“It Is A Bad Thing To Be Satisfied Spiritually”

I read this sentence from Oswald Chambers devotional today. The idea behind his devotional is about God teaching us patience. Patience is the fruit of the Spirit and the other name often used to describe patience is long-suffering. Whether you say patience or long-suffering this fruit of the Spirit is not only essential in our Christian walk, but when you learn patience it brings endurance and it also says that you are not devoted to yourself or your idea of who God is, but you are devoted to the true God. It says that you now have true faith instead of having faith in your own belief. Believe it or not it makes a big difference because faith in our own belief never brings God close. The gift of patience conveys a steadfast walk with God.

 “It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritually” In this small sentence there are two things to consider. One is being satisfied inwardly and the second one is the key word “spiritually” we cannot leave out this key word. Many Christians equate being satisfied with their Christian walk as in “working for God.” While some get involved in serving more in the Church and some actually go on their own without having the vision from Him, or if they have had the vision they did not wait for God, but instead, went ahead of God to realize the vision by creating opportunities for themselves. None of these things bring spiritual satisfaction. Spiritual satisfaction comes from pursuing God in a steadfast walk.

It is sad to be satisfied with less, when the God that we possess inwardly is so small. If your God is small, then you need to understand that you are not in God’s will because His will for you is to have Him in abundance. One of the most common things that cause us to live the Christian life with a miniature God in mind is that we are lazy. This laziness that I mentioned several times in different posts, is not something that one should be insulted when reading it. This laziness, even the most devoted Christians have to struggle to get out of this frame of mind to get hold of God. It forces us to get into the habit of doing Christianity while inwardly we are idle.

Many times, we have to bring ourselves up and struggle to keep cultivating the mind and heart and be willing to grasp more of God. Over the years I have come to understand not only we have to wait for God’s vision to take shape in our lives, to let Him prepare us for service whether here or in heaven; we also have to keep the vision of God every day of our lives to help us reach over and above what we know and understand. To keep grasping for more means we have to commit it all to God. We learn to commit to let Him be the Master in this relationship as we yield to Him. These things I mentioned in this paragraph alone, when you set out to do them, you will find it is easier to work for Him 365 days a year with no rest and no sleep, than to live out this kind of commitment to Him. Unfortunately unless we learn to grasp with our mind and heart through an unwavering commitment to Him through patience, then, intimacy with God will always be one more unattainable thing in the Christian life.  

I learned through the years, this command in James 4:8 “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.” It is of the utmost importance because it keeps us close, it keeps our mind sharp even when life is totally foggy and God is nowhere to be found. It keeps us alert so the enemy cannot get the opportunity to invade our camp. It keeps us where we need to be as soldiers of His. Through the pursuit of intimacy, we are sustained in Him and it keeps us consistent in our constancy. It also helps us to remain connected inwardly to Him when laziness set in. So, we can't afford to be satisfied spiritually because as we do, we forfeit all while Satan is having a feast at our expenses.

Some of us are wasting time every day finding comfort in one verse or two and we high five other people we say Amen and we feel good. While it is good to keep the verses in our hearts but ask yourself, how has God’s Word changed me inwardly lately?  You want to make sure you go a step further than Satan and his legion of demons, by letting the Word of God changes you.

If you are not aware that the Word of God is having His way in you, then who is? Let go of your mini God and get hold of a God that is so big, so powerful, so majestic, and so sovereign that the universe is not big enough to contain Him. Can you see Him? Can you get hold with your mind and your heart of this God that is so humongous that He holds the whole universe in His hands? Let this God be yours and embrace Him with your heart. Go forth with one goal in mind “to make Him yours” and do not stop on your way, do not be content with what you have of Him. When you truly fall in love with God, you really do not care what’s in it for you. Calvary is already plenty. Please consider surrendering your whole life once again, dedicate all that you are for His glory. Ask Him to teach you how to keep your heart and mind open to Him and let Him have His ways in each itsy bitty part of you. He is your father, He loves you and there is no reason to fear the unknown with Him. He will be delighted and He will delight you in return.

