole land, “they waited not for His counsel.” And so, even the advanced believer is in danger from this most subtle of temptations: taking God’s Word, thinking his own thoughts of it, and not waiting for His counsel. Let us especially regard it not only as a danger to which the individual is exposed, but as one against which God’s people, in their collective capacity, need to be on their guard.

Our whole relationship to God is ruled in this, that His will is to be done in us and by us. He has promised to make known His will to us by His Spirit. Our position is to be waiting for His counsel as the only guide of our thoughts and actions. In our church worship, in our meetings, in our gatherings as committees or helpers in any part of the work for God, our first object must always be to ascertain the mind of God. God always works according to the counsel of His will. The more that counsel of His will is sought, found and honored, the more surely will God do His work for us and through us.

The great danger is that in our consciousness of having our Bible, in our past experience of God’s leading, in our sound creed and our honest wish to do God’s will, we trust in these and do not realize that with every step we need and may have a heavenly guidance. There may be elements of God’s will, application of God’s Word, experience of the leading of God, manifestations of the power of His Spirit, of which we know nothing as yet. God is willing to open up these to souls who are willing, in patience, to wait for Him to make it known.

See Yourself as God Sees You: from JESUS Calling by Sarah Young

 

Psalm 34:5

Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed.

2 Corinthians 3:18

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Bask in the luxury of being fully understood and unconditionally loved. Dare to see yourself as I see you: radiant in My righteousness, cleansed by My blood. I view you as the one I created you to be, the one you will be in actuality when heaven becomes your home. It is My Life within you that is changing you from glory to glory. Rejoice in this mysterious miracle! Thank Me continually for the amazing gift of My Spirit within you.
     Try to depend on the help of the Spirit as you go through this day of life. Pause briefly from time to time so you can consult with this Holy One inside you. He will not force you to do His bidding, but He will guide you as you give Him space in your life. Walk along this wondrous way of collaboration with My Spirit.

2 Corinthians 5:21

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Galatians 5:25

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

For More Than We Know: by Andrew Murray

 

And now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in Thee. Deliver me from all my transgressions.
—Psalm 39:7-8

There may be times when we feel as if we do not know what we are waiting for. There may be other times when we think we know, and when it would be good for us to realize that we do not know. God is able to do for us exceeding abundantly above what we ask or think. (See Ephesians 3:20.) And, we are in danger of limiting Him when we confine our prayers to our own thoughts of them. It is great at times to say, “And now, Lord, what wait I for?” I scarcely know; this only I can say, “My hope is in Thee.”

How we see this limiting of God in the case of Israel! When Moses promised them meat in the wilderness, they doubted, saying, “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?…He smote the rock, that the waters gushed out…can He give bread also? Can He provide flesh for his people?” (Psalm 78:19–20). If they had been asked whether God could provide streams in the desert, they would have answered, Yes. But, when they thought of God doing something new, they limited Him. Their expectation could not rise beyond their experience, or their own thoughts of what was possible.

Even so, we may be limiting God by our conceptions of what He is able to do. Let us beware of limiting God in our prayers. Let us, therefore, cultivate the habit of waiting on God, not only for what we think we need, but for all that His grace and power are ready to do for us.

In every true prayer, there are two hearts in exercise. The one is your heart, with its little, dark, human thoughts of what you need and what God can do. The other is God’s heart, with its infinite purposes of blessing. To which of these two ought the larger place be given in your approach to Him? Undoubtedly, to the heart of God. But, how little this is done. This is what waiting on God is meant to teach you. Confess how little you understand what God is willing to do for you, and say each time as you pray, “And now, Lord, what wait I for?” My heart does not know. “My hope is in Thee.” Wait on God to do more for you than you can ask or think.

Wild Rumors: by CS Lewis

 

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10

What man, in his natural condition, has not got, is Spiritual life—the higher and different sort of life that exists in God. We use the same word life for both: but if you thought that both must therefore be the same sort of thing, that would be like thinking that the 'greatness' of space and the 'greatness' of God were the same sort of greatness. In reality, the difference between Biological life and Spiritual life is so important that I am going to give them two distinct names. The Biological sort which comes to us through Nature, and which (like everything else in Nature) is always tending to run down and decay so that it can only be kept up by incessant subsidies from Nature in the form of air, water, food, etc., is Bios. The Spiritual life which is in God from all eternity, and which made the whole natural universe, is Zoe. Bios has, to be sure, a certain shadowy or symbolic resemblance to Zoe: but only the sort of resemblance there is between a photo and a place, or a statue and a man. A man who changed from having Bios to having Zoe would have gone through as big a change as a statue which changed from being a carved stone to being a real man.

