Preparing for Christmas: by Sarah Young

Mark 1:3 “a voice of one calling in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’ ”

John 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Prepare your heart for the celebration of My birth. Listen to the voice of John the Baptist: “Prepare the way for the Lord; make straight paths for Him.”

Christmas is the time to exult in My miraculous incarnation, when the Word became flesh and dwelt among you. I identified with mankind to the ultimate extent—becoming a Man and taking up residence in your world. Don’t let the familiarity of this astonishing miracle dull its effect on you. Recognize that I am the Gift above all gifts, and rejoice in Me!

Clear out clutter and open up your heart by pondering the wonders of My entrance into human history. View these events from the perspective of the shepherds, who were keeping watch over their flocks at night.

They witnessed first one angel and then a multitude of them lighting up the sky, proclaiming: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth Peace among those with whom He is pleased!” Gaze at the Glory of my birth, just as the shepherds did, and respond with childlike wonder.

Philippians 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

Luke 2:13–14 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”

Thanksgiving: by Henry Blackaby

And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.      Luke 17:15-16

Thankfulness is foundational to the Christian life. Thankfulness is a conscious response that comes from looking beyond our blessings to their source. As Christians, we have been forgiven, saved from death, and adopted as God’s children. There could be no better reason for a grateful heart!

Lepers in Jesus’ day were social outcasts. Their highly contagious condition ostracized them from those they loved. When ten lepers encountered Jesus, they desperately implored Him to show them mercy. Jesus sent them to the priest. As they obeyed, they were healed! These ten men had been forbidden to enter their own villages, to live in their own homes, to work in their own jobs, or even to touch their own children. Imagine what unrestrained joy must have filled them as they ran back home again!

One of the lepers, a Samaritan, stopped and ran back to thank Jesus. Samaritans were normally shunned by the Jews, but Jesus had healed him! Jesus asked him, “Where are the others?” Ten lepers had been healed. Ten lepers were reveling in their new found health. Ten men were joyfully rushing to share the good news with those they loved. But only one considered the Source of that blessing and stopped to thank and worship the One who had given him back his life.

We, too, have been healed and made whole by the Savior. We are free to enjoy the abundant life the Savior has graciously given us. Could we, like the nine lepers, rush off so quickly to glory in our blessings without stopping to thank our Redeemer? God looks for our thanks. Our worship, prayers, service, and daily life ought to be saturated with thanksgiving to God (Phil. 4:6).

A Thankful Heart Cannot Also Be Cynical: by AW Tozer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The One Who is Life, Brings Rest: by Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

 

John 11:25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
Matthew 11:28-29 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

    I AM the resurrection and the Life; all lasting Life emanates from Me. People search for life in many wrong ways: chasing after fleeting pleasures, accumulating possessions and wealth, trying to deny the inevitable effects of aging. Meanwhile, I freely offer abundant Life to everyone who turns toward Me. As you come to Me and take My yoke upon you, I fill you with My very Life. This is how I choose to live in the world and accomplish My purposes. This is also how I bless you with Joy unspeakable and full of Glory. The Joy is Mine, and the Glory is Mine; but I bestow them on you as you live in My presence, inviting Me to live fully in you. 

1 Peter 1:8-9 Whom having not seen, you love; in whom, though now you see him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.

The Unrelieved Quest: by Oswald Chambers

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.” John 21:17

This is love in the making: Peter, having confessed how deeply he loves Jesus, is told to add action to emotion and feed God’s sheep. The love of God was not created; love is God’s very nature. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we are united with God so that his love is manifested in us. But this isn’t the end of the story. The ultimate goal is that we may be one with the Father as Jesus is. “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one” (John 17:11). What kind of oneness is this? Such a oneness that the Father’s purpose for the Son becomes the Son’s purpose for us: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (20:21).

