The Secret To Living Right Is Not Trying Harder

My Utmost For His Highest

Abraham built an altar…; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar… —Genesis 22:9

{CHAMBERS} “This event is a picture of the mistake we make in thinking that the ultimate God wants of us is the sacrifice of death. What God wants is the sacrifice through death which enables us to do what Jesus did, that is, sacrifice our lives. Not— “Lord, I am ready to go with You…to death” (Luke 22:33). But— “I am willing to be identified with Your death so that I may sacrifice my life to God.” […] God never tells us to give up things just for the sake of giving them up, but He tells us to give them up for the sake of the only thing worth having, namely, life with Himself. […] It is of no value to God to give Him your life for death. He wants you to be a “living sacrifice”— to let Him have all your strengths that have been saved and sanctified through Jesus (Romans 12:1).”

{ELGIN}  So often, with good intent, we get the “flesh-cart” before the “spiritual-horse”.  Do you remember the Hertz Rent-A-Car slogan “We Try Harder?” Well, most of us Christians try really hard to do the right and not the wrong.  Paul described his struggle in Romans 7.  He wrote, “I don’t do the things I want to do but those things that I don’t want to do, that I do.”  He asks “who will save me from this body of death?”. Then he answers his own question– Jesus!  If we could live a holy life without help, then Jesus could have stayed in Heaven.  But we can’t and won’t and He didn’t.  The truth of the matter is that our doing right is a result of our being right … spiritually.  It is God-in-us that makes it possible to live our new life.  Let me quote an old friend Galatians 2:20.  “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live.  Yet not I, but Christ lives in me.  And the life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”  The power to live my new life comes from Jesus and it is fueled or enabled by the Holy Spirit and the Word of God coupled with faith.  Not trying harder or meaning well.  Perhaps this will give you new insight in to the verse (Psalm 46:10) “Be still and know that I am God!”  It is time to stop trying and start being. You can’t live the Christian life successfully by trying harder … only by “faithing” harder.

The Problem With Having More Than One Bank Account

My Utmost For His Highest

Jesus answered him, "Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward." —John 13:36

{CHAMBERS} “And when He had spoken this, He said to him, ‘Follow Me’ ” (John 21:19). Three years earlier Jesus had said, “Follow Me” (Matthew 4:19), and Peter followed with no hesitation. The irresistible attraction of Jesus was upon him and he did not need the Holy Spirit to help him do it. Later he came to the place where he denied Jesus, and his heart broke. Then he received the Holy Spirit and Jesus said again, “Follow Me” (John 21:19). Now no one is in front of Peter except the Lord Jesus Christ. […] Jesus is now asking for an internal sacrifice and yielding (see John 21:18).[…] There was no part of himself he would ever rely on again. […] No matter what changes God has performed in you, never rely on them. Build only on a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and on the Spirit He gives. All our promises and resolutions end in denial because we have no power to accomplish them. […] There is now only One who directs the course of your life, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

{ELGIN} We have several bank accounts.  One is for our personal business, one is for the ministry, and another is a temporary account we set up in Texas while we are here serving on mission.  We use each account depending upon what the source of the money we receive is or what the expense is.  That is much the same that most Christians live their lives.  They have a spiritual account and a carnal account.  Oh “carnal” is such a harsh word isn’t it?  Maybe I should have used something softer.  Something that suggests that what’s been deposited in that account is not all bad.  That maybe true by the world’s definition of good and bad, but not God’s.  Sorry, had a squirrel moment!   Back on point …. Our new life in Christ is transformational, “the old is gone, the new has come” and demands that we always deposit to and draw from our spiritual bank account for everything.  But we don’t do that do we?  Instead we live the best we can and if we have to we get out our spiritual “checkbook’.  If this analogy or parable is too obtuse, let me be plain.

From observation and personal experience, I have come to inescapable conclusion that most of us trust in our flesh and our culture more than God.  We believe that we can live two lives.  Our natural one and our spiritual one.  Our natural one for most things and our spiritual one for special occasions.  In fact … that is heretical thinking.  In fact, we are supposed to crucify our natural one and live fully by our new, spiritual nature.  (Galatians 2:20) The reason, I believe, that we have this problem is that we are not disciplined in our pursuit of a deep relationship with the Father. We don’t spend much time each day focused on the spiritual.  One of my favorite verses is (Joshua 1:8-9) “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

In computer programming we would call that an “if-then” statement.  If you do this .. then this will happen.  For most of us .. if … is a big word for only having two letters!  And that is where most of us fail.  If you don’t do the “if” then you won’t experience the “then”. It’s up to each one of us.  I can only encourage you … and you can only encourage others.  Actually “only” is a poor choice of words because we are admonished to encourage each other.  (Hebrews 3:12-13) “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.” Maybe it’s time to close one of your accounts for good … you only need one after all … your new one. 

