Devotional for the day

[Judy Harder]

Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
 
   
The Undetected Sacredness of Circumstances
 
We know that all things work together for good to those who love God . . . -Romans 8:28

The circumstances of a saint's life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you can't understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God brings you to places, among people, and into certain conditions to accomplish a definite purpose through the intercession of the Spirit in you. Never put yourself in front of your circumstances and say, "I'm going to be my own providence here; I will watch this closely, or protect myself from that." All your circumstances are in the hand of God, and therefore you don't ever have to think they are unnatural or unique. Your part in intercessory prayer is not to agonize over how to intercede, but to use the everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence to bring them before His throne, and to allow the Spirit in you the opportunity to intercede for them. In this way God is going to touch the whole world with His saints.

Am I making the Holy Spirit's work difficult by being vague and unsure, or by trying to do His work for Him? I must do the human side of intercession- utilizing the circumstances in which I find myself and the people who surround me. I must keep my conscious life as a sacred place for the Holy Spirit. Then as I lift different ones to God through prayer, the Holy Spirit intercedes for them.

Your intercessions can never be mine, and my intercessions can never be yours, ". . . but the Spirit Himself makes intercession" in each of our lives (Romans 8:26). And without that intercession, the lives of others would be left in poverty and in ruin.


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Are You a "Convenient Christian"?

Some Christians are "convenient Christians."  These are believers who seek to obey God, but only when it is convenient.

It is like the men and women of Israel who came to the prophet Jeremiah one day to see if it was God's desire for them to go to Egypt.  You find their story in Jeremiah 42-43.

After they asked Jeremiah to ask God on their behalf, they said (Jeremiah 42:6),

"Whether it is pleasing or displeasing, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God to whom we send you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the LORD our God."

Now that sounds pretty good.  These folks seem like they have it together spiritually and truly desire to obey God.

But just a few verses later, when Jeremiah tells them, "This is the word of the Lord:  Don't go into Egypt.  Stay here," they respond this way (Jeremiah 43:2),

"You speak falsely!  The LORD our God has not sent you to say, 'Do not go to Egypt to dwell there.'"

Some people's posture is, "God, I'm going to do anything you say...as long as it agrees with my viewpoint."  Some will say, "Lord, I'm going to be obedient and give an offering...but I'm not giving ten percent of my income.  You can forget that because I just don't see it that way."

Or, "God, I'm going to do whatever You say, but I'm not going to forgive so-and-so because what they did to me is just unforgivable."

Friend, we can't pick and choose.  It has to be, "God, I am going to do whatever You say.  I'm going to do it whether it rubs the cat's fur the wrong way, whether it plows my field crossways...pleasing, displeasing, I'm going to obey."

Do not be a "convenient Christian."
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Reversing the Addiction Curse

Scripture Reading: Romans 8 

A POW is a prisoner of war, someone who has been captured and held under an enemy's control.  Many Christians are POWs - prisoners of a spiritual war.  They're trapped by situations most commonly called "addictions," which the Bible refers to as "strongholds."

Drugs, alcohol, co-dependency, sexual promiscuity and other strongholds make a person feel trapped with seemingly no way out.  But there is hope. In 2 Corinthians 10:1-6, Paul offers a formula for a breakthrough: Fix the fortress.  Put "speculations, knowledge and thoughts" under God's domain.  In other words, start with your mind.

Meditate on these Scriptures and feed your spirit with the truth of God's Word: You belong to God.  Don't allow the enemy, the "father of lies," to hold you prisoner any longer.  We are not our addictions or strongholds; we are blood-bought, totally forgiven children of the Living God!   

[Judy Harder]

Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
 
   
We realize that we are energized by the Holy Spirit for prayer; we know what it is to pray in the Spirit; but we do not so often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prays in us prayers which we cannot utter. When we are born again of God and are indwelt by the Spirit of God, He expresses for us the unutterable.

"He," the Spirit in you, "maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God," and God searches your heart not to know what your conscious prayers are, but to find out what is the prayer of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit of God needs the nature of the believer as a shrine in which to offer His intercession. "Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost." When Jesus Christ cleansed the temple, He "would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple." The Spirit of God will not allow you to use your body for your own convenience. Jesus ruthlessly cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and said - "My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves."

