uNCHaNGeD

If you are still the same miserable crosspatch, set on your own way, then it is a lie to say that God has saved and sanctified you.

- Oswald Chambers

Tough Conditions

Our Lord implies that the only men and women He will use in His building enterprises are those who love Him personally, passionately and devotedly beyond any of the closest ties on earth. The conditions are stern, but they are glorious.

- Oswald Chambers

May I love Him personally, passionately and be devoted beyond the closest of ties.

 

 

Does God Exist?

“For what we need to know, of course, is not just that God exists, not just that beyond the steely brightness of the starts there is a cosmic intelligence of some kind that keeps the whole show going, but that there is a God right here in the thick of our day-by-day lives who may not be writing messages about himself in the stars but in one way or another is trying to get the messages through our blindness as we move around down here knee-deep in the fragrant muck and misery and marvel of the world. It is not objective proof of God’s existence that we want but the experience of God’s presence. That is the miracle we are really after, and that is also, I think, the miracle that we really get.”
-Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat.

What if God is in the kitchen right now preparing your favorite drink, making your favorite meal, and providing refreshment for you from today’s difficulties?

Psalm 104:15

(God makes) wine that gladdens the heart of man,
oil to make his face shine,
and bread that sustains his heart.

I Don’t Know - I Just Don’t Know…

“We need to realize that when leading there will be many times when we will not know all the answers. It is in those times when our team looks to us to lead them that we take our focus off what we don’t know and move on what we do know. Keep in mind, Jesus’ example was not one of a cavalier spirit, it was one of prayer and one focused on his father and one where he did not try to hide the fact that he did not know all the answers. So we should never go willy nilly into any decision or try to act like we know all the answers when we don’t. Every decision needs to be made via prayer and prior, God given, wisdom.” – Shane Duffey

 

I thought this incredibly appropriate as I struggle through some of the demands of being a church plant pastor in the middle of a 2.5 million dollar building project, with a church of 40 people, time and budget over runs, and doubts that creep in…  What is God doing here?  Would He put us through all of this just to have it fall apart in the end?  Or is He just positioning us so that He can do something God sized and miraculous?  I hope and pray that is the case!

 

^{Psalm 66:5}     Come and see what God has done,

how awesome his works in man’s behalf!

⁶     He turned the sea into dry land,

they passed through the waters on foot—

come, let us rejoice in him.

¹⁶     Come and listen, all you who fear God;

let me tell you what he has done for me.

¹⁷     I cried out to him with my mouth;

his praise was on my tongue.

 

This will be our prayer through the next few weeks and months, as He has to be the one to bring all of this together… 

Choosing a Text

Never choose a text, let the text choose you. Cleverness is the ability to do things better than anyone else. Always hide that light under a bushel. The Holy Ghost is never clever. In a child of God the Holy Spirit works as naturally as breathing, and the most unostentatious choices are His choices. Unless your personal life is hid with Christ in Go, natural ability will continually lead you into chastisement from God. When a text has chosen you, the Holy Spirit will impress you with its inner meaning and cause you to labour to lead out that meaning for your congregation.

-Oswald Chambers

 

find the Spirit in your study, and let the message flow from the wrestling out of that what He has placed on your heart.  Great reminder…

 

Being Certain of My Uncertainty

April 29th

My Utmost for His Highest

The graciousness of uncertainty

It doth not yet appear what we shall be. 1 John 3:2.

Naturally, we are inclined to be so mathematical and calculating that we look upon uncertainty as a bad thing. We imagine that we have to reach some end, but that is not the nature of spiritual life. The nature of spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty, consequently we do not make our nests anywhere. Common sense says—‘Well, supposing I were in that condition . . . .’ We cannot suppose ourselves in any condition we have never been in.

Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life: gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness; it should be rather an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. Immediately we abandon to God, and do the duty that lies nearest, He packs our life with surprises all the time. When we become advocates of a creed, something dies; we do not believe God, we only believe our belief about Him. Jesus said “Except ye . . . become as little children.” Spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of God, but uncertain of what He is going to do next. If we are only certain in our beliefs, we get dignified and severe and have the ban of finality about our views; but when we are rightly related to God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy.

“Believe also in Me,” said Jesus, not—‘Believe certain things about Me.’ Leave the whole thing to Him, it is gloriously uncertain how He will come in, but He will come. Remain loyal to Him.

