I Must Speak: by John Owen

Ephesians 4:15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.

Consider, then, that of our Savior to Peter in Luke 22:32, “When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers” which containing nothing but an application of one of the prime dictates of the law of nature, cannot, ought not, to be restrained unto men of any peculiar calling as such. Not to multiply many of this kind (whereof in the Scripture is plenty), add only that of St James, James 5:19, 20, “My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back,  remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.” etc. From these and the like places it appears to me, that, —

There is a general obligation on all Christians to promote the conversion and instruction of sinners, and men erring from the right way.

Again, consider that of our Savior, Matt. 5:15, “Men do not light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it gives light unto all that are in the house;” to which add that of the apostle, “If anything be revealed to another that sits by, let the first hold his peace,” 1 Cor. 14:30 which words, although primarily they intend extraordinary immediate revelations, yet I see no reason why in their equity and extent they may not be directory for the use of things revealed unto us by Scripture light. At least, we may deduce from them, by the way of analogy, that, — Whatsoever necessary truth is revealed to any out of the word of God, not before known, he ought to have an uncontradicted liberty of declaring that truth, provided that he use such regulated ways for that his declaration as the church wherein he lives (if a right church) cloth allow.

Amos 3:8 says, “The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord God hath spoken, who can but prophesy?” and Jer. 20: 9, “Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay;” with the answer of Peter and John to the rulers of the Jews, Acts 4:19, 20, “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye; for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.”

From this it appears, that, — Truth revealed unto any carries along with it an unmovable persuasion of conscience (which is powerfully obligatory) that it ought to be published and spoken to others.

That none may take advantage of this to introduce confusion into our congregations.

Is It Unlikely? By Oswald Chambers

Joab . . . had conspired with Adonijah though not with Absalom. — 1 Kings 2:28

Joab passed the big test: he remained loyal and true to David for nearly four decades, and he resisted the fascinating and ambitious Absalom. It might seem unlikely that a man of such proven integrity would ever turn his back on God. And yet, when David was on his deathbed, Joab conspired to help the scheming Adonijah seize the throne (1 Kings 1:1–7).

Always remain alert to the fact that where one has turned back, any may turn back. “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind” (1 Corinthians 10:13). Have you recently passed a big test of loyalty to God? Now is the time to pay attention to the details. “But,” you protest, “it’s not at all likely that I’ll turn back now—not after everything I’ve been through.” Don’t try to predict how temptation will come; peril lies in the least likely thing. It is in the aftermath of a great spiritual transaction that the sphere of the small and seemingly insignificant begins to exert itself. It doesn’t become dominant, but if we don’t remember that it is there, if we don’t remember to warn ourselves about it, it will trip us up.

If you’ve remained true to God under great and intense trials, now is the time to watch out for the undertow. Don’t become morbidly introspective, looking toward the future with dread. Just remain alert, keeping your memory bright before God. Unguarded strength is double weakness. The Bible characters fell on their strong points, never on their weak ones. “Shielded by God’s power” (1 Peter 1:5): that is the only safety.

It Is Modern Man Himself Who Is the Dreamer: by AW Tozer

1 Thessalonians 5:5-6 You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.  So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober.

We of the Christian faith need not go on the defensive, for it is the modern man of the world who is the dreamer, not the Christian believer!

The sinner can never be quite himself. All his life he must pretend. He must act as if he were never going to die, and yet he knows too well that he is. He must act as if he had not sinned, when in his deep heart he knows very well that he has. He must act unconcerned about God and judgment and the future life, and all the time his heart is deeply disturbed about his precarious condition. He must keep up a front of nonchalance while shrinking from facts and wincing under the lash of conscience. All his adult life he must dodge and hide and conceal. When he finally drops the act he either loses his mind or tries suicide.

If realism is the recognition of things as they actually are, the Christian is of all persons the most realistic. He of all intelligent thinkers is the one most concerned with reality. He pares things down to their stark essentials and squeezes out of his mind everything that inflates his thinking. He demands to know the whole truth about God, sin, life, death, moral accountability and the world to come. He wants to know the worst about himself in order that he may do something about it. He takes into account the undeniable fact that he has sinned. He recognizes the shortness of time and the certainty of death. These he does not try to avoid or alter to his own liking. They are facts and he faces them full on.

The believer is a realist—his expectations are valid and his faith well grounded!

IN CHRIST: by ML Jones

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 1 Corinthians 15:22

Paul draws a contrast between the union of the unbeliever with Adam and the union of the believer with Christ. This is the great argument in Romans 5, which is repeated in 1 Corinthians 15:22, 49. In Romans 5 the whole argument is that death passed on to all people because of Adam. Why? Because of their relationship to Adam; that is the whole doctrine of original sin. We are all condemned in Adam because of Adam’s sin. He was our representative, he was our federal head; and not only that, we are bound to him, we were in the loins of Adam when he fell. In Adam all died.

In Christ all shall be made alive again. That is it. The relationship of the believer to Christ is the same sort of union and relationship as that old relationship of the whole of Adam’s posterity to Adam. We are all born in Adam, and we are related, we are joined in that way. Yes, but being born again, we are in the same sort of relationship to Christ.