After Peter recognized the depth of his love for Jesus, Jesus made his point: Spend it. Don’t declare how much you love me. Don’t testify about the marvelous revelation you’ve had. “Feed my sheep.” This is a challenging request, because Jesus has some extraordinarily funny sheep! Bedraggled, dirty sheep; awkward, headbutting sheep; sheep that have gone astray (Luke 15:3–7). God’s love pays no attention to such quirks and differences. If I love my Lord, I have no business being guided by personal preference. I simply have to feed his sheep. There is no relief and no release from this part of the call.

Beware of letting your natural human sympathy decide which sheep you’ll feed. You are called to spend God’s love, not pass off a counterfeit version of it. That would end in blaspheming the love of God.

Waiting on God: by Andrew Murray

On Thee do I wait all the day. Psalm 25:5

Waiting on God—in this expression we find one of the deepest truths of God’s Word in regard to the attitude of the soul in its communion with God.

As we wait on God—just think—He will reveal Himself in us, He will teach us all His will, He will do to us what He has promised, and in all things He will be the Infinite God.

Such is the attitude with which each day should begin. In the inner chamber, in quiet meditation, in expressing our ardent desires through prayer, in the course of our daily work, in all our striving after obedience and holiness, in all our struggles against sin and self-will—in everything we must wait on God to receive what He will bestow, to see what He will do, and to allow Him to be the almighty God.

Meditate on these things, and they will help you to truly value the precious promises of God’s Word.

“They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles” (Isaiah 40:31). In this we have the secret of heavenly power and joy.

“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord” (Psalm 27:14).

“Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him” (Psalm 37:7).

The deep root of all scriptural theology is absolute dependence on God. As we exercise this attitude, it will become more natural and blessedly possible to say, “On Thee do I wait all the day.” Here we have the secret of true, uninterrupted, silent adoration and worship of God.

Has this book helped to teach you the true worship of God? If so, the Lord’s name be praised. Or have you only learned how little you know of it? For this, too, let us thank Him.

If you desire a fuller experience of this blessing, read this book again with a deeper insight into what is meant, and a greater knowledge of the absolute need of each day and all day waiting on God. May the God of all grace grant us this.

“I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in His word do I hope” (Psalm 130:5).

“Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.…and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart” (Psalm 37:7, 4).

GOD’S JUDGMENT: by Martyn Lloyd Jones

. . . should not perish . . . John 3:16

Jesus taught about God the Father by showing God’s wrath against sin. “But what about John 3:16?” asks someone. Listen to John 3:16, my friend. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in him should not perish”—but apart from Him they would have perished; that is the only way to avoid perishing. Indeed, we also find in John 3 a statement that if a man does not believe, “the wrath of God abides on him” (verse 36).

Part of our Lord’s teaching about the Father is that the Father is absolutely holy, that He hates sin and had pledged to destroy it and punish it with everlasting destruction. “Blessed,” He said, “are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). No one else can see God because only the pure in heart could stand the sight of Him. To look at God is hell to a man unless he has been made pure in heart—“. . . holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). So He revealed the character of the Father as a holy Father.

But Christ also told us about the Father’s love and compassion. That is why, He tells us, He came into the world—it was because of the love of God. He shows us this same love and compassion in His life. That is why He worked His miracles, not simply to heal the people, but to reveal, to manifest, His glory and the love and compassion of God. He said in effect, “If you do not believe My words, then as I do these things, see the Father in Me.” For this holy God is a God of love and compassion. As our Lord went about healing the sick and doing good, He told us that God is like that.

The Source of Life: by TA Sparks

This is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 1 John 5:11

It entirely depends upon our apprehension of the Lord as to what our testimony is. If we are turning to teaching, to tradition, to interpretations, to human associations, to Christianity, we are going to miss something, but if we are turning to the living God, in the realization that He is the living God, we are going to come into Life; everything is going to be all living in our experience right from the beginning. It is not unnecessary to say a thing like that. We said at the outset we wake up, and some of us awoke too late. The thing that kept us asleep – though we did not know we were asleep, except that there was a restlessness, a sense of dissatisfaction, a turning from side to side, and a sighing and groaning – was the fact that we had been associated with Christianity and the things of the people of God from so early in our lives. Our Christianity and our relationship with the Lord was something into which we were brought in infancy, and it had all become a matter of a system of the things of the Lord around us, with which we were quite familiar. We had been taught to say prayers, and go to meetings, and so on. One day we awoke to the fact that this God was a living God. We had been associated with Him in a way for a long time, but He was not personal to us, not a living God.

