Are You Listening to God? - Oswald Chambers

Today’s Oswald chambers post radiates with truths. Every line, every idea and almost every word are true to us, today’s Christians.  If you have never been to a point in your life where you can see with your heart how much you do not love Him and how much you have been disrespectful to a God who deserves your full reverence, you are either PERFECT or you are knee deep in your lies as a Christian.

Through my walk with Him I learned that there is nothing wrong with listening to God’s servants. As the matter of fact, it is extremely important to listen to your leaders, and to one another. But, before we choose to listen to them, we have to learn to listen to God first. Otherwise, we follow after man and the end result is exactly what you see happened to the Israelites. Centuries after centuries, they have never learned to make God ‘personal’.  They have never learned to take ownership of their faith, their spiritual responsibilities vis a vis Him and their love for Him. These things cannot be found in traditions and rituals and we are left empty without a personal relationship.

Another thing that I have learned is that God will take all of us to a point where we realize we are TERRIFIED of Him. When this happens, He does not force you to go forward and come closer. Because, as much as He craves for intimacy with us which is the ultimate reason He put forward His plan of salvation, He will sit there, waiting for us to make the decision to choose Him too, in the same way He chose us first.  Remember, all this will be happening at the level of your heart, your spirit and your soul, so we have to be in tune with this life we have with Him, not to miss the cues. You might think it is impossible to miss those cues, but I tell you it is not.  Casing point, the Israelites missed out on God coming down to talk to them. (He did not have to come down)

When this happens to you, you are paralyzed because in your mind you keep thinking that He will throw a ball of fire at you or something to that effect if you go closer.  It will take all your strength, it takes an embrace of your fear and all that you are goes into embracing the fact that you have to go meet with Him face to face because of three main reasons: HE IS GOD! HE IS YOUR FATHER! AND YOU WOULD RATHER DIE THAN LIVING THIS LIFE WITHOUT KNOWING HIM PERSONALLY AND INTIMATELY! But, if you dare to make the decision to go closer in spite of what might happen to you, as you lift up your feet to move forward He takes over and you find yourselves in His arms of love. Some of you would say, well, if you have to do all that, it is no longer grace at work. Of course it is His grace at work changing you and me. Without His grace, you and I we have no interest whatsoever in Him.  WE COULD NOT CARE LESS!

As much as I was ecstatic to be in His arms of love, when all this experience was over, I was sad to see how much I did not love Him and most of all, I totally misjudged Him, even though I was repeating like a parrot that “God is love”. I also knew in my heart that I did not do it deliberately and I would never have known the difference if…..

Are You Listening to God? - Oswald Chambers

They said to Moses, "You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die." — Exodus 20:19

We don’t consciously and deliberately disobey God— we simply don’t listen to Him. God has given His commands to us, but we pay no attention to them— not because of willful disobedience, but because we do not truly love and respect Him. “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15). Once we realize we have constantly been showing disrespect to God, we will be filled with shame and humiliation for ignoring Him.

“You speak with us,…but let not God speak with us….” We show how little love we have for God by preferring to listen to His servants rather than to Him. We like to listen to personal testimonies, but we don’t want God Himself to speak to us. Why are we so terrified for God to speak to us? It is because we know that when God speaks we must either do what He asks or tell Him we will not obey. But if it is simply one of God’s servants speaking to us, we feel obedience is optional, not imperative. We respond by saying, “Well, that’s only your own idea, even though I don’t deny that what you said is probably God’s truth.”

Am I constantly humiliating God by ignoring Him, while He lovingly continues to treat me as His child? Once I finally do hear Him, the humiliation I have heaped on Him returns to me. My response then becomes, “Lord, why was I so insensitive and obstinate?” This is always the result once we hear God. But our real delight in finally hearing Him is tempered with the shame we feel for having taken so long to do so.

None of Self and All of Thee—Will You Lay Down Your Life?

"If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it." Luke 9:23-24

Today I was reading Oswald Chambers devotion and once again, for the gazillion times I was reminded by the Spirit that it is a life where you lay down the self daily, then, you learn to lay it down moment by moment.