It is okay to have fear of surrendering your all to Him, but it is not okay to let your fear cripple you to the point where you rather learn to be spiritually satisfied with less of Him. Stop repeating verses after verses of how much He loves you but prove it to Him that you truly believe His Word by surrendering your all. By passing your fear to surrender to Him because you believe He truly loves you, would be an example of the work of your faith in Him, a work pleasing to Him.

We are soldiers of the Cross, let’s not be lazy or the enemy will invade the camp!

Here Is Oswald's Devotional

The Patience To Wait for the Vision

05

02

2013

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

Patience is not the same as indifference; patience conveys the idea of someone who is tremendously strong and able to withstand all assaults. Having the vision of God is the source of patience because it gives us God’s true and proper inspiration. Moses endured, not because of his devotion to his principles of what was right, nor because of his sense of duty to God, but because he had a vision of God. “. . . he endured as seeing Him who is invisible” (Hebrews 11:27). A person who has the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue— he is devoted to God Himself. You always know when the vision is of God because of the inspiration that comes with it. Things come to you with greatness and add vitality to your life because everything is energized by God. He may give you a time spiritually, with no word from Himself at all, just as His Son experienced during His time of temptation in the wilderness. When God does that, simply endure, and the power to endure will be there because you see God.

“Though it tarries, wait for it . . . .” The proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have already grasped. It is a bad thing to be satisfied spiritually. The psalmist said, “What shall I render to the Lord . . . ? I will take up the cup of salvation . . .” (Psalm 116:12-13). We are apt to look for satisfaction within ourselves and say, “Now I’ve got it! Now I am completely sanctified. Now I can endure.” Instantly we are on the road to ruin. Our reach must exceed our grasp. Paul said, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on . . .” (Philippians 3:12). If we have only what we have experienced, we have nothing. But if we have the inspiration of the vision of God, we have more than we can experience. Beware of the danger of spiritual relaxation

Complete & Effective Dominion

I had no intention of touching Oswald Chambers subject this morning. But during my time with God, the Holy Spirit had decided otherwise. I found myself learning through Oswald Chambers and the Holy Spirit something that I did not realize at the time I wrote my book “Apprehended & Apprehending”.

When I wrote my book “Apprehended & Apprehending” which by the way is not for people who are interested in sampling Christianity but rather for those truly yearning to know Him personally, those who already know Him personally and those who have reached the stage in their Christian walk with Him that Oswald talked in his devotional of April 11 & 12. Otherwise, the book would be meaningless to you.  By the time I had written the book, I had experienced that true Salvation will always lead us to find the “Pearl of Great Price” which to my surprise I found is God the Father. Believe me every bit of this verse is true and it is so GRAND that when you find the pearl of great price in Matthew 13:46 your life will never, ever be the same again. And whether we like it or not shoddy Christianity is left behind and you can only go forward with the Father.  “Who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”   

In my book, my writing was based on what the triune God taught me and my experiences of it though Him. This is one of the beautiful things about learning directly from God. I was taught what Oswald Chambers teach today in his devotional where he used Romans 6:9-11.  In my book I used the same analogy but I learned it from Philippians 3 as God set out to impart to me what He meant through Paul in verses 10-12. 

I don’t know about you but I am excited as I see the beauty of God’s Word and how everything stands by itself yet everything is intertwined together. Oswald said today that eternal life is not a gift from God but it is THE GIFT OF GOD. My dear friends, it is about possessing God Himself, that’s what Oswald means. While it is true eternal life is a gift from God but the gift is HIM.  You see, when you make the decision to leave it all behind, meaning intellect, pride, sin, knowledge, understanding etc and go forward with God to find out what those annoying people keep going on about, as if they know God better than the average Christian, you find God the Father, in the process. (Actually to a certain extend it is the story of the great C.S Lewis)