Forgive me for going back to such an elementary stage, if it is necessary to ask forgiveness, for it is just possible there are some among us whose relationship is of that kind. Maybe you are associated with things related to the Lord, but what about this question of your own personal, inward enjoyment of the living God, of His really being to you a living Person? We must begin back there, and all this is nothing to you unless the Holy Spirit has made it real, or does make it real, in your experience. I do know that it is true to fact in the life of a great many, that the day comes when, though they have been associated with the things of the Lord for a long time, they suddenly wake up to the fact that the Lord is a living Person. That contains so much for us as we come to realize it. It means everything to us from every point of view. We are the Lord's now! We know the Lord!

...and Still Obeys: by CS Lewis

Job 13:15 Though he slay me, I will hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face.

Screwtape (the senior demon instructing his nephew, a minor demon) elaborates on the Enemy's intentions:

Merely to override a human will (as His presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later he withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. .... He cannot 'tempt' to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.

1 Samuel 15:22 And Samuel said, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.

We Live by Revelation: by Henry Blackaby

Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law.   Proverbs 29:18

The world operates on vision. God’s people live by revelation. The world seeks grand and noble purposes and goals to achieve. People dream up the greatest and most satisfying things in which they can invest their lives. Institutions establish goals and objectives and then organize themselves to achieve them. God’s people function in a radically different way. Christians arrange their lives based on the revelation of God, regardless of whether it makes sense to them. God does not ask for our opinion about what is best for our future, our family, our church, or our country. He already knows! What God wants is to get the attention of His people and reveal to us what is on His heart and what is His will, for God’s ways are not our ways! (Isa. 55:8-9).

Whenever people do not base their lives on God’s revelation, they “cast off restraint.” That is, they do what is right in their own eyes. They set their goals, arrange their agendas, and then pray for God’s blessings. Some Christians are living far outside the will of God, yet they have the audacity to pray and ask God to bless their efforts!

The only way for you to know God’s will is for Him to reveal it to you. You will never discover it on your own. When you hear from the Father, you have an immediate agenda for your life: obedience. As the writer of Proverbs observed: “Happy is he who keeps the law.”

The Relinquished Life: by Oswald Chambers

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. Galatians 2:20

It is impossible to be united with Christ unless we are willing to let go: to let go not only of sin but of our entire way of looking at things. In 1 Timothy 6:19, Paul writes that God wants us to “take hold of the life that is truly life.” But before we can take hold, we must let go. If we wish to be born from above in the Spirit, the first thing we have to let go of is pretending we’re something we’re not. What our Lord wants us to present to him isn’t goodness or honesty or endeavor; it’s real, solid sin. In exchange, he gives us real, solid righteousness. First, though, we must give up the idea that we are worthy of God’s consideration; we must give up the thought that we are anything at all. After we do, the Spirit will show us what else there is to relinquish. The giving up must happen repeatedly, in every phase. Every step of the way, we must give up the claim to our right to ourselves.

Am I willing to relinquish my hold on my possessions and affections? On everything? Am I willing to be identified with the death of Jesus? There is always a painful shattering of illusions before we finally do relinquish.

When we truly see ourselves as the Lord sees us, it isn’t the abominable sins of the flesh that shock us; it’s the awful nature of pride in our hearts against Jesus Christ. When we see ourselves in the light of the Lord, shame and horror and desperate conviction strike home. If you have come to the point where you must relinquish or turn back, go on through. Relinquish all, and God will make you fit for what he requires.

