The God of the Irresistable Future

"The God of Israel will be your reward." - Isaiah 52:12

Security from Yesterday. “God requireth that which is past.” At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise from remembering the yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God’s grace is apt to be checked by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them in order to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual culture for the future. God reminds us of the past lest we get into a shallow security in the present.
 

Security for To-morrow. “For the Lord will go before you.” This is a gracious revelation, that God will garrison where we have failed to. He will watch lest things trip us up again into like failure, as they assuredly would do if He were not our reward. God’s hand reaches back to the past and makes a clearing-house for conscience.

Security for To-day. “For ye shall not go out with haste.” As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, unremembering delight, nor with the flight of impulsive thoughtlessness, but with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ.

Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him.

Chambers, O. (1993). My utmost for his highest : Selections for the year (NIV edition.). Westwood, NJ: Barbour and Co.

The Test of Loyalty

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” -Romans 8:28, ESV

 It is only the loyal soul who believes that God engineers circumstances. We take such liberties with our circumstances, we do not believe God engineers them, although we say we do; we treat the things that happen as if they were engineered by men. To be faithful in every circumstance means that we have only one loyalty, and that is to our Lord. Suddenly God breaks up a particular set of circumstances, and the realization comes that we have been disloyal to Him by not recognizing that He had organized them. We never saw what He was after, and that particular thing will never be repeated all the days of our life. The test of loyalty always comes just there. If we learn to worship God in the trying circumstances, He will alter them in two seconds when He chooses.
 

Loyalty to Jesus Christ is the thing that we ‘stick at’ to-day. We will be loyal to work, to service, to anything, but do not ask us to be loyal to Jesus Christ. Many Christians are intensely impatient of talking about loyalty to Jesus. Our Lord is dethroned more emphatically by Christian workers than by the world. God is made a machine for blessing men, and Jesus Christ is made a Worker among workers.
 

The idea is not that we do work for God, but that we are so loyal to Him that He can do His work through us—‘I reckon on you for extreme service, with no complaining on your part and no explanation on Mine.’ God wants to use us as He used His own Son.

Chambers, O. (1993). My utmost for his highest : Selections for the year (NIV edition.). Westwood, NJ: Barbour and Co.

The Bow in the Cloud

"I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth." -Genesis 9:13

It is the will of God that human beings should get into moral relationship with Him, and His covenants are for this purpose. ‘Why does not God save me?’ He has saved me, but I have not entered into relationship with Him. “Why does not God do this and that?’ He has done it, the point is—Will I step into covenant relationship? All the great blessings of God are finished and complete, but they are not mine until I enter into relationship with Him on the basis of His covenant.

Waiting for God is incarnate unbelief, it means that I have no faith in Him; I wait for Him to do something in me that I may trust in that. God will not do it, because that is not the basis of the God-and-man relationship. Man has to go out of himself in his covenant with God as God goes out of Himself in His covenant with man. It is a question of faith in God—the rarest thing; we have faith only in our feelings. I do not believe God unless He will give me something in my hand whereby I may know I have it, then I say—‘Now I believe.’ There is no faith there. “Look unto Me, and be ye saved.”

When I have really transacted business with God on His covenant and have let go entirely, there is no sense of merit, no human ingredient in it at all, but a complete overwhelming sense of being brought into union with God, and the whole thing is transfigured with peace and joy.

Chambers, O. (1993). My utmost for his highest : Selections for the year (NIV edition.). Westwood, NJ: Barbour and Co.

5 Ways To Get The Most Out Of A Sermon

The Art of Listening might well be the most the important skill a Christian must develop, because Christianity is at its essence all about the Word of God. In fact, God himself is the Word (John 1:1) and the Word became flesh (John 1:2)—safe to say that if God is the Word then how we use our ears is pretty important. Furthermore, you can only come to faith through hearing (Rom. 10:14) and then you grow mature through hearing (Matt. 13:23).

The Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord (1 Sam 3:21).

Do you get it? Seeing God happens through hearing. Our vision is through our ears. My friend, if you have either not yet come to Christ, or you have but are frustrated, confused, and not really growing, then I would bet big money that your problem revolves around not listening as you should. Here are some tips on listening well to a preacher, or to the Word of God in any context:

1. Get in range regularly

The reason Zacchaeus collided with Jesus was because he climbed the tree. If the soil is not in range of the sower then it isn't going to receive any seed. This first point isn't rocket science: you need to be regularly exposed to God's word. Try to do a few minutes of personal time each day with the Bible, and obviously ensure you are at church each Sunday. Get in range.

2. Be expectant to receive

The good news is that the Word of God is supernatural stuff. It is living and active and burrows right inside us, doing us good (Heb. 4:12) and it will always achieve its purpose (Isa. 55:11). So listen expectantly. If it is a topic or preacher that you are not too excited about, then pull yourself together and get excited—the issue is the pizza, not the delivery boy or the box it comes in.

3. Understand it

The Parable of the Soil (Matt. 13:23) stresses the importance of not just hearing but understanding. Take notes, listen again to the download, discuss it at small group, go over the Scriptures again. One way or another, check you that you 'get it'.

4. Mix with faith

Hebrews 4:1-3 speaks about two groups of people who heard the same message. One group benefited big time. The others thought the message was useless. What was the difference? Only one group mixed the incoming word with faith. As you listen, be assured that God has your best at heart, and set yourself to receive the word and to obey it with joy and conviction. Not because you 'have to' but because you 'get to.' God isn't looking for blind, begrudging obedience. He is looking for faith!

5. Actually do it

The difference between the foolish and wise builders in Matthew 7 was that one put the word into practice and one didn't. If you don't actually obey the word then your life and faith will be built on sand. You will continuously be unsure that 'Christianity really works.' So, if you hear a message on forgiveness but do not forgive, then your house may fall flat. James says that you will be a like a man who looks at himself in the mirror and then goes away and forgets what he looks like—you will be insecure in who you are and in who God is. Obey. Put it into practice. Then you'll grow.

  

From the Resurgence Blog, written by PJ Smyth