CHRIST is Central: by Martyn Lloyd Jones

You have hid these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them to babes. Matthew 11:25

How ridiculous it is for people to talk about arriving at God apart from our Lord! God has committed everything to Him. Christ is central; Christ is absolutely essential. He once put it in these words:

“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, except by me” John 14:6.

This is the content of the revelation. He, Jesus of Nazareth, claimed that He was none other than the Son of God who had come to earth, and He said that He had done so because God had sent Him. Men and women had sinned against God and were therefore under His wrath; so God would have to punish their sin, and that would mean death and separation from God. So our Lord came, sent, He said, by God in order to deal with that problem.

So these, He says, are the things that have been “hid . . . from the wise and prudent, and . . . revealed . . . unto babes” (Matthew 11:25). Christ is the Son of God, and He has come into this world not only to teach and to work miracles. The real purpose of His coming was that He might die on the cross. God sent Him, says the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in order to “taste death for every man” (Hebrews 2:9). He said He came to bear the sins of mankind in His own precious body on the cross on Calvary’s Hill.

There He was punished for our sins. That is the message; that is the thing that “babes” have understood. These things are as simple as that, that God in Christ was making a way of salvation through the cross. Therefore what have we to do? We have nothing to do but to believe that and to accept it as a free gift. For God’s way of salvation is that all my sins and failure and shame have been put upon the Son and dealt with and punished.

GOD Is GREAT: by Andrew Murray

For you are great and perform great miracles. You alone are

God. Psalm 86:10

Men and women of science, in studying nature, require years of labor to grasp the magnitude of the universe. Isn't God more glorious and worthy? And shouldn't we take the time to know and adore His greatness?

Our knowledge of God's greatness is so superficial. We do not allow ourselves time to bow before Him.  Therefore we do not come under the deep impression of His incomprehensible majesty and glory.

Meditate on the following text until you are filled with some sense of what a glorious being God is:

"Great is the LORD! He is most worthy of praise! His greatness is beyond discovery!" (Psalm 145:3).

Take time for the meaning of these words to master your heart. Then bow in speechless adoration before God and say,

" O Sovereign LORD!... Nothing is too hard for you!...

You are the great and powerful God, the LORD Aln1ighty. You have all wisdom and do great and mighty miracles"  (Jeremiah  32:17- 19). And hear God's answer: "I am the LORD, the God of all the peoples of the world. Is anything too  hard  for  me?"  (v. 27).

The true comprehension of God's greatness will take time. But if our faith grows strong in the knowledge of what a great and powerful God we have, we will be compelled to worship before this great and mighty God.

Part of the Mystical Body: by CS Lewis

Matthew 16:17-19 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.  And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

The Church will outlive the universe; in it the individual person will outlive the universe. Everything that is joined to the immortal head will share His immortality. We hear little of this from the Christian pulpit today. .... If we do not believe it, let us be honest and relegate the Christian faith to museums. If we do, let us give up the pretense that it makes no difference. For this is the real answer to every excessive claim made by the collective. It is mortal; we shall live forever. There will come a time when every culture, every institution, every nation, the human race, all biological life is extinct and every one of us is still alive. Immortality is promised to us, not to these generalities. It was not for societies or states that Christ died, but for men. In that sense Christianity must seem to secular collectivists to involve an almost frantic assertion of individuality. But then it is not the individual as such who will share Christ's victory over death. We shall share the victory by being in the Victor. A rejection, or in Scripture's strong language, a crucifixion of the natural self is the passport to everlasting life. Nothing that has not died will be resurrected. .... There lies the maddening ambiguity of our faith as it must appear to outsiders. It sets its face relentlessly against our natural individualism; on the other hand, it gives back to those who abandon individualism an eternal possession of their own personal being, even of their bodies. As mere biological entities, each with its separate will to live and to expand, we are apparently of no account; we are cross-fodder. But as organs in the Body of Christ, as stones and pillars in the temple, we are assured of our eternal self-identity and shall live to remember the galaxies as an old tale.

Woe Is Me! by Henry Blackaby

So I said: “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts.” Isaiah 6:5

An exalted view of God brings a clear view of sin and a realistic view of self. A diminished view of God brings a reduced concern for sin and an inflated view of self. Isaiah may have been satisfied with his personal holiness until he saw the Lord in His unspeakable glory. Isaiah’s encounter with holy God made him immediately and keenly aware of his own unholiness and the sinfulness of those around him. It is impossible to worship God and remain unchanged. The best indication that we have truly worshiped is a changed heart.

Have we so conformed ourselves to a sinful world that we are satisfied with unholy living? Have we sunk so far below God’s standard that when someone does live as God intended, we consider that person “superspiritual” If we only compare our personal holiness to those around us, we may be deceived into believing that we are living a consecrated life. Yet when we encounter holy God, our only response can be “Woe is me!”

