Closer than We Know: from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

Psalm 139:1-4
¹ O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
³ You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
⁴ Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
I am all around you, hovering over you even as you seek My Face. I am nearer than you dare believe, closer than the air you breathe. If My children could only recognize My Presence, they would never feel lonely again. I know every thought before you think it, every word before you speak it. My Presence impinges on your innermost being. Can you see the absurdity of trying to hide anything from Me? You can easily deceive other people, and even yourself; but I read you like an open, large-print book.
     Deep within themselves, most people have some awareness of My imminent Presence. Many people run from Me and vehemently deny My existence, because My closeness terrifies them. But My own children have nothing to fear, for I have cleansed them by My blood and clothed them in My righteousness. Be blessed by My intimate nearness. Since I live in you, let Me also live through you, shining My light into the darkness.

Ephesians 2:13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The Penetrating Word of God: by Henry Blackaby

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Hebrews 4:12

Does God’s word ever cause you discomfort? When you read the Bible does what you read make you uneasy? Do you find when you listen to sermons, that the Scripture seems aimed directly at you? You are experiencing the reality that the word of God is alive and can read your thoughts and judge your intentions.

When God’s word speaks to you it is always for a purpose. God knows your heart and knows what you need to do to bring your life into conformity to Christ. If you have a problem with sinful talk, the word that comes to you will address the tongue. If you are struggling to forgive, God’s word will confront you with His standard for forgiveness. If pride has a stronghold in your life, God’s word will speak to you about humility. Whatever sin needs addressing, you will find you are confronted by God’s word on the matter.

One way you can escape the discomfort of conviction is to avoid hearing God speak to you. You may neglect reading your Bible and stay away from places where it is taught. You may avoid those whom you know will uphold the truths of Scripture. The best response, however, is to pray as the psalmist did: “Search me, O God, and know my heart”  (Ps. 139:23).  Regularly allow the word of God to wash over you and find any sin or impurity (Eph. 5:26).   Always make the connection between your life and what God is saying to you through His word. Make a habit of taking every word from God seriously, knowing that it is able to judge your heart and mind.

A Vital Union: by ML Jones

And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. John 1:16

We are joined to Christ in a union with Him by means of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us. It is a vital union because our spiritual life is drawn directly from the Lord Jesus Christ. We are sustained by Him through the indwelling Holy Spirit. There is nothing more important in the Christian life than to realize that our union with Christ is a vital one. It is a living thing. It is not something mechanical or conceptual; it is not a thought or an idea; it is really a vital, spiritual union.

“And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace” (John 1:16). That says it all. That is our relationship to Him, says John; something of His fullness and of His life is passing into us, and we are receiving it.

The trouble with all of us is that we do not realize the truth of these things. But this is the truth given by the Lord Himself. It is His prayer for His people that they may know the meaning of this vital, spiritual relationship. And He does not hesitate to compare it with the relationship that subsists between the Father and Himself: As the Father is in Him, so He is in us, and we are in Him. But consider the statement of this truth that is made by the apostle Paul in Galatians 2:20: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” There is nothing greater than that, and what it does teach is that this is a life-giving relationship; it is a union of life. “Not I, but Christ lives in me.” And then Paul goes on to say, “And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”

WHO AM I? (Identity) by Andrew Murray

your affection on things above… for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. Colossians 3:2-3

When entering God’s presence in the morning hour, the Christian must realize where he stands in relation to God. Each person who claims access and an audience with the Most High must have a living sense of the place he has in Christ before God.

Who am I? Who is it that comes to ask God to meet me and spend the whole day with me? I am one who knows that I am in Christ and that my life is “hid with Christ in God.” In Christ I died to sin and the world. I am now taken out of them, separated and delivered from their power. I have been raised together with Christ; and in Him, I live unto God. My life is “hid with Christ in God.” I can come to God to claim all the divine life that is hidden away in Him for today’s need and supply.

Yes, this is who I am. I am one who longs to say, “Christ is my life.” The longing of my soul is for Christ, revealed by the Father Himself within the heart. Nothing less can satisfy me. My life is “hidden with Christ.” He can be my life in no other way than as He is in my heart. Christ is the Savior from sin, the gift and instrument of God’s love. Christ is my indwelling Friend and Lord.

If God should ask, “Who are you?” I would reply, “I live in Christ and Christ in me. Lord, You alone can make me know and be all that this truly means.”