Have we recognized that our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost? If so, we must be careful to keep it undefiled for Him. We have to remember that our conscious life, though it is only a tiny bit of our personality, is to be regarded by us as a shrine of the Holy Ghost. He will look after the unconscious part that we know nothing of; but we must see that we guard the conscious part for which we are responsible.


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Opening the Door to Calamity

In 1 Kings 13:21-25, God provides us with quite an unusual story,

And he cried out to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, "Thus says the LORD:  'Because you have disobeyed the word of the LORD, and have not kept the commandment which the LORD your God commanded you, but you came back, ate bread, and drank water in the place of which the LORD said to you, "Eat no bread and drink no water," your corpse shall not come to the tomb of your fathers.'"  So it was, after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk, that he saddled the donkey for him, the prophet whom he had brought back.  When he was gone, a lion met him on the road and killed him.  And his corpse was thrown on the road, and the donkey stood by it.  The lion also stood by the corpse.  And there, men passed by and saw the corpse thrown on the road, and the lion standing by the corpse.  Then they went and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt.

Notice that the lion did something very unnatural.  The guy disobeyed, the lion killed him, but the lion didn't go after the donkey.  The donkey didn't run away, but the lion didn't try to kill the donkey, nor did it drag the guy off to eat him.

And to top it all off, now people start to walk by.  Look, people do not walk by wild lions!  But here they are:  the donkey, the lion, the dead guy, and people are walking by.

What is God up to here?  He is giving a snapshot, something He wants indelibly burned into their understanding:  Disobedience opens the door to calamity.

If you choose to disobey God, know you have opened your life to calamity!

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Reversing the Financial Curse

Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 8:11-18 

Do you ever feel that, despite all the work you are putting into your life, job, family and other relationships, you aren't experiencing the productivity that you should?  You want God's blessings, yet you just don't seem able to get ahead.

God implores every believer to take the tithe challenge!  Faithfully giving a tenth of your earnings to the church shows God you are a good steward of what He has entrusted into your care, that you are grateful for everything He has provided and finally that you trust Him.

Too many people are living in a sea of debt.  God wants to reverse the financial curse in your life and bless you.  But you must plant a seed first before God can rain down His blessings on it.

[Judy Harder]

Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
 
   
The Changed Life
 
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new -2 Corinthians 5:17
What understanding do you have of the salvation of your soul? The work of salvation means that in your real life things are dramatically changed. You no longer look at things in the same way. Your desires are new and the old things have lost their power to attract you. One of the tests for determining if the work of salvation in your life is genuine is- has God changed the things that really matter to you? If you still yearn for the old things, it is absurd to talk about being born from above- you are deceiving yourself. If you are born again, the Spirit of God makes the change very evident in your real life and thought. And when a crisis comes, you are the most amazed person on earth at the wonderful difference there is in you. There is no possibility of imagining that you did it. It is this complete and amazing change that is the very evidence that you are saved.

What difference has my salvation and sanctification made? For instance, can I stand in the light of 1 Corinthians 13 , or do I squirm and evade the issue? True salvation, worked out in me by the Holy Spirit, frees me completely. And as long as I "walk in the light as He is in the light" (1 John 1:7), God sees nothing to rebuke because His life is working itself into every detailed part of my being, not on the conscious level, but even deeper than my consciousness.


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The Supremacy of Jesus



Hebrews 1:1-8 reads,

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.  For to which of the angels did He ever say:  "You are My Son, Today I have begotten You"?  And again:  "I will be to Him a Father, And He shall be to Me a Son"?  But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says: "Let all the angels of God worship Him."  And of the angels He says: "Who makes His angels spirits And His ministers a flame of fire."  But to the Son He says:  "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom."

These eight verses tell us that Jesus is supreme, above any angel, because:

God speaks to us through His Son.
Jesus is the heir of all things.
God made all things through Jesus.
Jesus is the express image of God the Father.
He upholds all things with the word of His power.
He purged our sins.
Jesus is the Son of God, not a servant as are the angels.
He is worthy of our worship.
Jesus is God Himself.
That is the supremacy of Jesus!
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Reversing the Generational Curse

Scripture Reading:  Mark 5:32-43

Did you know that many problems people face are linked to choices their parents, grandparents and even "great-grandpa" made?  This may be a new way of thinking for you, and it is certainly not about placing blame.  Yet we need to know God's truth about generational curses and how to live free of their bondages.

