Christ’s Words Are for the Children of God: by A. W. Tozer

 

Psalm 119:11
 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

The gracious words of Christ are for the sons and daughters of grace, not for the Gentile nations whose chosen symbols are the lion, the eagle, the dragon and the bear.

The notion that the Bible is addressed to everybody has wrought confusion within and without the church. The effort to apply the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount to the unregenerate nations of the world is one example of this. Courts of law and the military powers of the earth are urged to follow the teachings of Christ, an obviously impossible thing for them to do. To quote the words of Christ as guides for policemen, judges and generals is to misunderstand those words completely and to reveal a total lack of understanding of the purposes of divine revelation. The gracious words of Christ are for the sons and daughters of grace, not for the Gentile nations whose chosen symbols are the lion, the eagle, the dragon and the bear.

Not only does God address His words of truth to those who are able to receive them, He actually conceals their meaning from those who are not. The preacher uses stories to make truth clear; our Lord often used them to obscure it. The parables of Christ were the exact opposite of the modern "illustration," which is meant to give light; the parables were "dark sayings" and Christ asserted that He sometimes used them so that His disciples could understand and His enemies could not.  

Matthew 13:10-17
 The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?"
 He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.
 Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.
 This is why I speak to them in parables: "Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.
 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: "'You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
 For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.'
 But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.
 For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

The natural man must know in order to believe;

the spiritual man must believe in order to know.

Christ, the Nearness of God: by Andrew Murray

 

Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh unto you. James 4:8

It has been said that the holiness of God is the union of God’s infinite distance from sinful man with His infinite nearness to man in His redeeming grace. Faith must always seek to realize both the distance and the nearness.

In Christ, God has come near, so very near to man, and now the command comes: if you want to have God come still nearer, you must draw near to Him. The promised nearness of Christ Jesus expressed in the promise, 

“Lo, I am with you alway[s]” (Matthew 28:20),

can only be experienced as we draw near to Him.

This means, first of all, that we must yield ourselves afresh at the beginning of each day for His holy presence to rest upon us. It means a voluntary, intentional, and wholehearted turning away from the world to wait on God to make Himself known to our souls. It means giving time, and all our hearts and strength, to allow Him to reveal Himself. It is impossible to expect the abiding pres­ence of Christ with us throughout the day unless there is a definite daily exercise of strong desire and childlike trust in His word: 

“Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.”

Furthermore, this means the simple, childlike offering of ourselves and our lives in everything, in order to do His will alone and to seek above everything to please Him. His promise is sure: 

“If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him” (John 14:23).

Then comes the quiet assurance of faith, even if there is not much feeling or sense of His presence, that God is with us and that He will watch over us and keep us as we go out to do His will. Moreover, He will strengthen us “in the inner man” (Ephesians 3:16) with divine strength for the work we have to do for Him.

Child of God, let these words come to you with a new meaning each morning: 

“Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.” Wait patiently, and He will speak in divine power: “Lo, I am with you alway[s].”

Sanctification part 2: by Oswald Chambers

 

But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us…sanctification… —1 Corinthians 1:30

The Life Side. The mystery of sanctification is that the perfect qualities of Jesus Christ are imparted as a gift to me, not gradually, but instantly once I enter by faith into the realization that He “became for [me]…sanctification….” Sanctification means nothing less than the holiness of Jesus becoming mine and being exhibited in my life.

The most wonderful secret of living a holy life does not lie in imitating Jesus, but in letting the perfect qualities of Jesus exhibit themselves in my human flesh. Sanctification is “Christ in you…” (Colossians 1:27). It is His wonderful life that is imparted to me in sanctification— imparted by faith as a sovereign gift of God’s grace. Am I willing for God to make sanctification as real in me as it is in His Word?

Sanctification means the impartation of the holy qualities of Jesus Christ to me. It is the gift of His patience, love, holiness, faith, purity, and godliness that is exhibited in and through every sanctified soul. Sanctification is not drawing from Jesus the power to be holy— it is drawing from Jesus the very holiness that was exhibited in Him, and that He now exhibits in me. Sanctification is an impartation, not an imitation. Imitation is something altogether different. The perfection of everything is in Jesus Christ, and the mystery of sanctification is that all the perfect qualities of Jesus are at my disposal. Consequently, I slowly but surely begin to live a life of inexpressible order, soundness, and holiness— “…kept by the power of God…” (1 Peter 1:5).

