Life is in the Son: by TA Sparks

You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about Me, yet you refuse to come to Me to have life. John 5:39-40

The value of everything is its livingness. The value of the Scriptures is not that we know our Bibles and can handle our Bibles and can give addresses, wonderful addresses, from our Bibles, and that we can quote Scripture fully and accurately and all that sort of thing. It is not that we bear the name of associates of Christ, Christians, not that we have this great inheritance and tradition. It is the livingness of it all which is proving itself in all ways, that this risen Life of Christ should prove itself.... That is a strong thing to say, it is a searching thing to say. You have the Christian tradition and a great deal of Christian teaching, perhaps you know your Bibles very well, or think you do, perhaps you have many advantages in your associations, but the question arises. Not do you know it all, have you got it all, all the teaching, the truth, the Bible knowledge, the association, and that you are at all the meetings and you have heard it for years and years past and your association with it has been very close. That is not it. You can have all that and yet you yourself not be marked by this vital something that you become a vital factor in the whole thing. You are still a passenger, perhaps a parasite; not really in the good of it yourself. Let us be frank about it. We must face this as a personal matter.

The answer is in the resurrection.... Resurrection is not to be only something that happened with Jesus, but it is something that has happened in us and taken place inside of us. There is a counterpart of that by His risen Life imparted, that we have been raised together with Him. And that is not just doctrine either. That is real, that is vital truth and something to happen in us as well as in Jerusalem so many years ago. It is not just history and tradition, it is experience.... We have not only to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but we have got to be alive ourselves with Him in that resurrection and on that ground.

The Risen Lord: by Henry Blackaby

His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters.      Revelation 1:14-15

At times it is tempting to conclude: “If only I could have walked with Jesus, as the twelve disciples did, it would be so much easier to live the Christian life!”  This thought reveals that we do not comprehend the greatness of the risen Christ we serve today. The Jesus of the Gospels is often portrayed as One who walked along the seashore, loving children and gently forgiving sinners. Yet the image of Jesus that we see at the close of the New Testament is far more dramatic! He stands in awesome power as He rules all creation. His appearance is so magnificent that when John, His beloved disciple, sees Him, he falls to the ground as though he were dead (Rev. 1:17).

We grossly underestimate the God we serve! To ignore God’s word or to disobey a direct command from Him is to ignore the magnificent nature of Christ. Our fear of other people proves that we do not understand the awesome Lord who walks with us. The Christ we serve today is the Lord of all creation. He is vastly more awesome and powerful than the gentle rabbi we often imagine.

If you struggle with your obedience to Christ, take a closer look at how He is portrayed in the Book of Revelation. If you are succumbing to temptation, call upon the powerful One who dwells in you. If you have forgotten how great and mighty the Lord is, meet Him through the vision of the beloved disciple. The encounter will dramatically affect the way you live!

Belief In Jesus Christ: by ML Jones

John 20:31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

What do we believe about Christ? What is the teaching about Him?

Why do you think the four Gospels were ever written? Surely there can be no hesitation about answering this question. They were written—God caused men to write them and guided them through the Spirit as they did so—in order that the truth concerning the Lord Jesus Christ might be known exactly. All sorts of false stories were current in the first century. They were apocryphal gospels, and in them things were being ascribed to Him and He was reported to have done and said things that had never happened. So the Gospels were written in order to define the truth, in order to exclude certain falsehoods and give the facts plainly and clearly.

Luke, in the introduction to his Gospel, says: (Luke 1:1–4) Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

You will find that John, at the end of his Gospel, virtually says the same thing: John 20:31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

But not only do the Gospels tell us that—there are also several sections in other parts of the New Testament that specifically make the same point. Take the first epistle of John, for example. Why was it written? To counteract the false  teaching that was current, the teaching that denied that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh, that docetism, that false doctrine.

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.”

The Collision of God and Sin: by Oswald Chambers

…who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree… —1 Peter 2:24

The Cross of Christ is the revealed truth of God’s judgment on sin. Never associate the idea of martyrdom with the Cross of Christ. It was the supreme triumph, and it shook the very foundations of hell. There is nothing in time or eternity more absolutely certain and irrefutable than what Jesus Christ accomplished on the Cross— He made it possible for the entire human race to be brought back into a right-standing relationship with God. He made redemption the foundation of human life; that is, He made a way for every person to have fellowship with God.

The Cross was not something that happened to Jesus— He came to die; the Cross was His purpose in coming. He is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). The incarnation of Christ would have no meaning without the Cross. Beware of separating “God was manifested in the flesh…” from “…He made Him…to be sin for us…” (1 Timothy 3:16 ; 2 Corinthians 5:21). The purpose of the incarnation was redemption. God came in the flesh to take sin away, not to accomplish something for Himself. The Cross is the central event in time and eternity, and the answer to all the problems of both.

The Cross is not the cross of a man, but the Cross of God, and it can never be fully comprehended through human experience. The Cross is God exhibiting His nature. It is the gate through which any and every individual can enter into oneness with God. But it is not a gate we pass right through; it is one where we abide in the life that is found there.

The heart of salvation is the Cross of Christ. The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. The Cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God.

Why the Cross? by Jerry Bridges

Jesus … endured the cross, despising the shame. Hebrews 12:2

At the time of Christ’s death, the cross was an instrument of incredible horror and shame. It was a most wretched and degrading punishment, inflicted only on slaves and the lowliest of people. If free men were at any time subjected to crucifixion for great crimes such as treason or insurrection, the sentence could not be executed until they were put in the category of slaves by degradation and their freedom taken away by flogging.