It is only when you find God the Father, you realize the goal of Salvation, the whole idea behind Salvation which God showed me is as big as the ocean, is in effect about finding God the Father. He is the endless gift behind it all.  Oh I wish you could see the beauty of it all with the eyes of your heart. I wish you could go on to experience the depth, the length, the strength, the width and so on, that is involved in finding the Father.  Make no mistake, I did not find Him when I was standing by myself under the law, and doing my things apart from Christ. He revealed Himself to me while I was inside of Christ. Understand what I am saying, we were both, inside of Christ. I found out He was always there all along, but could not reveal Himself to me until I was ready, because as much as it is a friendship and relationship with our father, it is also a process. This process it is the reason Oswald Chambers is pleading with us in his devotional to go forward apprehending what Christ had apprehended us for. The strange thing is, once you apprehend the reason why Christ apprehended us for which means possessing God the father, you are driven by that ambition to apprehend more and more of Him. It is so strange, you find that you can never get too much of Him and you cannot be quenched.

In my book I explained how the life that is in Christ is imparted to us. It is as if God is changing your very own DNA with His life. He feeds it to you slowly as if you were an infant in the mother’s womb, Christ becomes the mother here. I still find it mind boggling the idea of me being in Christ, Christ being in me, Christ being in God and God being in Christ. While in my walk with Him I have experienced it, but it still gives me a headache to think about it. I cannot wait for God to take away the limitation when I die so that my little pea brain does not explode with this beautiful truth.

While we sit there like a dog with a bone claiming one or two verses here and there to stand our ground and make excuses not to go forward, if we only bothered going forward, God would show us that all those things we tend to think are made up by other people to rock the boat, and our enjoyment of complacency. We would learn the depth of certain verses that escape us in the Bible. What I mean by that, some people would say, well, we do not need that and it is apostasy. This is why we have to test the spirits. We do not gobble up everything people say because we like them, or that they look good, or perhaps they agree with our idea of Salvation which keeps us in complacency with God to begin with.  If we do that, we are no better than unbelievers trying to decipher the Bible to make fun of us and show how stupid we are and how bad our God is. When we do not test the spirits first through the Holy Spirit, we are nothing less than fools. We give Satan’s ammunitions and he tightens up the chain that keeps us in bondage and in ignorance of the true God.

What Oswald wrote today, in the same way I concluded in my book that we need to go forward to claim the life we have in Him we can find one instance in the Bible where Paul said the same thing as well. Galatians 4:19 expressed so nicely why Paul was suffering like a pregnant woman about to give birth. He knew they were missing a big component which was needed. Hence “My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you,” this is a beautiful verse pregnant with meaning directly related to our eternal life. You are free to see this verse as the word of God and admit and commit to it. Or, you are free to see it as Satan wants you to. The choice is yours. Be forewarned that choosing Satan’s side by minimizing the meaning of this verse does not change God’s truth and does not let you and I off the hook.

Matthew Henry’s commentary is my favourite. Here is what he said about it 4:19, 20 “The Galatians were ready to account the apostle their enemy, but he assures them he was their friend; he had the feelings of a parent toward them. He was in doubt as to their state, and was anxious to know the result of their present delusions. Nothing is so sure a proof that a sinner has passed into a state of justification, as Christ being formed in him by the renewal of the Holy Spirit; but this cannot be hoped for, while men depend on the law for acceptance with God. The truth is every single time we walk without Him,  provide explanations and decipher the Bible on our own apart from the Holy Spirit, all we do is put ourselves right back under the law.

The beauty of all this captivates me so much that I could go on deciphering Oswald’s devotional because I lived it all out with Him in the wilderness. But, I want to make something clear. My comparing myself with the same deductions that I came up with Oswald has nothing to do with me thinking that I am close to walk in Oswald’s shoes. On the contrary, one of the reasons I got excited is because I can see that God can teach me in the smallest and the biggest things. I got excited because I learned something new today through the devotion and I am happy because I am learning from the same God who taught Oswald His Word. I am well aware that I have a long way to go and one will never arrive in this life.

