How Will I Know? - Oswald Chambers

Today’s devotion is a very good one. As I was reading it, something Oswald said there could be mistaken easily, so I decided to blog on the subject.

Oswald said: "We do not grow into a spiritual relationship step by step"

I had a hard time understanding why we do not grow into a spiritual relationship  step by step since we are called to grow spiritually. But, Holiness and a spiritual relationship with God are two doctrines that could stump us when we read such blatant statement like Oswald’s. The reason being those two doctrines cannot be concocted by us no matter how hard we work at becoming holy or to have a spiritual relationship with God. They are infused in us by God’s grace and we either have them or not.

What Oswald is saying here is that we can either be spiritual or not. The best way I can explain the difference between spiritual relationship and spiritual growth are like, a woman is either pregnant or not, but she cannot be a little bit pregnant. Now, throughout the pregnancy the baby keeps growing and even more when he or she is out of the womb.

It does not matter how long you have been a Christian, but your lack of spiritual understanding which you acquire solely through the Holy Spirit, comes from unbelief and the fact that the Holy Spirit is not finding a dwelling through you to work out this life. The Holy Spirit need complete control if He is to infuse this life in us. The more you understand spiritual things, the more the Lordship of the Spirit is accepted by you, hence why He can reveal God’s word to you.

You should read 1 John chapter 1 and 2 and ponder on the word of God there. 1John 1:6 said "If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth". John was talking to Christians, these people were not unbelievers. As Christians we like tossing those big words around like the Christians John was writing to. But you cannot say you have a relationship with God, while you are walking in spiritual darkness. So, how do you know you are walking in darkness? There are many ways I can describe it, but the very first test that we should do is to see how well we understand spiritual truths and I am not referring to your own interpretation of God’s but what you are taught by the Holy Spirit. Spiritual darkness comes from not being obedient to God’s word, and there is unbelief in your heart. It is that simple

Oswald is right, one simple detour we miss out on the whole thing especially if we never recover from our detours. But one simple move to obey, all of the sudden heaven opens up and you realize you are being taught things that you have no idea what to do with.

I am going to keep it short but I will write more about this subject later.

How Will I Know?

10

10

2013

Jesus answered and said, ’I thank You, Father . . . that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes’ —Matthew 11:25

We do not grow into a spiritual relationship step by step— we either have a relationship or we do not. God does not continue to cleanse us more and more from sin— “But if we walk in the light,” we are cleansed “from all sin” (1 John 1:7). It is a matter of obedience, and once we obey, the relationship is instantly perfected. But if we turn away from obedience for even one second, darkness and death are immediately at work again.

All of God’s revealed truths are sealed until they are opened to us through obedience. You will never open them through philosophy or thinking. But once you obey, a flash of light comes immediately. Let God’s truth work into you by immersing yourself in it, not by worrying into it. The only way you can get to know the truth of God is to stop trying to find out and by being born again. If you obey God in the first thing He shows you, then He instantly opens up the next truth to you. You could read volumes on the work of the Holy Spirit, when five minutes of total, uncompromising obedience would make things as clear as sunlight. Don’t say, “I suppose I will understand these things someday!” You can understand them now. And it is not study that brings understanding to you, but obedience. Even the smallest bit of obedience opens heaven, and the deepest truths of God immediately become yours. Yet God will never reveal more truth about Himself to you, until you have obeyed what you know already. Beware of becoming one of the “wise and prudent.” “If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know . . .” (John 7:17)

To Harden Our Hearts

What makes the Day of Judgment so unnerving is that all our posing and all our charades will be pulled back, all secrets will be made known, and our Lord will "expose the motives of men's hearts" (1 Cor. 4:5, emphasis added).

This is the point of the famous Sermon on the Mount. Jesus first says we haven't a hope of heaven unless our righteousness "surpasses that of the Pharisees" (Matt. 5:20). How can that be? They were fastidious rule keepers, pillars of the church, model citizens. Yes, Jesus says, and most of it was hypocrisy. The Pharisees prayed to impress men with their spirituality. They gave to impress men with their generosity. Their actions looked good, but their motives were not. Their hearts, as the saying goes, weren't in the right place. A person's character is determined by his motives, and motive is always a matter of the heart. This is what Scripture means when it says that man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. God doesn't judge us by our looks or our intelligence; he judges us by our hearts.