And that is precisely what Christianity is about. This world is a great sculptor's shop. We are the statues and there is a rumour going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.

NEW Strength: by Henry Blackaby

 

But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.       Isaiah 40:31

At times you may feel so worn out and stressed that you are not sure you can take another step. You may seem to spend all your time running from crisis to crisis and to be constantly giving your time and energy to others. Your Lord wants to renew your strength and enable you to enjoy the abundant life He intends for you. The key is to wait upon Him to do so.

Our generation does not enjoy waiting. We are harried by all the commitments we have made and the many responsibilities we hold. We rush through our lives without stopping to evaluate our activities. Sometimes in our haste to get on with our work, we race ahead of God. Part of God’s restorative process is to slow us down and make us listen to Him. As we wait on Him, God will remind us of our utter dependence upon His strength. When we slow down and seek His will, He will reveal His plans.

Biblically, waiting on the Lord is never passive; it is always active. Waiting requires us to cease our own pursuits and give God our complete attention. We may have to give up some of the activities we have allowed to inundate our lives. We may need to take an entire day to sit quietly before the Lord. If we ask Him, God will show us the resources He has provided to help with the work we have been attempting on our own. God may address feelings of guilt that have motivated us to do things that He has not asked us to do.

Jesus carried more responsibility than you do. More people needed Him than will ever need you. Yet He was never overwhelmed or inadequate for the task. Now Christ offers to guide you so that you will fulfill your heavenly Father’s will and gain the strength necessary for each day

Matthew 11:28

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

The Authority of Truth: by Oswald Chambers

 

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. —James 4:8

It is essential that you give people the opportunity to act on the truth of God. The responsibility must be left with the individual— you cannot act for him. It must be his own deliberate act, but the evangelical message should always lead him to action. Refusing to act leaves a person paralyzed, exactly where he was previously. But once he acts, he is never the same. It is the apparent folly of the truth that stands in the way of hundreds who have been convicted by the Spirit of God. Once I press myself into action, I immediately begin to live. Anything less is merely existing. The moments I truly live are the moments when I act with my entire will.

When a truth of God is brought home to your soul, never allow it to pass without acting on it internally in your will, not necessarily externally in your physical life. Record it with ink and with blood— work it into your life. The weakest saint who transacts business with Jesus Christ is liberated the second he acts and God’s almighty power is available on his behalf. We come up to the truth of God, confess we are wrong, but go back again. Then we approach it again and turn back, until we finally learn we have no business going back. When we are confronted with such a word of truth from our redeeming Lord, we must move directly to transact business with Him. “Come to Me…” (Matthew 11:28). His word come means “to act.” Yet the last thing we want to do is come. But everyone who does come knows that, at that very moment, the supernatural power of the life of God invades him. The dominating power of the world, the flesh, and the devil is now paralyzed; not by your act, but because your act has joined you to God and tapped you in to His redemptive power.

Moving Forward: by TA Sparks

 

Let us go on and get past the elementary stage in the teachings and doctrine of Christ, advancing steadily toward the completeness and perfection that belong to spiritual maturity. Hebrews 6:1

Do not let us stay with our beginnings, but let us go on. Now what does going on mean? Well, of course, for us it is a going on in a spiritual way. We are in a new dispensation, and this is a spiritual dispensation. But there is one thing that I want to suggest to you as meaning our going on. It is true of Israel in the wilderness, although it was an earthly thing with them, the same thing is true with us in a spiritual way. If you look again into this letter to the Hebrews, you will discover this, that going on spiritually is a matter of putting into practice what the Lord has said. Do you realize that we never go on by being told things by the Lord? Now that sounds like a very strange thing to say. The Lord can speak to us Himself. We may have His word, we may have all the teaching that He can give us, we may know all the truth of God, we may have had it all for many years, and yet, although we may have had it all, we may be standing still. No, it is not a matter of knowing what the Lord has said. It is a matter of putting that into practice. Doing what the Lord has said, that is the only way of going on.

How are we to go on then? We are to sit down quietly and say, "Now what has the Lord said to us?" Perhaps it may be over these past four or five weeks, or it may be over years past.... Now through the reading of His Word you may have a great mountain of truth, and yet you may not be going on, and the Lord may not be with us, as He wants to be with us. The Presence of the Lord is power, the Presence of the Lord is Life, the Presence of the Lord is holiness. Oh, the Presence of the Lord means much, but it is all very practical. The Lord does not believe in theory. He does not believe even in textbooks. The Lord is a very practical Lord. And His attitude toward us is this: Look here, I have said this to you, you have heard it. Perhaps you have rejoiced in it. Perhaps you have believed it to be true. Perhaps you thank the Lord for it. But what have we done about it?