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/

If you are going through a time where you are not sure what is going on in your Christian walk,  inside you feel empty, sad, overwhelmed and depressed; all of the sudden the Christianity you thought you knew, the Christianity that brought you so much joy is far out of reach. You feel like you are on some kind of automatic pilot. Even faking a smile is hard for you. Then you are going through what Oswald called the discipline of dismay. The discipline of dismay lasts a little while. It is a dark period of your life that your soul needs to go through if your Christianity is to amount to anything to God.

Like Oswald said, we tend to look back on our time of obedience and our past sacrifices to God in an effort to keep our enthusiasm for him strong (see Isaiah 50:10-11) One of the mistake we make is to try and find the enthusiasm back. We do not realize that God is not looking for that enthusiasm, He in fact does not care for it. He wants you to endure the inexplicable pain that you are in right now, while seeking His face and focus on Him like there is no tomorrow.

What Oswald did not know when he wrote that piece is that we are in a time where when the enthusiasm for God is gone, the younger generation falls back on Social Media to seek encouragement.  So they find comfort through those shallow comments these professed Christians have perfected over the years, but with no real meaning to their lives. I noticed as well the younger generation lack guidance and understanding coming from their own family. If they had parents living deeper Christian lives with Him, parents who have gone through the process with God, those younger people would have a better understanding of what is going on and would stop in seeking for the type of band-aid comfort they find on Social Media. 

What we do not realize, when God takes us through a time of dismay, it is indeed a good thing for our soul and our walk with Him. While we are there, it does not seem it is possible that any good can come of it because there is so much confusion just trying to understand why we are where we are with Him. But, it is good because God is taking you beyond a time where you can bypass the sense of self-satisfaction you get from your Bible reading, prayer time, and Christian activities. He is taking you deeper into Him. The sad thing is, until God takes you there, you would never realize that you have been living a self-satisfying kind of Christian life.

This phase is mandatory, the waiting process, His silence, the fact that you do not recognize Him and He is becoming more and more like a stranger to you. The protest that you will go through, the soul searching, the lack of answers from Him, are all part of the process. The attitude He is looking for is for you to surrender it all to Him, for you to stop protesting, for you to trust those words you have been reading in the Bible and trust that He is a faithful God. When you go through it with the right attitude, you position yourself to receive more of His grace.

It is a time of great depression and no matter what you do, your soul cannot get out of it. Don’t despair, and don’t panic. If you surrender through the process, I promise you, He will take care of you in the same way He took care of Elijah when he was running for his life and God sent an Angel to feed Him and care for him.  He will take care of you in the same way He took care of Paul who was so discouraged that nothing could revive his soul, God had to send an angel on three occasions to reassure him and strengthen him.

So, if you are going to a dark time with Him, I beg of you, stop seeking for temporary shallow satisfaction. It is a time to hang on to Him more than ever. It is the perfect time to test Hebrews 13:5 “I will never desert you nor forsake you.”  Trust in the God of your Salvation. Look to His Cross. It is hard to let go of all we know and to hang on to Him especially at a time where we have no answer and He seems more absent than we have ever experienced. But it is okay. It will feel as if you are asked to let go of something that is holding you nicely and help you stand up, for something you have no idea what it is, where it is, what it is made of. In fact within yourself, you have no desire of letting go of something you can see for something you cannot see. But, your soul needs to go through it all. Your soul needs to learn to trust what it cannot see

  

That’s exactly what He wants from you. Even though nothing makes sense to you, I beg of you to trust Him and He will not fail you.

In essence, what you are doing during this period, is giving up your identity to take on His!

Here is Oswald Chambers's devotion for today

The Discipline of Dismay

03

15

2013

As they followed they were afraid —Mark 10:32

At the beginning of our life with Jesus Christ, we were sure we knew all there was to know about following Him. It was a delight to forsake everything else and to throw ourselves before Him in a fearless statement of love. But now we are not quite so sure. Jesus is far ahead of us and is beginning to seem different and unfamiliar— “Jesus was going before them; and they were amazed” (Mark 10:32).