A generational curse is passed down from one generation to another due to rebellion against God.  If your family line is marked by divorce, incest, poverty, anger or other ungodly patterns, you're most likely under a generational curse.  The Bible says that these curses are tied to choices.


Deuteronomy 30:19 says we can either choose life and blessing or death and cursing.


Freedom comes when we confess the ungodly patterns, ask God for forgiveness and then walk in obedience by consistently choosing His ways.

[Judy Harder]

Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
 
   
Faith or Experience?
 
. . . the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me -Galatians 2:20
We should battle through our moods, feelings, and emotions into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus. We must break out of our own little world of experience into abandoned devotion to Him. Think who the New Testament says Jesus Christ is, and then think of the despicable meagerness of the miserable faith we exhibit by saying, "I haven't had this experience or that experience"! Think what faith in Jesus Christ claims and provides- He can present us faultless before the throne of God, inexpressibly pure, absolutely righteous, and profoundly justified. Stand in absolute adoring faith "in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God- and righteousness and sanctification and redemption . . ." (1 Corinthians 1:30). How dare we talk of making a sacrifice for the Son of God! We are saved from hell and total destruction, and then we talk about making sacrifices!

We must continually focus and firmly place our faith in Jesus Christ- not a "prayer meeting" Jesus Christ, or a "book" Jesus Christ, but the New Testament Jesus Christ, who is God Incarnate, and who ought to strike us dead at His feet. Our faith must be in the One from whom our salvation springs. Jesus Christ wants our absolute, unrestrained devotion to Himself. We can never experience Jesus Christ, or selfishly bind Him in the confines of our own hearts. Our faith must be built on strong determined confidence in Him.

It is because of our trusting in experience that we see the steadfast impatience of the Holy Spirit against unbelief. All of our fears are sinful, and we create our own fears by refusing to nourish ourselves in our faith. How can anyone who is identified with Jesus Christ suffer from doubt or fear! Our lives should be an absolute hymn of praise resulting from perfect, irrepressible, triumphant belief.


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The Rightful Place of Angels

In our day, angels have become a pretty big thing.  In fact, there are some fairly well-known personalities today talking about having their personal angel and needing to "contact your angel."

I believe in angels because the Bible clearly talks about them, but angels have a rightful place, which Paul addresses in Colossians 2:18-19,

Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God.

Paul is telling us, "If you become so preoccupied with angels that you let go of the head, Jesus Christ, you are off the rails!"  In fact, if you are preoccupied with angels in such a way that it takes you away from Jesus Christ, I'm telling you, you are in error.  The body grows; the body is nourished; we get our life and direction from the head, Jesus Christ.

If God wants to have an angel intervene in my life, that is wonderful.  But I don't need to contact my angel because I have constant communion with the Son of God, who, as we learned yesterday, is superior to angels!

Jesus is the One who created the universe!  He is our Lord and our Savior.  He is the Vine, we are the branch.  We have communion with Him.  Why would we want to contact an angel when we can contact the Son of God whom angels fall down and worship!

Angels are under the lordship of Jesus.  That is their rightful place.

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Faith And Our Feet

(Hebrews 11, Psalms 1)

Faith is not about how much you believe in what you believe. Faith is about believing that the One you believe in is believable. In fact, you can have all of the faith in the world that your SUV is going to take off and fly you to Canada cruising at 12,000 feet in the air. But that won't change the fact that you're still going to be stuck in traffic somewhere with all four wheels firmly on the ground.

Faith is about believing that the One you believe in is believable.

The way you find out if the one you believe in is believable is by knowing and experiencing Him.

It's like when a child climbs up on the back of her daddy for a piggyback ride. She doesn't get up there and start asking herself if he can hold her or if he is going to drop her. Instead, she immediately starts asking him, "Do you have me?" as she wiggles and adjusts her legs into place. 

By asking her daddy, "Do you have me?" she is affirming in her mind that the one she is putting her faith in is faithful. Because if he says, "Yes, I have you," and she rests up there only to discover that he really does have her, then the next time she climbs on for a piggy-back ride, the questions become fewer.