How Do You Respond To Life With Emotion Or Devotion

My Utmost For His Highest

Peter said to Him, "Lord, why can I not follow You now?" —John 13:37

{CHAMBERS} “[…] When God brings a time of waiting, and appears to be unresponsive, don’t fill it with busyness, just wait. The time of waiting may come to teach you the meaning of sanctification— to be set apart from sin and made holy— or it may come after the process of sanctification has begun to teach you what service means. Never run before God gives you His direction. If you have the slightest doubt, then He is not guiding. Whenever there is doubt— wait. […] …never act on the impulse of […] feeling. Peter did not wait for God. He predicted in his own mind where the test would come, and it came where he did not expect it. “I will lay down my life for Your sake.” Peter’s statement was honest but ignorant. “Jesus answered him, ‘…the rooster shall not crow till you have denied Me three times’ ” (John 13:38). […] Natural devotion may be enough to attract us to Jesus[…] but it will never make us disciples. Natural devotion will deny Jesus, always falling short of what it means to truly follow Him.”

{ELGIN}  (Zechariah 4:6) “‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.”  Peter thought that he could do a spiritual thing through the strength of his own will.  You know how that worked for him.  It’s easy to sit in judgement over Peter.  Shaking our knowing heads.  No way Peter! Who do you think you are?  And yet, we are guilty of the same thing.  Trying to be Christians … do the right thing … in the power of our flesh.  Letting our emotions be a poor substitute for the Spirit of God.  Thinking that our own plans are equal with the plans and will of God.  Essentially denying the sovereignty of God .. trying to be our own god.  What! No way you say.  Yes way!  Everything we do .. everything we say .. what we think .. what we want .. should be .. must be … in the context of whose we are and who God is.  Look … our life after our rebirth is a struggle.  Our old nature wants to rule and guide, but our new nature has another ruler and another guide.  In all fairness to Peter, he had not received the Holy Spirit so he lacked the power to be and do in a way that would overcome.  Read this account of Peter being confronted after he received the Spirit of God.

(Acts 4:5-11) “The next day the rulers, the elders and the teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and others of the high priest’s family. They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: “By what power or what name did you do this?” Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.  Jesus is “‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’”

Is that the same guy that denied Jesus before people around a fire?  Yes and no.  It was Peter, but the new Peter not the old one.  Now Peter could have stood before those religious leaders, even with the Spirit in him and responded with his flesh.  If he had, he would have failed just like before.  The first time, Peter did not glorify God, he protected himself.  The second time, he did glorify God at the peril of prison or worse.  The difference was who he was trusting in.  (Psalm 20:6-8) “Now this I know: The Lord gives victory to his anointed. He answers him from his heavenly sanctuary with the victorious power of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They are brought to their knees and fall, but we rise up and stand firm.”

That can be you as you face life each day.  You will always be tested to trust in yourself and not God.  To respond to a situation with emotion and not devotion.  If you are wondering where the victory in Jesus is in daily living .. that may be the root of your problem.  You are trying to do what only God can do through you.  Examine your heart.  Draw close to God through the Word and prayer.  Pick up your cross daily and follow Jesus.

When You Approach God Is Your Hat In Your Hand?

My Utmost For His Highest

Clouds and darkness surround Him… —Psalm 97:2

{CHAMBERS} “A person who has not been born again by the Spirit of God will tell you that the teachings of Jesus are simple. But when he is baptized by the Holy Spirit, he finds that “clouds and darkness surround Him….” When we come into close contact with the teachings of Jesus Christ we have our first realization of this. The only possible way to have full understanding of the teachings of Jesus is through the light of the Spirit of God shining inside us. If we have never had the experience of taking our casual, religious shoes off our casual, religious feet— getting rid of all the excessive informality with which we approach God— it is questionable whether we have ever stood in His presence. The people who are flippant and disrespectful in their approach to God are those who have never been introduced to Jesus Christ. […] Jesus said, “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). […] …. the way God speaks to us; not by visions and dreams, but by words. When a man gets to God, it is by the most simple way— words.”

{ELGIN} Are you familiar with the idiom “Coming with your hat in your hand”?  It means to approach someone “In a meek or submissive manner. (The removal of one's hat is typically a gesture of respect.)”  Men used to tip their hat  or grab the brim and move it downward as a show of respect.  Standing before God with our hats in in our hands is comparable to Moses removing his sandals because He was standing on holy ground. When we come to worship, we may come just as we are, but we must be careful that we are not prideful in our attitude toward God thinking He can “take it or leave it”.  You are thinking, “I would never do that?”  Well, my fear is that many of us refuse to remove our hats when we stand before God.