Oswald is right in his assessment of us when he recorded “It is much easier to die than to lay down your life day in and day out with the sense of the high calling of God.”  When we get to do things for God, we do not have to feel the pain of being who we are. We get lost in working for Him because it gives us a sense of control in our lives. More than that, choosing to work for Him instead of laying this life down, helps us make sense of the natural life and takes away the chaos and uncertainty that the supernatural takes us through. I feel the need to say chaos because God does not tell us each step of the way what He is doing. As we wait, we wait some more, then a little bit more, again some more, yet, still nothing. As a human being, it is hard to take and hard to live out. So, all the feelings that the waiting process and the uncertainty bring to our lives cause chaos in the mind.

The past two weeks, I have been in some sort of tiring mood and it bothered me because I knew I had no business feeling the way I was feeling. I have been walking with God long enough to know if this kind of mood is not dealt with right away, you get yourself into a spiritual depression and before you know it, your devotion time, prayer time with God and everything of this spiritual life suffer as the heart grows cold toward Him. So, even before I finished reading Oswald Chamber’s devotion, I was convicted and I knew I had to get back to the same attitude that I know so well, in Him

When you are a child of God, this attitude can be found literally in the blink of an eye as you switch your brain’s gears. Instantly, you find rest. When you switch gears, it feels as if you were carrying a load off your back, but now you no longer have it, as if it suddenly disappeared.

But, the Spirit took it a step further to show me that the load that I felt I was carrying was made up of things such as: self-pity for myself because all my hopes seem to be fading away and my failure is made so big right in my face. I have also been having some issues with impatience through the waiting process,—after all, I have been waiting only eight years, no biggie—but you can see the kind of thinking process and disposition that plagued me the past two weeks.  So, the spirit showed me, even though I did not raise a finger to do work outside His will in order to avoid laying down my life, I still can move away and do the next thing that comes easier instead of laying down the life as He asked of us.

So, yes, for the past two weeks or so, I can truly say that I forgot to lay down my life daily. Every time the Spirit teaches me something, I am the first one amazed at how this self-life can creep up on us, so easily without even being noticed. I am also amazed at the 1001 ways we have to occupy ourselves in order to avoid laying down our lives. The worst thing is that I thought I dealt with self-pity in my life and I put it away for good. So when the Spirit showed me that self-pity was one of my heavy load, all I could say was “how did that get there?” Once more I was confronted with my being nothing, unless I am in Him. Without Him, I can’t do anything right

But, I know He is not finished with me, in fact, this journey that I have been on for the past eight years has only showed me this Christian life has just began.

Like T. Monod said, we start with,

‘All of self—and none of Thee.’
move to ‘Some of self—and some of Thee.’
then ‘Less of self—and more of Thee.’ Until we get to
Grant me now my soul’s desire,
‘None of self—and all of Thee.’

Will You Lay Down Your Life?

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. . . . I have called you friends . . . —John15:13, 15

Today’s Devotion June 16: for Oswald Chambers

Gracious Uncertainty - Oswald Chambers

Today’s devotion of April 29, is one that I have been struggling with so much. Oswald said: “Our natural inclination is to be so precise—trying always to forecast accurately what will happen next—that we look upon uncertainty as a bad thing.” I have to admit that I left that stage of my life a long time ago. God forced me to get there by engineering circumstances in my life where I did not have a choice. For me it was “swim or sink”

Oswald said:  “Our common sense says, “Well, what if I were in that circumstance?” We cannot presume to see ourselves in any circumstance in which we have never been.” I found the more He keeps me in the waiting process, the more I learn to stop imagining my circumstances. (it’s a choice) I also found out that Satan knows us better than we know ourselves and he can tell when we are trying to live life ahead of God. Before we know it, this made up life in our mind becomes real. Sadly, as the imagined life becomes reality “in our mind”, there is a big conflict with the tangible life that we are living now, one that is involved interacting with others and it puts pressure on us to react a certain way as if our expectations are not being met. There is a movie coming out soon which is called “the secret life of Walter Mitty” I read this book a few decades ago and I remember how much I enjoyed it because I could identify with the protagonist. But, way back then, I was not a Christian, and felt there was nothing wrong in living this way to make my real life bearable.  My point here is that it is not Godly to live a life in conflict with the real life. It is the way of the unbeliever.

