Christ in Service

Octavius Winslow, 1863

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is ever with you — in service. The religion of Jesus is an active, self-denying religion. The Divine Master has left the scene of His own toil — but He has given to every disciple, his work. Each has his mission — something to do for souls, something to accomplish for the Savior, some glory to bring to God. Realizing in some degree what a debtor to the Lord he is; what he owes to the love that chose him, to the blood that ransomed him, to the grace that called him, to the Savior that gave Himself a sacrifice — the believer exclaims from the depth of his grateful heart, "Lord, what will you have me to do?" And now, to labor for Christ is his highest desire and ambition; be the service home or foreign, pleasant or self-denying, distinguished or obscure, to rule an empire or to sweep a crossing.

In this service for Christ — Christ is ever with you. Unseen and unheard, He is close at your side — guiding your judgment, strengthening your faith, nerving your heart, sustaining and cheering your spirit, honoring, blessing, and rewarding your labor. Oh, think not that Christ can leave you for a moment, while you are active and toiling for Him. He knows all your difficulties, marks your discouragements, is cognisant of your infirmities, sees your faintings and deficiencies, and how burdensome, delicate, and humbling the task. Do you think, while engaged in a service of love for His name, the sweat upon your brow, the pressure of your mind, anxiety and exhaustion absorbing life itself, foes threatening, friends chiding, your own heart often misgiving — that Christ will leave you? Oh, never! "Lo I am with you always" — all days — are the words with which He seeks to strengthen and cheer you on in your work of faith and labor of love which you show for His dear name.

Christ must ever be with us in all the duties of life. We must have His presence as a power in our hearts. "I am with you always," has cheered thousands of hearts in the midst of arduous labors in His service.

Christ Our Guide

Octavius Winslow, 1863

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is with us, as our guide. How deep our need of Him as such, and how endeared does it make Him! So blind are we, so dark is our future, so perplexing is our present path — that the very next step might be a false one — taking us into a wrong direction, entailing untold anxieties and sorrows, or hurling us from a precipice into total ruin! Yes, we need just such a guide as Christ!

What Alpine traveler would attempt the ascent of a steep glacier, or cross the dangerous pass — unattended by an experienced guide — one who knew the route, whose skillful eye could detect the treacherous crevice, and whose strong arm could fence the narrow, winding way?

Our path to eternity demands just such a guide as the prophet foretold Christ would be. "I have given Him," says God, "for a Leader and Commander to the people." His own gracious words corroborate this statement when speaking of Himself as the Shepherd of His flock, who "Goes before them, and the sheep follow Him, for they know His voice."

Oh, what a privilege — in every path of doubt, in every circumstance of danger, where human judgment is either warped or beclouded, and your own mind hesitates and falters — to have such a wonderful Counselor, such a divine Guide as Christ at your side! As such — He is ever with you!

He will guide you . . .
with His eye of providence,
and with His hand of power,
and with His heart of love!

He knows the way that you take — for He has ordained it.

He knows every crook in your lot — for He has appointed it.

He will . . .
roll away the stone of difficulty,
level mountains,
fill up valleys,
make the crooked path straight,
and the rough place smooth; this will He do unto you, and not forsake you.

Oh, be honest and upright with Him! Go to Him first, consult Him first, acknowledge Him in all your ways — before you consult any human guide. May Christ, in all the minute details of your life, have the pre-eminence. Learn to lay your own desires and thoughts at His feet.

"He guides the humble in what is right — and teaches them His way!" Psalm 25:9. Not our way — but "His way." We must first surrender our way and will — before He will teach us His. He guides the "humble" — the childlike, trustful, unquestioning disciple, who humbly locks his hand in Christ's and says, "Lord, lead me and guide me, not in my own way — but in Yours!"

Oh, take a firm grasp of this unfailing Guide, and you shall travel safely and surely, through all your unknown future. Be honest and sincere only to know and to walk in the Lord's way, the way in which He would have you to go; and then will He fulfill His most gracious promise, "Surely, I am with you always" — in the midst of the utmost peril and dangers!

