Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Make Jesus Your First Resort Not Your Last One

My Utmost For His Highest
 
Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world." —John 18:36
 
“The great enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ today is the idea of practical work that has no basis in the New Testament but comes from the systems of the world. This work insists upon endless energy and activities, but no private life with God. The emphasis is put on the wrong thing. Jesus said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation….For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21). It is a hidden, obscure thing. An active Christian worker too often lives to be seen by others, while it is the innermost, personal area that reveals the power of a person’s life.[…] The central point of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship with Him, not public usefulness to others.[…] You have no idea of where or how God is going to engineer your future circumstances, and no knowledge of what stress and strain is going to be placed on you…..”  CHAMBERS
 
Perhaps one of the most difficult things for us Christians is to live in the awareness of our spiritual nature.  We know about the Spirit in us.  We know about salvation through Jesus and His place at the right hand of the Father (Acts 7:55-56; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1; Hebrews 1:3; Hebrews 8:1; Hebrews 10:12; Hebrews 12:2; 1 Peter 3:22; Revelation 3:21; Matthew 22:44; Acts 2:33), yeah that’s right there are a lot of references to that!  We know those things but we do not really live with an awareness of them.  When the Messiah came, Israel  was looking for an earthly king who would free them from their enemies.  Someone who would do what they wanted done.  Just like before when they asked Samuel for a king, they were not focused on the eternal but the temporal. (1 Samuel 8:4-5)
 
My point is that it is the nature of our flesh to focus on the natural.  Jesus said His kingdom was not natural.  Because the natural man cannot understand the spiritual (1 Corinthians 2:14) everything is understood in the context of the natural.  So it is misinterpreted.  Misunderstood. Misguided.  The people trying to understand are mistaken.  All too often that is true for Christians as well.  We are so focused on the natural that we trivialize the spiritual to the point of insignificance.  And we miss Jesus.  Please do not treat your spiritual nature as if it was some parenthetical – oh by the way – aspect of your life. Christian, it is who you are – it is what we should look to primarily, not as an afterthought.  Have you ever said “Maybe we should pray”?  There is no maybe about it.  Turning to the Lord should be our first resort not our last. ELGIN

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