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
The Overmastering Majesty Of Personal Power 'For the love of Christ constraineth us.'
2 Corinthians 5:14
Paul says he is overruled, overmastered, held as in a vice, by the love of Christ. Very few of us know what it means to be held in a grip by the love of God; we are held by the constraint of our experience only. The one thing that held Paul, until there was nothing else on his ...read
The Overshadowing Personal Deliverance 'I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord.'
Jeremiah 1:8
God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally - "Thy life will I give unto thee for a prey." That is all God promises His children. Wherever God sends us, He will guard our lives. Our personal property and possessions are a matter of indifference, we have to s ...read
The Passion Of Patience 'Though it tarry, wait for it.'
Habakkuk 2:3
Patience is not indifference; patience conveys the idea of an immensely strong rock withstanding all onslaughts. The vision of God is the source of patience, because it imparts a moral inspiration. Moses endured, not because he had an ideal of right and duty, but because be had a vision of Go ...read
The Patience Of Faith 'Because thou hast kept the word of My patience.'
Revelation 3:10
Patience is more than endurance. A saint's life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, and He stretches and strains, and every now and again the saint says - "I cannot stand any more." God ...read
The Point Of Spiritual Honour 'I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the barbarians.'
Romans 1:14
Paul was overwhelmed with the sense of his indebtedness to Jesus Christ, and he spent himself to express it. The great inspiration in Paul's life was his view of Jesus Christ as his spiritual creditor. Do I feel that sense of indebtedness to Christ in regard to every ...read
The Price of Vision In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord. (Isaiah 6:1)
Our soul's history with God is frequently the history of the "passing of the hero." Over and over again God has to remove our friends in order to bring Himself in their place, and that is where we faint and fail and get discouraged. Take it personally: In the year that the o ...read
The Price Of Vision 'In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord.'
Isaiah 6:1
Our soul's history with God is frequently the history of the "passing of the hero." Over and over again God has to remove our friends in order to bring Himself in their place, and that is where we faint and fail and get discouraged. Take it personally: In the year t ...read
The Realm Of The Real 'In your patience possess ye your souls.'
Luke 21:19
When a man is born again, there is not the same robustness in his thinking or reasoning for a time as formerly. We have to make an expression of the new life, to form the mind of Christ. "Acquire your soul with patience." Many of us prefer to stay at the threshold of the Christian l ...read
The Recognized Ban Of Relationship 'We are made as the filth of the world.'
1 Corinthians 4:9-13
These words are not an exaggeration. The reason they are not true of us who call ourselves ministers of the gospel is not that Paul forgot the exact truth in using them, but that we have too many discreet affinities to allow ourselves to be made refuse. "Filling up that whic ...read
The Relapse Of Concentration 'But the high places were not taken away out of Israel; nevertheless the heart of Asa was perfect all his days.'
2 Chronicles 15:17
Asa was incomplete in his external obedience, he was right in the main but not entirely right. Beware of the thing of which you say - "Oh, that does not matter much." The fact that it does not matter much ...read
The Relinquished Life 'I am crucified with Christ.'
Galatians 2:20
No one is ever united with Jesus Christ until he is willing to relinquish not sin only, but his whole way of looking at things. To be born from above of the Spirit of God means that we must let go before we lay hold, and in the first stages it is the relinquishing of all pretence. What Our Lo ...read
The Right Lines Of Work 'I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.'
John 12:32
Very few of us have any understanding of the reason why Jesus Christ died. If sympathy is all that human beings need, then the Cross of Christ is a farce, there was no need for it. What the world needs is not "a little bit of love," but a surgical operation.
When you ar ...read
The Sacrament Of Sacrifice 'He that believeth in Me . . out of him shall flow... .'
John 7:38
Jesus did not say - "he that believeth in Me shall realize the blessing of the fulness of God," but - "he that believeth in Me out of him shall escape everything he receives." Our Lord's teaching is always anti -self-realization. His purpose is not the development of ...read
The Sacrament Of The Saint 'Let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing.'
1 Peter 4:19
To choose to suffer means that there is something wrong; to choose God's Will even if it means suffering is a very different thing. No healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he chooses God's will, as Jesus did, whet ...read
The Secret Of Spiritual Coherence But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." '
Galatians 6:14
When a man is first born again, he becomes incoherent, there is an amount of unrelated emotion about him, unrelated phases of external things. In the apostle Paul there was a strong steady coherence underneath, consequently he could let hi ...read
The Secret Of The Lord 'The secret (friendship R.V.) of the Lord is with them that fear Him.'
Psalms 25:14
What is the sign of a friend? That he tells you secret Sorrows? No, that he tells you secret joys. Many will confide to you their secret sorrows, but the last mark of intimacy is to confide secret joys. Have we ever let God tell us any of His joys, or ar ...read
The Sphere Of Exaltation 'Jesus leadeth them up into a high mountain apart by themselves.'
Mark 9:2
We have all had times on the mount, when we have seen things from God's standpoint and have wanted to stay there; but God will never allow us to stay there. The test of our spiritual life is the power to descend; if we have power to rise only, something is wrong ...read
The Sphere Of Humiliation 'If Thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us.'
Mark 9:22
After every time of exaltation we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they are where it is neither beautiful nor poetic nor thrilling. The height of the mountain top is measured by the drab drudgery of the valley; but it is in the valley that we h ...read
The Sphere Of Ministration 'This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.'
Mark 9:29
"Why could not we cast him out?" The answer lies in a personal relationship to Jesus Christ. This kind can come forth by nothing but by concentration and redoubled concentration on Him. We can ever remain powerless, as were the disciples, by trying to do God' ...read
Oswald Chambers