Christ Our Shield!

Octavius Winslow, 1863

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is ever with His people — as a shield and deliverer. Our estimation of this truth, will be proportioned to our intelligent apprehension of the number and potency of our enemies — and the costliness and preciousness of the treasure thus divinely protected.

With what unslumbering vigilance,
with what divine power,
with what changeless love —
does the Lord Jesus shield the work of grace in the soul of His people!

Who keeps that spark alive — in the midst of the ocean?

Who guards this vineyard night and day — lest any hurt it?

Who preserves . . .
faith from faltering,
love from chilling,
hope from dying?

Who . . .
strengthens the 'work of grace' when it is feeble,
raises it when it droops,
restores it when it relapses,
keeps it in the cold of winter and the drought of summer;
and, when the frosts and winds of autumn would nip and scatter its foliage — clothes it with the freshness and bloom of spring?

Oh, it is Jesus, encircling with His all-protecting shield — the work of grace which His death has accomplished, and which His Spirit wrought!

"The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge! He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold!" Psalm 18:2

Trembling believer! The work of grace in your heart shall never die! The kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in your soul — is indestructible! "They shall never perish!" is the declaration of the Shepherd who bought you with His blood! You are watched over by Christ — and kept by the power of God. And although the tide of spiritual affection may ebb, and the shadows of twilight fall thickly upon your soul, and you are ready to regard your conversion a mistake, your religion a delusion, and your hope a fallacy — thus casting away your confidence; yet there is One who knows His own work, recognizes His own image, reads His Spirit's writing in the soul, and must Himself cease to be — before He allows those living embers of love He has enkindled upon the altar of your renewed heart, to die. The rain may descend, the winds may blow, the flood may surge — "But the inextinguishable flame burns on, and shall forever burn!"

There are assaults from which alone Christ can shield us!

Innumerable and invisible,
sleepless and restless,
working with an almost almighty power,
everywhere with an almost omnipresent existence,
ever plotting our ruin —
are the spiritual enemies of our soul, and the sworn foes of our faith!

The world and its fascinations,
Satan and his devices,
the flesh and its tendencies,
error and its disguises —
are all confederate against the child of God, opposing his every advance in holiness!

But Christ is our ever-present shield, near at the moment of assault, and skillful to deflect and disarm it! "Fear not, Abram, I am your shield!" are words addressed to all who have like precious faith with him.

Listen to Paul when defending Christianity before Nero: "At my first answer no man stood with me — but all men forsook me. . . . Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me." Severed from the protection and sympathy of man — he was all the more conscious of the presence and love of God. This is the manner of the Lord with us. The stage shall be swept of the human — to give place to the Divine. When the last human prop bends, and the last spark of creature-hope expires — hail it as the harbinger of Christ's nearness, that the more signal may appear His loving deliverance, and the more complete and undivided His glory.

Oh yes! the Lord encompasses you! Encircled by danger — you are also encircled by Christ! When you embark in His cause on foreign service, enter the carriage of a railway, launch upon the treacherous sea, bend your steps of mercy to the bedside of the sick, travel the lone and dreary road — be your experience what it may, let your mind be kept in perfect peace, trusting in this truth: the ever-present protection of Jesus. 

The unhealthy climate shall be harmless, the sickening malaria shall be innocuous, the perilous transit shall be safe — curtained within the pavilion of your Savior's love. Swelling above the tempest, louder than the voice of many waters, or whispered in the still solitude — shall be heard the words of Jesus, ""So do not fear — for I am with you! Do not be dismayed — for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand!" Isaiah 41:10. Lord, it is enough! My heart trusts in You, and I am helped!

Christ is with His people as the Head and Depository of all their spiritual supplies. The resources of the believer, although not from himself, and often, like Hagar's well, veiled from the eye — are yet, like that well-spring of water, flowing at the very side of the needy saint.

Destitution may reign far and wide, and the plaintive cry ascend from many a famished lip, "Who will show us any good?" Yet the Christian's soul, fed with the hidden manna and quenched from the river, the streams of which make glad the city of God — is kept alive in famine and in draught, and is like "a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters fail not."