Over the past 30 years, there has been a shift in how people dress on Sunday morning.  We no longer wear our “Sunday go to meetin’ clothes”, but whatever we pull out o the closet.  If a man wears a suit and tie to church people think he is going to preach.  You know that God judges the heart of man, not his outward appearance.  But very often the outward appearance is a reflection of the heart.  Don’t misunderstand me.  I don’t think Moses had a suit and tie on when God interrupted his life … he had on work clothes.  This is not about clothing.  It’s about reverence.  In times past, I am certain that many people came to church “all dolled up”, “dressed to the nines” (I love those old sayings) with sin in their heart, looking for recognition by men and not God.  What I am concerned about is that we may have lost our awareness that we have come to worship a Holy God.  When we approach Him, on any day, it must be with an awareness that the only reason we have access to God is because of Jesus and His sacrifice. (Hebrews 4:13-16) “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

The next time you pray .. read the Word of God .. attend a worship service … maybe even take your next breath … keep this in mind.  He is the potter, we are the clay.  We are saved by grace through faith and not works .. there is nothing we can take credit for.  So take off your hat!

Obeying God's Voice - Knowing Is Not A Requirement For Going

My Utmost For His Highest

He went out, not knowing where he was going. —Hebrews 11:8

{CHAMBERS} “Have you ever “gone out” in this way? If so, there is no logical answer possible when anyone asks you what you are doing. One of the most difficult questions to answer in Christian work is, “What do you expect to do?” You don’t know what you are going to do. The only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing. Continually examine your attitude toward God to see if you are willing to “go out” in every area of your life, trusting in God entirely. […] Each morning as you wake, there is a new opportunity to “go out,” building your confidence in God. “…do not worry about your life…nor about the body…” (Luke 12:22). In other words, don’t worry about the things that concerned you before you did “go out.”[…] He will never tell you. God does not tell you what He is going to do— He reveals to you who He is. […] Believe God is always the God you know Him to be when you are nearest to Him. Then think how unnecessary and disrespectful worry is! […] You must learn to “go out” through your convictions, creeds, or experiences until you come to the point in your faith where there is nothing between yourself and God.”

{ELGIN}  Before I start .. heads up …. this is a long devotion today.  There are a couple of essentials in “going”.  The first is “knowing”.  Knowing that it is God and not your own idea of what you should do or want to do.  When God sends you, He goes with you.  It’s not like leaving your parents’ home.  You leave and they stay. But … if you go off on your own to do something that requires the power of God, but you are doing it on your own … you are in trouble from the start.  You can do nothing in the flesh that will please God. To know it is God, your heart must be right with Him … your relationship must be solid … your devotion to Him consistent.  God examines the heart.  Why do you think He chose Abraham?  The second is “leaving”.  Paul wrote …. (Philippians 3:-13-14) “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”  If you are going to follow God then you must be prepared to abandon your earthly affections and trust God. 

(Hebrews 11:8-10, 13, 17-19) “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. … 13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. …. 17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.”

Both of these men were willing to put their lives, their affections, their cultural preferences behind them in favor of following God.  Jesus said if you are going to follow Him … be His disciple … your love for even your own family must be subordinate to obedience to God’s voice and His will.  I have heard many men say that their priorities are God, family, then ministry.  If I understand the Bible correctly .. ministry is doing God’s will .. it’s not a vocation … God may ask you to do something that requires not only your sacrifice, but your family’s as well.  That is a true test of higher devotion.  I do know people who think that doing comes before being.  If I immerse myself in the work of the ministry then I will be in the will of God.  That is a “works” mentality. Doing the will of God starts in the heart not in the hands.  Following God for us has meant that we have not been with our family for years at a time.  Do we trust God enough to believe that He is in control?  Even in the lives of those on this earth that we love the most?  If not, when He says go – you will say no … maybe later.

So what is it that God has been saying to you?  Nothing?  Maybe you have not been listening .. or maybe you put your fingers in your ears because you don’t want to hear.  This is my prayer for you in 2018 .. well .. the year matters not ….

(Ephesians 3:14-21)  “For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."

I Can't Get No Satisfaction - There Is No Earthly Solution

My Utmost For His Highest

…All my springs are in you. —Psalm 87:7

{CHAMBERS} “Our Lord never “patches up” our natural virtues, that is, our natural traits, qualities, or characteristics. He completely remakes a person on the inside— “…put on the new man…” (Ephesians 4:24). In other words, see that your natural human life is putting on all that is in keeping with the new life. The life God places within us develops its own new virtues, not the virtues of the seed of Adam, but of Jesus Christ. Once God has begun the process of sanctification in your life, watch and see how God causes your confidence in your own natural virtues and power to wither away. […] We want to cling to our natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us in contact with the life of Jesus Christ— a life that can never be described in terms of natural virtues. […]  …depending solely on what they have by virtue of heredity. God does not take our natural virtues and transform them[…] No natural love, no natural patience, no natural purity can ever come up to His demands. But as we bring every part of our natural bodily life into harmony with the new life God has placed within us, He will exhibit in us the virtues that were characteristic of the Lord Jesus.”