But until she first climbs up onto the back of her daddy, she can say all day long that she believes that he can hold her. Saying it a thousand times won't reduce the hesitation she feels when the offer to get up there is first extended. She will never get to the point where she can experience the full pleasure of his presence until she takes that first climb of faith to discover that he is faithful.

Faith experienced is faith that is real. It is an easy thing to say that you believe. It is an easy thing to feel like you believe. But faith is not situated in our feelings. Faith is situated in our feet. That's why the Bible calls it "walking by faith" rather than "feeling by faith."

[Judy Harder]

Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
 
   
Discovering Divine Design
 
As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me . . . -Genesis 24:27
We should be so one with God that we don't need to ask continually for guidance. Sanctification means that we are made the children of God. A child's life is normally obedient, until he chooses disobedience. But as soon as he chooses to disobey, an inherent inner conflict is produced. On the spiritual level, inner conflict is the warning of the Spirit of God. When He warns us in this way, we must stop at once and be renewed in the spirit of our mind to discern God's will (see Romans 12:2). If we are born again by the Spirit of God, our devotion to Him is hindered, or even stopped, by continually asking Him to guide us here and there. ". . . the Lord led me . . ." and on looking back we see the presence of an amazing design. If we are born of God we will see His guiding hand and give Him the credit.

We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the growth of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail. Never believe that the so-called random events of life are anything less than God's appointed order. Be ready to discover His divine designs anywhere and everywhere.

Beware of being obsessed with consistency to your own convictions instead of being devoted to God. If you are a saint and say, "I will never do this or that," in all probability this will be exactly what God will require of you. There was never a more inconsistent being on this earth than our Lord, but He was never inconsistent with His Father. The important consistency in a saint is not to a principle but to the divine life. It is the divine life that continually makes more and more discoveries about the divine mind. It is easier to be an excessive fanatic than it is to be consistently faithful, because God causes an amazing humbling of our religious conceit when we are faithful to Him.


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A Better Covenant

There are two verses for your reading today.  Hebrews 7:22, which says,

By so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.

And Hebrews 8:6, which tells us,

But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.

We have a better covenant; we have better promises.  And Jesus is the One who makes it sure.  He is the guarantee. He has personally pledged Himself to make it good.

As far as I am concerned, that takes away all reason for doubt, all reason for stressing out.  Jesus, Himself, is the pledge, the guarantee that this covenant we have called the New Testament will be good and will be fulfilled in our lives.

And He is not only the guarantee, He is the Mediator.  He is the go-between to what is truly a better covenant, established upon better promises.

Let's say your employer came to you and said, "We're going to give you a better contract.  While the old contract was good, we're going to give you one that's better.  This better contract will increase your hours, decrease your pay, eliminate your health and dental benefits, you will no longer get reimbursed for your mileage and your auto expenses, and you're going to have a shorter lunch break and no more Christmas bonuses."

Let me ask you, is that better?  No!  That is not better!  And I will never understand how people can say, "We know God healed people and worked miracles and intervened in people's lives under the Old Testament, but He doesn't anymore."

The covenant Christ bought and sealed in His blood is a better covenant, established upon better promises. Praise God!
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Holding God Accountable?


(Luke 18, Psalms 2)

One of the most important things that we can do as a Christian is to pray in line with our covenantal rights. But we often don't do this because we misunderstand what prayer
is. Let me define prayer by first saying what prayer is not. Prayer is not simply talking to God. Prayer, rather, is asserting earthly permission for heavenly interference. Prayer is earth giving heaven authorization to intervene in the affairs of earth as heaven has previously stated that it would. That permission is granted based on your legal position and rights. That's why it is essential to study the Word of God and to know the rights that He has granted you through His Word.

If you are being held in bondage by an illegitimate force in your life, cry out to God. Pray to God for deliverance by appealing to Him based on your covenantal rights. There is a legal obligation that God has to respond to you based on the fact that you have a legitimate agreement with Him found in His Word. Go through the Scriptures and read everything that relates to your stronghold and pray it back to God.  When you do that, prayer is no longer just a spiritual exercise or something to check off of your "Christian List of Things To Do."

Rather, prayer becomes a legal meeting where you and God get together in agreement on the same covenantal arrangement. Prayer becomes an act of holding God accountable, in the right sense of the word, to what He holds Himself accountable: His Word.