And what explains this mystery? The nearness at his side of a full Christ, overflowing with a redundancy of grace, love, and sympathy — suiting every circumstance, answering every call, supplying every demand.

New exigencies may occur in his daily history,
new demands made upon his mental and physical powers, 
trials of a new form may transpire,
new infirmities may strike, 
sorrows hitherto untasted, 
temptations before unknown —
all marking a new epoch in his history, a new phase of Christian experience — and all clamorous for the grace that is to sustain, the sympathy that is to soothe, the wisdom that is to guide. And shall they ask in vain? Never! Christ is with us — furnished, given, and pledged to supply amply and fully — all the necessities of His people.

"And of His fullness — we have all we received grace upon grace!" John 1:16. That is, grace following grace; grace answering every call for grace; more grace, grace out-measuring all past supply, all present need, "exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think." O blessed truth!

In the world's insolvency — the believer has a safe bank!

In the world's famine — he has a full granary!

In the world's drought — he has springs of water!

In the world's heat — he has his pleasant and grateful shade!

And all this is concentrated in Christ; for Christ is all. O favored saint! to have a full, overflowing, excess supply, so near; exiled from all other resources, other supports failing, other springs drying, other shadows vanishing as in a night — and he, perchance, sitting him down to die in hopeless grief, lo! words fall upon his ear softer, sweeter than angels' chimes, "I am with you always; with you in this lonely place and at this trying moment — to unseal your eye to the boundless fullness, that it pleased the Father would dwell in Me for you, the Father's child."

"Hold me up — and I shall be safe!"

Christ our Teacher

By Octavious Winslow, 1863

"Surely, I am with you always — even unto the end of the world!" Matthew 28:20

Christ is with His people — as a Teacher. There exists no office of Christ that is not openly impugned and denied in the present day — and not one more so than His prophetic office. False teaching everywhere and alarmingly abounds. 

The teaching of men is exalted above the teaching of Christ, and, as a consequence, Infidelity and Popery are rife, and the people are following after the false prophet and the beast. This is a day in which the Lord's true people must exhibit their loyalty to Christ in His prophetic office — as the sole, divine, authorized Teacher of the Church. To Him, as our Teacher — must we only look; and His teaching — must we only follow. There is no safety but at Christ's feet! We must accept no doctrine, and observe no practice — but what comports with the teaching, example, and simplicity of His Word. If true and faithful disciples — to Christ, we must closely and exclusively adhere. We have but one master, Christ; to Him we stand or fall.

Beware, in religious sentiments, of the fascination and influence of ecclesiastical authority, cultivated intellect, and polished teachers: all this is of man, and partakes of the errors and sinfulness of man. Untaught by the Holy Spirit, and unsanctified by God's grace — we have seen the most brilliant and eminent gifts prove, but as decoy lights — glimmering along the bleak, fatal shores of Infidelity and Romanism — alluring, and then wrecking, upon the rocks, quicksands, and shoals — the too confiding, unsuspecting mind, "handling the word of God deceitfully."

Oh, be Christ's true disciple — loyal to His person, and faithful to His truth! It is the Word of Christ which quickens you, sanctifies you, comforts you. Nor can you part with one doctrine of Christ, without inflicting the most serious injury upon your soul, and shading His glory. "Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." 

The more experimentally you know of Christ's truth, and the more simply you walk in Christ's truth — the holier and the happier will you be. Oh, how increasingly glorious to your eye and precious to your heart, will Christ become! You will more and more clearly see, that all truth centers in Christ, and that Christ is the substance of all truth; that to know Christ — is to know the truth; and to know the truth — is to be freed from the blinding influence, erroneous teaching, and boasted authority of man. Blessed Jesus! O Divine Prophet of Your Church! "Happy are Your men, happy are these Your servants, who stand continually before You, and that hear Your wisdom."

