In Union with Christ: from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Mark 8:36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

I designed you to live in union with Me. This union does not negate who you are; it actually makes you more fully yourself. When you try to live independently of Me, you experience emptiness and dissatisfaction. You may gain the whole world and yet lose everything that really counts.
     Find fulfillment through living close to Me, yielding to Me purposes for you. Through I may lead you along paths that feel alien to you, trust that I know what I am doing. If you follow Me wholeheartedly, you will discover facets of yourself that were previously hidden. I know you intimately--far better than you know yourself. In union with Me, you are complete. In closeness to Me, you are transformed more and more into the one I designed you to be. 

Psalm 139:13-16 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

The Faith Life: by Andrew Murray

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. Galatians 2:20

If we were able to ask Paul, “What is your part in living life, if you no longer live but Christ lives in you?” he would answer, “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.” His whole life, day by day and all day long, was one of unceasing faith in the wonderful Love that had given itself for him. Faith was the power that possessed and permeated Paul’s whole being and his every action.

Here we have the simple but full statement of the secret of the true Christian life. It is not faith that rests only in certain promises of God or in certain blessings that we receive from Christ. It is a faith that sees how entirely Christ gives Himself to the soul to be his entire life and all that that implies for every moment of the day. Just as continuous breathing is essential to the support of our physical life, so is the unceasing faith in which the soul trusts Christ and depends on Him to maintain the life of the Spirit within us. Faith always rests on the infinite love in which Christ gave Himself wholly for us to be entirely ours and to live His life over again in us. By virtue of His divine omnipresence, by which He “fills all in all” (Ephesians 1:23), He can be to each what He is to all—a complete and perfect Savior, an abiding Guest, taking charge and maintaining our life in us and for us—as if each of us were the only one in whom He lives. Just as truly as the Father lived in Him and worked in Him all that He was to work out, so will Christ live and work in each one of us.

When our faith is led and taught by God’s Holy Spirit, we obtain such a confidence in the omnipotence and omnipresence of Christ that we carry all day in the depths of our hearts this unbroken assurance: “He who loved me and gave Himself for me, He lives in me; He is my life and my all.” “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). May God reveal to us the inseparable union between Christ and us, in which the consciousness of Christ’s presence may become as natural to us as the consciousness of our existence.

Crucified With Christ: by Andrew Murray

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

As in Adam we died and went out of the life and will of God into sin and corruption, so in Christ we are made partakers of a new spiritual death—a death out of sin and into the will and life of God. Such was the death Christ died; such is the death we are made partakers of in Him. To Paul, this was such a reality that he was able to say, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” Dying with Christ had had such power that he no longer lived his own life; instead, Christ lived His life in him. He had indeed died to the old nature and to sin and had been raised up into the power of the living Christ dwelling in him.

It was the crucified Christ who lived in Paul and made him a partaker of all that the cross had meant to Christ Himself. The very mind that was in Christ—who emptied Himself and took “the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:7) and who “humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death” (verse 8)—was at work in him because the crucified Christ lived in him. He lived as a crucified man.

Christ’s death on the cross was His highest display of holiness and victory over sin. The believer who receives Christ is made a partaker of all the power and blessing that the crucified Lord has won. As the believer learns to accept this by faith, he yields himself as crucified to the world and dead to its pleasure and pride, its lusts and self‑pleasing. He learns that the mystery of the cross, as the crucified Lord reveals its power in him, opens the door into the fullest fellowship with Christ and the conformity to His sufferings. And so he learns, in the full depth of its meaning, what the Word has said: “Christ crucified…the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:23–24). He grows into a fuller understanding of the blessedness of daring to say, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me.” Oh, the blessedness and power of the God‑given faith that enables a man to live all day yielding himself to God and considering himself as “dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ” (Romans 6:11).

Great Thoughts of God part 2: by JI Packer

Give ear, our God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your Name. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy.  Lord, listen! Lord, forgive! Lord, hear and act! For your sake, my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name.” Daniel 9:18-19

3) Those who know God show great boldness for God.
Daniel and his friends were men who stuck their necks out. This was not foolhardiness. They knew what they were doing. They had counted the cost. They had measured the risk. They were well aware what the outcome of their actions would be unless God miraculously intervened, as in fact He did. But these things did not move them. Once they were convinced that their stand was right, and that loyalty to their God required them to take it, then, in Oswald Chambers’s phrase, they ‘smilingly washed their hands of the consequences’.

4) Those who know God have great contentment in God.
There is no peace like the peace of those whose minds are possessed with full assurance that they have known God, and God has known them, and that this relationship guarantees God’s favor to them in life, through death, and on for ever. This is the peace of which Paul speaks in Romans 5:1 – ‘being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’ – and whose substance he analyses in full in Romans 8.

Great Thoughts of God part 1: by JI Packer

I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed: “Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, Daniel 9:4

1) Those who know God have great energy for God.
In one of the prophetic chapters of Daniel we read: ‘the people that know their God shall be strong, and do exploits’ (11:32)…. This shows us that the action taken by those who know God is their reaction to the anti-God trends which they see operating around them. While their God is being defied or disregarded, they cannot rest; they feel they must do something; the dishonour done to God’s name goads them into action.

