My Utmost for His Highest - June 12th - Getting There

Where the self-interest sleeps and the real interest awakens. Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou? He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour. - John 1:38-39

    “They…abode with Him that day.” That is about all some of us ever do, then we wake up to actualities, self-interest arises and the abiding is passed. There is no condition of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus.

    “Thou art Simon…: thou shalt be called Cephas. (John 1:42)” God writes the new name on those places only in our lives where He has erased the pride and self-sufficiency and self-interest. Some of us have the new name in spots only, like spiritual measles. In sections we look all right. When we have our best spiritual mood on, you would think we were very high-toned saints; but don’t look at us when we are not in that mood. The disciple is one who has the new name written all over him; self-interest and pride and self-sufficiency have been completely erased.

    Pride is the deification of self, and this to-day in some of us is not of the order of the Pharisee, but of the publican (see Luke 18:9-14). To say “Oh, I’m no saint,” is acceptable to human pride, but it is unconscious blasphemy against God. It literally means that you defy God to make you a saint. “I am much too weak and hopeless, I am outside the reach of the Atonement.” Humility before men may be unconscious blasphemy before God. Why are you not a saint? It is either that you do not want to be a saint, or that you do not believe God can make you one. It would be all right, you say, if God saved you and took you straight to heaven. That is just what He will do! “We will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (John 14:23)” Make no conditions, let Jesus be everything, and He will take you home with Him not only for a day, but for ever.

 - From Oswald Chambers, "My Utmost for His Highest" - Classic Edition

Highlights and Underlines are courtesy of Mom from her print edition

My Utmost for His Highest - June 11th - Getting There

Where the Sin and the Sorrow Cease and the Song and the Saint Commence. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. - Matthew 11:28

    Do I want to get there? I can now. The questions that matter in life are remarkably few, and they are all answered by the words — “Come unto Me.” Not — “Do this, or don’t do that”; but — “Come unto Me.” If I will come to Jesus my actual life will be brought into accordance with my real desires; I will actually cease from sin, and actually find the song of the Lord begin.

    Have you ever come to Jesus? Watch the stubbornness of your heart, you will do anything rather than the one simple childlike thing — “Come unto Me.” If you want the actual experience of ceasing from sin, you must come to Jesus.

    Jesus Christ makes Himself the touchstone. Watch how He used the word “Come.” At the most unexpected moments there is the whisper of the Lord — “Come unto Me,” and you are drawn immediately. Personal contact with Jesus alters everything. Be stupid enough to come and commit yourself to what He says. The attitude of coming is that the will resolutely lets go of everything and deliberately commits all to Him.

    “And I will give you rest,” i.e., I will stay you. Not — I will put you to bed and hold your hand and sing you to sleep; but — I will get you out of bed, out of the languor and exhaustion, out of the state of being half dead while you are alive; I will imbue you with the spirit of life, and you will be stayed by the perfection of vital activity. We get pathetic and talk about “suffering the will of the Lord”! Where is the majestic vitality and might of the Son of God about that?

 - From Oswald Chambers, "My Utmost for His Highest" - Classic Edition

Highlights and Underlines are courtesy of Mom from her print edition

My Utmost for His Highest - June 10th - The Next Best Thing To Do

Seek if you have not Found.  And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. - Luke 11:9

    “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss. (James 4:3)” If you ask for things from life instead of from God, you ask amiss, i.e., you ask from a desire for self-realization. The more you realize yourself the less will you seek God. “Seek, and ye shall find.” Get to work, narrow your interests to this one. Have you ever sought God with your whole heart, or have you only given a languid cry to Him after a twinge of moral neuralgia? Seek, concentrate, and you will find.

“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. (Isaiah 55:1)” Are you thirsty, or smugly indifferent — so satisfied with your experience that you want nothing more of God? Experience is a gateway, not an end. Beware of building your faith on experience, the metallic note will come in at once, the censorious note. You can never give another person that which you have found, but you can make him homesick for what you have.