Sanctification part 1: by Oswald Chambers

 

This is the will of God, your sanctification… —1 Thessalonians 4:3

The Death Side. In sanctification God has to deal with us on the death side as well as on the life side. Sanctification requires our coming to the place of death, but many of us spend so much time there that we become morbid. There is always a tremendous battle before sanctification is realized— something within us pushing with resentment against the demands of Christ. When the Holy Spirit begins to show us what sanctification means, the struggle starts immediately. Jesus said, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate…his own life…he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26).

In the process of sanctification, the Spirit of God will strip me down until there is nothing left but myself, and that is the place of death. Am I willing to be myself and nothing more? Am I willing to have no friends, no father, no brother, and no self-interest— simply to be ready for death? That is the condition required for sanctification. No wonder Jesus said, “I did not come to bring peace but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). This is where the battle comes, and where so many of us falter. We refuse to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ on this point. We say, “But this is so strict. Surely He does not require that of me.” Our Lord is strict, and He does require that of us.

Am I willing to reduce myself down to simply “me”? Am I determined enough to strip myself of all that my friends think of me, and all that I think of myself? Am I willing and determined to hand over my simple naked self to God? Once I am, He will immediately sanctify me completely, and my life will be free from being determined and persistent toward anything except God

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.

When I pray, “Lord, show me what sanctification means for me,” He will show me. It means being made one with Jesus. Sanctification is not something Jesus puts in me— it is Himself in me

1 Corinthians 1:30
 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God--that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.

The Power of Faith: by Andrew Murray

 

All things are possible to him that believeth.
Mark 9:23

Scripture teaches us that there is not one truth on which Christ insisted more frequently, both with His disciples and with those who came seeking His help, than the absolute necessity of faith and its unlimited possibilities. And experience has taught us that there is nothing in which we come so short as the simple and absolute trust in God to literally fulfill in us all that He has promised. A life in the abiding presence must be a life of unceasing faith.

Think for a moment of the marks of a true faith. First of all, faith depends on God to do all that He has promised. A person with true faith does not rest content with taking some of the promises; he seeks nothing less than to claim every promise that God has made in its largest and fullest meaning. Under a sense of the nothingness and utter powerlessness of his faith, he trusts the power of an almighty God to work wonders in the heart in which He dwells.

The person of faith does this with his whole heart and all his strength. His faith yields to the promise that God will take full possession, and throughout the day and night will inspire his hope and expectation. By faith, he recognizes the inseparable link that unites God’s promises and His commands, and he yields to do the one as fully as he trusts the other.

In the pursuit of the power that such a life of faith can give, there is often a faith that seeks and strives but cannot grasp. This is followed by a faith that begins to see that waiting on God is needed, and quietly rests in the hope of what God will do. This should lead to an act of decision, in which the soul takes God at His word and claims the fulfillment of the promise and then looks to Him, even in utter darkness, to perform what He has spoken.

The life of faith to which the abiding presence will be granted must have complete mastery of the whole being. It is such a wonderful privilege—Christ’s presence actually keeping us all day long in its blessedness—that it needs a parting with much that was formerly thought lawful, if He is indeed to be the Lord of all, the blessed Friend who is our companion, the joy and light of our lives. By such faith, we will be able to claim and experience the words of the Master: 

And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

Matthew 28:20

SELF-Pity... from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

 

Psalm 40:2-3
 He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.
 He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD.

Self-pity is a slimy, bottomless pit. Once you fall in, you tend to go deeper and deeper into the mire. As you slide down those slippery walls, you are well on your way to depression, and the darkness is profound.
     Your only hope is to look up and see the Light of My Presence shining down on you. Though the Light looks dim from your perspective, deep in the pit, those rays of hope can reach you at any depth. While you focus on Me in trust, you rise ever so slowly out of the abyss of despair. Finally, you can reach up and grasp My hand. I will pull you out into the Light again. I will gently cleanse you, washing off the clinging mire. I will cover you with My righteousness and walk with you down the path of Life.

Psalm 42:5
 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and

Psalm 147:10-11
 His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse,

nor his delight in the legs of a man;
 the LORD delights in those who fear him,

who put their hope in his unfailing love.