You will not see those around you trusting Jesus until they recognize a clear difference between you and the rest of the world. God wants to sanctify you as He is holy. When God deals with you, there will be a radical degree of purity about your life that is absolutely different from what the world can produce. The world, including those closest to you, will be convinced you serve a holy God by your consecrated life.

Walking a Tightrope between Two Kingdoms? by AW Tozer

…For I do always those things that please him. John 8:29

We who follow Christ are aware of the fact that we inhabit at once two worlds, the spiritual and the natural.

As children of Adam we do live our lives on earth subject to the limitations of the flesh and the weaknesses and ills to which human nature is heir.

In sharp contrast to this is our life in the Spirit. There we enjoy a higher kind of life; we are children of God. We possess heavenly status and enjoy intimate fellowship with Christ!

This tends to divide our total life into two departments, as we unconsciously recognize two sets of actions, the so-called secular acts and the sacred.

This is, of course, the old “sacred-secular” antithesis and most Christians are caught in its trap. Walking the tightrope between two kingdoms they find no peace in either.

Actually, the sacred-secular dilemma has no foundation in the New Testament. Without doubt a more perfect understanding of Christian truth will deliver us from it.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself is our perfect example and He lived no divided life. God accepted the offering of His total life and made no distinction between act and act. “I do always the things that please Him,” was His brief summary of His own life as related to the Father.

We are called upon to exercise an aggressive faith, in which we offer all our acts to God and believe that He accepts them. Let us believe that God is in all our simple deeds and learn to find Him there!

The Son Frees Us from Legalism: by TA Sparks

Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law. Galatians 5:1

Legalism always crucifies Christ afresh because legalism cuts out the greatest word in Christianity. The word over the door into true Christianity is the word: "Grace." Legalism always wipes out "Grace," and puts in its place "Law." Grace is the chief word in the vocabulary of the Christian. Do you notice that where legalism reaches its fullest expression, it always puts the crucifix in the place of the empty tomb? The badge of the Christian is the empty tomb. That is "Life from the dead." The badge of legalism is a crucifix, "a dead Christ." Legalism always brings death, and the chief thing about Christ is resurrection. It is Life from the dead. This was something that Paul came to see when it pleased God to reveal His Son in him. And he said, "Let me get out of all this legalistic system. Jesus of Nazareth Whom we crucified is alive. He has been revealed alive in my heart."

If we really see the Lord Jesus, we shall be emancipated. Some of us have had that experience. We were in legal systems; our horizon was that system. Then the day came when the Lord opened our eyes to really see the significance of Christ. And that whole system fell away as being all nonsense. No, it is not our business to say, "Come out of this and that, and come into this other." The word "must" or "thou shall" does not belong to this realm. That belongs to the old legal realm. The "must" becomes a spiritual thing, not a legal thing. We could say of Paul, there was a mighty "must" in his spirit. "I have seen the Lord, and I am seeing more and more of what the Lord is, and this is creating in me this great imperative. 'This one thing I do, leaving the things which are behind, I press on toward the mark of the prize of the on-high calling.'" So we do not say, "Change your system." But we do say, "Ask the Lord to reveal His Son in you." Then the great work of emancipation will begin.

Sodom and Gomorrah: by Martyn Lloyd Jones

Matthew 11:23-24 If the mighty works, which have been done in you [Capernaum], had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you.

Sodom and Gomorrah were given an opportunity. Read the story in Genesis 19. But consider what the names of these cities suggest to us; Sodom has become a symbol of everything that is false and ugly in man as the result of the Fall. Sodom and Gomorrah suggest profligacy, born in the very gutters of sin, with marauders walking the streets with eyes that stand out in lasciviousness—those were the characteristics of the life there. Now what our Lord said in Matthew 11 was that the case of Capernaum and Chorazin and Bethsaida was worse than that of those Old Testament cities.

Now this can mean but one thing, which is that the judgment of all men and women is ultimately going to be in terms of their relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. We are not told that the moral life of these cities was the same as that of Sodom and Gomorrah. We can be perfectly certain it was not; there were none of those evil men roaming the streets in their lusts. There was nothing like that at all, and yet they were worse than Sodom and Gomorrah! Why?

Here is the answer: He had lived in Capernaum; He had walked its streets and made it His headquarters. Not only that, it was there that He had worked some of His most mighty and marvelous deeds. It was out of these cities that people like Peter and Andrew and Philip had come, and where our Lord had manifested His glory in a most signal manner. Yet these people went on living as if He had never come at all; that is the source of judgment.

