The Law Of Antagonism 'To him that overcometh... .'
Revelation 2:7
Life without war is impossible either in nature or in grace. The basis of physical, mental, moral, and spiritual life is antagonism. This is the open fact of life.
Health is the balance between physical life and external nature, and it is maintained only by sufficient vitality on the inside ...read
The Life That Lives 'Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.'
Luke 24:49
The disciples had to tarry until the day of Pentecost not for their own preparation only; they had to wait until the Lord was glorified historically. As soon as He was glorified, what happened? "Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, ...read
The Light That Fails 'We all with open face beholding ... the glory of the Lord.'
2 Corinthians 3:18
A servant of God must stand so much alone that he never knows he is alone. In the first phases of Christian life disheartenments come, people who used to be lights flicker out, and those who used to stand with us pass away. We have to get so used to it that we ...read
The Master Assizes 'For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.'
2 Corinthians 5:10
Paul says that we must all, preacher and people alike, "appear before the judgment seat of Christ." If you learn to live in the white light of Christ here and now, judgment finally will cause you to delight in the work of God in you. Keep yourself steadily ...read
The Method Of Missions "Go ye therefore, and teach (disciple) all nations.'
Matthew 28:19
Jesus Christ did not say - Go and save souls (the salvation of souls is the supernatural work of God), but - "Go and teach," i.e., disciple, "all nations," and you cannot make disciples unless you are a disciple yourself. When the disciples came back from their firs ...read
The Ministry Of The Interior 'But ye are ... a royal priesthood.'
1 Peter 2:9
By what right do we become "a royal priesthood"? By the right of the Atonement. Are we prepared to leave ourselves resolutely alone and to launch out into the priestly work of prayer? The continual grubbing on the inside to see whether we are what we ought to be generates a self-centred, ...read
The Ministry Of The Unnoticed 'Blessed are the poor in spirit.'
Matthew 5:3
The New Testament notices things which from our standards do not seem to count. "Blessed are the poor in spirit," literally - Blessed are the paupers - an exceedingly commonplace thing! The preaching of to-day is apt to emphasize strength of will, beauty of character - the things that are ...read
The Miracle Of Belief 'My speech and my preaching was not with enticing words.'
1 Corinthians 2:1-5
Paul was a scholar and an orator of the first rank; he is not speaking out of abject humility; but saying that he would veil the power of God if, when he preached the gospel, he impressed people with his "excellency of speech." Belief in Jesus is a miracle p ...read
The Missionary Watching 'Watch with Me.'
Matthew 26:40
"Watch with Me" - with no private point of view of your own at all, but watch entirely with Me. In the early stages we do not watch with Jesus, we watch for Him. We do not watch with Him through the revelation of the Bible; in the circumstances of our lives. Our Lord is trying to introduce us to identifi ...read
The Missionary's Goal 'Behold, we go up to Jerusalem.'
Luke 18:31
In the natural life our ambitions alter as we develop; in the Christian life the goal is given at the beginning, the beginning and the end are the same, viz., Our Lord Himself. We start with Christ and we end with Him - "until we all attain to the stature of the manhood of Christ Jesus," not ...read
The Missionary's Master 'Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am.'
John 13:13
To have a master and to be mastered is not the same thing. To have a master means that there is one who knows me better than I know myself, one who is closer than a friend, one who fathoms the remotest abyss of my heart and satisfies it, one who has brought me into t ...read
The Most Delicate Mission On Earth 'The friend of the Bridegroom.'
John 3:29
Goodness and purity ought never to attract attention to themselves, they ought simply to be magnets to draw to Jesus Christ. If my holiness is not drawing towards Him, it is not holiness of the right order, but an influence that will awaken inordinate affection and lead souls away into side-eddi ...read
The Mystery Of Believing 'And he said, Who art Thou, Lord?'
Acts 9:6
By the miracle of Redemption Saul of Tarsus was turned in one second from a strong-willed, intense Pharisee into a humble, devoted slave of the Lord Jesus.
There is nothing miraculous about the things we can explain. We command what we are able to explain, consequently it is natural to see ...read
The Never-Failing God 'For He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.'
Hebrews 8:5
What line does my thought take? Does it turn to what God says or to what I fear? Am I learning to say not what God says, but to say something after I have heard what He says? "He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, Th ...read
The Next Best Thing To Do 'For every one that asketh receiveth.'
Luke 11:10
There is nothing more difficult than to ask. We will long and desire and crave and suffer, but not until we are at the extreme limit will we ask. A sense of unreality makes us ask. Have you ever asked out of the depths of moral poverty? "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God...but ...read
The Next Best Thing To Do 'Seek, and ye shall find.'
Luke 11:9
"Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss." If you ask for things from life instead of from God, you ask amiss, i.e., you ask from a desire for self-realization. The more you realize yourself the less will you seek God. "Seek, and ye shall find." Get to work, narrow your interests to this on ...read
The Notion Of Divine Control 'How much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?'
Matthew 7:11
Jesus is laying down rules of conduct for those who have His Spirit. By the simple argument of these verses He urges us to keep our minds filled with the notion of God's control behind every thing, which means that the disciple must ...read
The Offence Of The Natural 'And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.'
Galatians 5:2
The natural life is not sinful; we must be apostatized from sin, have nothing to do with sin in any shape or form. Sin belongs to hell and the devil; I, as a child of God, belong to heaven and God. It is not a question of giving up sin, b ...read
The Offering Of The Natural 'Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.'
Galatians 4:22
Paul is not dealing with sin in this chapter of Galatians, but with the relation of the natural to the spiritual. The natural must be turned into the spiritual by sacrifice, otherwise a tremendous divorce will be produced in the actual life. Why shou ...read
The Overmastering Direction 'I have appeared unto thee for this purpose.'
Acts 26:16
The vision Paul had on the road to Damascus was no passing emotion, but a vision that had very clear and emphatic directions for him, and he says, "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." Our Lord said, in effect, to Paul - Your whole life is to be overmastered by Me; you ...read
Oswald Chambers