I am sure you realize how important the morning hour is to secure God’s presence for the day. During that time, you take a firm stand on the foundation of redemption. Accept what God has bestowed on you in Christ. Be what God has made you to be. Confess your position in Christ. In a battle, much depends upon an unshakable position. Take your place where God has placed you.

The very attempt to do this may at times interfere with your ordinary Bible study. This will be no loss. Your daily Christian walk depends on knowing who your God is and who you are as His redeemed one in Christ. When you have learned the secret, it will, even when you do not think of it, be the strength of your heart, both in going in before God and going out with Him to the world.

Clinging to Our Own Lives: by CS Lewis

If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? Luke 16:11

If the first and lowest operation of pain shatters the illusion that all is well, the second shatters the illusion that what we have, whether good or bad in itself, is our own and enough for us. Everyone has noticed how hard it is to turn our thoughts to God when everything is going well with us. We 'have all we want' is a terrible saying when 'all' does not include God. We find God an interruption. As St Augustine says somewhere, 'God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full—there's nowhere for Him to put it.' Or as a friend of mine said, 'We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it's there for emergencies but he hopes he'll never have to use it.' Now God, who has made us, knows what we are and that our happiness lies in Him. Yet we will not seek it in Him as long as he leaves us any other resort where it can even plausibly be looked for. While what we call 'our own life' remains agreeable we will not surrender it to Him. What then can God do in our interests but make 'our own life' less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible source of false happiness?

Bible History: Be Careful Whose Advice You Follow: by AW Tozer

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes; but he that hearkens unto counsel is wise. Proverbs 12:15

No man has any right to offer advice who has not first heard God speak. No man has any right to counsel others who is not ready to hear and follow the counsel of the Lord!

This rule of listening only to those who have first listened to God will save us from many a snare, for in any group of ten persons at least nine are sure to believe that they are qualified to offer advice to others.

It seems that in no other field of human interest are people as ready to offer advice as in the field of religion and morals. Yet it is precisely in this field that the average person is least qualified to speak wisely and is capable of the most harm when he does speak.

For this reason, we should select our counselors carefully, and selection inevitably carries with it the idea of rejection.

David warns against the counsel of the ungodly and Bible history gives examples of men who made a failure of their lives because they took wrong advice.

It is especially important that young people learn whose counsel to trust. Having been in the world for such a short time they have not had much experience and must look to others for advice. Those who boast the loudest of their independence, for example, have picked up from someone the idea that independence is a virtue, and their very eagerness to be individualistic is the result of the influence of others. They are what they are because of the counsel they have followed.

Light of the World: by TA Sparks

The city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light. Revelation 21:23

Light is not a mental thing: that is to say, it is not just a matter of having a store of mental knowledge. That is not light. It is possible to have an enormous amount of doctrine and truth and never be luminaries, that is, never register impact upon darkness. Real light is experimental: that is to say, it is the fruit of experience, the experience of suffering. How have you children of God come to know what you do know of the Lord, that real kind of knowledge of the Lord which is so precious to us, which means so much and which makes you in that measure of value to others? It is through suffering, it is through the difficult way the Lord has led you, it is through the work of the Cross that He has wrought in you. “The Lamb is the lamp” – suffering leading to knowledge, to light, to understanding. It is the only way. These people at the end will be in the good of a great and wonderful revelation which has come by their fellowship with Christ in His sufferings. It is very true. It may not be too comforting from one standpoint, but it is true; and it ought to help us to realize this: that the Lord, in the way in which He is dealing with us, in the sufferings which He allows to come upon us, is really seeking our education, that we may have a knowledge of Himself which can only come that way, and which is a peculiar kind of knowledge of tremendous value to us and through us to others. We do not learn in any other way. It is the Lamb, always the Lamb-principle, the way of suffering and sacrifice and self-emptying, that brings us into the knowledge of the Lord. “The Lamb is the lamp thereof”; and, just as it is deeper death unto fuller life, so it may often be deeper darkness unto fuller light.

The Lord seems to lead us in a way where we are less and less able naturally to understand Him. He gets us altogether out of our natural capacity, beyond our capacity for interpreting His ways. We just do not know what the Lord is doing, or why He is doing what He is doing; yet it is the way by which we come to a very real kind of inward knowledge of Himself. It may not be capable of explanation in words to anybody, but we know, somehow or other we know, and that is a mighty thing, a mighty power of knowledge. It is light through the Cross.