Regeneration and union must never be separated. You cannot be born again without being in Christ; you are born again because you are in Christ. The moment you are in Him you are born again, and you cannot regard your regeneration as something separate and think that union is something you will eventually arrive at. Not at all! Regeneration and union must always be considered together and at the same time because the one depends upon the other and leads to the other; they are mutually self-supporting.

There is nothing that so strengthens my faith and fills me with a longing to be pure as He is pure and to live even as He did in this world as the realization of what I am and who I am because I am a Christian. I am a child of God, and I am in Christ.

His Daily Provision: by Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

James 1:2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
2 Corinthians 12:9 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

     When some basic need is lacking--time, energy, money--consider yourself blessed. Your very lack is an opportunity to latch onto Me in unashamed dependence. When you begin a day with inadequate resources, you must concentrate your efforts on the present moment. This is where you are meant to live--in the present; it is the place where I always await you. Awareness of your inadequacy is a rich blessing, training you to rely wholeheartedly on Me.
     The truth is that self-sufficiency is a myth perpetuated by pride and temporary success. Health and wealth can disappear instantly, as can life itself. Rejoice in your insufficiency, knowing that My Power is made perfect in weakness. 

Matthew 6:28-30  “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?

Deception from Within: by TA Sparks

You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. Hebrews 3:13

We talk about our motives, and we say, "Our motive was right!" We talk about our conscientiousness, we talk about our intentions; but you and I do not know what lies behind what we call our good motives. There is a deceitfulness about this human heart that defies our greatest attempt at tracking it down, and we shall never do it.... Here is where the church has become such a confused thing, and such a tragedy; for the prevailing idea is that if you give yourself over to God He will take you up and use you: "Bring over your humanity and consecrate it to the Lord! Consecrate your old man to the Lord, and go out and serve the Lord, with a consecrated old man!" it is utterly contrary to the teaching of God’s Word. The result is that in the work of God all the world over you have people serving the Lord in the energy of the flesh, in the reasoning of the flesh, in the emotions of the flesh. Meet them, counter them, frustrate them, and you meet something evil; you meet with a fight, a division, a schism, a scattering, and wholesale resignations.

Do you see what a havoc the enemy can make in that which is called the church, because people with best intentions and purest motives have come to serve the Lord with all their own intelligence, their own strength, and their own emotion? They have not seen that God has closed the door to the old creation, and that God’s attitude is this: "The only thing that can satisfy Me, that can serve Me is My Son, and if you are going to come into My service, He has to be the energy of everything, the Life of everything, the Wisdom of everything!" He has to be the governing, ruling reality in everything. It is not to be a matter of your impulses, but of His urgings and leadings by the Holy Spirit; not your sitting down to reason out what it would be good to do for the Lord, what ought to be done, what needs to be done, but what He shows you, nothing more.... You and I must not bring over our old creation and give it to God, expecting God to use it. God begins with birth. The church of the firstborn is something quite new, and it comes out of a death. That death is the death of an old creation, and the resurrection is of something that is not the resuscitation of an old creation, but the resurrection of something wholly of God.

Renewed and Transformed: by Andrew Murray

For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. 2 Corinthians 4:16

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2

It is not an easy thing to be a mature Christian. It cost the Son His life. It is God’s part to create a new man in every believer and to maintain that life with the daily care of the Holy Spirit.

When the new man is put on, it is our responsibility to see that the old man is put off. All the attitudes, habits, and pleasures of our own nature are to be put away. If a man is to come after Christ, he must deny himself and take up his cross. (See Matthew 16:24.) He must forsake all and follow Christ in the path in which He walked. The Christian must cast away not only all sin, but everything that may cause him to sin. He is to hate his own life, to lose it, if he is to live in the power of eternal life. It is a serious thing, far more serious than most people think, to be a true Christian.

The full experience of the life of Christ in our persons and our work for others depends on our fellowship in His suffering and death. There can be no renewal of the inward man without the sacrifice, the perishing of the outward man.

Only as the spirit of this world is recognized, renounced, and cast out can the Spirit enter in. Then the Holy Spirit can do His blessed work of renewing and transforming. The world and whatever is of the worldly spirit must be given up. Whatever is of self must be lost. This daily renewal of the inward man is very costly if we are trying to do it in our own strength. When we really learn that the Holy Spirit does everything, and by faith give up the struggle, the renewing becomes the simple, healthy, joyful growth of the heavenly life in us.

The inner chamber then becomes the place we long for every day. Day by day, we yield ourselves afresh to the Lord who has said, “He that believeth on Me…out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). The renewing of ourselves by the Holy Spirit becomes one of the most blessed truths of the daily Christian life.

Open the Eyes of My Heart: by TA Sparks

I pray... that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints. Ephesians 1:18

What is Christ’s inheritance in the saints? What are the riches of the glory of Christ’s inheritance in the saints? It is that the saints are to provide Him with the means of the universal manifestation of Himself as God has purposed Him to be. It is a part of the arrangement in those counsels of the Godhead, that He shall be the central fullness, but that the fullness should not be manifested, displayed in an isolated way. There would be no purpose in that, because He could have done that in Deity without incarnation, He could have possessed the fullness in that way, and that is what the letter to the Philippians says. He was equal with God, and had all the fullness, but He emptied Himself. Why? In order that others might be brought into the fullness, that He might not hold it all for Himself. That is what Satan wants to do.

