My Utmost for His Highest for Wednesday, 20 September 2017 "The Divine Rule Of Life" by Oswald Chambers
…be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)
…be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)
Our Lord’s exhortation to us in Matthew 5:38-48 is to be generous in our behavior toward everyone. Beware of living according to your natural affections in your spiritual life. Everyone has natural affections— some people we like and others we don’t like. Yet we must never let those likes and dislikes rule our Christian life. “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:7), even those toward whom we have no affection.
The example our Lord gave us here is not that of a good person, or even of a good Christian, but of God Himself. “…be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” In other words, simply show to the other person what God has shown to you. And God will give you plenty of real life opportunities to prove whether or not you are “perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Being a disciple means deliberately identifying yourself with God’s interests in other people. Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).
The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not just good human characteristics. God’s life in us expresses itself as God’s life, not as human life trying to be godly. The secret of a Christian’s life is that the supernatural becomes natural in him as a result of the grace of God, and the experience of this becomes evident in the practical, everyday details of life, not in times of intimate fellowship with God. And when we come in contact with things that create confusion and a flurry of activity, we find to our own amazement that we have the power to stay wonderfully poised even in the center of it all.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
"Re-state to yourself what you believe, then do away with as much of it as possible, and get back to the bedrock of the Cross of Christ." (My Utmost for His Highest, November 25, 848 R)
Bible in One Year: Ecclesiastes 4-6; 2 Corinthians 12
Ecclesiastes 4:1 But I turned away and thought about all the kinds of oppression being done under the sun.
I saw the tears of the oppressed,
and they had no one to comfort them.
The power was on the side of their oppressors,
and they had no one to comfort them.
2 So I considered the dead happier, because they were already dead, than the living, who must still live their lives; 3 but happier than either of them is the one who has not yet been born, because he has not yet seen the evil things that are done under the sun.
4 Next I realized that all effort and achievement stem from one person’s envy of another. This too is futility and feeding on wind.
5 Fools fold their arms together
and eat their own flesh away.
6 Better an armload with tranquillity
than both arms full of effort and feeding on wind.
7 Then I turned my attention to something else under the sun that is pointless: 8 the situation in which a solitary individual without a companion, with neither son nor brother, keeps on working endlessly but never has enough wealth. “For whom” [he should ask], “am I working so hard and denying myself pleasure?” This too is truly pointless, a sorry business.
9 Two are better than one, in that their cooperative efforts yield this advantage: 10 if one of them falls, the other will help his partner up — woe to him who is alone when he falls and has no one to help him up. 11 Again, if two people sleep together, they keep each other warm; but how can one person be warm by himself? 12 Moreover, an attacker may defeat someone who is alone, but two can resist him; and a three-stranded cord is not easily broken.
13 Better a youth who is poor but wise
than a king who is old but foolish,
no longer willing to listen to advice.
14 True, he rose from prison to be king;
yet, while ruling, he became poor.
15 I observed that all who live and walk under the sun took the side of the youth mentioned first who would rule in place of the king, 16 and that no limit was set for the number of his subjects. Nevertheless, those who come afterwards will not regard him highly. This too is certainly pointless and feeding on wind.
17 (5:1) Watch your step when you go to the house of God. Offering to listen is better than fools offering sacrifices, because they don’t discern whether or not they are doing evil.
5:1 (2) Don’t speak impulsively — don’t be in a hurry
to give voice to your words before God.
For God is in heaven, and you are on earth;
so let your words be few.
2 (3) For nightmares come from worrying too much;
and a fool, when he speaks, chatters too much.
3 (4) If you make a vow to God, don’t delay in discharging it. For God takes no pleasure in fools, so discharge your vow! 4 (5) Better not to make a vow than to make a vow and not discharge it. 5 (6) Don’t let your words make you guilty, and don’t tell the temple official that you made the vow by mistake. Why give God reason to be angry at what you say and destroy what you have accomplished? 6 (7) For [this is what happens when there are too] many dreams, aimless activities and words. Instead, just fear God!
7 (8) If you see the poor oppressed, rights violated and justice perverted in the province, don’t be surprised; for a high official has one higher watching him, and there are others above them. 8 (9) But the greatest advantage to the country is when the king makes himself a servant to the land.
9 (10) The lover of money never has enough money;
the lover of luxury never has enough income.
This too is pointless.
10 (11) When the quantity of goods increases,
so does the number of parasites consuming them;
so the only advantage to the owner is
that he gets to watch them do it.
11 (12) The sleep of a working man is sweet,
whether he eats little or much;
but the overfullness of the rich
won’t let them sleep at all.
12 (13) Here is a gross evil which I have seen under the sun: the owner of wealth hoards it to his own hurt.
13 (14) Due to some misfortune,
the wealth turns to loss;
and then if he has fathered a son,
he has nothing to leave him.