How do I know that? Because God has been hard at work in me trying so hard to drill it into my thick skull the past few years. There is nothing that Oswald Chambers has written in today’s devotion that is new to me or that I have not experienced with God. But, there are so many steps in between to get you to the point where one can live a life of gracious uncertainty with God. I am at the stage where I am still finding it hard to reconcile and live out the gracious uncertainty of my spiritual life as if it was a “normal life” and share it with no fear of being ridiculed or misunderstood by so called Christians. Gracious uncertainty while it is very much a SPIRITUAL LIFE, but it merges and embedded itself with the real and normal day to day life we live on earth. It is also part of living out a surrendered life, part of the transformation process, dependence and faith in God. It is strange that I do not mind the unbelievers, but my big challenge is those so called believers who are willing to think that I am an idiot and I am the one who does not understand God, because I am not making plans to present to God.

Here is my fight with God. He wants me to share and live out, my gracious uncertainty with pride. This pride I am referring to is the same pride that Paul felt when he said “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of God” and for some reason living out my spiritual life of gracious uncertainty is also related to that verse. Every single time He put me in a situation where I have to share proudly I both shy away or I do not answer all together. Then, I grumble in my heart that I do not have people to truly fellowship with. (Keep in mind that He taught me His idea of true fellowship)  Growing in gracious uncertainty is maturing in your spiritual life. When you fellowship with a bunch of believers who believe in their own belief, trying to tell them with joy, how you are uncertain of tomorrow, it feels like you are living out Matthew 7:6 "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” I am not uncertain of God, in fact, I AM CERTAIN OF GOD, but I hate the fact that He keeps putting me in situations where I have to share my uncertainty of what He is going to do next.

NEWS FLASH! I had all the intention of closing this post with something like “pray for me so that I can allow God to work this part of the gospel in my heart.” But would you believe as I am writing this post that God dealt with my heart? This is one of the things I love about this Christian life being a journey. You are never too mature to learn simple things with God and you can never outgrow this spiritual life. He just taught me that the reason I close-in, scared of sharing, scared of being ridiculed, misunderstood etc., is because I am not learning to leave the consequences of people’s misunderstanding, the shame of being ridiculed for my spiritual life and all that it entails, in His hands.

Can you see the domino effect of this spiritual journey? I got to go now because I have teary eyes and so many feelings that I have to deal with right now. What a journey we are called to live out with Him! This spiritual life is one that can only be lived out “IN THE SPIRIT!”

READ OSWALD CHAMBERS DEVOTION FOR TODAY APRIL 29 RIGHT HERE

Today’s devotion from Oswald Chambers deserves our special attention. I could not help smiling as I was reading it because I know I was not prepared for what comes next after making the decision to deal with sin once and for all. I have to say as much as I love Oswald’s writings, one of my frustration before I became a mature Christian, was to find out that he did not tell me all that I needed to know. Of course, as I grew spiritually, I understood this was not his fault. For instance, when I read his devotion book, often I was gripped by what I read and I wanted to get there with God in the same way Oswald was able to understand. So, I would start by talking to God; pull myself up to finally make the decision to be done away with sin. Usually when you spent time telling God everything that is in your heart it feels pretty good. Your mind is at rest and you thinking “Well, that takes care of this problem, it’s done and dealt with.”

But, God is weird that way. Once you talk to Him, if you are truly sincere, you find that few days after your heart to heart talk something strange happening to you. All of the sudden you start seeing sin for what it is in the eyes of God, not what you thought it was. Just when you are getting used to this revelation, you find that He starts putting the spotlight in you as He is searching in every corner of your heart and expose them to you so you can deal with them. Usually by the time I get there, I go back to the same devotion and read it again to see what I was missing because it is turning out to be a bigger deal than I expected.

Ten weeks down the road, I simply could not stand the pain that God brought to my door steps. One miserable day I could not understand why I felt the need to keep singing all day long “Oh! Death where is your sting?” Then, suddenly the Holy Spirit said to me “you know, if you do not let me deal with your sin in this way, then the sting of death is still in you” I remember sitting straight right away and I looked around to see if anyone was looking at me. When I finally came to my senses, I pondered on the fact that I was under the impression that as soon as I became a Christian through the new birth, I identified with Christ, so the sting of death was no longer in me. Anyway, it was a long process for God to help me understand the justification process as well as the Salvation that I received had to be worked out in me. It turns out that a tiny part of working Salvation through me was to deal with sin once and for all.  Most of the time, God has graced me with the knowledge of what is being done in me so that I could cooperate with Him.

