Today’s Devo by Oswald Chambers

19
2010
Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world —John 18:36

The great enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ today is the idea of practical work that has no basis in the New Testament but comes from the systems of the world. This work insists upon endless energy and activities, but no private life with God. The emphasis is put on the wrong thing. Jesus said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation . . . . For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21). It is a hidden, obscure thing. An active Christian worker too often lives to be seen by others, while it is the innermost, personal area that reveals the power of a person’s life.

We must get rid of the plague of the spirit of this religious age in which we live. In our Lord’s life there was none of the pressure and the rushing of tremendous activity that we regard so highly today, and a disciple is to be like His Master. The central point of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship with Him, not public usefulness to others.

It is not the practical activities that are the strength of this Bible Training College— its entire strength lies in the fact that here you are immersed in the truths of God to soak in them before Him. You have no idea of where or how God is going to engineer your future circumstances, and no knowledge of what stress and strain is going to be placed on you either at home or abroad. And if you waste your time in overactivity, instead of being immersed in the great fundamental truths of God’s redemption, then you will snap when the stress and strain do come. But if this time of soaking before God is being spent in getting rooted and grounded in Him, which may appear to be impractical, then you will remain true to Him whatever happens.

Like the Wind

The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit. Jn 3:8

The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes. Pr 21:1

I do not even know what to say about these two verses except that every time I read them I have deep stirrings of desire to know that kind of surrender to the Lord. Oh that I would be fully possessed by the Holy Spirit and know the deep things of Jesus, to become like Him. For a heart like a king that searches the mysteries of God out, Pr 25:2, positioning this heart in the hand of the Almighty. I love these two verses.

Oh Lord bring me into this heart of Yours. Do what only You can do. Fill me all in all. Make me Your instrument of worship, Your instrument of praise. Leave me not to myself. Deliver me from wickedness. You oh Lord are able to bring me forth in love, to keep me and present me pure and spotless. You are able and You are willing Jesus to purify me body, soul and spirit, to make me wholly Yours. I am not my own. I belong to You. You will present me blameless. You are my righteousness and outside of You I have nothing but filthy rags. Thank You Lord for Your interest in me. You being so far above desired me so that You came down to the lowly place where I dwell and You lifted me up to the glorious place where You are, seated with You in heavenly places. I love You.

Words

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord my rock and my Redeemer. Ps 19:14

I was just thinking about where words come from and how much emphasis the Bible puts on the power that lies in the tongue, Jas 3:6. If the tongue is the rudder of the body what force is steering the tongue? The Bible says that the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart, Mt 12:34. Obviously we need to know how then does the heart get filled? In Mt 6:22 it says your eyes are the lamp of your body. If your eye is clear your whole body will be full of light. Apparently all of our senses have a part to play in the process of gaining control of our tongue.

Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, Mt 4:4. Eat the scroll, the nourishment of our person is in the eating of the Word. I think this may be the first clue as to where to start. Get your eyes in the Word and renew your mind. Talk to the Holy Spirit about what you are reading so that those words on the page would come alive to you and you would have experiential knowledge. After all the Holy Spirit is the One who searches all things even the depths of God, 1Cor 2:10, and He will reveal the mysteries of God, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, Col 2:3. Jesus Himself is the light, Jn 1:9. We must receive Him into our hearts after which we must decrease that He may increase. My salvation is by grace but the increase of light in my person is through my gaze. So I set my eyes upon Christ who is the light and my whole person is filled with light. My heart is brought into the lovesick state for He who satisfies and my mouth speaks out of the overflow of hunger and desire for Him.

I Have Tasted and I See

There will be a day when my heart will say yes without any hesitation to the One I love. Genuine, movement that requires no effort because I have been training my heart in the way it should lean. Through humility receive the Word implanted. Js. 1:21. I love this verse. It is impossible to hear what the Lord is saying without humility. His Words are life to us but they do surgery on our hearts. His Word pierces as far as soul and spirit. His Word cuts through joints and marrow. His Word reaches the heart and is able to judge heart thoughts and intentions, Heb. 4:12. This is my God. I love Him. It is humbling to receive correction but it is Love that He does discipline. Oh fearful is the day that the Lord stops disciplining me. I never want to see the darkness of that day for in Him is life. He is the Hope. His leadership is perfect, Ps. 23, Ps. 84. There is no end to Him. The eternal, immortal, unapproachable God thinks upon us and He gets involved. He is not far off. He is not stoic. He is a violently passionate intense and intentional God that delights to commune with us. Rightly do we love Him. Rightly do we sell all we possess to have Him. It’s no thing to give it all up for the superior pleasures of knowing Him.

Rainbow Colored Thoughts

Oh the beauty of light and light reflected. Rainbows are formed by the reflection of sunlight on droplets of water, moisture in the air. It is because of encounter with the light that the reality of the rainbow is visible. It is like without the light the truth of the rainbow would never be seen. Where is the rainbow hiding?

The beauty of the rainbow can only be truly appreciated if you know its story. Back in the days of Noah when God destroyed the earth with the flood He made the rainbow as a reminder of His covenant with man, a forever signature in the sky that comes with the rain that He will never destroy all flesh again by flood, Gen. 9:11.

Prov. 14:12 there is a way which seems right to a man but it’s end is the way of death. I think that each of us have a beautiful rainbow, the promise of the Lord hidden inside but it is hard to see because we go our own way thinking we know best but we are filling ourselves with darkness.

