Have You Come to “When” Yet?

By Oswald Chambers

The Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. —Job 42:10

A pitiful, sickly, and self-centered kind of prayer and a determined effort and selfish desire to be right with God are never found in the New Testament. The fact that I am trying to be right with God is actually a sign that I am rebelling against the atonement by the Cross of Christ. I pray, “Lord, I will purify my heart if You will answer my prayer— I will walk rightly before You if You will help me.” But I cannotmake myself right with God; I cannot make my life perfect. I can only be right with God if I accept the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift. Am I humble enough to accept it? I have to surrender all my rights and demands, and cease from every self-effort. I must leave myself completely alone in His hands, and then I can begin to pour my life out in the priestly work of intercession. There is a great deal of prayer that comes from actual disbelief in the atonement. Jesus is not just beginning to save us— He has already saved us completely. It is an accomplished fact, and it is an insult to Him for us to ask Him to do what He has already done.

If you are not now receiving the “hundredfold” which Jesus promised (see Matthew 19:29), and not getting insight into God’s Word, then start praying for your friends— enter into the ministry of the inner life. “The Lord restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends.” As a saved soul, the real business of your life is intercessory prayer. Whatever circumstances God may place you in, always pray immediately that His atonement may be recognized and as fully understood in the lives of others as it has been in yours. Pray for your friends now, and pray for those with whom you come in contact now.

Me and My Motivator

By: Bob Noebel, Author

Motivational research is the study of what influences or causes people to choose or reject a course of action. In the business world, these procedures help companies sell products. In Genesis 3, we find that Satan already knew the three basics for selling his product to man: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life:

“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.” (See Genesis 3:6)

The sale was made. The rest is history.

What about God? Since He created us, it is only logical that He would know how to motivate us for good works rather than evil. After all, the Word says that it is not His desire that any should perish, but that everyone would come to the knowledge of His Son, Jesus Christ.

God must love a challenge. Why else would we be born with two strikes against us — free will and a sin nature? How in the world is He going to motivate us? Thank God that He is not the mighty “Casey at the bat” who strikes out. God hits a home run.

First of all, God did the hard part. He sent His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins. The weight of our sins would have been enough to crush us, but that has been dealt with, thanks to Jesus.

If that alone isn’t enough to motivate you, there’s more. When Jesus ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of God, He sent the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, to enable us to live a godly life:

You however are controlled not by the sinful nature, but by the Spirit … (Romans 8:9).

Our motivation to live a life worthy of His calling is because He first loved us. When we didn’t give God the time of day, He was still there waiting patiently for us. When we came to Him with all our problems and hang-ups, He received us with open arms. When we continue to mess up, He is faithful to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (See 1 John 1:9)

God loves me so much that He saved me, cleansed me, and filled me with His Spirit. I don’t need any more motivation than that!

How about you? Are you ready to stand up to the plate and hit a home run for Him? You can do it. I know you can.

Christ's Truth Will Set You Free

From: Our Daily Journey

  Jun 18, 2018  

Read:

James 2:1-10
Doesn’t this discrimination show that your judgments are guided by evil motives? (James 2:4).

Talking with a colleague at a Christian prep school, I was reminded how easy it can be to judge others. Accustomed to the short hairstyles of most of our students, he was offended by the creative haircut of a visiting teen. Challenging his assumptions, I reminded him that our perception of others’ appearance isn’t an accurate way to gauge a mature, spiritual life in Christ.

Made in the image of a God who declared His creation “very good” (Genesis 1:31), we have not only the ability to recognize but the desire to celebrate beauty. But we imitate the world when we trust our perception of appearances instead of seeking the truth (Proverbs 11:22). Whether we intend to or not, when we create our own standards of worth, the way we discern is faulty—leading to wrong views of others and wrong decisions.

James addressed the church’s cultural confusion, one which values worldly success but leaves the heart unchanged, in his letter to the “believers scattered abroad” (James 1:1). James 2:1 identifies the foundation of sure truth: “Our glorious Lord Jesus Christ,” a truth that separates the lifestyle of believers from the world’s favoritism. When Christ is at the center of all we think and do, we begin to see reality, though in part, as He does.

When we’re no longer focused on others’ approval, we can be a part of creating a “kingdom culture” by valuing those who offer us nothing in return (James 2:2-4). Discrimination, especially when based on another person’s appearance, is sin because it not only denies the diversity of all people made in God’s image but it is rooted in a humanistic desire for power and control (James 2:9-10).

Godly discernment, on the other hand, displays both truth and love. And as history and Scripture bear out, we reveal God’s truth best through how we love others (1 John 3:18).

Our Safe Place

From: Our Daily Bread

  June 17, 2018  

Read: Psalm 91 | Bible in a Year: Nehemiah 7–9; Acts 3

I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” Psalm 91:2

My very first job was at a fast-food restaurant. One Saturday evening, a guy kept hanging around, asking when I got out of work. It made me feel uneasy. As the hour grew later, he ordered fries, then a drink, so the manager wouldn’t kick him out. Though I didn’t live far, I was scared to walk home alone through a couple of dark parking lots and a stretch through a sandy field. Finally, at midnight, I went in the office to make a phone call.

And the person who answered—my dad—without a second thought got out of a warm bed and five minutes later was there to take me home.

The kind of certainty I had that my dad would come to help me that night reminds me of the assurance we read about in Psalm 91. Our Father in heaven is always with us, protecting and caring for us when we are confused or afraid or in need. He declares: “When they call on me, I will answer” (Psalm 91:15 nlt). He is not just a place we can run to for safety. He is our shelter (v. 1). He is the Rock we can cling to for refuge (v. 2).