Christ must be our wisdom in the midst of ignorance. He must be our Teacher, for He can teach without any man at all. "Who is a teacher like Him!" Job 36:22

The Service of Passionate Devotion—I Beg of You To Consider Your Ways!

Oswald Chambers Devotion for today is a very important piece that anyone who calls himself or herself a Christian should look into with great humility of the heart and a willingness to change as per the leading of the Spirit.

First off, Oswald seems to be unsympathetic to the discipleship and service process. At times, he even sounds harsh when he said things like “Today we have substituted doctrinal belief for personal belief, and that is why so many people are devoted to causes and so few are devoted to Jesus Christ. People do not really want to be devoted to Jesus, but only to the cause He started. Jesus Christ is deeply offensive to the educated minds of today, to those who only want Him to be their Friend, and who are unwilling to accept Him in any other way.”

But, the reality is that Oswald is right. Unless you learn to love Him first, unless you make sure that your life is led by the spirit and unless you become the very fragrance of the crucified Christ, then you will be devoted to the service instead of Him.

What I mean by becoming the fragrance of the crucified one is that you have been walking with Him so much that you have been transformed internally and on the inside, He is having His way so much in you, like the Potter and the clay. You become shaped in your mind, your spiritual eyes opened; your heart is wholly devoted to Him, His way and His will, that you become saturated. This is not a vague idea that I am sharing here. Think about it. You find people who drink so much that you can smell the booze from their skin, even when they are not drunk. While this seems like a basic example, but God’s idea of Salvation and Christ’s idea of being a servant and a disciple at the same time, all hinges on the same idea. The strange thing is, the idea that I am sharing permeates the Bible and Christ was a perfect picture of what I just said.

When we learn to be true clay in His hands, we abide until we merge and become one with Him and until we learn to cultivate the childlike mind we miss out on the whole idea of the Christian life. While Oswald might sound harsh, but the reality is, when you know God intimately, He changes the priorities as they are set in your mind and suddenly you realize it is not about anything or anyone else unless it is about Him. Suddenly, going to make disciples of the nations take a backseat. This does not mean it is not a priority or that you do not care, but you have your priorities shaped spirituality, by Him.

Here is the beauty of it all, when Christ comes first, through a passionate and devoted heart to His person, you are on cloud 9 to begin with, knowing how His power can do so much for these people and any time He wants to. You stop seeing yourself so important like if you do not go, there is no one else. So, yes, the need is pressing and it is overwhelming. Souls are perishing and the harvest is ripe. But none of it matters if He does not come first. None of it matters if He is not leading according to His plan. We undermine God, we belittle Him, we play down His power and we underestimate His plan for these people too.

As you learn to see the God of the universe for who He is, then everything falls into place as He is given the honor and the proper place in what we do and how we do it. If God has ever given you a peak behind the veil so that you can see people out there building empires in His name, yet they themselves are saved by the skin of their teeth. In the meantime, a simple Joe walking according to His will have a bigger impact, with people around him or her. Furthermore, when you die, this simple Joe will occupy a much bigger place than this big mogul Christian who seems to hit all the right notes. If you could see that, you would make His priority your number one priority. Because, dear brothers and sisters, it is not about pleasing people, it is not about the numbers, it is not even about going overseas to get involved in missions but it is about becoming more than a fan of His.

You know what is sad in all this? There are way too many so called Christians out there, devoted to His cause and what’s in it for them, yet they do not have a clue that’s where they are at, because they are spiritually blind. Like this extended family member that I shared about three days ago. This person is so educated, so involved in mission and community justice like Christ was, you would compare both of us and put me out in the trash while giving a humanitarian award to this person. Unless you are a spiritually minded Christian, you cannot know or see the difference with the eyes of your heart. Too many of us are praying for a gift that benefits us instead of praying the spirit to open up the eyes of our hearts so that can be more compliant people.