The Price of the Vision: by Oswald Chambers

 

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord… —Isaiah 6:1

Our soul’s personal history with God is often an account of the death of our heroes. Over and over again God has to remove our friends to put Himself in their place, and that is when we falter, fail, and become discouraged. Let me think about this personally— when the person died who represented for me all that God was, did I give up on everything in life? Did I become ill or disheartened? Or did I do as Isaiah did and see the Lord?

My vision of God is dependent upon the condition of my character. My character determines whether or not truth can even be revealed to me. Before I can say, “I saw the Lord,” there must be something in my character that conforms to the likeness of God. Until I am born again and really begin to see the kingdom of God, I only see from the perspective of my own biases. What I need is God’s surgical procedure— His use of external circumstances to bring about internal purification.

Your priorities must be God first, God second, and God third, until your life is continually face to face with God and no one else is taken into account whatsoever. Your prayer will then be, “In all the world there is no one but You, dear God; there is no one but You.”

Keep paying the price. Let God see that you are willing to live up to the vision.

Godly Sorrow: by Henry Blackaby

 

For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.    2 Corinthians 7:10

There is a difference between worldly sorrow and godly sorrow, though both are deeply felt. You can feel genuine sorrow over something you have done. Your mind can become consumed with your failure and offense against God and others. Judas felt this kind of sorrow. He betrayed the Son of God for thirty pieces of silver, the standard price of a slave. Yet his sorrow did not lead him to repent and to seek restoration with his fellow disciples, but rather to a lonely field where, in his anguish, he took his own life (Matt. 27:3-5). Judas carried his sorrow to his grave.

How different Peter’s sorrow was! Peter, too, failed Jesus on the night of His crucifixion. Peter also went out and wept bitterly (Luke 22:62). Yet Peter returned to Jesus and reaffirmed his love for Him (John 21:15-17). Peter was not only remorseful, he was also repentant. Peter’s life changed. There is no record of Peter ever denying his Lord again, even when he was persecuted and threatened with death. Peter repented, turned his life around, and never committed that sin again.

Don’t allow mere unhappiness over what you have done to rob you of genuine repentance. You can blame yourself and be angry with yourself for the sins you have committed, but that is not repentance. Allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the gravity of your sins. Ask the Spirit to clearly show you how God views your character. When you see your sin from God’s perspective, you will experience godly sorrow.

Christ is 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 recognize 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 labors! 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!”

Reality In Christ part 9: by CS Lewis

 

Colossians 1:26–27

the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations,

but is now disclosed to the saints.

To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery,

which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

I have been talking as if it were we who did everything. In reality, of course, it is God who does everything. We, at most, allow it to be done to us. In a sense you might even say it is God who does the pretending. The Three-Personal God, so to speak, sees before Him in fact a self-centered, greedy, grumbling, rebellious human animal. But He says `Let us pretend that this is not a mere creature, but our Son. It is like Christ in so far as it is a Man, for He became Man. Let us pretend that it is also like Him in Spirit. Let us treat it as if it were what in fact it is not. Let us pretend in order to make the pretense into a reality.' God looks at you as if you were a little Christ: Christ stands beside you to turn you into one. I daresay this idea of a divine make-believe sounds rather strange at first. But, is it so strange really? Is not that how the higher thing always raises the lower? A mother teaches her baby to talk by talking to it as if it understood long before it really does. We treat our dogs as if they were 'almost human': that is why they really become `almost human' in the end.

Reality In Christ part 8: by CS Lewis

Colossians 1:26–27

the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations,

but is now disclosed to the saints.

To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery,

which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Apparently the rats of resentment and vindictiveness are always there in the cellar of my soul. Now that cellar is out of reach of my conscious will. I can to some extent control my acts: I have no direct control over my temperament. And if (as I said before) what we are matters even more than what we do - if, indeed, what we do matters chiefly as evidence of what we are - then it follows that the change which I most need to undergo is a change that my own direct, voluntary efforts cannot bring about. And this applies to my good actions too. How many of them were done for the right motive? How many for fear of public opinion, or a desire to show off? How many from a sort of obstinacy or sense of superiority which, in different circumstances, might equally have led to some very bad act? But I cannot, by direct moral effort, give myself new motives. After the first few steps in the Christian life we realize that everything which really needs to be done in our souls can be done only by God. And that brings us to something which has been very misleading in my language up to now. 

