"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose imagination is stayed on Thee." Isaiah 26:3 (R. V. marg.) Is your imagination stayed on God or is it starved? The starvation of the imagination is one of the most fruitful sources of exhaustion and sapping in a worker's life. If you have never used your imagination to put yourself before God, begin to do it now. It is no use waiting for God to come; you must put your imagination away from the face of idols and look unto Him and be saved. Imagination is the greatest gift God has given us and it ought to be devoted entirely to Him. If you have been bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, it will be one of the greatest assets to faith when the time of trial comes, because your faith and the Spirit of God will work together. Learn to associate ideas worthy of God with all that happens in Nature - the sunrises and the sunsets, the sun and the stars, the changing seasons, and your imagination will never be at the mercy of your impulses, but will always be at the service of God. "We have sinned with our fathers; . . . and have forgotten" - then put a stiletto in the place where you have gone to sleep. "God is not talking to me just now," but He ought to be. Remember Whose you are and Whom you serve. Provoke yourself by recollection, and your affection for God will increase tenfold; your imagination will not be starved any longer, but will be quick and enthusiastic, and your hope will be inexpressibly bright. Lord Jesus, show me how to do this. Help me remember. | ||
When we pray to be sanctified, are we prepared to face the standard of these verses? We take the term sanctification much too lightly. Are we prepared for what sanctification will cost? It will cost an intense narrowing of all our interests on earth, and an immense broadening of all our interests in God. Sanctification means intense concentration on God's point of view. It means every power of body, soul and spirit chained and kept for God's purpose only. Are we prepared for God to do in us all that He separated us for? And then after His work is done in us, are we prepared to separate ourselves to God even as Jesus did? "For their sakes I sanctify Myself." The reason some of us have not entered into the experience of sanctification is that we have not realized the meaning of sanctification from God's standpoint. Sanctification means being made one with Jesus so that the disposition that ruled Him will rule us. Are we prepared for what that will cost? It will cost everything that is not of God in us.
Are we prepared to be caught up into the swing of this prayer of the apostle Paul's? Are we prepared to say - "Lord, make me as holy as You can make a sinner saved by grace"? Jesus has prayed that we might be one with Him as He is one with the Father. The one and only characteristic of the Holy Ghost in a man is a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ, and freedom from everything that is unlike Him. Are we prepared to set ourselves apart for the Holy Spirit's ministrations in us?
Isn't this always the bottom line? No to our flesh, to our personal preferences, our fleshly desires; it matters not whether they are legitimate needs or godly passions...but if they are ours, and not in His plan for our lives they are made void when it comes to us responding to His personal call on our lives. We must daily submit to His plan, His call, His purpose for our today, and every day thereafter. There is no wiggling or whining out of His way. The day and the plan he sets before us should not merely be our first choice after much debate but our only choice after no debate. We can waffle around and pretend we do not know what it is He wants from us this day...but it is usually the thing He has set right in front of us, the very thing we seek refuge from. But alas, there will be no peace in our lives, not right to our upside down ways until we submit and give our total will to Him. It begins in our small daily choices to choose, kindness over apathy; to choose obedience over excuses; a willingness to be nothing when we long for recognition and appreciation. Jesus never once asked for any of those; only to serve the Father and to feed his sheep. Find the sheep God has placed in your life, and give your life to them; never looking back.
September 14th. | ||
"The simplicity that is in Christ." 2 Corinthians 11:3 Simplicity is the secret of seeing things clearly. A saint does not think clearly for a long while, but a saint ought to see clearly without any difficulty. You cannot think a spiritual muddle clear, you have to obey it clear. In intellectual matters you can think things out, but in spiritual matters you will think yourself into cotton wool. If there is something upon which God has put His pressure, obey in that matter, bring your imagination into captivity to the obedience of Christ with regard to it and everything will become as clear as daylight. The reasoning capacity comes afterwards, but we never see along that line, we see like children; when we try to be wise we see nothing (Matthew 11:25). The tiniest thing we allow in our lives that is not under the control of the Holy Spirit is quite sufficient to account for spiritual muddle, and all the thinking we like to spend on it will never make it clear. Spiritual muddle is only made plain by obedience. Immediately we obey, we discern. This is humiliating, because when we are muddled we know the reason is in the temper of our mind. When the natural power of vision is devoted to the Holy Spirit, it becomes the power of perceiving God's will and the whole life is kept in simplicity. | ||
but by the grace of God I can be BETTER than I ever was.... I have learned much of late. I can be worse than I ever was or by the grace of God continue on in the sanctification walk becoming more like Christ; saying no to the cries of the flesh and yes to self sacrifice and obedience, never mistaking the Christian life for an easy, happy, fun, lifestyle choice.