How could it be that the eternal Son of God—by whom all things were created and for whom all things were created (Colossians 1:15–16)—would end up in His human nature dying one of the most cruel and humiliating deaths ever devised by man?

We know that Jesus’ death on the cross did not take Him by surprise. He continually predicted it to His disciples. (See Luke 18:31–33 for one example.) And with His impending crucifixion before Him, Jesus Himself said, “What shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour” (John 12:27). Jesus said He came to die.

But why? Why did Jesus come to die? The apostles Paul and Peter gave us the answer in clear, concise terms. Paul wrote, “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,” and Peter wrote, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God” (1 Corinthians 15:3; 1 Peter 3:18).

Christ died for our sins. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, took upon Himself a human nature and died a horrible death on our behalf. That is the reason for the cross. He suffered what we should have suffered. He died in our place to pay the penalty for our sins.

The Cross of Christ: by Andrew Murray

For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:19-20

The cross of Christ is His greatest glory. Because He humbled Himself to the death of the cross, therefore God hath highly exalted Him. The cross was the power that conquered Satan and sin.

 The Christian shares with Christ in the cross. The crucified Christ lives in him through the Holy Spirit, and the spirit of the cross inspires him. He lives as one who has died with Christ. As he realizes the power of Christ's crucifixion, he lives as one who has died to the world and to sin, and the power becomes a reality in his life. It is as the crucified One that Christ lives in me.

Our Lord said to His disciples: "Take up your cross and follow me." Did they understand this? They had seen men carrying a cross, and knew what it meant, a painful death on the cross. And so all His life Christ bore His cross, the death sentence that He should die for the world. And each Christian must bear his cross, acknowledging that he is worthy of death, and believing that he is crucified with Christ, and that the crucified One lives in him. "Our old man is crucified with Christ." "He that is Christ's hath crucified the flesh with all the lusts thereof." When we have accepted this life of the cross, we will be able to say with Paul: "Far be it from me to glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."

This is a deep spiritual truth. Think and pray over it, and the Holy Spirit will teach you. Let the disposition of Christ on the cross, His humility, His sacrifice of all worldly honour, His Spirit of self-denial, take possession of you. The power of His death will work in you, and you will become like Him in His death, and you will know Him and the power of His resurrection. Take time, O soul, that Christ through His Spirit, may reveal Himself as the Crucified One.

The Offense of the Cross: by ML Jones

But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness. 1 Corinthians 1:23

The test of whether someone is teaching the cross rightly or wrongly is whether it is an offense to the natural man or not. If my preaching of this cross is not an offense to the natural man, I am misrepresenting it. If it is something that makes him say “how beautiful,” “how wonderful,” “what a tragedy,” “what a shame,” I have not been preaching the cross truly. The preaching of the cross is an offense to the natural man. So it becomes the test of any man’s preaching.

Or let me put it in terms of the congregation. If this element of offense in the cross has never appeared to you, or if you have never felt it, then I say that you likewise have never known the truth about the cross of Christ. If you have never reacted against it and felt that it is an offense for you, I say you have never known it. It is always an offense to the natural man. Invariably, there is no exception. So if you have never felt it, you have never seen it because you are a natural man. Nobody is born a Christian into this world. We have to be born again to become Christians, and as long as we are natural men and women, the cross is an offense.

So if we have never known this element of offense, either we have not seen it or we have had some misrepresentation of it. The cross is an offense to the mind of the natural man. It cuts across all his preconceived notions and ideas. It was a stumbling block to the Jews for this reason. They were expecting a Messiah to destroy the Roman conquerors. So when they found the One who claimed to be the Messiah dying in apparent weakness upon the cross, they were deeply wounded and offended.

His Agony in Gethsemane: by Oswald Chambers

Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, ... “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. ”Matthew 26:36,38

We know nothing about Gethsemane in our personal experience. Both Gethsemane and Calvary stand for something unique: they are the gateway into life for us. We can never fully fathom the agony Jesus went through in Gethsemane, but we can at least try not to misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and man in one, coming face-to-face with sin.

Death on the cross wasn’t what Jesus feared in Gethsemane. He’d already stated that he’d come for that purpose. Read about his agony in light of the temptation Jesus endured three years earlier at the hands of Satan. “When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). The “opportune time” was Gethsemane. It was then that Satan came back and resumed his onslaught, and what Jesus feared was that he might not get through the attack as the Son of Man. He knew he’d get through it as the Son of God—Satan couldn’t touch him there. But Satan’s attack, if victorious, would mean that Jesus only withstood temptation as the Son of God, an isolated Figure, and thus could be no savior.

The agony in Gethsemane is the agony of the Son of Man fulfilling his destiny as the savior of the world. The veil is drawn aside to reveal what it cost him to make it possible for us to become children of God. Jesus’s agony is the basis of the simplicity of our salvation. The cross of Christ is a sign not only that our Lord has triumphed but that he triumphed to save humankind. Now, thanks to what the Son of Man endured, every human can get through to the presence of God.

The Centrality of the Cross: by ML Jones

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 2 Corinthians 5:16

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: “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.” That is one. But here is another in verses 14-15: “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised 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.

A Dead Christ vs a Living Christ: 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.” 45 But we do say, “Ask the Lord to reveal His Son in you.” Then the great work of emancipation will begin.