[Judy Harder]

Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
 
   
"What Is That to You?"
 
Peter . . . said to Jesus, 'But Lord, what about this man?' Jesus said to him, '. . . what is that to you? You follow Me' -John 21:21-22
One of the hardest lessons to learn comes from our stubborn refusal to refrain from interfering in other people's lives. It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur providence, that is, interfering with God's plan for others. You see someone suffering and say, "He will not suffer, and I will make sure that he doesn't." You put your hand right in front of God's permissive will to stop it, and then God says, "What is that to you?" Is there stagnation in your spiritual life? Don't allow it to continue, but get into God's presence and find out the reason for it. You will possibly find it is because you have been interfering in the life of another- proposing things you had no right to propose, or advising when you had no right to advise. When you do have to give advice to another person, God will advise through you with the direct understanding of His Spirit. Your part is to maintain the right relationship with God so that His discernment can come through you continually for the purpose of blessing someone else.

Most of us live only within the level of consciousness- consciously serving and consciously devoted to God. This shows immaturity and the fact that we're not yet living the real Christian life. Maturity is produced in the life of a child of God on the unconscious level, until we become so totally surrendered to God that we are not even aware of being used by Him. When we are consciously aware of being used as broken bread and poured-out wine, we have yet another level to reach- a level where all awareness of ourselves and of what God is doing through us is completely eliminated. A saint is never consciously a saint- a saint is consciously dependent on God.


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God Leads from Within

In our last devotional, we talked about the new covenant being better than the old covenant.  One reason is found in Hebrews 8:8-11 which says,

..."Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah-not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the LORD.  For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD:  I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.  None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them."

In the Old Testament, God had to lead His people externally.  When fleeing Egypt, God led them by night with a pillar of fire and by day with a pillar of cloud.  They did not intuitively know where God wanted them to go or what God wanted them to do.

But under the new covenant, God leads His people from within because He has now taken up residence within.  I believe that is why on the Day of Pentecost God chose to manifest the coming of the Holy Spirit in tongues of fire that sat upon each person individually.

God was saying that while under the old covenant, He led His people by a pillar of fire, and now He is coming to dwell and lead from the inside of each believer!
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A Pocketful of Miracles

Exodus 14, Psalms 3

A lot of what God wants to do in your life won't be done until you do what He has already revealed to you.

What He asks you to do isn't always all that huge, just like Moses' move at the Red Sea wasn't all that huge. All God was asking Moses to do was to hold out his stick. That's not that huge. If Moses would just hold out his stick, then God said that He would handle the rest. He would do all of the big stuff. He would open the Red Sea, harden Pharaoh's heart, make him go in after them, and close the Red Sea back up.

But to reveal the )

faith

within us, God often asks us to do our little thing first. Hold out our sticks. Take that step. Make the move. Have the conversation. Quit the job to stay at home. Accept the job that He has shown. Stop the habit. Curb the tongue. Go to church. Go overseas. Whatever it is that He is revealing to you, God will often wait to do His big thing until you have done what He has asked you to do.

He does this because He wants us to see Him in a way we've never seen Him before. He wants us to experience Him in a way that we've never experienced Him before. He wants us to see the connection between our act of faith and His deliverance. He wants to be more than just a Cosmic-Santa Claus with a pocketful of miracles to throw down. God wants a relationship with you. He wants you to see Him up close and personal so He puts you in a situation where He is your only solution. Where it can't be fixed if He doesn't fix it. Where it can't be reversed if He doesn't reverse it. Where it can't be solved if He doesn't solve it. Because, God says, I've let you use all of the natural options available to you, and you are still stuck. Well then, when that happens, know that you are stuck with a purpose. Look to God.

 

[Judy Harder]

Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
 
   
"When He Has Come"
When He has come, He will convict the world of sin . . . -John 16:8
Very few of us know anything about conviction of sin. We know the experience of being disturbed because we have done wrong things. But conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit blots out every relationship on earth and makes us aware of only one- "Against You, You only, have I sinned . . ." (Psalm 51:4). When a person is convicted of sin in this way, he knows with every bit of his conscience that God would not dare to forgive him. If God did forgive him, then this person would have a stronger sense of justice than God. God does forgive, but it cost the breaking of His heart with grief in the death of Christ to enable Him to do so. The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so. It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love. Once we have been convicted of sin, we will never say this again. The love of God means Calvary- nothing less! The love of God is spelled out on the Cross and nowhere else. The only basis for which God can forgive me is the Cross of Christ. It is there that His conscience is satisfied.