 At the end of the day, all the Church attendance, Bible verses we memorized, the Bible study that we have been attending for years and years, while never knowing what it means to grow spiritually, and all the sentimentality we hold dear in our hearts will not help us. It is about learning to ACCEPT Him His way, and on His terms. I beg of you to consider your ways and consider all the hoopla you are doing in His name. Can you truly say you have engaged the heart of this gigantic God? Are you truly one with Him? Are you walking in the Spirit? Are you abiding until He is merges with you as one? Are these things elusive to you after years of Christianity under your belt?  I beg of you, consider your ways!

Having had the eyes of my heart opened by Him a few years ago, I can tell you there is pain to get to the place where we can see the riches of His glory which is also our inheritance. But, it is not that simple.  It goes beyond, to a place where you too you experience His resurrection and you can see His glory through His eyes. But, you can’t experience the glory of His resurrection without experiencing His death in your soul. But it’s so worth it.  

Ephesians 1:18 “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,”

I love you all

M. J

OSWALD CHAMBERS JUNE 19 DEVOTIONAL

Thomas Watson choice quotes on Scripture

Puritan Thomas Watson 

The lines of Scripture are more valuable than mines of gold! 
  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

God's Word is the star which directs us to Heaven!
  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Scripture is the field where "the Pearl of great price" is hidden.
  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

The Scriptures are the richest jewels that Christ has left. 
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The Word is so full of goodness, justice, and sanctity, that it could be breathed from none but God. 
It bears His very image. 
It has no errata in it. 
It is a beam of the Sun of Righteousness. 
It is a crystal stream, flowing from the Fountain of Life.
It commends to us whatever is "just, lovely, and noble." 
  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

This "sword of the Spirit" cuts down vice!  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Out of this tower of Scripture — is thrown down a millstone upon the head of sin!   ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

The Scripture is the Royal Law, which commands not only the actions — but the affections. 
  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Where is such holiness to be found — as is dug from this Sacred Mine? Who could be its author — but God Himself?
  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

God's Word is the judge of controversies — and the rock of infallibility! 
All truth must be brought to the touchstone of Scripture.  
  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

This blessed Book will fill the head with knowledge — and the heart with grace! 
  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

God wrote the two tables with His own fingers. 
If God took pains to write — well may we take pains to read!

  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

The Scripture is a rock of diamonds — a chain of pearls adorning the Christian, and glorifying God. 
  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

The Scriptures are profitable for all things. 
Is the believer cast down? Here are "comforts to delight the soul!" 
Is he assaulted by Satan? Here is "the sword of the Spirit" to resist him. 
  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

The Scripture is the chart, by which the believer sails to eternity!
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The Scripture is the Christian's Sundial, by which he sets his life!
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The Scripture is the Christian's Balance, in which he weighs his actions!
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The Scripture is the Christian's Map, by which he daily walks!

The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things

Hello all,

I have taken excerpts from the long sermon by pastor Black. I am very sad today because I found out that one of my extended family members fit so neatly in this sermon. The blindness, the ignorance, the stubbornness, the hardness of the heart, is simply unbelievable and I feel so powerless

Times like that, I am grateful to God for keeping me down and that He seems to have forgotten about me through the waiting process. I know first hand, if I was not kept down by Him, this could have been me too. Please keep me and this family member is your prayers and I will keep you in mine too. Even if we are far from each other, in different countries and continents the truth and the beauty of it all, is that we are united in Him.

"The heart is deceitful above all things, 

and desperately wicked." Jeremiah 17:9

(David Black, 1762-1806, was pastor in Edinburgh, Scotland, from 1794 until his death..")

1) The deceitfulness of the heart is evident from men's general ignorance of their own character.

There is not anything in the history of mankind more surprising, or at first view more unaccountable, than the self-partiality which prevails in the world. One would be apt to imagine, that it should not be so difficult to arrive at the knowledge of our real character, possessing, as we do, every possible advantage for attaining it.

Here then, is one striking evidence of the deceitfulness of the heart. It produces ignorance of ourselves; it keeps men strangers to their own character; and makes them fatally presume that they are in friendship with God, while they are enemies to him in their minds and by wicked works.

2) The deceitfulness of the heart appears from men's general disposition on all occasions to justify their own conduct.

