The Glorious Deeds of Christ

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 1:14 ESV

Incarnation means enfleshment: Jesus Christ is God in human flesh. The great act of God: the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, took upon himself our human nature. Incarnation means that God is with us, near us, transforming us. The incarnation means that God cared and came among us to deliver us from ourselves.

Jesus Christ is God-Man. God in Essence cannot come anywhere near us. Almighty God does not matter to me, He is in the clouds. To be of any use to me, He must come down to the domain in which I live; and I do not live in the clouds but on the earth. The doctrine of the Incarnation is that God did come down into our domain.

The Wisdom of God, the Word of God, the exact expression of God, was manifest in the flesh. That is the great doctrine of the New Testament—dust and Deity made one. The pure gold of Deity is of no use to us unless it is amalgamated in the right alloy, viz. the pure Divine working on the basis of the pure human: God and humanity one, as in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Oswald Chambers, Shade of His Hand: Talks on the Book of Ecclesiastes (Hants UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1936).

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

Gal. 5:25 ESV

“To keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25 NIV) means being so satisfied in God’s great grace and unfathomable love that we are freed from the idols of self. Walking in the Spirit is preferring God’s will over and against the fleeting, false promises of this life. Eternity is valued higher than the passing pleasures of this life as we are led by the Spirit.

According to the Apostle Paul, walking in the Spirit is to led by the Spirit which is an attitude of yielding to where he is going, listening to the his direction, discerning his will, and obeying his guidance.

When we walk in the Spirit . . .

The Holy Spirit changes our motivation: we yearn for holiness instead of demanding our wants and desires to be met now and always.

The Holy Spirit frees our hearts from the fear of retribution for our sins.  In its place, the Spirit gives us hearts that yearn to please our heavenly Father.

The Holy Spirit renews our hearts to prefer and refer everything in our lives to the power of God and his holiness.

The Holy Spirit leads our hearts to obey him. We recognize his Lordship and submit all our hopes, dreams, and desires to his will.

The Holy Spirit empowers our wills to defeat the flesh. The Spirit enables us to say, “yes,” to righteousness and, “no,” to ungodliness.

The great thing that the Holy Spirit reveals is that the supernatural power of God is ours through Jesus Christ, and if we will receive the Holy Spirit He will teach us how to think as well as how to live. Always refer back to the receiving of the Holy Spirit, we receive Him to do His work in us. Just as Jesus glorified God, so the Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus; He makes us written epistles not only in living, but in thinking.

Oswald Chambers, Biblical Ethics (Hants, UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1996), 97.

You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.

Luke 7:45-46 ESV

To be intimate with Jesus is to never abandon him for another love, but to abide in an on-going, loving, conscious union with our living resurrected Lord.

When once we get intimate with Jesus we are never lonely, we never need sympathy, we can pour out all the time without being pathetic. The saint who is intimate with Jesus will never leave impressions of himself, but only the impression that Jesus is having unhindered way, because the last abyss of his nature has been satisfied by Him. The only impression left by such a life is that of the strong calm sanity that Our Lord gives to those who are intimate with Him.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for Highest (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1992), January 7.

What Is the Meaning of the Sermon on the Mount? 

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matt. 5:3 ESV

What is the Sermon the Mount really about? Is the Sermon a new set of commandments for Christians? Or just a re-interpretation of the Ten Commandments? Or as some say, a Divine directive for U. S. government policy? Or, nice teaching from the Great Teacher?

In reality, the Sermon on the Mount is about the interior life of the Christian. The Sermon on the Mount is what our lives will look like when the Holy Spirit is having his way in us.

Beware of placing our Lord as Teacher first instead of Saviour. That tendency is prevalent to-day, and it is a dangerous tendency. We must know Him first as Saviour before His teaching can have any meaning for us, or before it can have any meaning other than that of an ideal which leads to despair. Fancy coming to men and women with defective lives and defiled hearts and wrong mainsprings, and telling them to be pure in heart! What is the use of giving us an ideal we cannot possibly attain? We are happier without it.