“Knock and it shall be opened unto you. (Luke 11:9) ” * “Draw nigh unto God. (James 4:8)” Knock — the door is closed, and you suffer from palpitation as you knock. * “Cleanse your hands (4:8)” — knock a bit louder, you begin to find you are dirty. * “Purify your heart (4:8)” — this is more personal still, you are desperately in earnest now — you will do anything. * “Be afflicted (4:9)” — have you ever been afflicted before God at the state of your inner life? There is no strand of self-pity left, but a heartbreaking affliction of amazement to find you are the kind of person that you are. * “Humble yourself (4:10)” — it is a humbling business to knock at God’s door — you have to knock with the crucified thief. “To him that knocketh, it shall be opened. (Luke 11:10)”

 - From Oswald Chambers, "My Utmost for His Highest" - Classic Edition

Highlights and Underlines are courtesy of Mom from her print edition

My Utmost for His Highest - June 9th - The Next Best Thing To Do

Ask if you have not Received. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. - Luke 11:10

    There is nothing more difficult than to ask. We will long and desire and crave and suffer, but not until we are at the extreme limit will we ask. A sense of unreality makes us ask. Have you ever asked out of the depths of moral poverty? “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God….” — but be sure that you do lack wisdom. You cannot bring yourself up against Reality when you like. The next best thing to do if you are not spiritually real, is to ask God for the Holy Spirit on the word of Jesus Christ (see Luke 11:13). The Holy Spirit is the One Who makes real in you all that Jesus did for you.

    “For every one that asketh receiveth.” This does not mean you will not get if you do not ask (cf. Matt. 5:45), but until you get to the point of asking you won’t receive from God. To receive means you have come into the relationship of a child of God, and now you perceive with intelligent and moral appreciation and spiritual understanding that these things come from God.

    “If any of you lack wisdom… (James 1:5)” If you realize you are lacking, it is because you have come in contact with spiritual reality; do not put your reasonable blinkers on again. People say — Preach us the simple gospel: don’t tell us we have to be holy, because that produces a sense of abject poverty, and it is not nice to feel abjectly poor. “Ask” means beg. Some people are poor enough to be interested in their poverty, and some of us are like that spiritually. We will never receive if we ask with an end in view; if we ask, not out of our poverty but out of our lust. A pauper does not ask from any other reason than the abject panging condition of his poverty, he is not ashamed to beg. Blessed are the paupers in spirit.

 - From Oswald Chambers, "My Utmost for His Highest" - Classic Edition

Highlights and Underlines are courtesy of Mom from her print edition

My Utmost for His Highest - June 8th - What Next?

Determine to know more than others.  If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. - John 13:17

    If you do not cut the moorings, God will have to break them by a storm and send you out. Launch all on God, go out on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and you will get your eyes open. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the smooth waters just inside the harbor bar, full of delight, but always moored; you have to get out through the harbor bar into the great deeps of God and begin to know for yourself, begin to have spiritual discernment.

    When you know you should do a thing, and do it, immediately you know more. Revise where you have become stodgy spiritually, and you will find it goes back to a point where there was something you knew you should do, but you did not do it because there seemed no immediate call to, and now you have no perception, no discernment; at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-possessed. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to go on knowing. 

    The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you work up occasions to sacrifice yourself; ardour is mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is a great deal better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. "To obey is better than sacrifice. (I Samuel 15:22)" Beware of harking back to what you were once when God wants you to be something you have never been. "If any man will do . . . he shall know. (John 7:17)" 

 - From Oswald Chambers, "My Utmost for His Highest" - Classic Edition

Highlights and Underlines are courtesy of Mom from her print edition

My thoughts

Moorings - Lines that tie you to the dock. Don't stay in the safe place and never out on the water. Get out to the depths. Don't pause when told by God to do something. Don't plan on doing things for God; let God instruct you daily and then follow Him to do it. Knowing more is trusting more and doing more. 

My Utmost for His Highest - June 7th - Don't Slack Off

And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. - John 14:13

    Am I fulfilling this ministry of the interior? There is no snare of any danger of infatuation or pride in intercession, it is a hidden ministry that brings forth fruit whereby the Father is glorified. Am I allowing my spiritual life to be frittered away, or am I bringing it all to one centre--the Atonement of my Lord? Is Jesus Christ more and more dominating every interest of my life? If the one central point, the great exerting influence in my life is the Atonement of the Lord, then every phase (?) of my life will bear fruit for Him. 

    I must take time to realize what is the central point of power. Do I give one minute out of sixty to concentrate upon it? "If ye abide in Me"--continue to act and think and work from that centre--"ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. (John 15:7)" Am I abiding? Am I taking time to abide? What is the greatest factor of power in my life? Is it work, service, sacrifice for others, or trying to work for God? The thing that ought to exert the greatest power in my life is the Atonement of the Lord. It is not the thing we spend the most time on that molds us most; the greatest element is the thing that exerts most power. We must determine to be limited and concentrate our affinities. 