Comparisons? from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

Luke 6:37 Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven;
John 3:16-17 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

    Stop judging and evaluating yourself, for this is not your role. Above all, stop comparing yourself with other people. This produces feelings of pride or inferiority; sometimes, a mixture of both. I lead each of My children along a path that is uniquely tailor-made for him or her. Comparing is not only wrong; it is also meaningless.
    Don't look for affirmation in the wrong places: your own evaluations, or those of other people. The only source of real affirmation is My unconditional Love. Many believers perceive Me as an unpleasable Judge, angrily searching out their faults and failures. Nothing could be farther from the truth! I died for your sins, so that I might clothe you in My garments of salvation. This is how I see you: radiant in My robe of righteousness. When I discipline you, it is never in anger or disgust; it is to prepare you for face-to-Face fellowship with me throughout all eternity. Immerse yourself in My loving Presence. Be receptive to My affirmation, which flows continually from the throne of grace. 

Isaiah 61:10 I will rejoice greatly in the Lord, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
Proverbs 3:11-12 My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.

Occupied with Christ: by TA Sparks

That you... may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:18,19

The mark of a life governed by the Holy Spirit is that such a life is continually and ever more and more occupied with Christ, that Christ is becoming greater and greater as time goes on. The effect of the Holy Spirit's work in us is to bring us to the shore of a mighty ocean which reaches far, far beyond our range, and concerning which we feel – Oh, the depths, the fullness, of Christ! If we live as long as ever man lived, we shall still be only on the fringe of this vast fullness that Christ is.
Now, that at once becomes a challenge to us before we go any further. These are not just words. This is not just rhetoric; this is truth. Let us ask our hearts at once, Is this true in our case? Is this the kind of life that we know? Are we coming to despair on this matter? That is to say, that we are glimpsing so much as signified by Christ that we know we are beaten, that we are out of our depth, and will never range all this. It is beyond us, far beyond us, and yet we are drawn on and ever on. Is that true in your experience? That is the mark of a life governed by the Holy Spirit. Christ becomes greater and greater as we go on. If that is true, well, that is the way of Life. If ever you and I should come to a place where we think we know, we have it all, we have attained, and from that point things become static, we may take it that the Holy Spirit has ceased operations and that life has become stultified.

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.

Revelation in the Heart: by TA Sparks

God... Who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of His own purpose and grace. 2 Timothy 1:9

The Lord Jesus did not come in just as a rescuer of man and of man’s lot. We should almost be led to believe by certain emphases that redemption is the greatest thing in the universe, and that all God’s interest is in redemption, and that we should be occupied solely with redemption. Redemption is a great thing. We can never, never exaggerate, and I doubt whether we shall ever know what a great thing redemption is; and yet, great as redemption is in its scope, in its depth, in its cost, redemption is only incidental to the eternal purpose.

Christ came into time to rescue His own inheritance. In that, of course, man is rescued, but it is something very much bigger than that. It relates to the Son primarily, and until the Lord’s people get the right attitude, the right point of view, that is, that all things in God’s full and final concern are centered in God’s Son, they have not come into line with all God’s resource. While the direction is toward ourselves – redemption, sanctification, glorification, and so on – or toward anything less than the Son Himself, we have not got God’s dynamic for accomplishing His work, and therefore it becomes necessary, as the sufficient, the adequate basis of the Holy Spirit’s operation, that there should be a revelation of Jesus Christ in the heart, for it is in relation to Him and what God has purposed concerning Him that all the energies of God are released and made active.

Is He Really Lord? By Oswald Chambers

So that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus. — Acts 20:24

Joy comes from the ultimate fulfillment of my life’s purpose—that for which I was created and reborn. It doesn’t come from the successful performance of a task. Jesus’s joy lay in doing what the Father had sent him to do, and this is also where our joy lies: “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21).

Have I received a ministry from the Lord? If so, I have to be loyal to it. I have to count my life precious only for its fulfillment. Think of the joy and satisfaction that will come from hearing Jesus say, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:21). We all have to find our place in life, and spiritually we find it when we receive our ministry from the Lord. First, though, we must get to know Jesus as more than our personal savior; we must know him as an intimate companion. Only then will he reveal to us our purpose.