Jn. 1:1-14 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through Him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural decent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will but born of God. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father full of grace and truth.

Jesus is the true light. Without Jesus, the Light shining on us we are blind and our beauty is hidden, we remain in darkness. The unveiling of the promise of God comes through entering into Him. He is the promise. He is the sign. He is the wonder. We are reflectors of the divine glory, the Light. We have to receive Him and all that He is. We have to believe in His name to bear His name. To bear His name, to reflect His light we have to be like Him.

The Journey

I have been really fascinated with butterflies. When I think of butterflies I think of caterpillars. It’s an amazing process of transformation from caterpillar to butterfly. A worm like ground bound creature moves into a perfectly fitted transformation pod by it’s own doing and at the end of the process out comes a beautiful butterfly, a creature with wings to fly.

For the ground bound caterpillar life is very, let’s say narrow. How does the caterpillar perceive the world it lives in? Imagine for a moment what it would be like to be him. What do you see? I mean his circumstances and direct connective, tangible environment is maybe a radius of like five inches or something. Can he see the bird above coming to take his life and swallow him up? Let’s just say this ground bound creature does not see all that surrounds. Does he know where he is heading? He cannot step into his destiny if he remains bound to the ground. So at an appointed time this caterpillar responds to the urgency of the moment and a cocoon is spun. He has, by the divine order of such things, been hedged in so to speak. A secret place within a skin like shell. No one can see in and he can’t see out. In that secret, quiet place, he is vulnerable. The transformation begins. Then at the end of the beautification process the butterfly emerges. Wonder what it is like now? No longer earth bound but able to fly. The perspective has changed dramatically.

Anyway, this is obviously not the scientific explanation of things but I have just been thinking on it a lot in regards to our journey into the heart of God and how we begin as earth bound. Only able to see with our natural eyes. We look at our circumstances with anxiety, frustration and fear. We look at ourselves, our sinful nature and get discouraged. We see ourselves in our body and our sickness being blinded to the power of God to transform us. We do not know the plans that God has for us. Jer. 29:11 Plans to prosper us. To give us hope and a future. He has these thoughts towards us like it says in Ps. 139, thoughts that out number the sand. What??? Thoughts that out number the sand that are thoughts of good and not of evil! Yes. Yes. This is the truth. We are on a journey and His nearness is our good. Ps. 73:28.

We cannot see the end from the beginning but He can. He can see what we are meant to be. He saw our unformed substance. What a mighty God we serve. We just let Him hedge us in, we say yes. It’s that simple. God is able. He is able to heal your blind eyes, Mt. 9:28. He is able to deliver you from darkness, Mt. 10:28. He is able to make you able, 1Cor. 10:13. He is able to make grace abound to you, 2Cor. 9:8. He is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all we ask or think, Eph. 3:20.

Isa. 40:31 yet those who wait on the Lord will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles.

A Beautiful Devo

They shall sing in the ways of the Lord. Ps. 138:5

The time when Christians begin to sing in the ways of the Lord is when they first lose their burden at the foot of the cross. Not even the songs of the angels seem so sweet as the first song of rapture which gushes from the inmost soul of the forgiven child of God. You know how John Bunyon describes it. He says when poor Pilgrim lost his burden at the Cross, he gave three great leaps, and went on his way singing –

Blest cross! blest Sepulchre! blest rather be the Man that there was put to shame for me!

Believer, do you recollect the day when your fetters fell off? Do you remember the place when Jesus met you, and said, I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have blotted out as a cloud your transgressions and as a thick cloud your sins; they shall not  be mentioned against you any more for ever. Oh what a sweet season is that when Jesus takes away the pain of sin. When the Lord first pardoned my sin, I was so joyous that I could scarce refrain from dancing. I thought on my road home from the house where I had been that I had been set at liberty, that I must tell the stones in the street the story of my deliverance. So full was my soul of joy, that I wanted to tell every snow-flake that was falling from heaven of the wondrous love of Jesus, who had blotted out the sins of one of the chief of rebels. But it is not only at the commencement of the Christian life that believers have reason for song; as long as they live they discover cause to sing in the ways of the Lord, and their experience of His constant loving-kindness, leads them to say I will bless the Lord at all times: His praise shall continually be in my mouth. See to it brother that you magnify the Lord this day.

Long as we tread this desert land, New mercies shall new songs demand.

This is Spurgeon’s Daily Devo for February 1st.

It made me so happy to read it this morning because it is exactly how it feels when you have been released from bondage. Being that I am a part of the International House of Prayer – Kansas City and the whole point is to give to God the praise that He is worthy of through song, melodies and prayer this is very encouraging. You really do not have to be told what to do when encountering Him, there is a spontaneous and beautiful response. This is how we were made. When heart is awakened and life realized there is a true, uncalculated response whether it be weeping, singing, dancing or some other outward expression. It is Love Himself having come to meet us. Yes!

Trouble Sleeping

There is just too much traffic in the head. I do not have anything to say but I still have traffic in my head. Laying here in bed wanting to go to sleep but kept awake by the wordless swirl inside. My heart feels pressure and there is a dull throbbing ache. Then my mind seems to have a secret think pod or something where I know there is processing going on but I can’t perceive it. I am pretty sure this makes sense to someone. *sigh* Well, just going to close my eyes and refuse to stay awake. I will be up soon enough!

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