The Lord Jesus let go in order to bring others in. The apostle says, “Let this mind be in you.” If any of you are inclined to stand for your own rights, on your own ground, to hold things for yourself, you are violating the very spirit of Christ who let go His own rights in order that others might come into them and get the benefit. So the inheritance of Christ is this: that He is made heir of all things, but He can have all things only as He has the saints, and He gets those “all things” through and in the saints. It is a part of the arrangement, the agreement. It is not as one isolated unit in God’s universe, that He is to have everything, but by appointment man-wise, in a corporate sense, and not only in a personal sense.... The Lord is not satisfied with His people just being saved, and the Lord is not satisfied that people should just remain saved. The Lord has fixed this as His goal: the full knowledge of Him. It is indispensable to the Lord. His inheritance is bound up with it. The need today is that the Lord’s own people should come into a knowledge of Himself which they do not possess, into a position in relation to Himself which they do not occupy; in a word: into the full knowledge of Him.

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).

AMERICAN FOUNDER’S QUOTES: PART 4

Psalm 11:3 "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?"

John Quincy Adams: “Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day [the Fourth of July]?" “Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity"?

Benjamin Rush:  “I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes and take so little pains to prevent them…we neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible; for this Divine Book, above all others, constitutes the soul of republicanism.” “By withholding the knowledge of [the Scriptures] from children, we deprive ourselves of the best means of awakening moral sensibility in their minds.” [Letter written (1790’s) in Defense of the Bible in all schools in America]
Benjamin Rush:   “Christianity is the only true and perfect religion.”
Noah Webster: “ The duties of men are summarily comprised in the Ten Commandments, consisting of two tables; one comprehending the duties which we owe immediately to God-the other, the duties we owe to our fellow men.”

Noah Webster: Let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God [Exodus 18:21]. . . . If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted . . . If our government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the Divine commands, and elect bad men to make and administer the laws.

Noah Webster: “The Bible was America’s basic textbook in all fields.” [Noah Webster. Our Christian Heritage p.5]
Noah Webster: “Education is useless without the Bible”

Liberty Bell Inscription: “ Proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants thereof” [Leviticus 25:10]

George Washington: “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and Bible.”

Psalm 33:12 states, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!"

AMERICAN FOUNDER’S QUOTES PART 3

Psalm 11:3 "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?"

It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." --October 11, 1798

"I have examined all religions, as well as my narrow sphere, my straightened means, and my busy life, would allow; and the result is that the Bible is the best Book in the world. It contains more philosophy than all the libraries I have seen." December 25, 1813 letter to Thomas Jefferson

Samuel Adams: “He who made all men hath made the truths necessary to human happiness obvious to all… Our forefathers opened the Bible to all.” [ "American Independence," August 1, 1776. Speech delivered at the State House in Philadelphia]
Patrick Henry “It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.”

John Jay: “ Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”

Noah Webster: “In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed...No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.”

Benjamin Franklin: “God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured in the Sacred Writings that except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. I also believe that, without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel” –Constitutional Convention of 1787

In Benjamin Franklin's 1749 plan of education for public schools in Pennsylvania, he insisted that schools teach "the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern."

James Madison “We’ve staked our future on our ability to follow the Ten Commandments with all of our heart… We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We’ve staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity…to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

Jedediah Morse: "To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys. . . . Whenever the pillars of Christianity shall be overthrown, our present republican forms of government, and all blessings which flow from them, must fall with them."

Psalm 33:12 states, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!"

AMERICAN FOUNDER’S QUOTES: PART 2

Psalm 11:3 "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?".

Andrew Jackson "The Bible is the rock on which our Republic rests."
Noah Webster "In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed."

Patrick Henry "It can not be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions but on the gospel of Jesus Christ."
Thomas Jefferson "Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed the conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?"
Noah Webster “Education is useless without the Bible”
James Madison "We have staked the future of American civilization upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." -
George Washington "Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly implore His protection and favor."
John Adams "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

The First Charter of Virginia (granted by King James I, on April 10, 1606)
We, greatly commending, and graciously accepting of, their Desires for the Furtherance of so noble a Work, which may, by the Providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the Glory of his Divine Majesty, in propagating of Christian Religion to such People, as yet live in Darkness and miserable Ignorance of the true

John Adams: “ The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principals of Christianity… I will avow that I believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”
“[July 4th] ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.”
John Adams in a letter written to Abigail on the day the Declaration was approved by Congress "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.

George Washington, Farewell Address: The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion" ...and later: "...reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle..."

Psalm 33:12 states, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!"

AMERICAN FOUNDER’S QUOTES: PART 1

Psalm 11:3 "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?"

John Adams, 2nd U.S. President and Signer of the Declaration of Independence “[July 4th] ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.”
John Quincy Adams “Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day [the Fourth of July]?"

George Washington, 1st U.S. President "While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian."
John Adams "The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principals of Christianity… I will avow that I believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”

John Quincy Adams "The highest glory of the American Revolution was this - that it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity." 

Thomas Jefferson "The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty.  A student's perusal of the sacred volume will make him a better citizen, a better father, a better husband."