It makes sense, then, that Scripture also locates our conscience in our hearts. Paul says that even those who do not know God's law "show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness" (Rom. 2:15), such as when your child looks guilty for having told a lie. This is why it is so dangerous to harden our hearts by silencing our consciences, and why the offer of forgiveness is such good news, to have our "hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience" (Heb.10:22 NRSV). Oh, the joy of living from right motives, from a clean heart. I doubt that those who want to dismiss the heart want to dismiss our consciences, set aside the importance of character.

An excerpt from the book

The Ransomed Heart by John Eldredge

Complete and Effective Divinity - Dominion

You know, I was reading Oswald Chambers today, I realize once again I have to change my post.

All the divisions amongst us Christian, the conflicts, the lack of power we Christians are living with, the anxieties, the fact that apostasy has taken over the Church and we are not capable of discerning those imposters  and live out the truth of true Salvation. All the need to build empires for our own greed and ego, pastors caught with their pants down, the need in the Church family to assign titles to ourselves to feel we matter. The dead works that we pass for Christianity etc, are all found in April 11 & April 12^th devotional.

These are deep stuff that we can understand when we leave behind our standards of Christianity and take on His. We get what Oswald is saying only when we truly walk with the Spirit. Otherwise we are doing Christianity in our ignorance and sadly we are so busy doing Christianity and immersing ourselves in the culture we have never made the time to become true Christians according to God’s standards of what Christianity should be. If I do not control myself, I could go on and on. But, I am hoping if one of you could give some thoughts to the reality of what Oswald wrote, if only one of you surrender in complete abandonment to Him for the sake of becoming one of His own, then to God be the Glory.

One of the beauties of living in the Spirit and walking in oneness with Him (even when we are not mature Christian yet) is that He enjoys witnessing to our Spirit. So most of the time while this life is being worked in us, (impartation) we know through the Holy Spirit they are happening in us and through us. I know most of the time I sound like a broken record, but I also have to live with the reality of who the God we serve is about. Too many of us “Christians” are going to find out at a time when we cannot change things anymore. Too many of us dictate the terms of Salvation to God and too many of us do not realize God is not going to take all the Christians Churches to put them together and make up His bride. The Church will be made with those who have truly been identified with Him. Those that are truly His they hear His voice and they walk with Him.

When we bring the bar very low, we count on His love instead of Salvation, to get us there. But, God does not bow to anyone. His Word says in Romans 9:15 “For God said to Moses, "I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose.” When we bring the bar so low to accommodate our idea of what Christianity should be, when we spend most of our time finding loopholes in His covenant with us and when we spend most of our time claiming those verses that evoke His clemency and love we force His hand.

We put Him in a corner like Satan did, in our insolence, our greed, lack of humility, lack of reverence, harden and disobedient hearts we forget that He is God and no one can ever corner Him with His own Word. Sure He said I will never forsake you but He also said “woe to you” He also said Thou shalt not have any gods before Me. Then how come you have been so busy serving yourself while thinking you could fool Him? How come those words that Oswald mentioned in his devotional, after decades of calling yourself Christians you have no idea what they mean? Could it be you have been way too busy being your own master and you did not even noticed? Haven’t you noticed those verses in the Bible where God talked about the power of Salvation have eluded you? Are you hoping the fact that you fake it so well He is going to be impressed with you? Was God lying when His Word says Salvation has power to change us inwardly to make us like Him? The fact is, when we are not truly following Him, we get caught up in our own hypes.

Take heed to Oswald Chamber’s words while you can. They are the difference between imputation and impartation and whether the explanation suits you or not, does not change God’s Standards and plan about His Salvation.

HERE IS OSWALD CHAMBERS DEVOTION FOR TODAY & TOMORROW

Complete and Effective Divinity

04

11

2013

If we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection . . . —Romans 6:5

Co-Resurrection. The proof that I have experienced crucifixion with Jesus is that I have a definite likeness to Him. The Spirit of Jesus entering me rearranges my personal life before God. The resurrection of Jesus has given Him the authority to give the life of God to me, and the experiences of my life must now be built on the foundation of His life. I can have the resurrection life of Jesus here and now, and it will exhibit itself through holiness.