There is an aspect of Jesus that chills even a disciple’s heart to its depth and makes his entire spiritual life gasp for air. This unusual Person with His face set “like a flint” (Isaiah 50:7) is walking with great determination ahead of me, and He strikes terror right through me. He no longer seems to be my Counselor and Friend and has a point of view about which I know nothing. All I can do is stand and stare at Him in amazement. At first I was confident that I understood Him, but now I am not so sure. I begin to realize that there is a distance between Jesus and me and I can no longer be intimate with Him. I have no idea where He is going, and the goal has become strangely distant.

Jesus Christ had to understand fully every sin and sorrow that human beings could experience, and that is what makes Him seem unfamiliar. When we see this aspect of Him, we realize we really don’t know Him. We don’t recognize even one characteristic of His life, and we don’t know how to begin to follow Him. He is far ahead of us, a Leader who seems totally unfamiliar, and we have no friendship with Him.

The discipline of dismay is an essential lesson which a disciple must learn. The danger is that we tend to look back on our times of obedience and on our past sacrifices to God in an effort to keep our enthusiasm for Him strong (see Isaiah 1:10-11). But when the darkness of dismay comes, endure until it is over, because out of it will come the ability to follow Jesus truly, which brings inexpressibly wonderful joy

Courtesy of: http://utmost.org/

The Life & Power to Follow!

I was reading this devotion today and I realize I ought to include it in today's post for various reasons. If you are a true Christian stucked in a rut never knowing the power of true Christianity, trying to guess whether you are holy or not, wondering why some people seems to talk about things that beyond your understanding. You need to read an Oswald Chambers devotion today with special attention. If you do not feel the Spirit talking to you, then put it aside and keep coming back to it until you are convicted.

The second “follow me” is brutal, it is painful, it is real, it is for all of us Christians and brings power, spirituality, authority and spiritual maturity. In short, it transforms us. It is the narrow gate that separates mediocre Christians strong in lip service and those prepared for heaven’s businesses.

 Once you read it, pray that God would help you see when He brings you to this point of the second follow me through the circumstances in your life, you do not miss out on it. In your prayer ask Him to give you strength and the courage to choose Him inspite of the uncertainties and the pain of choosing to go with Him. Remember, within a few months only Peter was transformed from a man who could not own up to the simple fact that he was his follower before the rooster crowed three times (Mark 14:66-72) to a man with boldness and with no fear for his life after Christ ascended into heaven.

Be blessed and be a blessing to others around you!

In His Agape love,

M.J Andre

The Life of Power to Follow

Jan

05

2013

Jesus answered him, ’Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward’ —John 13:36

“And when He had spoken this, He said to him, ’Follow Me’ ” (John 21:19). Three years earlier Jesus had said, “Follow Me” (Matthew 4:19), and Peter followed with no hesitation. The irresistible attraction of Jesus was upon him and he did not need the Holy Spirit to help him do it. Later he came to the place where he denied Jesus, and his heart broke. Then he received the Holy Spirit and Jesus said again, “Follow Me” (John 21:19). Now no one is in front of Peter except the Lord Jesus Christ. The first “Follow Me” was nothing mysterious; it was an external following. Jesus is now asking for an internal sacrifice and yielding (see John 21:18).

Between these two times Peter denied Jesus with oaths and curses (see Matthew 26:69-75). But then he came completely to the end of himself and all of his self-sufficiency. There was no part of himself he would ever rely on again. In his state of destitution, he was finally ready to receive all that the risen Lord had for him. “. . . He breathed on them, and said to them, ’Receive the Holy Spirit’ ” (John 20:22). No matter what changes God has performed in you, never rely on them. Build only on a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and on the Spirit He gives.

All our promises and resolutions end in denial because we have no power to accomplish them. When we come to the end of ourselves, not just mentally but completely, we are able to “receive the Holy Spirit.” “Receive the Holy Spirit “— the idea is that of invasion. There is now only One who directs the course of your life, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Courtesy of http://utmost.org/

Life On Earth Has Never Been About Us!