This is exactly what we see happening in the narrative chapters of Daniel, where we are told of the ‘exploits’ of Daniel and his three friends. They were men who knew God, and who in consequence felt compelled from time to time actively to stand out against the conventions and dictates of irreligion and false religion.

2) Those who know God have great thoughts of God.
There is not space enough here to gather up all that the book of Daniel tells us about the wisdom, might, and truth of the great God who rules history and shows His sovereignty in acts of judgment and mercy towards individuals and nations according to His own good pleasure. Suffice it to say that there is, perhaps, no more vivid or sustained presentation of the many-sided reality of God’s sovereignty in the whole Bible.

In face of the might and splendor of the Babylonian empire which had swallowed up Palestine, and the prospect of further great world-empires to follow, dwarfing Israel by every standard of human calculation, the book as a whole forms a dramatic reminder that the God of Israel is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, that ‘the heavens do rule’ (4:26), that God’s hand is on history at every point, that history, indeed, is no more than ‘His story,’ the unfolding of His eternal plan, and that the kingdom which will triumph in the end is God’s.

Christ Our Life: by Andrew Murray

For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! Romans 5:17.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:11

        We said that Paul teaches us now that our faith in Christ as our righteousness is to be followed by our faith in Him as our life from the dead. He asks (Romans 6:3), "Know ye not that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?" We were buried with Him, and raised from the dead with Him. Just as in Adam all his children died, so all believers in Christ actually died too in Him. "Our old man was crucified with Him," with Him we were raised from the dead. And now we are to count ourselves as actually "dead to sin and alive unto God."
        In very deed, just as the new life in us is an actual participation in and experience of the risen life of Christ, so our death to sin in Christ is also an actual spiritual reality. It is when, by the power of the Holy Ghost, we are enabled to see how really we were one with Christ on the cross in His death, and in His resurrection, that we shall understand that in Him sin has no power over us. We present ourselves unto God "as alive from the dead."
        Just as the old Adam lives in the sinner, even in the believer too, who does not know of the new death in Christ which he has died, even so the man who knows that he died in Christ and now is alive in Him, can confidently count upon the word, "sin shall not have dominion over you," not even for a single moment. "Reckon yourselves indeed dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ Jesus." This is the true life of faith.
As what our Lord said about our being in Him and having Him living His life in us, could only come true as the full power of the Holy Spirit is experienced, so it is here too. Paul says (Romans 8:2), "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death," of which he had been complaining that it had kept him in captivity. And he then adds "that the requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit ." Through the Spirit we enter into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
        Oh that God might open the eyes of His children to see what the power is of Christ living in them for a life of holiness and fruitfulness, when they reckon themselves indeed dead unto sin and alive unto God in Christ Jesus.

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.

Jesus, Creator God: by JI Packer

Hebrews 1:2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.

But in fact the real difficulty, the supreme mystery with which the gospel confronts us, does not lie here at all [he was discussing the atonement, resurrection, and Gospel miracles]. It lies not in the Good Friday message of atonement, nor in the Easter message of the resurrection, but in the Christmas message of Incarnation. The really staggering Christmas claim is that Jesus of Nazareth was God made man–that second person of the Godhead became the “second man” (1 Cor 15:47), determining human destiny, the second representative head of the race, and that he took humanity without loss of deity, so that Jesus of Nazareth was a truly and fully divine as he was human.

Here are two mysteries for the price of one–the plurality of persons within the unity of God, and the union of Godhead and manhood in the person of Jesus. It is here, in the thing that happened at the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. “The Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14); God became man; the divine Son became a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human baby, unable to do more than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises, needing to be fed and changed and taught to talk like any other child. And there was no illusion or deception in this: the babyhood of the Son of God was a reality. The more you think about it, the more staggering it gets. Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the Incarnation

Christ Our Life: by Andrew Murray

For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! Romans 5:17

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:11

We said that Paul teaches us now that our faith in Christ as our righteousness is to be followed by our faith in Him as our life from the dead. He asks (Romans 6:3), "Know ye not that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?" We were buried with Him, and raised from the dead with Him. Just as in Adam all his children died, so all believers in Christ actually died too in Him. "Our old man was crucified with Him," with Him we were raised from the dead. And now we are to count ourselves as actually "dead to sin and alive unto God."
In very deed, just as the new life in us is an actual participation in and experience of the risen life of Christ, so our death to sin in Christ is also an actual spiritual reality. It is when, by the power of the Holy Ghost, we are enabled to see how really we were one with Christ on the cross in His death, and in His resurrection, that we shall understand that in Him sin has no power over us. We present ourselves unto God "as alive from the dead."
Just as the old Adam lives in the sinner, even in the believer too, who does not know of the new death in Christ which he has died, even so the man who knows that he died in Christ and now is alive in Him, can confidently count upon the word, "sin shall not have dominion over you," not even for a single moment. "Reckon yourselves indeed dead to sin, and alive to God in Christ Jesus." This is the true life of faith.
As what our Lord said about our being in Him and having Him living His life in us, could only come true as the full power of the Holy Spirit is experienced, so it is here too. Paul says (Romans 8:2), "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death," of which he had been complaining that it had kept him in captivity. And he then adds "that the requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit ." Through the Spirit we enter into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
Oh that God might open the eyes of His children to see what the power is of Christ living in them for a life of holiness and fruitfulness, when they reckon themselves indeed dead unto sin and alive unto God in Christ Jesus.