“Do you love me?” Jesus asked Peter. “Feed my sheep” (John 21:17). Notice how Jesus doesn’t offer Peter, doesn’t offer us, a choice about how to serve. The only possibility is absolute loyalty to his command, absolute loyalty to what we discern when we are close to him.

Sometimes we misunderstand the call. We think that we are being called by a certain need—the need of God’s children to hear the gospel, for instance, or to have someone intervene for them in prayer. But the need isn’t what’s calling us; the need is simply an opportunity for answering the call. The call itself is a call to absolute loyalty. God wants you to be loyal to the ministry you receive when you are close to him, whatever it may be. This doesn’t imply that there is a specific campaign of service marked out for you, but it does mean that you will have to ignore the demands for service along other lines.

UNBELIEF: by Martyn Lloyd Jones

2 Corinthians 4:3–4 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Let us consider what our Lord has to say about the terrible condition of unbelief. The first thing He tells us is that it is a definite mentality, a definite spirit. Unbelief is not a negative but an active thing. Of course, our tendency is to think of unbelief as just a negative condition in which a man does not believe, but according to the Bible that is an utter fallacy. Unbelief is terribly positive and active, a state and condition of the soul, with a very definite mentality. The Bible, indeed, does not hesitate to put it essentially like this: “Unbelief is one of the manifestations of sin; it is one of the symptoms of that foul disease.” Or as the apostle Paul puts it in:

2 Corinthians 4:3–4 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

It is a terrible state and condition. Let me put it like this. It is not just a refusal to believe. That is how the devil foils us. He persuades modern unbelievers into thinking that they are unbelievers because of their great intelligence, their wonderful intellect and understanding. They think that people who are Christians are fools who have either not read or have not understood what they have read. The unbeliever thinks that he is in that state because of his scientific knowledge, and that it is in the light of these things that he refuses to believe. They rejoice in their great emancipation, that they have been delivered from the shackles of the Bible, and that they have been emancipated from this drug, this dope of the people that we call the Gospel. Poor things! They are unconscious slaves, and they do not know that they are victims.

With God's Help: by CS Lewis

2 Chronicles 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

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 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.

Come to Me: from Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

Matthew 11:28-30 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Come to Me, and rest in My loving Presence. You know that this day will bring difficulties, and you are trying to think your way through these trials. As you anticipate what is ahead of you, you forget that I am with you--now and always. Rehearsing your troubles results in experiencing them many times, whereas you are meant to go through them only when they actually occur. Do not multiply your suffering in this way! Instead, come to Me, and relax in My peace. I will strengthen you and prepare you for this day, transforming your fear into confident trust.

Joshua 1:5,9 No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

Freedom of Love: by Dallas Willard

1 John 4:7-8 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

In the movie The Stepford Wives, the wives are continually ecstatic about sewing and baking. When they get together, they mainly trade recipes or coo over their latest triumphs in making their husbands’ lives more comfortably. They are never unpleasant to anyone. A few of the wives remain on the individualistic side, but they eventually leave for a “vacation,” and upon their return they focus on cleaning floors just like the rest. The surprise of the movie is that these women are all robots.

Conformity to another’s wishes is not desirable, be it ever so perfect, if it is mindless or purchased at the expense of freedom and the destruction of personality. The freedom of God’s love is central to how we think about God’s relationship with his human creation and about what his love for us means.

Think about this: When we are looking for answers or making tough decisions, the fact that we are created with free choice can feel like a burden. At this point in your life, how do you feel about the freedom God is giving you? We need to be careful that we do not take this freedom lightly or halfhearted. Responsibility comes with every decision and accountability is always the result.