Thomas Jefferson, 3rd U.S. President, Drafter and Signer of the Declaration of Independence "God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; That a revolution of the wheel of fortune, a change of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by Supernatural influence! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in that event."

John Adams and John Hancock: “We Recognize No Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus!”

Psalm 33:12 states, "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!"

Aim at Heaven: by CS Lewis

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. Philippians 3:20-21 

Hope is one of the Theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth 'thrown in': aim at earth and you will get neither. It seems a strange rule, but something like it can be seen at work in other matters. Health is a great blessing, but the moment you make health one of your main, direct objects you start becoming a crank and imagining there is something wrong with you. You are only likely to get health provided you want other things more—food, games, work, fun, open air. In the same way, we shall never save civilization as long as civilization is our main object. We must learn to want something else even more.

His Resurrection Destiny: By Oswald Chambers

Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? Luke 24:26

Our Lord’s cross is the gateway into his life. When Jesus Christ rose from the dead, he rose into a life that was absolutely new, a life he did not live before he was incarnate. This new life came with new power and a new destiny: to bring souls into glory. “As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him” (John 17:2 kjv). This is how the Bible says we know our Lord: by “the power of his resurrection” (Philippians 3:10).

Our Lord’s resurrection power means that now he is able to impart his life to all of us. When we are born again from above, we aren’t born into a new life of our own. We are resurrected into his life—the eternal life of the risen Lord. The name the Bible gives to Eternal Life working inside us here and now is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the deity in proceeding power; he is God applying the atonement to our immediate experience. One day, we will have a body like our Lord’s glorious body; here and now, we can know the power of his resurrection and walk in newness of life.

Thank God it is gloriously and majestically true that the Holy Spirit can work in us the very nature of Jesus if we will obey him. We will never have the exact relationship with the Father that the Son does, but if we will obey, the Son will make us sons and daughters of God, bringing us into oneness with him. “That they may be one as we are one” (John 17:11). This is the meaning of the “at-one-ment.”

A Godly Influence: by Henry Blackaby

Then the LORD said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation. Genesis 7:1

The children of Noah faced a significant decision. They lived in a world where everyone blatantly disregarded God. Wickedness was the norm. No one would have condemned Noah’s sons for living evil lives like the rest of society–no one except their father. In a world rampant with ungodly attitudes and every form of wicked behavior, they were fortunate to be Noah’s sons. When their father invited them to spend the next hundred years building an ark in obedience to a word from God, Noah’s sons had to choose whether to believe those around them or to trust their father. They chose to join their father. What a wonderful testimony of Noah’s godly influence in his home! How fortunate for Shem, Ham, and Japheth that their father refused to compromise his integrity, even though everyone else in his society had done so.

Your life has an influence on those around you as well. Your spouse and your children are profoundly affected by your choices. Your coworkers, your neighbors, and your friends will all be impacted by your life. As the world tries to persuade people to follow its standard, your life should stand in stark contrast as an example of a righteous person. Your life should convince those around you of the wisdom of following God. Do not underestimate the positive effect that your obedience will have upon those close to you.

God-Centered Holiness: by Jerry Bridges

“You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:16

If holiness is so basic to the Christian life, why do we not experience it more in daily living? Why do so many Christians feel constantly defeated in their struggle with sin? Why does the church of Jesus Christ so often seem to be more conformed to the world around it than to God?

Our first problem is that our attitude toward sin is more self-centered than God-centered. We’re more concerned about our own “victory” over sin than we are about the fact that our sins grieve God’s heart. We cannot tolerate failure in our struggle with sin chiefly because we are success-oriented, not because we know it’s offensive to God.

W. S. Plumer said, “We never see sin aright until we see it as against God. All sin is against God in this sense: that it is his law that is broken, his authority that is despised, his government that is set at naught. Pharaoh and Balaam, Saul and Judas each said, ‘I have sinned’; but the returning prodigal said, ‘I have sinned against heaven and before thee’; and David said, ‘against Thee, Thee only have I sinned.’” God wants us to walk in obedience—not victory. Obedience is oriented toward God; victory is oriented toward self. This may seem to be merely splitting hairs over semantics, but there’s a subtle, self-centered attitude at the root of many of our difficulties with sin. Until we deal with this attitude, we won’t consistently walk in holiness.

Victory is a by-product of obedience. As we concentrate on living an obedient, holy life, we’ll certainly experience the joy of victory over sin. Will you begin to look at sin as an offense against a holy God, instead of as a personal defeat only?

Mottos of the Kingdom-Love & Serve: by TA Sparks

 

Serve each other through love. Galatians 5:13

It is always the work of God's enemy to clog up our lives by introducing love of self or love of the world, and it needs ruthless determination to remove the accumulated rubbish and re-dig the well in purity of devotion to Christ. It may well be, though, that the hindrances arise from lack of love to our fellow believers. We must remember that the Holy Spirit can never have free course in us and through us if we harbor unloving thoughts concerning other of God's children, let alone put those thoughts into actions. He is the Spirit of fellowship, so that if we fail in that realm then we fail in the matter of love. It is so easy to allow unworthy considerations to quench brotherly love, to be clogged up with resentment or to be wrongly influenced by our susceptibilities or hurt feelings.... We have to be active in positive cultivation of fellowship. To some it is quite natural to be independent. For them deference to others represents a major difficulty. Sometimes they may deliberately ignore or despise others, but sometimes they just prefer to do it alone and never seriously think of inter-relatedness and inter-dependence.