The Cup Jesus Emptied: by Jerry Bridges

Matthew 26:42 He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed in Matthew 26:39, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” A little while later, at His arrest, He said to Peter in John 18:11, “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” The cup was very much on Jesus’ mind that night.

What was in the cup? We generally associate the cup with His crucifixion. We assume that when He prayed that the cup might be taken away, He was asking that, if possible, He might be spared from that horrible and demeaning death on the cross. There is truth in that assumption and certainly, the cup was connected with the crucifixion. But we still haven’t addressed the question of what was in the cup?

In both the Old and New Testaments, the cup of God is a reference to His judgement. For example, in Psalm 75:8, we read, “in the hand of the Lord is a cup full of foaming wine and mixed with spices; he pours it out and al the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs.”

Here we see that the cup God pours out and that the wicked drink down to the dregs is the cup of God’s judgement. Jeremiah 25:15 is even more specific: “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it.”

We also see it in the New Testament in Revelation 14:9-10, “A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on their forehead or on their hand, they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb.”

So the cup is a metaphor referring to the judgement of God as expressed in the pouring out of His wrath on sinful nations and people.

What was in the cup Jesus drank at His crucifixion?  It was the wrath of God.

Do Not Mistake the True Meaning of the Cross: by AW Tozer

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. Galatians 6:14

All unannounced and mostly undetected there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles.
It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial, the differences fundamental!
From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life with encouragement for a new and entirely different evangelistic approach. The evangelist tries to show that Christianity makes no unpleasant demands; rather, it offers the same thing the world does, only on a higher level. The modern view is that the new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him!
The philosophy back of this kind of thing may be sincere, but it is as false as it is blind. It misses completely the whole meaning of the cross.
The old cross is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, violent end of a human being. In Roman times, the man who took up his cross and started down the road was not coming back. He was not going out to have his life redirected: he was going out to have it ended! The cross did not try to keep on good terms with its victim. It struck cruel and hard, and when it had finished its work, the man was no more!
The race of Adam is under death sentence. God cannot approve any of the fruits of sin. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto a higher plane; we leave it at the cross. Thus God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again to newness of life!

Victory through Weakness: by TA Sparks

Although He was weak when He was nailed to the cross, He now lives by the power of God. We are weak, just as Christ was. But you will see that we will live by the power of God, just as Christ does. 2 Corinthians 13:4

One of the most damaging things in the realm of God’s work, a thing which eventually leads to shame and confusion and much sorrow, is Natural Soul Force projected by strong-willed, determined, aggressive Christians who have not come to a spiritual state where they are able to discriminate between stubborn indomitableness, personal determination and resolution, and that which is altogether another thing: spiritual grace in endurance, perseverance, and Divine instrengthening. The Lord has often to break the former to make place for the latter. Do not talk about Paul’s wonderful will to go through. Let Paul talk to you about the Lord’s wonderful grace to continue. Whenever a man or a woman really recognizing the truth that Calvary means the end of “I” commits himself or herself to the Lord to work it out, the flame of the sword will come round to the point where that “flesh” would seek to enter into the realm where the first Adam no longer has any standing. The features of a personal strength of will are hardness, coldness, death, resentment of interference, suspicion of rivals, intolerance of obstructers, detachment, independence, secretiveness, heat, etc. While spiritual strength is always marked by love, warmth, life, fellowship, openness, confidence, and trust in the Lord.... At the end, in the Revelation, the dragon, the whole power of Satan is overthrown by the Lamb. The Lamb is the synonym for weakness and yieldingness. Paul says of Christ that “He was crucified through weakness,” and, he adds, “we also are weak with Him.” Yes, but he also says, “by the Cross He triumphed.” Triumphed through weakness!

Preaching About the Cross of Christ: by ML Jones

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Galatians 6:14

The preaching of the cross of Christ was the very center and heart of the message of the apostles, and there is nothing I know of that is more important than that every one of us should realize that this is still the heart and the center of the Christian message. In order to emphasize that, let me put it negatively first. What is the message of the Christian Gospel and of the Christian church? Now at the risk of being misunderstood I will put it like this: It is not primarily the teaching of our Lord. I say that, of course, because there are so many today who think that this is Christianity. They say, “What we need is Jesus’ teaching. He is the greatest religious genius of all times. He is above all philosophers. Let us have a look at His teaching, at the Sermon on the Mount and so on. That is what we want. What the world needs today,” they say, “is a dose of the Sermon on the Mount—a dose of His ethical teaching. We must preach this to people and teach them how to live.” But according to the apostle Paul, this is not their first need. And I will go further. If you only preach the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, not only do you not solve the problem of mankind, but in a sense you aggravate it. You are preaching nothing but utter condemnation, because nobody can ever carry it out.

So they did not preach His teaching. Paul does not say, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the Sermon on the Mount” or “God forbid that I should glory save in the ethical teaching of Jesus.” He does not say that. It was not the teaching of Christ, nor the example of Christ either. What they preached was His death on the cross and the meaning of that event.

Impossible Debt: by Jerry Bridges

Matthew 18:25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

We can't begin to appreciate the good news of the gospel until we see our deep need. Most people, even believers, have never given much thought to how desperate our condition is outside of Christ. Few ever think about the dreadful implications of being under the wrath of God. And none of us even begins to realize how truly sinful we are.