The idea all through the apostle Paul’s writings is that after the decision to be identified with Jesus in His death has been made, the resurrection life of Jesus penetrates every bit of my human nature. It takes the omnipotence of God— His complete and effective divinity— to live the life of the Son of God in human flesh. The Holy Spirit cannot be accepted as a guest in merely one room of the house— He invades all of it. And once I decide that my “old man” (that is, my heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of Jesus, the Holy Spirit invades me. He takes charge of everything. My part is to walk in the light and to obey all that He reveals to me. Once I have made that important decision about sin, it is easy to “reckon” that I am actually “dead indeed to sin,” because I find the life of Jesus in me all the time (Romans 6:11). Just as there is only one kind of humanity, there is only one kind of holiness— the holiness of Jesus. And it is His holiness that has been given to me. God puts the holiness of His Son into me, and I belong to a new spiritual order

Complete and Effective Dominion

04

12

2012

Death no longer has dominion over Him. . . . the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God . . . —Romans 6:9-11

Co-Eternal Life. Eternal life is the life which Jesus Christ exhibited on the human level. And it is this same life, not simply a copy of it, which is made evident in our mortal flesh when we are born again. Eternal life is not a gift from God; eternal life is the gift of God. The energy and the power which was so very evident in Jesus will be exhibited in us by an act of the absolute sovereign grace of God, once we have made that complete and effective decision about sin.

“You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you . . .” (Acts 1:8)— not power as a gift from the Holy Spirit; the power is the Holy Spirit, not something that He gives us. The life that was in Jesus becomes ours because of His Cross, once we make the decision to be identified with Him. If it is difficult to get right with God, it is because we refuse to make this moral decision about sin. But once we do decide, the full life of God comes in immediately. Jesus came to give us an endless supply of life— “. . . that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). Eternal life has nothing to do with time. It is the life which Jesus lived when He was down here, and the only Source of life is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Even the weakest saint can experience the power of the deity of the Son of God, when he is willing to “let go.” But any effort to “hang on” to the least bit of our own power will only diminish the life of Jesus in us. We have to keep letting go, and slowly, but surely, the great full life of God will invade us, penetrating every part. Then Jesus will have complete and effective dominion in us, and people will take notice that we have been with Him

Oswald's devotional is courtesy of:http://utmost.org/

In today’s devotion, Oswald Chambers said something that took me back. When I am in a similar situation such as the one Oswald described, what I do, I try to work with the worse case scenario, which is the same as the final outcome. There are some outcomes that are easy to determine if it is something that God would condemn. But, I found a lot of times it is not that easy to see through our emotional high if it is something that God would condemn or not. 

When we are very emotional, our train of thoughts takes the lead. I know what I am talking about because I am very emotional. Our imagination runs away from us and with the situation. The more we remain in that state of mind, the more we get ourselves deeper into trouble because we are not thinking clearly and we are making decisions and plans for the next step with a corrupt mind. You mind say why is that corrupt? Yes, it is corrupted in every sense of the way because we are not in the right frame of mind to make proper decisions, and we are thinking and planning in the flesh without the Holy Spirit. When we stop being ignorant of the laws of our own nature, we know and we can see the danger in going wild without the Holy Spirit and we can put a stop to it. But, this takes practice and spiritual growth to get there.

When I was not mature enough to understand when I was going forward with my emotions without Him, I had only one acid test. First, I stop myself from making a decision while my emotions were running wild and thus, it did not matter how pressing the need was. I told God, please deal with the repercussions of the situation for me but I need to know if I am in your will and right now I have no idea. (It is important our attitudes and motives honour God and He will work with us.) The second thing is that I try to have a sense as to how my decisions to deal with the situation will play out. This was so useful and so infallible that I still use it today because if there is a tiny bit of compromising, then I stepped away from it. I knew right away that it was not of God.

I will give you an example, years ago, I lost my job but God already told me that it was Him taking me to the wilderness to set me apart. So, there was no doubt what I was going through was of Him. But, I had no idea what He meant by taking me into the wilderness either. I had no idea of the depth of pain and testing that I had to go through to be set apart for Him. So, two Christians cornered me in the Church after service and said I heard you are not working, I can make arrangement to get you in, and there is a great opportunity available to you right now. After I listened to all the information pertaining to the company, and the opportunity, I was so tempted. Of course it made sense, because I need to work to pay my mortgage and take care of my basic needs. Beside, I was thinking how important it is to God that I work to earn a living because the Bible is clear on that so any attempt at laziness is a sin.