When God deemed you privileged enough to experience what it means to live a life on earth according to his purpose, it is something personal and powerful. I remember in 2005 when I began to go though the wilderness torments, just for a moment which even today seems a life time flashed before me, He showed me how that everything He was going to put me through had nothing to do with me and it was not about me. That was the strangest thing to see how all the pain, the loss, the hardships, and all the adversities even though they were happening to me were not about me. Of course back then I assumed that the episode that I was going through was going to last only a few months. I am glad God did not show me the whole path that I was going to go through for seven years in the wilderness. I would have been spooked and miss out on righteousness, knowledge, wisdom, patience, Agape love, intimacy, faith and all that I have found through going  forward with Him.

I still remember how baffled I was to live out the beauty of being born for a purpose, yet I was puzzled as to how did we manage to make things so much about us. This vision God showed me was not meant just for me. Through it, I understood that God was totally misunderstood by us. I felt like a human being was more like an experiment that has gone wrong. Through the capabilities He put in us, we used them to turn against Him. Each one of us was meant to be a tiny part of a much bigger picture. We are like the tiny pixels that make up the element of a digital picture. Or another comparison would be the tiny fibers of a thread that is used to put together and weave a canvas

We have nothing; absolutely nothing we can offer God that would satisfy Him. The reason is that nothing that we possess belongs to us. Every breath we take, our finances big or small, our possessions, our children, our knowledge etc, all belong to Him. Even the first commandment that is so dear to His heart, we cannot even come close to loving Him if He does not put His Agape Love in our heart, He cannot accept our love because our love is not a selfless love. The only prize possession we possess and that He is after is us coming back to Him so that we can be put back into a relationship where once again He is the Master. The only way possible to do that is through a surrender of the self back to Him.  He wants us to do it, because we recognize who we are in Him. In our helplessness we have come to realize that without Him we are incapable of taking care of ourselves.  He alone has the schematics of our lives. Anything else we create on our own is apart from Him and His vision for us.

Through this revelation, God wanted to impart to me the fact that my life was not about me at all. He succeeded. It is funny, all these years I have been so busy focussing on learning to live a life where He was given His proper place (my Creator) and role (my Master) that I forgot to look at this experience in any other way. That is until this morning when I started reading Oswald Chambers devotional

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Oswald Chambers' "My Utmost for His Highest"

Devotional for November 5

Partakers Of His Sufferings

"Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings." — 1 Peter 4:13

If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a multitude of experiences that are not meant for you at all, they are meant to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what transpires in other souls so that you will never be surprised at what you come across. Oh, I can't deal with that person. Why not? God gave you ample opportunity to soak before Him on that line, and you barged off because it seemed stupid to spend time in that way.

The sufferings of Christ are not those of ordinary men. He suffered "according to the will of God," not from the point of view we suffer from as individuals. It is only when we are related to Jesus Christ that we can understand what God is after in His dealings with us. It is part of Christian culture to know what God's aim is. In the history of the Christian Church the tendency has been to evade being identified with the sufferings of Jesus Christ; men have sought to procure the carrying out of God's order by a short cut of their own. God's way is always the way of suffering, the way of the "long, long trail."

Are we partakers of Christ's sufferings? Are we prepared for God to stamp our personal ambitions right out? Are we prepared for God to destroy by transfiguration our individual determinations? It will not mean that we know exactly why God is taking us that way, that would make us spiritual prigs. We never realize at the time what God is putting us through; we go through it more or less misunderstandingly; then we come to a luminous place, and say - ' 'Why, God has girded me, though I did not know it!"

Copyright Statement
Taken from 'My Utmost for His Highest', by Oswald Chambers. © l935 by Dodd Mead & Co., renewed © 1963 by the Oswald Chambers Publications Assn., Ltd., and is used by permission of Barbour Publishing, Uhrichsville, Ohio. All rights reserved.