Jesus once told a story (Matthew 18:21-35) about a king's servant who owed his master ten thousand talents. (Just one talent was equal to about twenty years' wages for a working man.) Why would Jesus use such an unrealistically large amount when He knew that in real life it would have been impossible for any servant to accumulate such a debt?

Jesus was fond of using hyperbole to make His point. That immense sum represents a spiritual debt every one of us owes to God. It's the debt of our sins. For each of us, it's a staggering amount. This is what the gospel is all about. Jesus paid our debt to the full. And He did far more. He also purchased for us an eternal inheritance of infinite worth. That's why Paul wrote of the "unsearchable riches of Christ" (Ephesians 3:8). And God wants us to enjoy those unsearchable riches in the here and now, even in the midst of difficult and discouraging circumstances.

Lofty Thoughts: by JI Packer

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Psalm 139:6

At the age of twenty, C. H. Spurgeon proved that he already had his priorities right: The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father. There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subjects we can compass and grapple with; in them we feel a kind of self-content, and go our way with the thought, “Behold I am wise.” But when we come to this master science, finding that our plumb line cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the thought, . . . “I am but of yesterday, and know nothing.” No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind, than thoughts of God.

Interest or Identification? by Oswald Chambers

I have been crucified with Christ. Galatians 2:20

Paul doesn’t say, “I’ve decided to imitate Christ” or “I’m interested in following Christ.” He says, “I have been crucified with Christ”: he has become identified with Christ in Christ’s death.

In my spiritual life, the essential need is to sign the death warrant of my sinful disposition. I must issue a moral verdict against the idea that I have a right to myself, drawing on every emotional and intellectual tool at my disposal to make the decision Paul made. When I do, when I come to the decision to identify myself with Christ’s death, everything that Christ won on the cross is realized in me. By freely committing myself to God, I allow the Holy Spirit to impart to me the holiness of Jesus Christ.

“The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God” (Galatians 2:20). My individual life continues, but the wellspring of my character, my ruling disposition, is radically altered. My body remains as it was, but the satanic belief I used to have—the belief in my right to myself—is destroyed. Paul emphasizes that he is living this life “now.” It isn’t a life he plans to live one day; it’s the life he’s living “in the body”—the body that other people can see. This body bears witness to the life of Christ within it: “And I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (v. 20).

Union with Christ: by TA Sparks

Creation was subjected to frustration but not by its own choice. Romans 8:20

In searching for a sentence that will serve as a window through which what we have in view can be seen, the one that seems most potent is "The Curse of the Earth Touch." To understand what is meant by those last three words is to have an explanation of an immense amount of history; spiritual and temporal.... The nature and features of the curse, as the Bible everywhere reveals, are frustration, thwarting, bafflement, discontent, abortion, confusion, travail, breakdown, and an ever-defeated struggle against despair and death.... Why is it that so many things which have greatly served the purpose of God have eventually fallen apart; broken up; and have little more than a great past to live upon? Why is it that the Lord Himself has not circumvented this and preserved intact these instruments and vessels that He has used? Why is it that division upon division follows almost endlessly the course of many things which have been very jealous for an utter position as to Bible truth? These and many such questions have but one answer. That answer is the earth touch.

Somewhere, somehow, that blighting contact has been made. There has been a gesture toward this earth. Man has put his hand on heavenly things and tried to bring them on to this earth. It might be a 'New Testament Church' of a composite nature: certain things taught, enacted, and done in conformity to the record in the New Testament; a certain order, technique, and construction; these things have been drawn together for a creed, a form of procedure, and made the 'basis,' the form and standard, the 'constitution' of a body, an institution, a society: man's mind and man's hand defining, controlling, holding. The verdict of history is that God will just not commit Himself to any such thing.... The Apostles did not take a 'Blue Print' of New Testament churches wherever they went. The outcome of their work was a crisis, a climax to an old creation and the fiat of the new. What followed of order and knowledge was organic, not organized; spontaneous, not imposed; Life, not legality; and – above all – heavenly, not earthly. It was only when man pulled this down on to the earth that things went wrong.... Oh, this earth touch! How deadly it is! When will the Lord's people understand the essential meaning of their union with Christ in Heaven!

Waiting & Anticipating: by Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

Isaiah 40:31 but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Psalm 16:11 You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

   Waiting on Me means directing your attention to Me in hopeful anticipation of what I will do. It entails trusting Me with every fiber of your being, instead of trying to figure things out yourself. Waiting on Me is the way I designed you to live: all day, every day. I created you to stay conscious of Me as you go about your daily duties.
    I have promised many blessings to those who wait on Me: renewed strength, living above one's circumstances, resurgence of hope, awareness of My continual Presence. Waiting on Me enables you to glorify Me by living in deep dependence on Me, ready to do My will. It also helps you to enjoy Me; in My Presence is fullness of Joy.   

Lamentations 3:24-26 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

Blessed Matter: by CS Lewis

Colossians 1:26–27 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you,  the hope of glory.

And let me make it quite clear when Christians say the Christ-life is in them, they do not mean simply something mental or moral. When they speak of being 'in Christ' or of Christ being 'in them', this is not simply a way of saying that they are thinking about Christ or copying Him. They mean that Christ is actually operating through them; that the whole mass of Christians are the physical organism through which Christ acts—that we are His fingers and muscles, the cells of His body. And perhaps that explains one or two things. It explains why this new life is spread not only by purely mental acts like belief, but by bodily acts like baptism and Holy Communion. It is not merely the spreading of an idea; it is more like evolution—a biological or superbiological fact. There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He likes matter. He invented it.