The Word of God, however, is most explicit in ordering us to esteem one another, to submit to one another and to live and work together. The Holy Spirit demands that the people of God live according to a team order of things, that they should be governed by a family spirit. Anything which is of an isolated or detached nature, which fails to recognize and fully accept the family thought of God, is a check on Him. By failing to observe fellowship we quench the Spirit. It is not only a matter of avoiding giving offence but of active pursuit of fellowship. Some may be wondering why there is so little up-springing from the inner well, when they are sitting back in a wrong kind of modesty, failing to bring in their own personal contribution to fellowship life and ministry. Unkindness is not the only obstacle in this realm. Shyness and diffidence can equally rest like a stone on the flow of Life. The only thing to do is to dig it up and move it away. Get in, get right in, and let yourself go! Do not always choose the back seat because you like to be left alone, but come forward in the Lord's name and give the Holy Spirit a free course in your lives. He is well able to check you if you become too self-assertive, but there is little He can do if your well is all stopped up with fears and inhibitions.

Jesus Knows All About You—and Still Loves You: by AW Tozer

And Jesus came and spoke unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Matthew 28:18

Have you ever heard one of our modern, Christian activists say, “I don’t know when I will find a doctrine of the deeper life that is satisfactory to me!”

There is really only one answer to this kind of a quest—turn your eyes upon Jesus and commit yourself fully to Him because He is God and Christ, Redeemer and Lord, “the same yesterday, today and forever!”

In these matters of spiritual blessing and victory, we are not dealing with doctrines—we are dealing with the Lord of all doctrine! We are dealing with a Person who is the Resurrection and the Source from whom flows all doctrine and all truth.

How can we be so ignorant and so dull that we try to find our spiritual answers and the abounding life by looking beyond the only One who has promised that He would never change? How can we so readily slight the Christ of God who has limitless authority throughout the universe?

How long should it take us to yield completely and without reservation to this One who has been made both Lord and Christ—and yet continues to be the very same Jesus who still loves us with an everlasting love?

The very same Jesus—who knows all your troubles and weaknesses and sins, and loves you in spite of everything!

He is with You: by Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

Genesis 28:15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
Romans 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

    I AM WITH YOU AND FOR YOU, your constant Companion and Provider.  The question is whether you are with Me and for Me.  Though I never leave you, you can essentially “leave” Me by ignoring Me: thinking or acting as if I am not with you.  When you feel distance in our relationship, you know where the problem lies.  My Love for you is constant; I am the same yesterday today, and forever.  It is you who changes like shifting sand, letting circumstances toss you this way and that.
    When you feel far from Me, whisper My Name.  This simple act, done in childlike faith, opens your heart to My Presence.  Speak to Me in love-tones; prepare to receive My Love, which flows eternally from the cross.  I am delighted when you open yourself to My loving Presence.

Repentance: by CS Lewis

2 Corinthians 7:10 "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death."

Remember, this repentance, this willing submission to humiliation and a kind of death, is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off of if He chose: it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like. If you ask God to take you back without it, you are really asking Him to let you go back without going back. It cannot happen. Very well, then, we must go through with it. But the same badness which makes us need it, makes us unable to do it. Can we do it if God helps us? Yes, but what do we mean when we talk of God helping us? We mean God putting into us a bit of Himself, so to speak. He lends us a little of His reasoning powers and that is how we think: He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one another. When you teach a child writing, you hold its hand while it forms the letters: that is, it forms the letters because you are forming them. We love and reason because God loves and reasons and holds our hand while we do it. Now if we had not fallen, that would all be plain sailing. But unfortunately we now need God's help in order to do something which God, in His own nature, never does at all - to surrender, to suffer, to submit, to die. Nothing in God's nature corresponds to this process at all. So that the one road for which we now need God's leadership most of all is a road God, in His own nature, has never walked. God can share only what He has: this thing, in His own nature, He has not.

Luke 13:1-3 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.  Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way?  I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.

Repentance: by Henry Blackaby

Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”   Mark 1:14-15

Repentance is one of the most positive of all words. John the Baptist centered his preaching on repentance (Matt. 3:2, Mark 1:4, Luke 3:3). Jesus also preached repentance, commanding His disciples to do likewise (Mark 1:14-15; Luke 24:47). The angel predicted that the Messiah would save His people from their sins (Matt. 1:21). The requirement for this salvation would be repentance.

To repent means to stop going one direction, to turn around completely, and to go the opposite way. Repentance involves a dramatic and decisive change of course. God urges us to repent when the path we are taking leads to destruction. Repentance will save us from disastrous consequences! What a wonderful word! How comforting that the Creator loves us enough to warn us of impending danger!

Our problem is that we think of repentance as something negative. When we recognize our sin, we prefer to “rededicate” our lives to God. We may even tell others we have resolved to be more faithful to God than we were before we failed Him. Yet the Bible does not speak of rededicating oneself. It speaks of repentance! Repentance indicates a decisive change, not merely a wishful resolution. We have not repented if we continue in our sin!