Forgiveness doesn't merely mean that I am saved from hell and have been made ready for heaven (no one would accept forgiveness on that level). Forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a newly created relationship which identifies me with God in Christ. The miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of Himself, the Holy One. He does this by putting into me a new nature, the nature of Jesus Christ.

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Access

In talking about the Holy of Holies...that second part of the tabernacle behind the veil where the presence of God dwelt under the old covenant... Hebrews 9:7 says,

But into the second part the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people's sins committed in ignorance.

Only the high priest could go into this part of the tabernacle, into God's presence.  And he could go only one time each year to offer the blood of an animal to cover the sins of the people.

But look with me at Hebrews 10:17-19,

Then He adds, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more."  Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.  Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus.

You have access into the very presence of God.  In fact, Hebrews 4:16 says, Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

You do not have to go through a priest.  You do not have to go through Pastor Bayless.  You have immediate, constant access.  In fact, God not only welcomes you, He desires you to come into His presence.

You know, my kids just barge into my office all the time.  I can be in there having a meeting when the door just opens, "Hi, Dad!  Got anything in your refrigerator?"  They just come in like they belong there...and they do.  I'm their father.

Your heavenly Father is the same way.  He is not going to put you off and say, "You know what?  You have to come through an angel.  I'm sorry, but you cannot talk directly to Me."

Nope.  You have direct access!
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The Spiritual Stress Test

(James 1, Psalms 5)

Every summer I go to the doctor's office for an annual exam. I sit in his office and he asks me, "Tony, how are you feeling?"

Assuming that it was a good year overall, I answer, "I'm feeling fine."

But that's not the end of my appointment. The doctor doesn't take my word for it. Instead, he attaches electronic probes all over my body. Then he sticks me on a treadmill. Next, he makes the treadmill go faster and faster up an incline because what he wants to know is the real condition of my heart.

My heart might feel fine to me but at the same time, it might not be fine. The doctor can only determine the strength of my heart when he measures it under stress. So what he does is create a stressful situation where I'm walking for a long period of time. He's testing my heart to see whether how I feel is how I really am. Because it's possible to have good feelings yet still have a bad heart.

Living the Christian life is no different. It's possible to come to church every week, sing worship songs, memorize Bible verses, serve on a variety of committees and assume that your heart, faith and soul is strong. It's even easy to say things like, "I love you God. God, you are so good. I'll follow you, God. I'll do whatever you say."

But God doesn't want to just take your word for it.

He tests you, and me, because He wants what is best for us. He tests us because He is getting ready to do something amazing in our lives. The way that He tests us is by putting us in a stressful scenario ... something we often call a trial. In a trial, God reveals how strong our faith really is.

[Judy Harder]

 
Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
 
   
The Forgiveness Of God

In whom we have . . . the forgiveness of sins. - Ephesians 1:7
Beware of the pleasant view of the Fatherhood of God - God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That sentiment has no place whatever in the New Testament. The only ground on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ; to put forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy. The only ground on which God can forgive sin and reinstate us in His favour is through the Cross of Christ, and in no other way. Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony of Calvary. It is possible to take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and our sanctification with the simplicity of faith, and to forget at what enormous cost to God it was all made ours.

Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace; it cost God the Cross of Jesus Christ before He could forgive sin and remain a holy God. Never accept a view of the Fatherhood of God if it blots out the Atonement. The revelation of God is that He cannot forgive; He would contradict His nature if He did. The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God by the Atonement. God's forgiveness is only natural in the supernatural domain.

Compared with the miracle of the forgiveness of sin, the experience of sanctification is slight. Sanctification is simply the marvellous expression of the forgiveness of sins in a human life, but the thing that awakens the deepest well of gratitude in a human being is that God has forgiven sin. Paul never got away from this. When once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vice, constrained by the love of God.

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Once for All!

As we have been learning in the last few devotionals, the new covenant is better than the old covenant.  Hebrews 9:18-24 shows us another way it is better,

Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood.  For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, "This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you."  Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry.  And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.  Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.  For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.