A Revival’s Overwhelming: by Martyn Lloyd Jones

That all the people of the earth might know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the LORD your God for ever. Joshua 4:24

A revival is something that, when it happens, leads people to say, as the townspeople said in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost, “What is this? What is it?” It is something that comes like a tornado. It is almost like an overflowing tide; it is like a flood.

Astounding things happen, and of such a magnitude that men are left amazed, astonished. Let me give you an illustration that is one of the most lyrical and one of the most wonderful. There was a preacher in Scotland three hundred years ago by the name of John Livingstone of Kilsyth. John Livingstone and a number of others had been spending Sunday night after the services in prayer. Monday morning came, and John Livingstone had been asked to preach. He was out in the fields meditating, and suddenly he felt that he could not preach, that the thing was beyond him and that he was inadequate. And he felt like running away. But suddenly the voice of God seemed to speak to him, not in audible language, but in his spirit, telling him not to do that and that God did not work in that way, and it made him feel that he must go back. He preached, he tells us, on Ezekiel 36. And he said, “I preached for about an hour and a half. Then,” he said, “I began to apply my message,” and as he was beginning to apply it, suddenly the Spirit of God came upon him, and he went on for another hour in this application. And as he did so, people were literally falling to the ground, and in that one service five hundred people were converted. That is the kind of thing that happens in a revival. And poor John Livingstone says that kind of thing only happened to him on one other occasion.

When God Speaks, It Is So: by Henry Blackaby

So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.  Isaiah 55:11

When God speaks, nothing remains the same. At the beginning of time, God spoke, and a universe was created out of nothing. God followed a pattern when He created the earth: He spoke; it was so; it was good (Gen. 1:3-4). This pattern continued throughout the Bible. Whenever God revealed His plans, things happened just as He said, and God considered the result “good” (Phil. 2:13). God doesn’t make suggestions. He speaks with the full determination to see that what He has said will come to fruition.

Whenever Jesus spoke, what He said came to pass. Lepers found that a word from Jesus meant healing (Luke 5:13; 17:14). The blind man discovered that a word from Jesus meant sight (Luke 18:42). Through a barren fig tree the disciples saw that a curse from Jesus meant destruction (Mark 11:20). The sinner experienced forgiveness through a word from Jesus (John 8:11). How many attempts did it take Jesus to raise Lazarus from the dead? Only one (John 11:43). There was never a time that Jesus spoke that what He said did not happen.

What happens when Jesus speaks to you? Have you been reading the words of Jesus in your Bible without experiencing His word that transforms everything around you? Jesus condemned the Pharisees because they assumed that knowledge of the written Scriptures would give them life. They were satisfied with having the words instead of experiencing the person who spoke the words (John 5:39). How powerful a word from God is to your life! As you read your Bible and pray, listen to what God has to say to you about His will for your life.

The Christian Message: Prophetic, Not Diplomatic: by AW Tozer

For Christ sent me… to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should he made of none effect. 1 Corinthians 1:17

We who witness and proclaim the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world.

We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, modern education, or the world of sports.

We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum!

God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death. It stands always on the far side of the cross. Whoever would possess it must pass under the rod. He must repudiate himself and concur in God’s just sentence against him.

What does this mean to the individual, the condemned man who would find life in Christ Jesus? How can this theology be translated into life?

Simply, he must repent and believe. He must forsake his sins and then go on to forsake himself.

Let him cover nothing, defend nothing, excuse nothing.

Let him not seek to make terms with God, but let him bow his head before the stroke of God’s stern displeasure and acknowledge himself worthy to die.

Having done this, let him gaze with simple trust upon the risen Saviour, and from Him will come life and rebirth and cleansing and power. The cross that ended the earthly life of Jesus now puts an end to the sinner; and the power that raised Christ from the dead now raises him to a new life along with Christ!

A Matter of LIFE: by TA Sparks

You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Christ is your life. When He appears, then you, too, will appear with Him in glory. Colossians 3:3,4

We are very often inclined to think that the Life of the Lord in us needs in some way to be improved, to be added to, when really what is required is that we should discover what we have, and, discovering it by experience, live according to it. This Life is not something apart from the Lord Jesus, and we can never think of His standing in need of some improvement, nor of the possibility of something being added to Him to make Him complete, or more complete. We would never think like that. And this Life is one with Himself. As the Apostle says, it is Christ who is our Life, and our need is to discover what Christ is in us, and to live accordingly. So in a very real sense it is a matter of the Life getting more of us, rather than of our getting more of the Life. That, at any rate, is the way of its working.

This, in the ordering of God, has to be done in a world where death still rules and works; for in this world the destruction of death has not yet been made manifest. Death, like the devil, goes on, although Calvary still remains full victory. We are left in this world, and it is in this world where death reigns and works as a great energy that we, by this sovereign ordering of God, have to come to prove the values of the Life which has been deposited in us, and to discover its potentialities. This is an experimental discovery. It therefore resolves itself into battle between that which is in this world and the Life which is in the believer. It is the battle for Life, not as to the forfeiture of that Life – not as to whether death can take eternal Life away from us, for that is not the question at issue – but as to the triumphant expression and the full manifestation of the power of that Life. That is the issue.

Obedience: by Andrew Murray

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, John 14:15-16

We have learned to know the disciples in their preparation for the baptism of the Spirit, and we have seen what was needed for their continuing "with one accord" (Acts 1:14) in prayer for the power of the Spirit. Christ was everything to them. Even before the cross, He was literally their life, their one thought, their only desire. But He was much more so after the cross, and with the resurrection.

