The Word Of God, The Undeniable, Inescapable, In Your Face Truth

My Utmost For His Highest

I have appeared to you for this purpose… —Acts 26:16

{CHAMBERS} The vision Paul had on the road to Damascus was not a passing emotional experience, but a vision that had very clear and emphatic directions for him. And Paul stated, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision” (Acts 26:19). Our Lord said to Paul, in effect, “Your whole life is to be overpowered or subdued by Me; you are to have no end, no aim, and no purpose but Mine.” And the Lord also says to us, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go…” (John 15:16). […] It is not enough to give mental assent to the fact that God has redeemed the world, nor even to know that the Holy Spirit can make all that Jesus did a reality in my life. I must have the foundation of a personal relationship with Him. […] Paul was devoted to a Person, not to a cause. He was absolutely Jesus Christ’s. He saw nothing else and he lived for nothing else. “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).

{ELGIN} How do you understand your new life in Christ? Do you see it as your ticket to heaven or a transformed life with new priorities and devotions?  If you fail to draw close to Jesus, you will draw close to the world.  If you fail to forsake the world, then you will forsake your faith.  Sounds harsh perhaps, but it is no less true. (1 John 2:15-17) “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”  We cannot do both, yet we try to convince ourselves that we can.  The Word is Truth, undeniable, inescapable, in your face, Truth.  It is God's intent that we receive it and then obey it.  (James 1:22) “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.”