….Because they are not chargeable with single determinate acts of gross wickedness, because you cannot precisely point out to them, in so many words, wherein they have done amiss, they falsely conclude, that their conduct is unexceptionable; though, perhaps, their general temper and behavior may be uniformly wrong, inconsistent with the spirit of the gospel, and contrary to the plainest dictates of morality. I proceed to observe,
3) That the deceitfulness of the heart appears from the difficulty with which men are brought to acknowledge their faults, even when conscious that they have done wrong.
But through the deceitfulness of the heart, men are generally disposed to justify their own conduct, and ready to throw the blame of what is amiss on anything else, "sooner than on themselves.

4) The deceitfulness of the heart appears from the disposition which men discover to rest in mere notions and forms of religion, while they are destitute of its power.
Hypocrisy in all its forms and appearances flows from the deceitfulness of the heart; for in general men deceive themselves, before they attempt to deceive others. Few are so bold as to lay down a plan of imposing on the world, without endeavoring, in the first instance at least, to impose on their own minds. Nor is it difficult, when the mind is strongly biased by the love of any particular sin, or the pursuit of any particular interest, to persuade ourselves that our conduct is, at least, excusable, if not innocent. A dishonest mind is satisfied with the basest shifts and evasions! And people who wish to be deceived into a good opinion of their conduct, are seldom at a loss to accomplish their purpose.

5) That the deceitfulness of the heart appears in the highest degree, when men overlook the real motives of their conduct, and mistake the workings of their own corruptions, "for the fruits of the Spirit of God.

In Conclusion:
Let us consider our conduct, not in the light in which self-love and self-partiality would present it to our minds, but in the light in which any impartial spectator would view it, in the light in which God's word teaches us to consider it, and in the light in which it will be judged of at last, when God shall bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of all hearts.

We are all more or less liable to self-deceit; and those who think they have the least of it, are in general most of all under its dominion. Let us therefore distrust our own judgment, and, sensible of our own ignorance and liableness to mistake, let us pray to God for his divine teaching; saying, with Elihu in the book of job, 'That which I see not, teach me'; and with the Psalmist, 'Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

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

I bequeath my pastor's soul to the devil

I bequeath my pastor's soul to the devil

Puritan Thomas Brooks 

"Covetousness, which is idolatry." Colossians 3:5

Covetousness is explicit idolatry.

Covetousness is the darling sin of our nation. 

This leprosy has infected all sorts and ranks of men.

Covetousness being idolatry, and the root of all evil,
is highly provoking to God.

Whatever a man loves most and best—that is his god. 
The covetous man looks upon the riches of the world 
as his heaven—his happiness—his great all. 
  His heart is most upon the world,
  his thoughts are most upon the world,
  his affections are most upon the world,
  his discourse is most about the world. 

He who has his mind taken up with the world, and 
chiefly delighted with the world's music—he has also 
his tongue tuned to the same key, and takes his joy 
and comfort in speaking of nothing else but the world 
and worldly things. If the world is in the heart—it will 
break out at the lips. A worldly-minded man speaks 
of nothing but worldly things. "They are of the world, 
therefore they speak of the world," John 4:5. The love 
of this world oils the tongue for worldly discourses, 
and makes men . . .
  forget God,
  neglect Christ,
  despise holiness,
  forfeit heaven.

Ah! the time, the thoughts, the strength, the efforts, 
which are spent upon the world, and the things of the 
world; while sinners' souls lie a-bleeding, and eternity 
is hastening upon them! 

I have read of a greedy banker, who was always best 
when he was most in talking of money and the world. 
Being near his death, he was much pressed to make 
his will. Finally he dictates:

First, I bequeath my own soul to the devil
—for being so greedy for the muck of this world!

Secondly, I bequeath my wife's soul to the devil
—for persuading me to this worldly course of life.

Thirdly, I bequeath my pastor's soul to the devil—because he did not show me the danger I lived in, 
nor reprove me for it.

"People who want to get rich fall into temptation and
 a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that
 plunge men into ruin and destruction." 1 Timothy 6:9