Repentance involves a radical change of heart and mind in which we agree with God’s evaluation of our sin and then take specific action to align ourselves with His will. A desire to change is not repentance. Repentance is always an active response to God’s word. The evidence of repentance is not words of resolve, but a changed life.

The Word of God and the Spirit: by ML Jones

Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides for ever. 1 Peter 1:23

In order to do His work, the Spirit uses the Word of God. First, He reveals, through the Word, the great love of God to sinners in general: “God . . . for his great love wherewith he loved us . . .” (Ephesians 2:4) and so on.

Second, He presents and offers salvation in Christ; through His people, He states the facts about Christ. That is the business of preachers of the Gospel. It is to give the record of the life, the death, the resurrection, and the resurrection appearances of our Lord. What is preaching? It is proclaiming these facts about Christ. Not only that—it is an explanation of the fact, the meaning of the facts, how these facts constitute salvation and are the cause, the means, of salvation. So in the preaching of the Word in the power of the Holy Spirit, these facts and their interpretation are presented. Then the Holy Spirit calls us to repentance. He calls everyone to repentance, all men and women everywhere, because of these facts, because of “that man whom he hath ordained,” by whom the whole world is going to be judged in righteousness (Acts 17:31).

And finally the Holy Spirit calls us to faith in Christ. Take again those words of Paul in his farewell message to the church at Ephesus. What did Paul testify? What did he preach? It was “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). He called men and women to faith in Christ in order that they might obtain forgiveness of sins and inherit eternal life. That was the way in which our Lord commissioned Paul on the road to Damascus. He said that He was going to send him to the people and to the Gentiles “to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me” (Acts 26:18).

God’s Final Word: by TA Sparks

God in all His fullness was pleased to live in Christ. Colossians 1:19

Do not take these as just words. Do understand that in every fragment there is this truth: In the dispensation in which you and I are now living God has come to us in all His fullness. There is no more to be added. In His Son we have the absolute fullness of God, and it is out of that fullness that He speaks to us in His Son. God has only one Son in that sense – His only-begotten Son, which means that there is no one to come after Him. Therefore, God's last word is in His Son. The Son brings both the fullness and the finality of God. It is that which gives the solemnity to this whole Letter. It says: "If you fail to hear the voice of the Son there will never be another voice for you. God is never going to speak by another voice. God hath spoken in His Son, and He is never going to speak by any other means." Hence this Letter contains this word of warning and of exhortation: "Because this is the fullness and this is the end, be sure that you give heed...." To come into touch with the Lord Jesus is more than coming into touch with a teaching: it is coming into touch with a living, active Person. "It is God with whom we have to do." It is a glorious thing to come into touch with God in Christ – but it says here that "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31). No, it is not a book, a teaching, a philosophy: it is a living, positive, powerful Person....

Perhaps this is just like a window opened into heaven. If you get the right window you can see quite a lot. You can see great things and you can see far things. But the best that I can hope is that this has just opened a window, and that as you look through it you are seeing one thing – how superior is Jesus Christ to all else, and how superior is the dispensation into which we have come, and how superior are all the resources at our disposal to all that ever was before!

As We Forgive Others: by CS Lewis

Ephesians 4:32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

When it comes to a question of our forgiving other people, it is partly the same and partly different. It is the same because, here also, forgiving does not mean excusing. Many people seem to think it does. They think that if you ask them to forgive someone who has cheated or bullied them you are trying to make out that there was really no cheating or no bullying. But if that were so, there would be nothing to forgive. They keep on replying, "But I tell you the man broke a most solemn promise." Exactly: that is precisely what you have to forgive. (This doesn't mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise. It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart—every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out.) The difference between this situation and the one in which you are asking God's forgiveness is this. In our own case we accept excuses too easily; in other people's we do not accept them easily enough.

God the Giver: by Watchman Nee

Matthew 13:10-11 The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?” He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.

God the Giver Of all the parables in the Gospels, that of the prodigal son affords, I think, the supreme illustration of the way to please God. The father says, “It was meet to make merry and be glad” (Luke 15:32), and in these words Jesus reveals what it is that, in the sphere of redemption, supremely rejoices his Father’s heart. It is not an elder brother who toils incessantly for the father, but a younger brother who lets the father do everything for him. It is not an elder brother who always wants to be the giver, but a younger brother who is always willing to be the receiver. When the prodigal returned home, having wasted his substance in riotous living, the father had not a word of rebuke for the waste nor a word of inquiry regarding the substance. He did not sorrow over all that was spent; he only rejoiced over the opportunity the son’s return afforded him for spending more.

God is so wealthy that his chief delight is to give. His treasure-stores are so full that it is pain to him when we refuse him an opportunity of lavishing those treasures upon us. It was the father’s joy that he could find in the prodigal an applicant for the robe, the ring, the shoes, and the feast; it was his sorrow that in the elder son he found no such applicant.

Good News That Isn’t Good Enough? By Jerry Bridges

“Proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” Mark 16:15

We’ve loaded down the Gospel of the grace of God in Christ with a lot of "OUGHTS": I ought to be more committed, more disciplined, more obedient. When we think or teach this way, we’re substituting duty and obligation for a loving response to God’s grace.