{ELGIN} I was watching a documentary of sorts on PBS the other evening.  It was about people going back to the country of their ancestors.  They wanted to recapture the culture and the religious practices of that country.  To restore what was lost.  To cling to the “seed of Adam” as if somehow that would make them right with the world and satisfy a void in their life. Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician and philosopher wrote “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus”  Along the same vein, C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” To quote a famous "poet of our time" - Mick Jagger - "I can't get no satisfaction!" 

(2 Corinthians 5:17) says that if we are “in Christ” – redeemed – save – reborn by the Spirit – we are new, the old has passed away and all things are becoming new – living the sanctified life.  Sanctified – set apart – consecrated for a holy purpose.  In their struggle to satisfy the yearning that God has put in each of us, the natural man turns to natural things … possession .. heritage … but never finds it.  That is because only God can satisfy it through Jesus Christ.  The other solutions seem reasonable … but then God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts … (1 Corinthians 1:18-25) “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”

My encouragement to you is to keep this fresh in your mind.  To have a spiritual perspective on what is going on around you.  That your natural inclination is to try to satisfy through the things of this world … but your supernatural life only finds satisfaction in Jesus.  And if it doesn’t, well – Houston we have a problem!  We are beginning a new year, perhaps it is a good time to spiritually recalibrate your heart and mind.  To shake off the old and fully embrace the new.  It requires discipline and the pursuing the things of God through His Word, prayer and worship.  That is my hope for you in 2018.   But then again, that has always been my hope.

Are You Living With The Sin Of -- It's Not So Bad?

My Utmost For His Highest

From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more. —John 6:66

{CHAMBERS} “When God, by His Spirit through His Word, gives you a clear vision of His will, you must “walk in the light” of that vision (1 John 1:7). […] Don’t look at someone else and say, “Well, if he can have those views and prosper, why can’t I?” You have to “walk in the light” of the vision that has been given to you. Don’t compare yourself with others or judge them— that is between God and them. […] “for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses” (Luke 12:15). If we don’t see and understand this, it is because we are ignoring the underlying principles of our Lord’s teaching. […] But if a New Testament standard is revealed to us by the light of God, and we don’t try to measure up, or even feel inclined to do so, then we begin to backslide. It means your conscience does not respond to the truth. […] … the unveiling of a truth. That moment marks you as one who either continues on with even more devotion as a disciple of Jesus Christ, or as one who turns to go back as a deserter.” 

ELGIN} There spiritual danger with the sin of not so bad. (James 2:10) “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.”  Have you ever heard someone say .. well that is not “so” bad, it’s only ….. you can fill in the blank.  What came to my mind was movies .. there is only one time there is profanity … there is only brief nudity.  Why do we say that? Because we want to justify our actions.  When we do, we are actually debating with the Spirit.  Trying to convince Him that we are not engaging in sin.  Unfortunately, that practice and acceptance has become so common in the American Christian culture that accepting sinful acts in the television and movies we watch is common place.  Families struggle with the effects of premarital sex … drugs .. alcohol … yet they pay money to watch it played out on the screen or television and justify it by calling it entertainment.  They argue that it’s just a movie.  Think about this.  Companies spend billions of dollars on advertising every year.  The reason is that they want to influence your thinking.  Do you really believe that they would spend all that money if it didn’t work?  Our culture “advertises” its values in the same way.  Behavior that you personally detest, you submit to in your mind by being a willing voyer. And worse, you allow your children to do the same.

When you compare the natural life with the Word of God, the differences are glaring.  It’s just that we refuse to look.  And if we do, even though the Spirit in us says “No”, our flesh says “yes”, and our mind says “It’s not so bad!”  There are many other examples, other than the visual media.  All of it is temptation.  (1 John 2:15- 17) “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.”

Some of the most popular television shows are about crime and crime fighters.  Good overcoming evil.  That is not so bad is it?  But with the good we must accommodate sex, violence, profanity, illicit relationships …. Many things that are contrary to who we are as Christians and we would, hopefully, not participate in…. Well .. I think I will let you debate whether that applies to you with the Holy Spirit.  The bottom line .. we need to apply the same rigor in what we do and watch  as we do in our judging what other people do and don’t do. (Matthew 7:3-5) “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”  It's a lot easier to see these issues in other peoples' lives.  But, are you guilty of compromise?  Have your taught your children to do the same? Those who have ears let them hear .. those who have eyes, let them see.