Reality In Christ part 7: by CS Lewis

Colossians 1:26–27

the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations,

but is now disclosed to the saints.

To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery,

which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Put right out of your head the idea that these are only fancy ways of saying that Christians are to read what Christ said and try to carry it out - as a man may read what Plato or Marx said and try to carry it out. They mean something much more than that. They mean that a real Person, Christ, here and now, in that very room where you are saying your prayers, is doing things to you. It is not a question of a good man who died two thousand years ago. It is a living Man, still as much a man as you, and still as much God as He was when He created the world, really coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has. At first, only for moments. Then for longer periods. Finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity. And soon we make two other discoveries.

We begin to notice, besides our particular sinful acts, our sinfulness; begin to be alarmed not only about what we do, but about what we are. This may sound rather difficult, so I will try to make it clear from my own case. When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself. Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated. On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light. 

Reality In Christ part 6: by CS Lewis

 

Colossians 1:26–27

the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations,

but is now disclosed to the saints.

To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery,

which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

That is why the Church, the whole body of Christians showing Him to one another, is so important. You might say that when two Christians are following Christ together there is not twice as much Christianity as when they are apart, but sixteen times as much.

But do not forget this. At first it is natural for a baby to take its mother's milk without knowing its mother. It is equally natural for us to see the man who helps us without seeing Christ behind him. But we must not remain babies. We must go on to recognize the real Giver. It is madness not to. Because, if we do not, we shall be relying on human beings. And that is going to let us down. The best of them will make mistakes; all of them will die. We must be thankful to all the people who have helped us, we must honor them and love them. But never, never pin your whole faith on any human being: not if he is the best and wisest in the whole world. There are lots of nice things you can do with sand: but do not try building a house on it.

And now we begin to see what it is that the New Testament is always talking about. It talks about Christians `being born again'; it talks about them 'putting on Christ'; about Christ 'being formed in us'; about our coming to 'have the mind of Christ'.

Reality In Christ part 5: by CS Lewis

 

Colossians 1:26–27

the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations,

but is now disclosed to the saints.

To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery,

which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Some of you may feel that this is very unlike your own experience. You may say `I've never had the sense of being helped by an invisible Christ, but I often have been helped by other human beings.' That is rather like the woman in the first war who said that if there were a bread shortage it would not bother her house because they always ate toast. If there is no bread there will be no toast. If there were no help from Christ, there would be no help from other human beings. He works on us in all sorts of ways: not only through what we think is our 'religious life'. He works through Nature, through our own bodies, through books, sometimes through experiences which seem (at the time) anti-Christian. When a young man who has been going to church in a routine way honestly realises that he does not believe in Christianity and stops going-provided he does it for honesty's sake and not just to annoy his parents-the spirit of Christ is probably nearer to him then than it ever was before. But above all, He works on us through each other.

Men are mirrors, or 'carriers' of Christ to other men. Sometimes unconscious carriers. This 'good infection' can be carried by those who have not got it themselves. People who were not Christians themselves helped me to Christianity. But usually it is those who know Him that bring Him to others.

Reality In Christ part 4: by CS Lewis

 

Colossians 1:26–27

the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations,

but is now disclosed to the saints.

To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery,

which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

You see what is happening. The Christ Himself, the Son of God who is man (just like you) and God (just like His Father) is actually at your side and is already at that moment beginning to turn your pretense into a reality. This is not merely a fancy way of saying that your conscience is telling you what to do. If you simply ask your conscience, you get one result; if you remember that you are dressing up as Christ, you get a different one. There are lots of things which your conscience might not call definitely wrong (specially things in your mind) but which you will see at once you cannot go on doing if you are seriously trying to be like Christ. For you are no longer thinking simply about right and wrong; you are trying to catch the good infection from a Person. It is more like painting a portrait than like obeying a set of rules. And the odd thing is that while in one way it is much harder than keeping rules, in another way it is far easier.

The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself. He is beginning, so to speak, to 'inject' His kind of life and thought, His Zoe, into you; beginning to turn the tin soldier into a live man. The part of you that does not like it is the part that is still tin.