The Passion of Patience: by Oswald Chambers

Though it linger, wait for it. — Habakkuk 2:3

Patience is not indifference. Patience is an immensely strong rock, withstanding all onslaughts. The vision of God is the source of patience, because it gives moral inspiration. Moses was able to be patient, not because he had a sense of duty but because he had the vision of God: “He persevered because he saw him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27). If God gives you a time of temptation in the wilderness, when there is no word from him at all, be patient. The power to endure is yours because you see God.

A person who has had a vision of God is devoted to God himself, not to any particular cause or issue. You always know if the vision you’re having is of God because of the inspiration it brings. When you see God, everything around you is energized. Everything is larger, more vibrant, more.

“Though it linger, wait for it.” The proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have grasped. It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritually. We have the tendency to look for satisfaction in our experience. We think that because we’ve experienced salvation and sanctification, we have the power to endure anything. The instant we begin to think this way, we are on the road to ruin. If we have nothing more than our experiences, we have nothing. If we have the inspiration of the vision of God, we have more than we can experience.

Never let yourself relax spiritually. Press on toward your goal. “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (Philippians 3:12).

The Saddest of ALL Verses: 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.

Deceptive Teachings: by TA Sparks

At last they understood that He wasn’t speaking about the yeast in bread, but about the deceptive teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Matthew 16:12

There has come into this universe something that disturbs the universe. All these terrible wars, about which you know something, are the result of this disturbing influence which has come into the universe. There is something in this universe that stirs up human nature. Like alcohol, it makes men fight against one another. It keeps the world in unrest. It produces all this excitement of the human evil nature. Then, again, this something that has come into this universe results in an enlargement that is quite unnatural – a false development.... Anything that results in unnatural development and enlargement is evil. The Apostle Paul said, "Through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith." Anything that makes us unnaturally big is evil, whether it be the individual life, or whether it be what is called the work of God, trying to make it bigger than its real spiritual measure, inflating it beyond its genuine spiritual degree; that is something evil, that is leaven....

Then what about this leaven that makes things appeal to our natural taste? Paul said to Timothy, "The time will come when they will not endure sound teaching; and they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears." And he goes on to say that they will believe the lie instead of the truth. Why is that? Because these teachers appeal to the natural life. These teachers cover over evil. Indeed, they will sometimes call evil good. People do not like the teachers who tell them what is wrong, that this thing and that thing are contrary to God. They like leavened bread, it pleases the flesh.... He says there will be leaven, there will be corruption and defilement everywhere, but the teaching of the New Testament is: Keep yourselves pure. See that your garments are not spotted. Walk in this sinful world as those who do not belong to its nature. Although there is leaven everywhere, you be the unleavened bread. But, the world may not like you, the world will not like unleavened bread. It does not please the flesh, but the bread which is pure is pleasing to God.

Closer than We Know: from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

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

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

The Penetrating Word of God: by Henry Blackaby

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

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

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

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

A Vital Union: by ML Jones

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

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

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

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

WHO AM I? (Identity) by Andrew Murray

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clinging to Our Own Lives: by CS Lewis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Light of the World: by TA Sparks

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

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

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

Not One Word Has Failed: by Henry Blackaby

And you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one thing has failed of all the good things which the LORD your God spoke concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one word of them has failed. Joshua 23:14

Near the end of his life, Joshua took time with the Israelites to review all that God had done for them since they first began following Him. God had given them an impossible assignment: to conquer a foreign and hostile land with fortified cities and armies more powerful than their own. The Israelites were to go forward with nothing more than God’s promise that He would go with them and take care of them. Now Joshua looked back over their experience and reminded the Israelites that God had kept every promise. They had experienced numerous victories and had enjoyed God’s provision for every need.

Sometimes hindsight gives us a clear picture of how faithful God has been. We are tempted during a crisis to wonder if God will be faithful to His promises. We focus on our problems, and our trust in God begins to waver. Twenty-four years after God promised Abraham and Sarah a son, they were still waiting on God to fulfill His promise. But in the twenty-fifth year, Abraham and Sarah could look back and see that God had been faithful. As David was fleeing for his life, he may have been uncertain how God would keep His promise to make him a king. But at the end of his long and prosperous reign, David could review how God had kept every promise.

You, too, can rely on God’s faithfulness. Are you in a crisis? Hold to the promises of your Lord! He will not forget His promises to you. Look back over your Christian life and recount the many ways in which God has been faithful to His word.