It was only after I went through the process of co-crucifixion with Christ that I understood this tiny part of April 10’s devotion. While Oswald dedicated four tiny lines at the bottom of the page, I had no idea that it was a process that would last weeks and painful more than anything I ever experienced. The co-crucifixion is real. During that time, I learnt about how important it is to God that we let Him impart His life in us. I learnt about inbred sin and most of all I learnt that each one of us has to go through it with Christ. You also know when it is over because even your bones are screaming right through your body, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…”  I was walking on air, I felt like a bird. I felt the pain of my co-crucifixion was worth it. I was grateful to God for taking me there

Then I sat still with God as I tried to understand and make sense of the fact that not long ago, I thought I was in good standing with God as a Christian because I could read in the Bible that I have been crucified with Christ. I had no idea that it was important to work it in me. I started feeling the heaviness of knowing that so many I left behind in the Church, they have no idea that they too need to get there with Christ. I remember asking God “what are you going to do?” I asked that, because He allowed me to see the state of my Church and the Church at large and how most Christians are like caterpillars yet in their minds they think they have already been transformed into a butterfly. Some think that the transformation will take place when they are not even looking.

Yet, God was able to share with me how He is able to isolate and set apart right here, all those that are going to be in His army. Like He did with me, He is able to orchestrate situations in their lives to walk them through the process, whether they like it or not. This was the time where I understood how our intellect can be like a runaway train. So, God planed salvation as deep as the depth of the ocean, yet we dip our toes in the ocean and we are satisfied. I should stop here because sometimes when I think of those things I find it sad and depressive.

It is funny how sometimes people say to me that I complicate salvation. But, they do not understand they are talking through their lack of understanding. Because, there was a time I felt as I read books and the Bible, salvation was too complicated and too confusing. In fact, in talking about it, someone told me “don’t worry about it. All you need to know is that you are saved, you cannot lose Salvation and God cannot lie.” But, that is not helpful at all. This attitude is a recipe to tempt God and hold Him responsible for our ignorance and lack of Spiritual understanding and growth.

After I stopped being confused and overwhelmed by Salvation, I realized these feelings came from my lack of knowing God. Worst than that, they were there because I was trying to understand Salvation with my own intellect and in the flesh. Once I got it from God’s point of view, salvation became as easy as 1, 2, 3. Walk in the Spirit with a willingness to yield everything to Him, then He will make it all clear to you.

Complete and Effective Decision About Sin

Courstesy of: http://utmost.org/

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. . . our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin —Romans 6:6

Co-Crucifixion. Have you made the following decision about sin—that it must be completely killed in you? It takes a long time to come to the point of making this complete and effective decision about sin. It is, however, the greatest moment in your life once you decide that sin must die in you-not simply be restrained, suppressed, or counteracted, but crucified—just as Jesus Christ died for the sin of the world. No one can bring anyone else to this decision. We may be mentally and spiritually convinced, but what we need to do is actually make the decision that Paul urged us to do in this passage.

Pull yourself up, take some time alone with God, and make this important decision, saying, “Lord, identify me with Your death until I know that sin is dead in me.” Make the moral decision that sin in you must be put to death.

This was not some divine future expectation on the part of Paul, but was a very radical and definite experience in his life. Are you prepared to let the Spirit of God search you until you know what the level and nature of sin is in your life— to see the very things that struggle against God’s Spirit in you? If so, will you then agree with God’s verdict on the nature of sin— that it should be identified with the death of Jesus? You cannot “reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin” (Romans 6:11) unless you have radically dealt with the issue of your will before God.

Have you entered into the glorious privilege of being crucified with Christ, until all that remains in your flesh and blood is His life? “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me . . .” (Galatians 2:20).

Final Perseverance – Part 6 of 6

March 23, 1856, by C. H. Spurgeon

At New Park Street Chapel, Southwark

Hebrews 6:4-6

"For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame."—

Let me show you why. First,

O Christian, it is put in to keep thee from falling away. God preserves his children from falling away; but he keeps them by the use of means; and one of these is, the terrors of the law, showing them what would happen if they were to fall away. There is a deep precipice: what is the best way to keep any one from going down there? Why, to tell him that if he did he would inevitably be dashed to pieces. In some old castle there is a deep cellar, where there is a vast amount of fixed air and gas, which would kill anybody who went down. What does the guide say? "

If you go down you will never come up alive." Who thinks of going down? The very fact of the guide telling us what the consequences would be, keeps us from it. Our friend puts away from us a cup of arsenic; he does not want us to drink it, but he says, "If you drink it, it will kill you." Does he suppose for a moment that we should drink it. No; he tells us the consequences, and he is sure we will not do it. So God says, "My child, if you fall over this precipice you will be dashed to pieces." What does the child do? He says, "Father, keep me; hold thou me up, and I shall be safe." It leads the believer to greater dependence on God, to a holy fear and caution, because he knows that if he were to fall away he could not be renewed, and he stands far away from that great gulf, because he know that if he were to fall into it there would be no salvation for him. 