As one pastor expressed it, we often don’t make the Gospel "good enough." We preach grace to the non-Christian and duty to the Christian. As Richard Gilbert has written, "It sometimes seems that there is plenty of grace for you if you are not a Christian, but when you become a Christian then there are all sorts of laws you must obey and you feel like you were better off before you were converted." Even our terminology betrays the way we dichotomize the Christian life into "grace" and "works" compartments. We speak of the gift of salvation and the cost of discipleship. The "cost of discipleship" isn’t necessarily an unbiblical expression, but the connotation we build into it is. We often convey the idea that God’s grace barely gets us inside the kingdom’s door; after that, it’s all our own blood, sweat, and tears.

I firmly believe in and seek to practice commitment, discipline, and obedience. I’m thoroughly committed to submission to the lordship of Jesus Christ in every area of life. And I believe in and seek to practice other commitments that flow out of that basic commitment. I’m committed to my wife "until death do us part." I’m committed to integrity and fairness in business relationships. I’m committed to seek to act in love toward everyone. But I’m committed in these areas out of a grateful response to God’s grace, not to try to earn God’s blessings.

Spiritual Famine: by Henry Blackaby

“Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord GOD, “That I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread, Nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the words of the LORD.” Amos 8:11

One way God communicates is through silence. The Israelites blatantly ignored and rejected God’s word to them, and God responded by sending a famine. This famine was far more severe than a shortage of food and water. Instead, they were deprived of His words of life.

God’s silence may be hardly noticeable at first. You may still remember times when God spoke to you, but you gradually realize you’ve not heard His voice for a long time. If you realize you are in a “drought,” immediately seek God and ask Him what adjustments your life requires so you can once again enjoy fellowship with Him. It may be that you disobeyed His last instructions to you and that He is waiting on your obedience before giving you a new direction. It may be that there is unconfessed sin in your life or that you have a damaged relationship (Isa. 1:15; 1 Pet. 3:7). It is possible that you have done too much talking in your prayer times and that He wants you to listen. God’s silences can be powerful times for Him to communicate with you.

God is God! Because He is God, when He speaks He expects a listening ear and an eager response. He will not be mocked! (Gal. 6:7). When we ignore Him, He may withhold His voice until we repent and get right with Him. The prophet Isaiah assured King Asa, “The Lord is with you while you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.”

Experience God: from Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

Psalm 34:8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
Genesis 16:13-14 So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, You are a God of seeing, for she said, Have I [not] even here [in the wilderness] looked upon Him who sees me [and lived]? Or have I here also seen [the future purposes or designs of] Him who sees me? Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi [A well to the Living One Who sees me]; it is between Kadesh and Bered.

    Taste and see that I am good. The more intimately you experience Me, the more convinced you become of My goodness. I am the Living One who sees you and longs to participate in your life. I am training you to find Me in each moment and to be a channel of My loving Presence. Sometimes My blessings come to you in mysterious ways: through pain and trouble. At such times you can know My goodness only through your trust in Me. Understanding will fail you, but trust will keep you close to Me.

    Thank Me for the gift of My Peace, a gift of such immense proportions that you cannot fathom its depth or breadth. When I appeared to My disciples after the resurrection, it was Peace that I communicated first of all. I knew this was their deepest need: to calm their fears and clear their minds. I also speak Peace to you, for I know your anxious thoughts. Listen to Me! Tune out other voices, so that you can hear Me more clearly. I designed you to dwell in Peace all day, every day. Draw near to Me; receive My Peace. 

John 20:19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
Colossians 3:15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.

God Blesses His Children for Holy Intentions: by AW Tozer

Jesus answered, If I honor myself, my honor is nothing: it is my Father that honors me…. John 8:54

“Them that honor me I will honor,” said God once to a priest of Israel, and that ancient law of the kingdom stands today unchanged by the passing of time or the changes of dispensation. The whole Bible and every page of history proclaim the perpetuation of that law.

“If any man serve me, him will my Father honor,” said our Lord Jesus, tying in the old with the new and revealing the essential unity of His ways with men.

It seems plain that almost any Bible character who honestly tried to glorify God in his earthly walk was so honored. See how God overlooked weaknesses and failures as He poured upon His servants grace and blessing untold. Let it be Abraham, Jacob, David, Daniel, Elijah or whom you will; honor followed honor as harvest the seed. The man of God set his heart to exalt God above all; God accepted his intention as fact and acted accordingly. Not perfection, but holy intention made the difference!

In our Lord Jesus Christ this law was seen in simple perfection. He sought not His own honor, but the honor of the God who sent Him.

“If I honor myself,” He said on one occasion, “my honor is nothing; it is my Father that honors me.” So far had the proud Pharisees departed from this law that they could not understand one who honored God at his own expense.

A Seed of Life: by ML Jones

Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. John 3:3

The change in my disposition does not mean that I have a greater intellect now than I had before. No, I have exactly the same intellect, the same mind. But because the disposition governing it is changed, my mind is operating in a different realm and in a different way, and it seems to be a new mind. And it is exactly the same with the feelings.

A man who used to hate the Gospel now loves it. A woman who hated the Lord Jesus Christ now loves Him. And likewise with the will: The will earlier resisted, it was obstinate and rebellious; but now it desires, it is anxious, it is concerned about the Gospel.