A RANSOM: by Martyn Lloyd Jones

For you are bought with a price. 1 Corinthians 6:20

What Paul has learned from the cross is that the Lord Jesus Christ had died for him there in order to deliver him. Now, many terms are used to explain this, and one of them is the term of paying a ransom, paying a price. Man has become the slave to the devil and of sin and of evil, and he has to be bought. The apostle says that he discovered that what was happening on the cross was that the Lord Jesus Christ was purchasing him. So he writes to the Corinthians about morality and behavior, and he puts it like this: “What? Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own? For you are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

Now then, here the new view comes in. He was the slave of the devil, the slave of the world, the slave of sin and of evil. He could not get free, try as he would. But he has been bought. He has been delivered; he has been set free. He has been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God’s Son. He has been redeemed. And now he has a new view of himself. He is not his own; he does not belong to himself anymore. He formerly lived to himself, but no longer; he has been bought with a price. He has a new life; he is in a new world. You know, this so grips and thrills this man that he cannot stop saying it. Listen to him saying it in

Galatians 2:20: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: 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.”

Open Heaven’s Windows: by TA Sparks

I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it in! Malachi 3:10

There is very much prayer being made, and appeal being pressed for revival.... If the Spirit of God either ignores or transcends so much that marks the Christian system, and makes it as though it counts so little, (and the Holy Spirit never compromises on what is vital and really of God), does it not mean that He calls for a reconsideration of very much that obtains? The days of the Church's greatest spiritual power and impact were days when ecclesiastical forms, architecture and ritual were nil, and the Lord Himself was everything.... To get away from the lesser things we need a mighty visitation of the Spirit of God; this, and this only, will do it. Most people agree to this, and we have heard very much said along this line. What has always perplexed us is that, while things of this kind have been so repeatedly and strongly stated, the implication seems never to have registered itself with sufficient strength as to result in practical adjustments. So, on the other hand, if we seriously faced the things which the Spirit of God has again and again ruled out when He has had His way, would not the way be opened for a more permanent high level of spiritual life, fullness, and effectiveness?

Is not reformation an essential part of revival? Does not the Lord call for certain drastic adjustments before He can "open the windows of heaven"? (Mal. 3:10). Whenever and wherever, by a new revealing of Himself, His purpose and method, the Lord has secured those who have moved out on to the ground of Christ only and in fullness, they have always had to meet a great and painful cost. Usually it has been their own brethren in Christ who have exacted it.... How difficult it is for organized Christianity to believe that anything very much of real value can go on without machinery, publicity, and all the framework of organized work! May it not be well to pause and consider whether God's mightiest and most fruitful works in nature and in grace are not done hiddenly, quietly, unobtrusively, and – in many cases – done before anyone knows about it? What of the resurrection of nature every Spring-time? The law of God's highest work is the biological, the law of Life; it is organic.

IN CHRIST: by Andrew Murray

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

The expression " in Christ" is often used in the Epistles. The Christian cannot read God's Word aright nor experience its full power in his life until he prayerfully and believingly accepts this truth:

I AM IN CHRIST JESUS.

The Lord Jesus in the last night with His disciples used this word more than once. "In that day," ---when the Spirit had been poured out, "you shall know that I am in the Father, and you IN ME!" And then follows, "Abide in Me; he that abides IN Me bears much fruit." "If you abide in Me, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you."

But the Christian cannot appropriate these promises unless he first prayerfully accepts the word: IN Christ. Paul expresses the same thought in Romans. "We are buried with Christ." "We are dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

There is no condemnation to them which are In Christ Jesus." And in Ephesians: "God has blesses us with all spiritual blessings IN CHRIST.", has chosen us in Him; has made us accepted In the Beloved.; In Him we have redemption.

And in Colossians: "In Him dwells all the fullness"; we are "Perfect" In Christ Jesus". "Walk ye in Him." "You are Complete in Him."

Let our faith take hold of the words: "It is God that establishes us in Christ." "Of God I am in Christ Jesus." The Holy Spirit will make it our experience. Pray earnestly and follow the leading of the Spirit. The word will take root in your heart, and you will realize something of its heavenly power.

But remember that abiding in Christ is a matter of the heart. It must be cultivated in a spirit of love. Only as we take time from day to day in fellowship with Christ will the abiding in Christ become a blessed reality, and the inner man will be renewed from day to day.