In times of fear, danger, or uncertainty, we can trust God’s promise that when we call on Him, He will hear and be with us in our trouble (vv. 14–15). God is our safe place.

Dear Father, thank You for being my Rock and my safe place.

The living God will always be our shelter.

Always Building and Watching

By: Michele Howe

“The God of heaven will give us success.” Nehemiah 2:20

Lately, I’ve been relating a lot to the Old Testament character Nehemiah who felt physically exhausted, emotionally spent, and spiritually opposed (and I’m not trying to rebuild a wall — just be faithful to the small stuff God has called me to do). As I read about the circumstances surrounding this unflinching soul who labored long and hard despite opposition from many forces, I am struck by this man’s focus on his objective to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (no matter what).

No doubt, Nehemiah, like all of us, caught the glorious vision of restoring what enemies had destroyed, for God’s honor and as a testimony of hope for the future of God’s people. When he realized the depth of destruction that had occurred, Nehemiah sat down and wept. Sound familiar? I wonder how many of us have the same reaction to — the national news, our local news, even to daily reports from our closest friends and family?

Of course, the appropriate reaction to any report of injury, loss, and destruction is to sit down and weep. But Nehemiah didn’t stop with the natural reaction; he took the news of the catastrophe and went straight to God.

Nehemiah’s bold prayer of faith, of great expectation even, is the kind of prayer I’m offering up to the Lord these days because I know my one and only hope lies in the deliverance that God alone can supply.

Reading about the days that followed Nehemiah’s gathering of workers and supplies, I marvel at not only how hard they worked, but how they worked — each one with his weapon in his hand. Nehemiah and his people were always building and watching. In other words, they had a job to do, but they were wise enough to stay on alert to the dangers that always accompany a work of faith (seen and unseen).

“But I (Nehemiah) prayed, ‘Now strengthen my hands.'” (See Nehemiah 6:9)

Nehemiah, terrific leader that he was, proved himself strong in faith as well as street smarts. He knew instinctively what I often forget. God can call us to a work; but it’s up to us to make sure we have our equipment, our supplies, and our weapons at the ready because opposition is always lurking just outside our line of vision.

For me, when I have a job to do, my best work (for God) comes only after I’ve counted the cost and prepared for the task at hand. For all of us, preparation comes in many guises … and there’ll be a price to pay, a burden we willingly take on, and sacrifices we’ll gladly make the moment God calls us. And yet, we can only complete the job with God’s sovereign intervention.

He puts the burden upon our heart to accomplish for Him something we can only do through Him. Each step of the way, with our hand upon our weapon (of faith), He gives us the gift of conscious reliance upon His moment-by-moment provision. We’re only truly suited for serving well when we truly understand the depth of our dependence upon Him.

Joyful Surrender

From: Our Daily Journey

  Jun 15, 2018  

Read:

Philippians 2:5-11
At the name of Jesus every knee should bow (Philippians 2:10).

Bible scholars have noted how dangerous and radical the early church’s confession—Jesus is Lord!—seemed to others. Since Israel lived under the oppressive regime of the Roman Empire, where Caesar was considered lord, insisting that Jesus was Lord was a direct affront to Caesar’s supposed power. And yet this confession stood at the very center of the first Christians’ convictions—and it still stands at the center of believers’ convictions today.

Paul proclaims that God “elevated [Jesus] to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names” (Philippians 2:9). Jesus isn’t one ruler among many. He doesn’t represent one good idea among many noble ideas—no, Jesus is above every other name, above every other ideal. “At the name of Jesus every knee [will] bow,” Paul writes (Philippians 2:10).

To confess Jesus as Lord isn’t an abstract theological conviction but a posture of our entire being. To say these bold words—if we are doing so honestly—means we bow before the one true Lord, bending our knee and our heart, surrendering our longings and our futures to Jesus. To embrace Jesus is to submit to Him. We echo the words of that old hymn: “I surrender all.”

We can surrender with abandon and without fear because the One to whom we are surrendering our life is the very essence of love (1 John 4:8). Jesus demonstrated His love for us first by His own act of surrender, humbling Himself in obedience to God and to love and, as a result, dying “a criminal’s death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8).

We can surrender to God because the only things we lose in such an exchange are those things that dehumanize us, that steal our joy, that pull us away from the kingdom of goodness and light.

Getting There (3)

By Oswald Chambers

…come, follow Me. —Luke 18:22

Where our individual desire dies and sanctified surrender lives. One of the greatest hindrances in coming to Jesus is the excuse of our own individual temperament. We make our temperament and our natural desires barriers to coming to Jesus. Yet the first thing we realize when we do come to Jesus is that He pays no attention whatsoever to our natural desires. We have the idea that we can dedicate our gifts to God. However, you cannot dedicate what is not yours. There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself (see Romans 12:1). If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you— and His experiments always succeed. The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. In the life of a saint there is this amazing Well, which is a continual Source of original life. The Spirit of God is a Well of water springing up perpetually fresh. A saint realizes that it is God who engineers his circumstances; consequently there are no complaints, only unrestrained surrender to Jesus. Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is with you.
If you abandon everything to Jesus, and come when He says, “Come,” then He will continue to say, “Come,” through you. You will go out into the world reproducing the echo of Christ’s “Come.” That is the result in every soul who has abandoned all and come to Jesus.
Have I come to Him? Will I come now?