The next thing that we say is that it is a change that is instantaneous. Now do you see the importance of differentiating between generation and coming to birth? Generation, by definition, is always an instantaneous act. There is a moment, a flash, in which the germ of life enters, impregnates; that is one instantaneous action. In other words, there are no intermediate stages in regeneration. Life is either implanted or it is not; it cannot be partly implanted. It is not gradual. When I say that it is instantaneous, I am not referring to our consciousness of it, but to the thing itself, as it is done by God. The consciousness, of course, comes into the realm of time, whereas this act of germination is timeless, and that is why it is immediate.

So the next thing is that generation, the implanting of this seed of life and the change of the disposition, happens in the subconscious, or, if you prefer, in the unconscious. Our Lord explained that fully to Nicodemus (John 3). It is a secret, inscrutable operation that cannot be directly perceived by us; indeed, we cannot even fully understand it. The first thing we know about it is that it has happened, because we are conscious of something different, but that means that we do not understand it and that we really cannot arrive at its secret.

The Devil Hates Everything Dear to God: by AW Tozer

… because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 1 John 3:8

I have observed among spiritual persons in the Christian fellowship a tendency either to ignore the devil altogether or to make too much of him.

Both attitudes are wrong!

There is in the world an enemy whom we dare not ignore. We see him first in the third chapter of Genesis and last in the twentieth of Revelation, which is to say that he was present at the beginning of human history and will be there at its earthly close.

This enemy is not a creation of religious fancy, not a mere personification of evil for convenience, but a being as real as man himself. The Bible attributes to him qualities of personality too detailed to be figurative, and reveals him speaking and acting in situations hard and practical and far removed from the poetic imagination.

He is said to be a liar, a deceiver and a murderer who achieves his ends by guile and trickery. While he is not omnipresent (omnipresence being an attribute of God alone) he is ubiquitous, which for his purpose amounts to the same thing.

Satan hates God for His own sake, and everything that is dear to God he hates for the very reason that God loves it. Because man was made in God’s image the hatred with which Satan regards him is particularly malevolent, and since the Christian is doubly dear to God he is hated by the powers of darkness with an aggravated fury.

In view of this, it cannot be less than folly for us Christians to disregard the reality and presence of such an enemy.

Know Yourself: by TA Sparks

Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? 2 Corinthians 13:5

The sum of everything in the new creation is in Christ, or, to put that in another way, it is outside of man himself. It is apart from man, and it always will be. Although Christ, the sum of the new creation, may be in us, that new creation will remain in Christ, and we are only in it by reason of our union with Him. He becomes the fullness of everything in us, but the practical outworking of that fullness will ever, and always, be purely and solely on a basis of faith. If the thing could be said at any time to have its origin in us, then faith would be dismissed. If we had it in ourselves, if it were our constitution, faith would be dispensed with. That would result in a repetition of us....

The difficulty which we shall be meeting all along the way will be ourselves. We shall find that the main obstacle, the main enemy to our fullness in Christ, to all that the new creation means, will be ourselves in some way. It will either be our self-occupation – which is but a form of trying to be something fine, something in ourselves which will bring satisfaction to God – or it will be our self-effort in service. It will be this natural life of ours cropping up in some direction or another, and as it crops up it will cut clean in between us and the "all things" which are of God, and we shall find that it is ourself which brings us up short, which creates the arrest.... If we look within ourselves to find more good, we are going to look in vain. We shall never find anything in ourselves but corruption. Is that really settled with us? On both sides, the people who have some opinion of themselves had better settle it once and for all that there is nothing in them but corruption, and also those who have settled it, and yet are so occupied with their old man as though it were something really worth being occupied with. Put it where the Lord Jesus has put it, in the grave, and do not walk round it, turning it over, if peradventure you might find something worthwhile. Fix and fasten your faith in God's Son, and leave yourself alone for ever. Only so will you find your emancipation.

The First Stage In Revival: by Martyn Lloyd Jones

And the Lord said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence, you and the people . . . for I will not go up in the midst of you; for you are a stiffnecked people: lest I consume you in the way. Exodus 33:1, 3

God’s reply to Moses is in effect, “I have given this promise to these people, that they shall go to that land of promise, that land of Canaan, which is flowing with milk and honey. And, therefore, I tell you now, you lead them up. You take them to the land of promise. In view of what they have done, I am no longer coming up with you.”

That, then, is the position. And what is of such great interest to us is the reaction of Moses and the Church to this. This is always the first stage in revival. You see the position they were in—their sin, God’s pronouncement, God’s judgment upon it. And the first stage, the first step, in revival is, as we see here, a realization of the position.

These people who had rebelled and turned their backs on God, who had blasphemed His name and had criticized His servant Moses, who had caused Aaron to make the calf and had worshiped it, and who had sinned, suddenly they were stopped short. They realized something, at any rate, of the situation they were in. Now obviously this is a matter of final importance. There is no hope of revival apart from this. It is an awakening to the situation. It is an awareness of the implications of what God has said: “He is going to withdraw His presence from us, and He has done so. The cloud has disappeared. The pillar of fire is no longer in evidence. God said He would withdraw, and God has withdrawn.” There is a consciousness and a realization of His displeasure. I defy you to read the history of the revivals—you will find at once that without a single exception this always happens.