The old covenant was based on the blood of animal sacrifices; but under the new covenant, we are cleansed by the blood of Christ and His sacrifice.

Jesus went into that heavenly Holy of Holies with His own blood.  And the Father declared that the blood of Jesus satisfied the payment for sin for all eternity.

Oh, thank you, Jesus!  That is why the Scripture declares we are accepted in the Beloved.  When God accepted that blood sacrifice in heaven, He accepted all of us who believe, because Jesus went as our representative.

Praise God today for the provision of the sacrifice of Jesus...once for all!


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Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Much like the stress test my doctor puts me through every summer, God allows trials and tests in our lives in order to reveal where we are along our spiritual journey. He does this for the purpose of correcting whatever happens to be wrong, revealing whatever needs to be revealed, and strengthening whatever seems to be weak so that we might move on to what He has in store for us.

When you are caught between a rock and a hard place, you feel trapped, stuck, and tired of where you are. You either don't know what to do, or you don't know how to legitimately do what you feel you need to do. You are like Israel when they faced Pharaoh on one side and the Red Sea on the other and certain death was upon them.

Getting caught between a rock and a hard place is a lose-lose deal. If it were a clear win-lose deal, then you would know how to choose and where to turn. But what do you do when there are no clear choices? What option do you choose when both options are bad? Have you ever been in a situation where all of the ways that you turn to are problems, and you are just trying to find the least possible problem to choose as the solution?

I know I've been in situations like that and it's not fun. It's about as fun as huffing and puffing on that treadmill in my doctor's office. But one thing I've learned over the years is that God has a purpose for these times in our lives. Just like my doctor is not a mean man for putting my body through all of that stress, God is not a mean God when He decrees that we go through trials.

When God wants to reveal the real condition of your heart to empower you toward His plan for your future, He puts you in one of these kinds of trials.

[Judy Harder]

Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
 
   
"It is Finished!"
I have finished the work which You have given Me to do -John 17:4
The death of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment in history of the very mind and intent of God. There is no place for seeing Jesus Christ as a martyr. His death was not something that happened to Him- something that might have been prevented. His death was the very reason He came.

Never build your case for forgiveness on the idea that God is our Father and He will forgive us because He loves us. That contradicts the revealed truth of God in Jesus Christ. It makes the Cross unnecessary, and the redemption "much ado about nothing." God forgives sin only because of the death of Christ. God could forgive people in no other way than by the death of His Son, and Jesus is exalted as Savior because of His death. "We see Jesus . . . for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor . . ." (Hebrews 2:9). The greatest note of triumph ever sounded in the ears of a startled universe was that sounded on the Cross of Christ- "It is finished!" (John 19:30). That is the final word in the redemption of humankind.

Anything that lessens or completely obliterates the holiness of God, through a false view of His love, contradicts the truth of God as revealed by Jesus Christ. Never allow yourself to believe that Jesus Christ stands with us, and against God, out of pity and compassion, or that He became a curse for us out of sympathy for us. Jesus Christ became a curse for us by divine decree. Our part in realizing the tremendous meaning of His curse is the conviction of sin. Conviction is given to us as a gift of shame and repentance; it is the great mercy of God. Jesus Christ hates the sin in people, and Calvary is the measure of His hatred.

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For All People

In today's devotional, I want to give you the seventh reason why the new covenant in Jesus is better than the old covenant.  The old covenant was only for one nation-only one people-the Jews.

The new covenant is for the whole world.  It is for every nation, every people...anyone who will accept the free gift of salvation, by placing their faith in Jesus Christ.  Hebrews 7:25 tells us,

Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

Or, as one old preacher said, "He saves to the uttermost and to the guttermost."

That may sound crass, but it is true!  Through Jesus Christ, God has made a way of salvation for every person, no matter your race, or what religion you were brought up in, or what you may have done in your life.

John 3:16 says,

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.   

That means no one has ever done anything so bad that it could make God stop loving them.  I don't care where they have been, how dark their past has been, or how burdened down their conscience is today with guilt for the things they have done-no one will be cast out if they come to Him.

His blood has the power to wash anyone clean if they will come to God through Jesus.  His sacrifice takes away the sin of the world, the burden of guilt, and the shame of sin.  He can make anyone into a new person.  Only the blood of Jesus can do that...only the blood of Jesus.  Hallelujah!