Out of all the emotions I was experiencing, I could feel something inside me was telling me this whole conversation is wrong for me, but, I continued.  I said to the people I was talking to, well, I do not have  references because I spent so many years with the company that I was working with that I cannot just take them off my reference list, yet I did not part in good terms with them. Both people told me it was not a problem we can circumvent that with a little white lie and they gave me an idea what that white lie was going to be, and they were willing to take care of everything for me without me even getting involved. At that moment I said, let me think about it. Of course I never get back to them.

You have to understand something. The fact that it seems like I judged them for the “white lie” did not make me better than them. As the matter of fact, that was exactly where I was too. I truly believed in a little white lie here and there was not a big deal especially when there were no consequences to anyone and this little white lie was going to put my world back to where it should be according to the world standards and my own understanding thus far. So, even though, I was not there yet in terms of maturity, but the guidance of the Holy Spirit was awesome. Even though I was in the same place these people were in terms of maturity,  I also knew I made a commitment to Him to leave behind shoddy Christianity, I knew right then and there that I had to let go of the opportunity because it was not of God. My heart was breaking, but I also knew if indeed it was of God, then I would not have to lie. While the lie seemed small, I knew in Him there was no lie.

Often times when we are in trouble, we claim the wrong promise, and we claim the wrong Bible verse. In this situation I found that I had to choose between more than one Bible verse. But, the Holy Spirit caused that tiny verse to resound so loud in my heart that I could not ignore it. I kept saying “in Him there is no lie.”  The difference between me and these two people is that I was in a frame of mind where I was willing to put my money where my mouth is so to speak. I knew I could not take one side of His Word and ignore the other side of the coin.

It’s funny how all of the sudden, a little white lie became so big to me. This little white lie, when I stopped seeing how it could help me get out of trouble and I started seeing it from God’s perspective, was no longer little.  With the eyes of my heart I could see it just like God sees it and calls it “darkness” - “sin”.  It turns out not taking the job was the right decision for my walk with Him.

In using myself as an example, it is my hope that if it could benefit one single person today of ten years down the road, who is at an impasse with God and you are not quite sure which way to turn, then it would worth it. Make no mistake the consequences of that choice, from the world point of view was disastrous to me. But, it is the nature of the Christian walk with God. It is living an abandoned life at His feet for the purpose of finding the “pearl of great price” which is God the father. While the experience I lived through the Holy Spirit as He allowed me to experience what it means to find the pearl of great price, lasted a few moments, but it was worth the torment that I went through to get there. Few years down the road, God corrected my thinking about wanting to work because I did not want to be lazy and sin in His sight. It is rather frightening how we can take the word of God out of context and apply to situations that have nothing to do with His Word. 

HERE IS OSWALD'S DEVOTION FOR TODAY!

The Burning Heart

03

22

2013

Did not our heart burn within us . . . ? —Luke 24:32

We need to learn this secret of the burning heart. Suddenly Jesus appears to us, fires are set ablaze, and we are given wonderful visions; but then we must learn to maintain the secret of the burning heart— a heart that can go through anything. It is the simple, dreary day, with its commonplace duties and people, that smothers the burning heart— unless we have learned the secret of abiding in Jesus.

Much of the distress we experience as Christians comes not as the result of sin, but because we are ignorant of the laws of our own nature. For instance, the only test we should use to determine whether or not to allow a particular emotion to run its course in our lives is to examine what the final outcome of that emotion will be. Think it through to its logical conclusion, and if the outcome is something that God would condemn, put a stop to it immediately. But if it is an emotion that has been kindled by the Spirit of God and you don’t allow it to have its way in your life, it will cause a reaction on a lower level than God intended. That is the way unrealistic and overly emotional people are made. And the higher the emotion, the deeper the level of corruption, if it is not exercised on its intended level. If the Spirit of God has stirred you, make as many of your decisions as possible irrevocable, and let the consequences be what they will. We cannot stay forever on the “mount of transfiguration,” basking in the light of our mountaintop experience (see Mark 9:1-9). But we must obey the light we received there; we must put it into action. When God gives us a vision, we must transact business with Him at that point, no matter what the cost.

We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides; But tasks in hours of insight willed Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.

Courtesy of http://utmost.org/