Was such devotion to Christ something particular to the disciples, not to be expected of everyone? Or was it indeed something that the Lord asked from all who desired to be filled with the Spirit?  God expects it of all His children. The Lord needs such individuals now, as much as He did then, to receive His Spirit and His power, to show them forth here on earth, and, as intercessors, to link the world to the throne of God.

Is Christ nothing, something, or everything to us? For the unconverted, Christ is nothing. For the half-converted, the average Christian, Christ is something. But for the true Christian, Christ is everything. Each one who prays for the power of the Spirit must be ready to say, "Today I yield myself with mv whole heart to the leading of the Spirit.” A full surrender is the question of life or death, an absolute necessity.

My brother or sister in Christ, you have read the words of John 14:15: "If you love me, keep my commandments."  The surrender to live every day, all day long, abiding in Christ and keeping His commandments, is to be the one sign of your discipleship. Only when the heart longs in everything to do God's will can the Father's love and Spirit rest upon the child of God. This was the disposition in which the disciples continued with one accord in prayer, and this will be the secret of power in our intercession as we plead for the church and the world.

Obedience: By Oswald Chambers

You are slaves of the one you obey. Romans 6:16

The first thing to do when confronting a habit or mindset that controls me is to face an unwelcome fact: I am responsible for being controlled, because at some point I gave in. If I am a slave to myself—to my habits and urges, my egotisms and selfishness—I am to blame, because I gave in to myself. Likewise, if I obey God, it’s because I’ve yielded myself to him.

We learn the truth of this in the most ridiculously small things. “I can give up that habit whenever I want,” you say. You cannot. Try it, and you will find that the habit absolutely dominates you. Give in to selfishness in childhood, and you will find it the most binding tyranny on earth. Yield for one second to any form of lust—to the thought “I must have this thing at once”—and you will be chained to that thing, even if you hate yourself for it.

No human power can break the bondage of a character that has been shaped by giving in. Only the power of the redemption is sufficient. You must yield yourself in utter humiliation to the only one who can set you free, the Lord Jesus Christ: “He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and … to set the oppressed free” (Luke 4:18). It is easy to sing “He can break every fetter” and still be living a life of obvious slavery to yourself. Only Jesus can break the chains, and only when you let him. Yield yourself to the Lord, and he will set you free.

Is The Lord Jesus Christ Central? by Martyn Lloyd Jones

In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. Ephesians 1:7

If the Lord Jesus Christ is not crucial, central, vital, and occupying the very center of our meditation and our living, thinking, and praying, we have no right to look for revival. And yet, if you go and talk to many people, even in the church, about religion, you will find that they will talk to you at great length without ever mentioning the Lord Jesus Christ. I am never tired of putting it like this, because it is something that I am so familiar with in my experience as a pastor. People come and talk to me about these things, and I put my question to them. I say, “If you had to die tonight, how would you feel?”

“Oh,” they say, “I believe in God.”

“All right,” I reply, “what will you say when you stand in the presence of God? What are you relying on?”

“Well,” they say, “I have always tried to live a good life, I have done my best, I have tried to do good.”

“But nevertheless you have sinned, haven’t you?”

“Oh yes, I have sinned.”

“So,” I ask, “what do you do about your sin? What will you say to God, in the presence of God, about your sin?”

“Well,” they say, “I believe God is a God of love.”

“And how does that help you?”

“Well,” they say, “I believe that if I acknowledge my sin to God and then ask Him to forgive me, He does forgive me, and I am relying upon that.”

The point I am making is that they do not even mention the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They seem to think that they can go to God directly without the Lord Jesus Christ at all. There is a great deal of so-called Christianity that is quite Christ-less.

Wild Rumors: by CS Lewis

John 3:3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

What man, in his natural condition, has not got, is Spiritual life—the higher and different sort of life that exists in God. We use the same word life for both: but if you thought that both must therefore be the same sort of thing, that would be like thinking that the 'greatness' of space and the 'greatness' of God were the same sort of greatness. In reality, the difference between Biological life and Spiritual life is so important that I am going to give them two distinct names. The Biological sort which comes to us through Nature, and which (like everything else in Nature) is always tending to run down and decay so that it can only be kept up by incessant subsidies from Nature in the form of air, water, food, etc., is Bios. The Spiritual life which is in God from all eternity, and which made the whole natural universe, is Zoe. Bios has, to be sure, a certain shadowy or symbolic resemblance to Zoe: but only the sort of resemblance there is between a photo and a place, or a statue and a man. A man who changed from having Bios to having Zoe would have gone through as big a change as a statue which changed from being a carved stone to being a real man.

And that is precisely what Christianity is about. This world is a great sculptor's shop. We are the statues and there is a rumor going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.

The Principle of the Cross: by TA Sparks

The Son can do nothing by Himself. John 5:19

That is the principle of the Cross. He accepted that position of being able to do nothing out from Himself. It must all come out from God. There is no way through otherwise.... There was a revolution in my life thirty years ago when that principle of the Cross came flat up against ministry – ministry that for years I had been producing – against all my study, reading and late nights, to get up the stuff for ministry, till the whole thing became an intolerable burden in myself. Others perhaps thought it to be pretty good, but the crisis when – listen to me, men and women who are in ministry, or contemplating it – the whole turn came upon the recognition of this principle, this principle of the Cross when, with the door closed, I said to the Lord ‘I am finished in all ministry, I am never going to preach again unless You do something now. I have been doing it all these years; I have been producing this, now I am finished. You have got to do it.’ But I saw that principle, you see, as the principle of the Cross and I meant it.