If Jesus is a Teacher only, then all He can do is to tantalise us by erecting a standard we cannot come anywhere near. But if by being “born again from above” we know Him first as Saviour, we know that He did not come to teach us only: He came to make us what He teaches we should be. The Sermon on the Mount is a statement of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is having His way with us (emphasis mine).

Oswald Chambers, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (Hants, UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1960).

Listen to Him; learn of Him; be like Him; receive Him into thine heart; let Him be revealed within thee, so shalt thou also be conformed to these qualities, and participate in this bliss.

F. B. Meyer, Blessed Are Ye: Talks on the Beatitudes

The Trial of Faith

Though the Lord gave you adversity for food and suffering for drink, he will still be with you to teach you. You will see your teacher with your own eyes.

Your own ears will hear him. Right behind you a voice will say, “This is the way you should go,” whether to the right or to the left.

Isaiah 30:20-21 NLT

The wilderness, or desert, is the lonely place where we think that God is rejecting us. This wilderness of soul is where the silence of God allows our demons of fear, worry, anxiety, anger, and self-rejection to be exposed. The wilderness is a trial of faith where God uses the stress in our lives to drive us to him for comfort, love, healing, forgiveness, and discipline.

The wilderness is the ordained place of training for the man or woman of God who desires to be used by God as a discipler of other Christians. A clear pattern emerges from scripture, God sovereignly uses the desert places to develop Christ-like character in the lives of his leaders: Joseph in prison, Moses in the Sinai, David with the sheep, and Paul in the Arabian desert, etc.

In the modern world, our desert is the jungle called day-to-day living in a stress-filled and an anxiety-ridden world: the pressures of work, school, family and finance are the tools God uses to teach us to trust him. In the desert, God seems far away, yet he is as near as the air that we breathe. Initially, the desert is a place of dread, but in the passing of time, it becomes a place remembrance of God’s grace and goodness.

Faith must be tried, and it is the trial of faith that is precious. If you are faint-hearted, it is a sign you won’t play the game, you are fit for neither God nor man because you will face nothing.

Oswald Chambers, Not Knowing Where [electronic ed.] (Grand Rapids: Discovery House, 1996), 36.

Supernatural Fulfillment 

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

Delight is a genuine joy that wells up within our inner being knowing that we can bless God’s heart by obeying his commands. A believer’s delight is found in their motivation: pleasing, knowing, and loving God brings them great joy. Delight is found in the face of God as we enjoy his constant, conscious presence. In the mist of the stresses, trials, and tribulations of everyday life, Christ’s presence fills our hearts with supernatural satisfaction.

The stronghold of the Christian faith is the joy of God, not my joy in God …. God reigns and rules and rejoices, and His joy is our strength.

Oswald Chambers, Run Today’s Race: A Word from Oswald Chambers for Every Day of the Year, electronic ed. (London : Oswald Chambers Publications Association, Ltd., 1968).

Oh the joy of that life with God and in God and for God! It takes a sharp discipline for many of us to learn that “my goal is God Himself, not joy, nor peace, nor even blessing, but Himself my God.

Oswald Chambers, God’s Workmanship, electronic ed. (Hants, UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1953).

Fear and Apprehension

Do not be anxious about anything, sbut in everything by prayer and supplication twith thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Phil. 4:6 ESV

Anxiety is fear and apprehension resident in our hearts created by constant worry. A troubled, disturbing, uneasiness of mind characterizes our anxious feelings. Anxiety develops as we fear an impending event, anticipated trial, or unexpected disappointment.

Our anxiety is due to a lack of confidence in God’s promises and covenant faithfulness. This overwhelming apprehension is a symptom of our unwillingness to believe God with unanticipated, unpleasant events. We are delivered from our anxiety by laying our fears at the feet of Jesus through prayer and worship.

It is so easy, we think, to “rest in the Lord,” and to “wait patiently for Him,” until the nest is upset; until we live, as many are living to-day, in tumult and anguish—is it possible then? If this “Don’t” does not work then, it will not work at any time.

Resting in the Lord does not depend upon external circumstances, but on the relationship of the life of God in me to God Himself. Fussing generally ends in sin. We imagine that a little anxiety and worry is an indication of how wise we really are; it may be an indication of how wicked we really are.

