Dec 23

My Utmost for His Highest

“Every now and again, Our Lord lets us see what we would be like if it were not for Himself; it is a justification of what He said– ‘Without Me ye can do nothing.’ That is why the bedrock of Christianity is personal, passionate devotion to the Lord Jesus.”

Oswald Chambers

Galatians 6:14

Absence at Christmastime

Christ

Last night at church, we sang a new Christmas song about the King of Kings being born and now known to the world (well, this seems obvious since it was, after all, a song about Baby Jesus!–lols).  But the song was also about rejoicing for the first arrival of the one who will defeat our enemy and how we wait for his second arrival.  And oddly enough, as we sung the song, I felt sad!  Not sad that we have to wait for Christ’s second-coming, but that we missed his first.  I felt the sadness that is the absence of something we love, the void that remains after its departure.  I felt like we missed the party, we came too late to see the action.  We arrived after the main event, and now we wait for the next act.

Of course, we are not left alone1–the Spirit is with us here, comforting us, teaching us, convicting us of sin, revealing truth, giving us words to pray to God–but we are physically separated from our Savior.  He was here on this earth, and now he’s not.  Our lives happened in the same physical passage of time and space, but we came too late to see him with our own eyes. Read More

Dec 21

My Utmost for His Highest

“Never nourish an experience which has not God as its Source and faith in God as its result. If you do, your experience is anti-Christian, no matter what visions you may have had. Is Jesus Christ Lord of your experiences, or do you try to lord it over Him?

There comes a time when God will make you impatient with your own experience–I do not care what I experience; I am sure of Him.”

–Oswald Chambers

–1 Corinthians 2:12

Dec 15

My Utmost for His Highest

“If you cannot express yourself on any subject, struggle until you can. If you do not, someone will be poorer all days of his life. Struggle to reexpress some truth of God to yourself, and God will use that expression to someone else.

Try to state to yourself what you feel implicitly to be God’s truth, and you give God a chance pass it on to someone else through you.

The author who benefits you the most is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance.”

–Oswald Chambers

–2 Timothy 2:15

Dec 14

My Utmost for His Highest

“Whenever you obey God, His seal is always that of peace, the witness of an unfathomable peace, which is not natural, but the peace of Jesus. Whenever peace does not come, tarry till it does or find out the reason it does not.”

–Oswald Chambers

–John 14:27

Dec 2

My Utmost for His Highest

“It is a snare to imagine that God wants to make us perfect specimens of what He can do; God’s purpose is to make us one with Himself.

I am called to live in perfect relation to God so that my life produces longing for God in other lives, not admiration for myself.”

Oswald Chambers

Philippians 3:12
John 17:23

Things great and small

My Utmost for His Highest

A couple years ago when I first believed, I had a new awareness of truth and right/wrong, and I felt like I had to reevaluate everything in my life:  Should I eat this type of food?  Should I drink coffee?  Alcohol?  Should I go to the gym?  Should I work out at all?  Should I wear my old clothes?  Should I buy an entire new wardrobe?  Should I spend that much money on an entire new wardrobe? and so on.

When I’d ask such questions, seasoned believers would point me to these two verses from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians:

“‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are helpful.  ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up.” –1 Corinthians 10:23

“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”  –1 Corinthians 10:31

There are so many little things in life that are “gray areas”–neither explicitly allowed or disallowed by scripture.   These things seem small, yet they’re still a part of our lives that we have to handle somehow.  Read More

In him all things hold together

Christ / painting

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.  For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things were created through him and for him.  And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

–Colossians 1:15-17