Forgive me speaking of myself, but I must bring this home in some way. The next week would have seen my resignation in with my church officers, and I would have gone out from ministry if the Lord had not done it. But the Lord was true to His own principle. It was an utter end of anything that I could produce for ministry, and I meant it to be like that, because I recognized that God meant that. That was the principle of the Cross – nothing out from ourselves. No fruit that labor and study of the mind and heart could produce has a way through in the work and service of God. God was true to His own principle – He always is. From that day to this, there has been no trouble about ministry. It is easy to let ministry go, and much more easy than to accept it. This clamoring for ministry – it is uncrucified flesh. Well, there has been an open heaven since then. Again I beg your forgiveness for making this personal reference, but this is a true thing. It is a principle which covers all the ground.

God Speaks in Many Times and Ways: by Henry Blackaby

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son.      Hebrews 1:1

Our generation is preoccupied with methods. When we find a program that works in one business, we immediately want to package and distribute it so that it will work for others. This attitude carries over into the spiritual life as well. We spend much energy looking for spiritual disciplines, books, seminars, or conferences that “work” in order to feel satisfied with our Christian life. God does not want us to trust in methods. He wants us to trust in Him.

Trusting in methods rather than in a Person seriously limits the way we experience God. When we expect Him to speak to us only in predictable ways, we forget that God is much more complex than our perception of Him. In times past, God spoke in dreams and visions. He used nature; miraculous signs; prophets; a still, small voice; fire; trumpets; fleece; the casting of lots; and angels. He spoke in the middle of the night, during worship services, at mealtimes, during funerals, while people were walking along the road, through sermons, in the middle of a storm, and through His Son.

The important thing was not how God communicated, but that He spoke. If God always spoke to us through dreams, we would remain in our beds awaiting a divine revelation! The means God uses to communicate with_us is irrelevant; the fact that He is communicating is what is critical.

Don’t limit yourself to a method, expecting only to hear from your Father in predictable ways. Rather, open yourself up to other means by which God wants to commune with you. Allow the Holy Spirit to sensitize you to God’s message at all times, in every location, under any circumstance. Then you will experience God in entirely new dimensions as you are receptive to His voice.

Thank God for Problems: from Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

Romans 8:28 We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose.

    Make friends with the problems in your life. Though many things feel random and wrong, remember that I am sovereign over everything. I can fit everything into a pattern for good, but only to the extent that you trust Me. Every problem can teach you something, transforming you little by little into the masterpiece I created you to be. The very same problem can become a stumbling block over which you fall, if you react with distrust and defiance. The choice is up to you, and you will have to choose many times each day whether to trust Me or defy Me.

    The best way to befriend your problems is to thank Me for them. This simple act opens your mind to the possibility of benefits flowing from your difficulties. You can even give persistent problems nicknames, helping you to approach them with familiarity rather than with dread. The next step is to introduce them to Me, enabling Me to embrace them in My loving Presence. I will not necessarily remove your problems, but My wisdom is sufficient to bring good out of every one of them.

1 Corinthians 1:23-24 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

You Will Find Christ Everywhere in the Bible: by AW Tozer

…To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things…. 1 Corinthians 8:6

I do not mind telling you that I have always found Jesus Christ beckoning to me throughout the Scriptures. I am convinced that it was God’s design that we should find the divine Creator, Redeemer and Lord whenever we search the Scriptures.

The Son of God is described by almost every fair and worthy name in the creation. He is called the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings. He is called the Star that shone on Jacob. He is described as coming forth with His bride, clear as the moon. His Presence is likened unto the rain coming down upon the earth, bringing beauty and fruitfulness. He is pictured as the great sea and as the towering rock. He is likened to the strong cedars. A figure is used of Him as of a great eagle, going literally over the earth.

Where the person of Jesus Christ does not stand out tall and beautiful and commanding, as a pine tree against the sky, you will find Him behind the lattice, but stretching forth His hand. If He does not appear as the sun shining in his strength, He may be discerned in the reviving by the promised gentle rains.

Our Lord Jesus Christ was that One divinely commissioned to set forth the mystery and the majesty and the wonder and the glory of the Godhead throughout the universe. It is more than an accident that both the Old and New Testaments comb heaven and earth for figures of speech or simile to set forth the wonder and glory of God!

My Own Personality: by CS Lewis

Matthew 16:23-25 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life^[a] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

The more we get what we now call 'ourselves' out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become. There is so much of Him that millions and millions of 'little Christs', all different, will still be too few to express Him fully. He made them all. He invented—as an author invents characters in a novel—all the different men that you and I were intended to be. In that sense our real selves are all waiting for us in Him. It is no good trying to 'be myself' without Him. The more I resist Him and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires. In fact what I so proudly call 'Myself' becomes merely the meeting place for trains of events which I never started and which I cannot stop. What I call 'My wishes' become merely the desires thrown up by my physical organism or pumped into me by other men's thoughts or even suggested to me by devils. Eggs and alcohol and a good night's sleep will be the real origins of what I flatter myself by regarding as my own highly personal and discriminating decision to make love to the girl opposite to me in the railway carriage. Propaganda will be the real origin of what I regard as my own personal political ideas. I am not, in my natural state, nearly so much of a person as I like to believe: most of what I call 'me' can be very easily explained. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His Personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.