Oswald Chambers, God’s Workmanship (UK : Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1953).

All the Members of the Trinity Want You Holy

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

2 Cor. 13:14

The Father is the Heavenly Vinedresser, the Son is the Vine, and the Holy Spirit is Life itself (John 15: 1-4, 7:37-38). The Father outwardly prunes, the Son indwells us, and the Holy Spirit works through us.  The Father sovereignly directs our circumstances, the Son’s work redeems the circumstance, and the Holy Spirit transforms us in the midst of our circumstances. In short, the Father directs, the Son performs, and the Holy Spirit applies. The Holy Spirit does in us what the Son did for us on the Cross by the will of the Father. All three persons, the Triune God of grace, wants you and me to be free. Free from sin. Free from guilt and shame. Free to enjoy the eternal, unconditional love of God.

The Father is intimately involved in our lives so that our circumstances train us in godliness. The Son has set us free from both the penalty and the power of sin so that we now live under the reign of grace. The Spirit gives us a new attitude toward sin and a new power to change.

The combined forces of the Trinity are at work in our lives to set us free and make us holy.

Tim Chester, You Can Change (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2010), 53.

Jesus Christ cannot begin to do anything for a man until he knows his need; but immediately he is at his wits’ end through sin or limitation or agony and cannot go any further, Jesus Christ says to him, Blessed are you; if you ask God for the Holy Spirit, He will give Him to you. God does not give us the Holy Spirit until we come to the place of seeing that we cannot do without Him (Luke 11:13).

Oswald Chambers, The Shadow of an Agony [CD-Rom] (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1934).

HT: Of First Importance

The Penalty of Our Sin Is Paid

Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.

The blood of Christ is clear confirmation that Christ died a sacrificial death to pay for our release from the captivity of sin and bondage to Satan’s schemes. In other words, we owe our salvation to the death of Christ. His blood removes our guilt before God (1 Pet.1:18-19), cleanses ours stricken consciences (Heb. 9:14), gives us bold access to the Father (Heb. 10:19), on-going cleansing from our sin (1 John 1:7) and conquers all of Satan’s accusations (Rev. 12:10-11). Jesus’ blood condemns death and in that death, the penalty of our sin was paid.

The expression “the blood of Christ” means not only that Christ shed His blood, but that He poured out His very life before God. In the Old Testament the idea of sacrifice is that the blood, which is the life (see Genesis 4:4), is poured out to God, its Giver. When Jesus Christ shed His blood on the Cross it was not the blood of a martyr, or the blood of one man for another; it was the life of God poured out to redeem the world.

Oswald Chambers, Biblical Ethics (Hants, UK : Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1997), 60.

The Spiritually Bankrupt

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matt. 5:3 NIV

Every year, the gospel reading for Ash Wednesday is the Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7); it is a privilege to yearly meditate and preach on this great text. Last night, we examined several significant truths found within Jesus’ magisterial teaching, let’s look at one of those insights in this post and several more in the coming days.

Who are the poor in spirit? Eugene Peterson paraphrases this verse in The Message, ”You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.” For Peterson, the poor in spirit are those who are at the end of their rope: they have no where else to turn, no where else to hide, and no one else who can help. They have nothing left, but God.

Indeed, the poor in spirit acknowledge their complete and utter bankruptcy before God. They are afflicted and know deep down inside that they cannot save themselves. The poor in spirit confess their unworthiness and utter dependence on God’s mercy and grace. The “poor” have confidence only in God. These dear ones will receive God’s kingdom: the rule and reign of Christ in their hearts now. They will experience the very life of God: all he is and who is in their lives today.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit”—towards God. Am I a pauper towards God? Do I know I cannot prevail in prayer; I cannot blot out the sins of the past; I cannot alter my disposition; I cannot lift myself nearer to God? Then I am in the very place where I am to receive the Holy Spirit. No man can receive the Holy Spirit who is not convinced he is a pauper spiritually.

Oswald Chambers, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, electronic ed. (Hants, UK : Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1996).