 

As I was going about my business yesterday, I took my wife to one of our favorite places to eat, Mu Shu’s,  and the owner there opened up and had a lot to say… She talked about her church, her journey and her struggles with some of the decisions the leadership was making… it was a God ordained circumstance.  I had no idea it was going to happen, just traveling my day as usual then the uncertainty of God showed up in a surprise conversation with one of His children that needed a voice on her journey.  I should wait and watch in “breathless expectation” what He does, but I am still always amazed at how He does it.

Preaching & A Higher Form Of Culture

We have no right to preach unless we present the Gospel; we have not to advocate a cause or a creed or an experience, but to present the Gospel, and we cannot do that unless we have a personal testimony based on the Gospel. That is why so many preach what is merely the outcome of a higher form of culture. Until men get into a right relationship with God the Gospel is always in bad taste. There is a feeling of silent resentment, “Don’t talk about being born again and being sanctified; be vague.” “Do remember the people you are talking to.” “Preach the simple Gospel, the thing that keeps us sound asleep.” If you take the people as a standard, you will never preach the Gospel, it is too positive.^* Our obligation to the Gospel is to preach it.

-Oswald Chambers

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^* positive: independent; unrelated to anything else.

Message AND Testimony Not One Without The Other

A preacher must remember that his calling is different from every other calling in life; his personality has to be submerged in his message (cf. John 3:30) (auxanomai – to increase grow spread vs. elattoomai – make less, cause something to have less). An orator has to work with men and enthuse them; a New Testament preacher has to come upon men with a message they resent and will not listen to at first. The Gospel comes in with a backing of Divine authority and an arrestment which men resent. There is something in every man that resents the interference of God. Before a man can be saved, the central citadel of his being has to be stormed and taken possession of by the Holy Spirit. It is easy to tell men they must be saved and filled with the Holy Ghost; but we have to live amongst men and show them what a life filled with the Holy Ghost ought to be. A preacher has to come upon men with a message and a testimony that go together. The great pattern for every witness is the abiding Witness, the Lord Jesus Christ. He came down on men from above; He stood on our level, with what men never had, in order to save men.

-Oswald Chambers Approved Unto God

No easy task set before us, may my testimony match Christ’s message!

Laborer’s Work

There is only one field of service that has no snares, and that is the field of intercession. All other fields have the glorious but risky snare of publicity; prayer has not. The key to all our work for God is in that one word we are apt to despise—“pray” And prayer is “laborer” work.

The reason prayer is so important is, first because our Lord told us that prayer on the ground of His Redemption is the most mighty factor He has put into our hands, and second, because of the personal presence of the Holy Ghost in the day in which we live. We receive our knowledge of the Holy Ghost not by experience first, but by the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. The testimony of Jesus Christ regarding the Holy Ghost is that He is here, and the real living experience the Holy Spirit works in us is that all His emphasis is laid on glorifying our Lord Jesus Christ. We know the Holy Spirit first by the testimony of Jesus, and then by the conscious enjoyment of His presence.

-Oswald Chambers

 

May I be found in a constant state of prayer and communion with God – what a privilege it is!

Better Than Coffee - Wake Up!

It is possible to have a saved and sanctified experience and a stagnant mind. Learn how to make your mind awake and fervid, and when once your mind is awake never let it go to sleep. The brain does not need rest, it only needs change of work. The intellect works with the greatest intensity when it works continuously; the more you do, the more you can do. We must work hard to keep in trim for God. Clean off the rust and keep bright by use.

-Oswald Chambers

 

Wake Up!

On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:

king of kings and lord of lords.

^{Revelation 19:16}

If that didn’t work maybe this will help!

Psalm 96

¹     Sing to the Lord a new song;

sing to the Lord, all the earth.

²     Sing to the Lord, praise his name;

proclaim his salvation day after day.

³     Declare his glory among the nations,

his marvelous deeds among all peoples.

⁴     For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;

he is to be feared above all gods.

⁵     For all the gods of the nations are idols,

but the Lord made the heavens.

⁶     Splendor and majesty are before him;

strength and glory are in his sanctuary.

⁷     Ascribe to the Lord, O families of nations,

ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

⁸     Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;

bring an offering and come into his courts.

⁹     Worship the Lord in the splendor of his^a holiness;

tremble before him, all the earth.

¹⁰     Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns.”

The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved;

he will judge the peoples with equity.

¹¹     Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;

let the sea resound, and all that is in it;

¹²     let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them.

Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy;

¹³     they will sing before the Lord, for he comes,

he comes to judge the earth.

He will judge the world in righteousness

and the peoples in his truth.

 

May I never be found slumbering before this God…  Brighten up my mind Lord, let me never stagnate before you.

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^a Or Lord with the splendor of