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When God Allows Your Trial


(James 2:14-24, Psalms 7)

Have you ever gotten mail in your mailbox that isn't addressed to you? You take it out of your mailbox and read that the address doesn't have your name on it. It just says, "Occupant." You get that piece of mail by virtue of you being the "occupant" of that home. Trials are a lot like that. Just by virtue of being an "occupant" on this planet in a fallen world, we will face trials.

Of course, no one likes a trial. No one wakes up in the morning, stretches and says, "Ah, what a beautiful day for a trial! I think I'd like to have a trial today!" That would be an unusual person who would do something like that. Yet no matter how much we want to avoid trials in our lives, trials are inevitable.

Trials are adverse circumstances that God allows in our lives to both identify where we are spiritually as well as to prepare us for where He wants us to go. There is no escaping them. You are either in a trial now, you've just come out of a trial, or you are getting ready to go into a trial.

But even though we all have to experience them, I want to remind you to take comfort in knowing that trials must first pass through God's hands before reaching us. Nothing comes our way without first having received His Divine approval. And in order to get His Divine approval, there must be a Divine reason for Him to approve it. We need to trust that God has our best interest in mind when He allows us to experience a trial.

 

[Judy Harder]

Daily Devotionals By Oswald Chambers
 
   
Shallow and Profound
 
Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God -1 Corinthians 10:31

Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow aspects of life are not ordained by God; they are ordained by Him equally as much as the profound. We sometimes refuse to be shallow, not out of our deep devotion to God but because we wish to impress other people with the fact that we are not shallow. This is a sure sign of spiritual pride. We must be careful, for this is how contempt for others is produced in our lives. And it causes us to be a walking rebuke to other people because they are more shallow than we are. Beware of posing as a profound person- God became a baby.

To be shallow is not a sign of being sinful, nor is shallowness an indication that there is no depth to your life at all- the ocean has a shore. Even the shallow things of life, such as eating and drinking, walking and talking, are ordained by God. These are all things our Lord did. He did them as the Son of God, and He said, "A disciple is not above his teacher . . ." (Matthew 10:24).

We are safeguarded by the shallow things of life. We have to live the surface, commonsense life in a commonsense way. Then when God gives us the deeper things, they are obviously separated from the shallow concerns. Never show the depth of your life to anyone but God. We are so nauseatingly serious, so desperately interested in our own character and reputation, we refuse to behave like Christians in the shallow concerns of life.

Make a determination to take no one seriously except God. You may find that the first person you must be the most critical with, as being the greatest fraud you have ever known, is yourself.

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The "Good Old Days"

Hebrews 11:13-16 contains a powerful truth, a perspective I want to encourage you to embrace.  These verses are talking about the great heroes of the faith from the Old Testament,       

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.  For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.  And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return.  But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country.  Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

These heroes of the faith sought a better homeland.  In verse 15 it talks about calling to mind the country from which they had come, but the word country is just added by the translators.  It really has the intent of saying if they had constantly thought about from where they had come, there would have been a great temptation to return there.

As you read this passage, it is easy to see why some people struggle so much with past sins.  As verse 15 says, Truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return.

The reason some people constantly struggle with returning to their old life, finding a multitude of opportunities to return, is because they keep calling it to mind.  They keep rehearsing the "good old days."  Perhaps you struggle with that as well.

If you do, seek to remember the "good old days" as they really were.  Don't forget about all the pain.  Don't forget about the way you struggled, the reason you came to Christ in the first place.  Stop rehearsing the past.  If the "good old days" were so good, you would not have gotten saved.


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Culd-e-Sac Christianity

(Jeremiah 31:31-34, Psalms

Sometimes I get the impression that when we ask God to bless us, we forget the full definition of a blessing. We forget that God doesn't want us to be culd-e-sac Christians where all of our blessings end with us. God wants us to be conduit Christians where all of our blessings extend through us to others.

For example, when God blessed Abraham in the Old Testament, we read that He said, "Indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice."

God said that He was not only going to bring His favor on Abraham but that His favor on Abraham would extend out to be a blessing on others as well. God never designs our blessings to stop with us, but our blessings should always extend to others.