14 (15) Just as he came from his mother’s womb,
so he will go back naked as he came,
and for his efforts he will take nothing
that he can carry away in his hand.
15 (16) This too is a gross evil, that in every respect as he came, so will he go; thus what profit does he have after toiling to earn the wind? 16 (17) All his life he eats in darkness, in frustration, in sickness and in anger.
17 (18) This is what I have seen to be good: that it is appropriate for a person to eat, drink and enjoy the good that results from all his work that he engages in under the sun for all the days of his life that God has given him, for this is his allotted portion. 18 (19) Also, everyone to whom God has given riches and wealth, along with the power to enjoy it, so that he takes his allotted portion and finds pleasure in his work — this is a gift of God; 19 (20) for he will not brood over the fact that his life is short, since God keeps him occupied with what will bring him joy.
6:1 I have seen another evil under the sun, and it weighs heavily on people: 2 the case in which God gives someone riches, wealth and honor, so that he lacks nothing that he wants; but God does not give him the power to enjoy them, and some stranger gets to enjoy them — this is meaningless, evil, sick.
3 Suppose a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, so that he has a long life, but he fails to enjoy himself; then, even if he were to [live indefinitely and therefore] never be buried, I say that it would be better to be born dead. 4 For the arrival of a stillborn baby is a futile thing, and its departure is in darkness; its name is [forgotten,] covered in darkness; 5 and although it has never seen or known the sun, it is more content than he is, 6 without enjoying himself, even if he were to live a thousand years twice over. Doesn’t everyone go to the same place?
7 The purpose of all toil is to fill the mouth,
yet the appetite is never satisfied.
8 What advantage has the wise over the fool,
or the person with experience, if he is poor?
9 Better what the eyes can see
than meandering desire.
Yet this too is pointless
and feeding on wind.
10 Whatever he is, he was named long ago,
and it is known that he is merely human;
moreover, he cannot defeat
what is mightier than he [death].
11 There are many things that only add to futility,
so how do humans benefit from them?
12 For who knows what is good for someone during life,
during the days of his pointless life spent like a shadow?
Who can tell what will happen under the sun
after a person is gone?
2 Corinthians 12:1 I have to boast. There is nothing to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. 2 I know a man in union with the Messiah who fourteen years ago was snatched up to the third heaven; whether he was in the body or outside the body I don’t know, God knows. 3 And I know that such a man — whether in the body or apart from the body I don’t know, God knows — 4 was snatched into Gan-‘Eden and heard things that cannot be put into words, things unlawful for a human being to utter. 5 About such a man I will boast; but about myself I will not boast, except in regard to my weaknesses. 6 If I did want to boast, I would not be foolish; because I would be speaking the truth. But, because of the extraordinary greatness of the revelations, I refrain, so that no one will think more of me than what my words or deeds may warrant. 7 Therefore, to keep me from becoming overly proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from the Adversary to pound away at me, so that I wouldn’t grow conceited. 8 Three times I begged the Lord to take this thing away from me; 9 but he told me, “My grace is enough for you, for my power is brought to perfection in weakness.” Therefore, I am very happy to boast about my weaknesses, in order that the Messiah’s power will rest upon me. 10 Yes, I am well pleased with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and difficulties endured on behalf of the Messiah; for it is when I am weak that I am strong.
11 I have behaved like a fool, but you forced me to do it — you who should have been commending me. For I am in no way inferior to the “super-emissaries,” even if I am nothing. 12 The things that prove I am an emissary — signs, wonders and miracles — were done in your presence, despite what I had to endure. 13 Is there any way in which you have been behind any of the other congregations, other than in my not having been a burden to you? For this unfairness, please forgive me!
14 Look, I am ready this third time to come and visit you; and I will not be a burden to you; for it is not what you own that I want, but you! Children are not supposed to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. 15 And as for me, I will most gladly spend everything I have and be spent myself too for your sakes. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?
16 Let it be granted, then, that I was not a burden to you; but, crafty fellow that I am, I took you with trickery! 17 Was it perhaps through someone I sent you 18 that I took advantage of you? I urged Titus to go and sent the brother with him; Titus didn’t take advantage of you, did he? Didn’t we live by the same Spirit and show you the same path?
19 Perhaps you think that all this time we have been defending ourselves before you. No, we have been speaking in the sight of God, as those united with the Messiah should; and, my dear friends, it is all for your upbuilding. 20 For I am afraid of coming and finding you not the way I want you to be, and also of not being found the way you want me to be. I am afraid of finding quarreling and jealousy, anger and rivalry, slander and gossip, arrogance and disorder. 21 I am afraid that when I come again, my God may humiliate me in your presence, and that I will be grieved over many of those who sinned in the past and have not repented of the impurity, fornication and debauchery that they have engaged in.
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