    "Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do." The disciple who abides in Jesus is the will of God, and his apparently free choices are God's fore-ordained decrees. Mysterious? Logically contradictory and absurd? Yes, but a glorious truth to a saint. 

- From Oswald Chambers, "My Utmost for His Highest" - Classic Edition

Highlights and Underlines are courtesy of Mom from her print edition

My thoughts

Frittered - waste little by little. 

Romans 7:14-25 - The Law and Our Powerlessness

Romans 7:14-25

14 For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. 15 For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. 16 But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. 17 So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. 19 For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. 20 But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

21 I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. 22 For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, 23 but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

Message: The Law and Our Powerlessness

Time: Paul wrote to Rome, a city he had never visited, from the Greek city of Corinth in AD 57. He writes to a church that he believes needed to hear basic gospel doctrine. The city was a hotbed of sexual immorality and idolatry. 

What the Lord is Saying:

In some circles, the Law is the Old Covenant and since Christ came with a new covenant there is the thought that the Law does not have any relevance to us today and no place in Christian discipleship. 

Romans 7:4 gives the idea that we die to the Law through the body of Christ and in verse 6, we have been released from the law. And then also is this idea that sin itself is alive outside of the Law, as recorded in verse 9 - I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died. 

But as always we must keep reading scripture and remember to tie principles together and look at the whole matter in context. It is not that the Law is Bad, what is bad is we are sinful creatures and the Law simply awakens us to our understanding and gives us clarity of our sin. Verse 13 says that sin produced death in me. And in verse 14 the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh. And in verse 18 nothing good dwells in me. 

The Law simply prescribes obedience, but not the power to obey. People obey the law mostly out of a fear of punishment or consequence. I'm reminded of the radar detector that seeks to remove the notion of getting caught so that we can sin more freely. The Law cannot correct us. In verse 21 is the words that evil is present in me. 

Sin is a lifelong struggle that does not simply disappear when Christ comes into our life. The law still does not make us obey. This is really the essence of Paul's words in this passage today. Paul says that nothing good dwells in me. I want to do good, but I don't often because of that evil present in me. This should make us have more compassion on those that are Christians and yet still struggle with sin. So many do. I do. But we remain so quick to find the offense in others. Our compassion should be more centered in our lives, in my life, because the only thing that has changed is Jesus in me. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord (v.25) we are set free from the body of this death (v. 24) from being a prisoner of the law of sin which in my members (v. 23). Jesus has freed me from the punishment and from being a prisoner to sin. This must be realized that the non-Christ bearer is a prisoner. 

Therefore, what the Law does is it reveals the death of our depravity and show us how we cannot obey it. It shines a spotlight on sin, describing it, and helping us see it more clearly and in that seeing is the inability to do it. As Paul says we go back and forth - serving the law of God, but also serving with my flesh the law of sin. Thus, we are powerless over sin. We have no power. Only God can give us this power. 

Promise: We are powerless over the Law and Sin revealed. It is in Christ that we receive forgiveness and the power to resist sin. Then daily, when we sin, and we will, we seek His forgiveness (freely given) and the grace to grow in holiness. 

Prayer: Lord, I am powerless over sin. You changed me; you set me free Jesus and I am praising You daily that I am free indeed. Your forever mercy has forever changed me. Thank you for keeping me rooted in these principles. Thank you for the freedom I have in Christ. 

Note: I follow the readings from the Tabletalk Magazine devotional, though I am a little behind and working through 2017 devotionals. 2017 is a study of key biblical doctrines celebrating the 500th year of the Reformation. The month of July is about the right use of God's Law; June was justification by faith alone; May about solus Christus - Christ Alone; April, salvation by grace alone; March, the sovereign providence of God; February, the doctrine of revelation and the various aspects of the doctrine of Scripture that sola Scriptura seeks to preserve; January, the doctrine of God.

The Restraint of the Law - the law is given for lawless, unholy, disobedient people, to restrain us from acting on our sinful thoughts. Restraint and Guilt - the law is meant to restrain Christians and non-Christians alike; so that others may see Christ. The Law's Revelation of Sin - The Law reveals sin, at times making it more desirable, and show the sin which people commit and the complete standard it expects.