The Horror of the Same Old Thing: by CS Lewis

Hebrews 12:1-2 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, ² fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Screwtape (demon from The Screwtape Letters) reveals a powerful tool for distraction:

What we want, if men become Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call 'Christianity And'. You know—Christianity and the Crisis, Christianity and the New Psychology, Christianity and the New Order, Christianity and Faith Healing, Christianity and Psychical Research, Christianity and Vegetarianism, Christianity and Spelling Reform. If they must be Christians let them at least be Christians with a difference. Substitute for the faith itself some Fashion with a Christian coloring. Work on their horror of the Same Old Thing.

The horror of the Same Old Thing is one of the most valuable passions we have produced in the human heart—an endless source of heresies in religion, folly in counsel, infidelity in marriage, and inconstancy in friendship. The humans live in time, and experience reality successively. To experience much of it, therefore, they must experience many different things; in other words, they must experience change. And since they need change, the Enemy (being a hedonist at heart) has made change pleasurable to them, just as He has made eating pleasurable. But since He does not wish them to make change, any more than eating, an end in itself, He has balanced the love of change in them by a love of permanence. He has contrived to gratify both tastes together in the very world He has made, by that union of change and permanence which we call Rhythm. He gives them the seasons, each season different yet every year the same, so that spring is always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme. He gives them in His Church a spiritual year; they change from a fast to a feast, but it is the same feast as before.

Who’s the Boss? from Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

Isaiah 55:9-11 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Approach this day with awareness of who is Boss. As you make plans for the day, remember that it is I who orchestrate the events of your life. On days when things go smoothly, according to your plans, you may be unaware of My sovereign Presence. On days when your plans are thwarted, be on the lookout for Me! I may be doing something important in your life, something quite different from what you expected. It is essential at such times to stay in communication with Me, accepting My way as better than yours. Don't try to figure out what is happening. Simply trust Me and thank Me in advance for the good that will come out of it all. I know the plans I have for you, and they are good.

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Christ Revealed In Me: by Andrew Murray

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

In all our study and worship of Christ we find our thoughts ever gathering round these five points: The Incarnate Christ, the Crucified Christ, the Enthroned Christ, the Indwelling Christ, and the Christ coming in glory. If the first be the seed, the second is the seed cast into the ground, and the third the seed growing up to the very heaven. Then follows the fruit through the Holy Spirit, Christ dwelling in the heart; and then the gathering of the fruit into the garner when Christ appears.
Paul tells us that it pleased God to reveal His Son in Him. And he gives his testimony to the result of that revelation; 'Christ lives in me, Gal 2:20. Of that life he says that its chief mark is that he is crucified wit Christ. It is this that enables him to say 'I live no longer'; in Christ he had found the death of self. Just as the Cross is the chief characteristic of Christ Himself--'A lamb as it had been slain in the midst of the throne'--so the life of Christ in Paul made him inseparably one with his crucified Lord. So completely was this the case that he could say: 'Far be it from me to glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which I am crucified to the world.'
If you had asked Paul, if Christ so actually lived in him that he no longer lived, what became of his responsibility?, the answer was ready and clear 'I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.' His life was every moment a life of faith of the in the life of Him who had loved him and given Himself so completely that He had undertaken at all times to be the life of His willing disciple.
This was the sum and substance of all Paul's teaching. He asks for intercession that he might speak 'the mystery of Christ'; 'even the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Col 2:2; 1:27). The indwelling Christ was the secret of his life and work, the hope of glory. Let us believe in the abiding presence of Christ as the sure gift to each one who trusts Him fully.

The God of Second Chances: by Henry Blackaby

But go, tell His disciples–and Peter–that He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him, as He said to you.  Mark 16:7

Does God give second chances to those who have failed Him? He certainly did so for Peter. Peter had proudly announced that he was Jesus’ most reliable disciple (Matt. 26:33). Yet Peter not only fled with the other disciples in the moment of crisis, but also blatantly denied he even knew Jesus (Matt. 26:69-75). Peter failed so miserably that he went out into the night and wept bitterly (Luke 22:62).

How compassionate the risen Christ was to Peter! The angel gave the women at the tomb special instructions to let Peter know that He was risen. Jesus took Peter aside to allow him the opportunity to reaffirm his love and commitment (John 21:15-17). The risen Lord also chose Peter as His primary spokesman on the day of Pentecost, when three thousand people were added to the church.

God’s desire is to take you from where you are and bring you to where He wants you to be. When He found His defeated followers hiding together in an upper room, Jesus’ first word was “peace” (John 20:19). Jesus’ first words to you after you fail may also be “peace.” Jesus will find you in despair and bring you peace. Then, He will reorient you to Himself so that you can believe Him and follow Him. Don’t give up if you have failed your Lord. Remember what happened to Peter. God has not yet finished developing you as a disciple.