If I thought as the Arminian thinks, that I might fall away, and then return again, I should pretty often fall away, for sinful flesh and blood would think it very nice to fall away, and be a sinner, and go and see the play at the theatre, or get drunk, and then come back to the Church, and be received again as a dear brother who had fallen away for a little while. No doubt the minister would say, "Our brother Charles is a little unstable at times." A little unstable! He does not know anything about grace; for grace engenders a holy caution, because we feel that if we were not preserved by Divine power we should perish. 

We tell our friend to put oil in his lamp, that it may continue to burn! Does that imply that it will be allowed to go out? No, God will give him oil to pour into the lamp continually. Like John Bunyan's figure; there was a fire, and he saw a man pouring water upon it. "Now," says the Preacher, "don't you see that fire would go out, that water is calculated to put it out, and if it does, it will never be lighted again;" but God does not permit that! for there is a man behind the wall who is pouring oil on the fire; and we have cause for gratitude in the fact, that if the oil were not put in by a heavenly hand, we should inevitably be driven to destruction. Take care, then Christian, for this is a caution.

2. It is to excite our gratitude. Suppose you say to your little boy, "Don't you know Tommy, if I were not to give you your dinner and your supper you would die? There is nobody else to give Tommy dinner and supper." What then? The child does not think that you are not going to give him his dinner and supper; he knows you will, and he is grateful to you for them. The chemist tells us, that if there were no oxygen mixed with the air, animals would die. Do you suppose that there will be no oxygen, and therefore we shall die? No, he only teaches you the great wisdom of God, in having mixed the gases in their proper proportions. Says one of the old astronomers, "There is great wisdom in God, that he has put the sun exactly at a right distance—not so far away that we should be frozen to death, and not so near that we should be scorched." 

He says, "If the sun were a million miles nearer to us we should be scorched to death." Does the man suppose that the sun will be a million miles nearer, and, therefore, we shall be scorched to death? He says, "If the sun were a million miles farther off we should be frozen to death." Does he mean that the sun will be a million miles farther off, and therefore we shall be frozen to death? Not at all. Yet it is quite a rational way of speaking, to show us how grateful we should be to God. So says the Apostle. Christian! if thou shouldst fall away, thou couldst never be renewed unto repentance. Thank thy Lord, then, that he keeps thee.

"See a stone that hangs in air; see a spark in ocean live; Kept alive with death so near; I to God the glory give."

There is a cup of sin which would damn thy soul, O Christian. Oh! what grace is that which holds thy arm, and will not let thee drink it? There thou art, at this hour, like the bird-catcher of St. Kilda, thou art being drawn to heaven by a single rope; if that hand which holds thee let thee go, if that rope which grasps thee do but break, thou art dashed on the rocks of damnation. Lift up thine heart to God, then, and bless him that his arm is not wearied, and is never shortened that it cannot save. Lord Kenmure, when he was dying, said to Rutherford. "Man! my name is written on Christ's hand, and I see it! that is bold talk, man, but I see it!" Then, if that be the case, his hand must be severed from his body before my name can be taken from him; and if it be engraven on his heart, his heart must be rent out before they can rend my name out.

Hold on, then, and trust believer! thou hast "an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, which entereth within the veil." The winds are bellowing, the tempests howling; should the cable slip, or thine anchor break, thou art lost. See those rocks, on which myriads are driving, and thou art wrecked there if grace leave thee; see those depths, in which the skeletons of sailors sleep, and thou art there, if that anchor fail thee. It would be impossible to moor thee again, if once that anchor broke; for other anchor there is none, other salvation there can be none, and if that one fail thee, it is impossible that thou ever shouldst be saved. Therefore thank God that thou hast an anchor that cannot fail, and then loudly sing

"How can I sink with such a prop,

As my eternal God,

Who bears the earth's huge pillars up?

And spreads the heavens abroad?"

How can I die, when Jesus lives,

Who rose and left the dead?

Pardon and grace my soul receives,

From my exalted head."