THE NATURE OF SELF: by Martyn Lloyd Jones

And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire. Matthew 18:9

The modern cult of self-expression fails to realize the true nature of self. It talks much about giving expression to self, and yet we can show very easily that its very ideas concerning that self are false and do violence to man’s true nature. Obviously, before expression must come definition; and our objection is not so much to the idea of self-expression per se as to the utterly false view of that self that is taken by so many today. The gospel answer to this modern cult is not a doctrine of repression, but rather a call to the realization of the true nature of the self. The clash between the biblical view and that of moderns comes out very clearly in the quoted lines above, especially in the emphasis that Christ places on the word thee. “If thine eye offend thee . . . cast it from thee ... it is better for thee . . .”

The modern view does not differentiate between the self and the various factors that tend to influence the self, the various factors that the self uses in order to express itself. They claim that man in himself is but the result of these and their effects. Our Lord, on the other hand, draws that distinction very clearly and definitely in His emphasis on the word thee. That He does so is perhaps the real cause of all the modern confusion.

According to Christ, man is not a machine, nor is he an animal led and governed by whim. He is bigger than the body, bigger than tradition, history, and all else. For there is within man another element called the soul.

Off Putting & On Putting: by TA Sparks

Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Colossians 3:9,10

Christ Himself, when He was here, never failed to let people know that when they entered that door, or that straight and narrow way, they were in for trouble. Now that may sound like a very terrible thing to say, especially to you young Christians who are not far inside the door, but be perfectly clear about it; the Lord Jesus never deceived anybody about this, never at all. He let people know that to “follow Him,” as He put it at that time, involved them in difficulty and suffering and persecution and trial and a lifelong thing. There is a cost here, a great cost. And we shall discover that while there are the compensations, for there are undoubtedly the compensations in this life and the mighty compensations for eternity, this is a way which is not easy for the natural man by any means. This work of the Holy Spirit is drastic, exacting, and very trying to the flesh. Make no mistake about it; it will take all the energy that the Holy Spirit Himself has to accomplish this work. It really will. So the Lord Jesus has not left us in any doubt about this.

But note, and I am glad the Apostle Paul puts it like this, because it is so true to experience, “The new man who is being renewed.” Notice, first there was a precise and definite transaction, “You put off” and “you put on,” but now the work that is going on is not a single act of a single moment and a single day, but it is something that is going on in us.

God’s Revelation Is His Invitation: by Henry Blackaby

Surely the Lord GOD does nothing, Unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.       Amos 3:7

Christians spend much time talking about “seeking God’s will,” as though it were hidden and difficult to find. God does not hide His will. His will is not difficult to discover. We do not have to plead with God to reveal His will to us. He is more eager to reveal His will than we are willing to receive it. We sometimes ask God to do things He has already done!

The people in Amos’s day became disoriented to God and to His desires. God had revealed His will; the problem was that they had not recognized it or obeyed it. Amos declared that God does nothing in the affairs of humanity without seeking one of His servants to whom He will reveal His activity. Tragically, there are times when no one is walking closely enough with Him to be receptive to His word (Isa. 59:16; 63:5; Ezek. 22:30-31).

Jesus walked so intimately with His Father that He was always aware of what the Father was doing around Him (John 5:19-20). Jesus said that if our eyes are pure, they will see God and recognize His activity (Matt. 6:22). If we are not seeing God’s activity, the problem is not a lack of revelation. The problem is that our sin prevents us from noticing it.

When God is working in your child’s life or when He is convicting your coworker, He may reveal His activity to you. His revelation is His invitation for you to join Him in His redemptive work. Be alert to God’s activity around you. He will reveal His activity to His servants. If your spiritual eyes are pure, you will be overwhelmed by all that you see God doing around you!

Vision: By Oswald Chambers

I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. — Acts 26:19

When Jesus Christ appeared to Paul and told him to preach the gospel, there was nothing hesitant about Paul’s response: he obeyed, keeping the vision from heaven bright before him as he began fulfilling his commission (Acts 26:12–19). If we lose the vision, we alone are responsible; it means that we’ve been lax and careless in our spiritual lives. The only way to be obedient to the vision God sends is to give our utmost for his highest, and this can only be done by continually and resolutely recalling the vision, while working steadily to realize it. The test is to keep the vision in our sights not only during times of prayer and devotion but sixty seconds of every minute, sixty minutes of every hour.

“Though it linger, wait for it” (Habakkuk 2:3). We cannot rush the fulfillment of a vision; we have to live in its light until it accomplishes itself through us. Sometimes, after we receive a vision, we grow impatient. We go racing off into practical work, hoping to speed things along. Then the work becomes our focus, and we lose sight of the vision. We don’t even notice when it has been fulfilled! Working to realize the vision is necessary, but we must work steadily, without rush or force, and only when and where God chooses. Our ability to wait for the vision that lingers is a test of our loyalty to him.

After God gives a vision to his disciple, he always sends a whirlwind, flinging his disciple to the place where the seed of the vision will take root and grow. Are you ready to be sown, so that the vision can fulfill itself through you? The answer depends on whether or not you’re living in the light of what you’ve seen. Let God fling you out, and don’t go until he does. If you try to dictate where you’ll go, you’ll prove empty. But if you let God sow you, you will bring forth fruit.