...Lord Jesus, teach me to abide in Christ, renew me day to day. Amen.

Correcting Our Arithmetic: by CS Lewis

John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Matthew 7:13-14“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Would you think I was joking if I said that you can put a clock back, and that if the clock is wrong it is often a very sensible thing to do? .... We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man. We have all seen this when doing arithmetic. When I have started a sum the wrong way, the sooner I admit this and go back and start again, the faster I shall get on. There is nothing progressive about being pig headed and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world, it is pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake. We are on the wrong road. And if that is so, we must go back. Going back is the quickest way on.

Our Lord the Object of Faith for Salvation: by AW Tozer

 

… Preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all:). Acts 10:36

It is altogether doubtful whether any man can be saved who comes to Christ for His help but with no intention of obeying Him, for Christ’s saviorhood is forever united to His lordship.

Look at the apostle’s instruction and admonition: “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved… for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Romans 10:9-13

There the Lord is the object of faith for salvation! And when the Philippian jailer asked the way to be saved, Paul replied, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).

Paul did not tell him to believe on the Savior with the thought that he could later take up the matter of His lordship and settle it at his own convenience. To Paul there could be no division of offices. Christ must be Lord or He will not be Savior!

There is no intention here to teach that our first saving contact with Christ brings perfect knowledge of all He is to us. The contrary is true. Ages upon ages will hardly be long enough to allow us to experience all the riches of His grace.

As we discover new meanings in His titles and make them ours we will grow in the knowledge of our Lord and the many forms of love He wears exalted on His throne!

Beware of the Amalekites! by Henry Blackaby

For he said, “Because the Lord has sworn: the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”  Exodus 17:16

The Amalekites were the persistent and relentless enemies of the Israelites. When the Israelites sought to enter the Promised Land, the Amalekites stood in their way (Exod. 17:8-16). Once the Israelites were in the Promised Land and seeking to enjoy what God had given them, the Amalekites joined the Midianites to torment the Hebrews in the days of Gideon (Judg. 6:3). It was an Amalekite that caused the downfall of King Saul (1 Sam. 15:9, 28). The Amalekites continually sought to hinder the progress of God’s people and to rob them of God’s blessing. Thus God swore His enmity against them for eternity.

As you move forward in your pilgrimage with the Lord, there will be “Amalekites” that will seek to distract and defeat you. God is determined to remove anything that keeps you from experiencing Him to the fullest. If your commitment to your job is keeping you from obedience to Him, God will declare war against it. If a relationship, materialism, or a destructive activity is keeping you from obeying God’s will, He will wage relentless war against it. There is nothing so precious to you that God will not be its avowed enemy if it keeps you from His will for your life. King Saul mistakenly thought he could associate with Amalekites and still fulfill the will of the Lord (1 Sam. 15:8-9). You may also be hesitant to rid yourself of that which causes you to compromise your obedience to God. Don’t make the same mistake as King Saul. He did not take the Amalekites seriously enough, and it cost him dearly.

The Centrality of the Cross: by Martyn Lloyd Jones

2 Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ constrains us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead.

Everything proceeds from the cross. A Christian is a man who glories in the cross. If the cross is not central to you, you are not a Christian. You may say that you admire Jesus and His teaching, but that does not make you a Christian.

The apostle tells us that the cross governs his view of himself and that he has a new view of himself as a result of the cross. This is one of the most glorious aspects of the doctrine of the cross. It gives a man an entirely different view of himself.

Now, how does that happen? If you read 2 Corinthians 5, you will find that he there expands this aspect in a particularly clear manner. He has two great things to say: “Wherefore,” he says in verse 16, “henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.” That is one. But here is another in verses 14-15: “For the love of Christ constrains us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.”

What he is saying in that chapter is all summarized in verse 17 when he puts this astonishing statement before us: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” And among the “all things” that have become new is man’s view of himself. This is one of the most glorious deliverances a man can ever know, to be free and delivered from himself.