My Utmost for His Highest Daily Devotional for Wednesday 20 December 2017 "The Right Lines Of Work" by Oswald Chambers
I, if I be lifted up…will draw all men unto Me. (JOHN 12:32)
Very few of us have any understanding of the reason why Jesus Christ died. If sympathy is all that human beings need, then the Cross of Christ is a farce, there was no need for it. What the world needs is not “a little bit of love,” but a surgical operation.When you are face to face with a soul in difficulty spiritually, remind yourself of Jesus Christ on the Cross. If that soul can get to God on any other line, then the Cross of Jesus Christ is unnecessary. If you can help others by your sympathy or understanding, you are a traitor to Jesus Christ. You have to keep your soul rightly related to God and pour out for others on His line, not pour out on the human line and ignore God. The great note to-day is amiable religiosity.
The one thing we have to do is to exhibit Jesus Christ crucified, to lift Him up all the time. Every doctrine that is not imbedded in the Cross of Jesus will lead astray. If the worker himself believes in Jesus Christ and is banking on the Reality of Redemption, the people he talks to must be concerned. The thing that remains and deepens is the worker’s simple relationship to Jesus Christ; his usefulness to God depends on that and that alone.
The calling of a New Testament worker is to uncover sin and to reveal Jesus Christ as Saviour, consequently he cannot be poetical, he must be sternly surgical. We are sent by God to lift up Jesus Christ, not to give wonderfully beautiful discourses. We have to probe straight down as deeply as God has probed us, to be keen in sensing the Scriptures which bring the truth straight home and to apply them fearlessly. (From My Utmost for His Highest Classic Edition)
Bible in One Year: Micah 1-3; Revelation 11
Micah 1:1 This is the word of Adonai that came to Mikhah the Morashti during the days of Yotam, Achaz and Y’chizkiyah, kings of Y’hudah, which he saw concerning Shomron and Yerushalayim:
2 Listen, peoples, all of you!
Pay attention, earth, and everything in it!
Adonai Elohim will witness against you,
Adonai, from his holy temple.
3 For — look! — Adonai is coming out of his place,
coming down to tread on the high places of the land.
4 Beneath him the mountains will melt,
the valleys split open like wax before fire,
like water poured down a steep slope.
5 All this is because of the crime of Ya‘akov
and the sins of the house of Isra’el.
What is the crime of Ya‘akov?
Isn’t it Shomron?
And what are the high places of Y’hudah?
Aren’t they Yerushalayim?
6 “So I will make Shomron a heap in the countryside,
a place for planting vineyards;
I will pour her stones down into the valley,
laying bare her foundations.
7 All her carved images will be smashed to pieces,
all she earned consumed by fire;
and I will reduce her idols to rubble.
She amassed them from a whore’s wages,
and as a whore’s wages they will be spent again.”
8 This is why I howl and wail,
why I go barefoot and stripped,
why I howl like the jackals
and mourn like the ostriches.
9 For her wound cannot be healed,
and now it is coming to Y’hudah as well;
it reaches even to the gate of my people,
to Yerushalayim itself.
10 Don’t tell about it in Gat,
don’t shed any tears.
At Beit-L‘afrah [house of dust]
roll yourself in the dust.
11 Inhabitants of Shafir, pass on your way
in nakedness and shame.
The inhabitants of Tza’anan
have not left yet.
The wailing of Beit-Ha’etzel
will remove from you their support.
12 The inhabitants of Marot
have no hope of anything good;
for Adonai has sent down disaster
to the very gate of Yerushalayim.
13 Harness the chariots to the fastest horses,
inhabitants of Lakhish;
she was the beginning of sin
for the daughter of Tziyon;
for the crimes of Isra’el
are traceable to you.
14 Therefore you must bestow parting gifts
upon Moreshet-Gat.
The houses of Akhziv will disappoint
the kings of Isra’el.
15 Inhabitants of Mareshah,
I have yet to bring you
the one who will [invade and] possess you.
The glory of Isra’el will come to ‘Adulam.
16 Shave the hair from your head as you mourn
for the children who were your delight;
make yourselves as bald as vultures,
for they have gone from you into exile.
2:1 Woe to those who think up evil
and plan wickedness as they lie in bed.
When morning comes, they do it,
since they have it in their power.
2 They covet fields and seize them;
they take over houses as well,
doing violence to both owner and house,
to people and their inherited land.
3 Therefore this is what Adonai says:
“Against this family I am planning an evil
from which you will not withdraw your necks;
nor will you walk with your heads held high,
for it will be an evil time.”
4 On that day they will take up a dirge for you;
sadly lamenting, they will wail,
“We are completely ruined!
Our people’s land has changed hands.
Our fields are taken away from us;
instead of restoring them, he parcels them out.”
5 Therefore, you will have no one
in the assembly of Adonai
to stretch out a measuring line and restore
the land assigned by lot.
6 “Don’t preach!” — thus they preach!
“They shouldn’t preach about these things.
Shame will not overtake us” —
7 is this what the house of Ya‘akov says?
Adonai has not grown impatient,
and these things are not his doings.
“Rather, my words do only good
to anyone living uprightly.
8 But lately my people behave like an enemy,
stripping both cloaks and tunics
from travelers who thought they were secure,
so that they become like war refugees.
9 You throw my people’s women
out of the homes they love.
You deprive their children
of my glory forever.
10 Get up and go! You can’t stay here!
Because [the land] is now unclean,
it will destroy you
with a grievous destruction.”
11 If a man who walks in wind and falsehood
tells this lie: “I will preach to you
of [how good it is to drink] wine and strong liquor” —
this people will accept him as their preacher!
12 “I will assemble all of you, Ya‘akov;
I will gather the remnant of Isra’el,
I will put them together like sheep in a pen,
like a herd in its pasture —
it will hum with the sounds of people.”
13 The one breaking through went up before them;
they broke through, passed the gate and went out.
Their king passed on before them;
Adonai was leading them.
3:1 “I said, ‘Please listen, leaders of Ya‘akov,
rulers of the house of Isra’el:
Shouldn’t you know what justice is?
2 Yet you hate what is good and love what is bad.
You strip off their skin from them
and their flesh from their bones,
3 you eat the flesh of my people,
skin them alive, break their bones;
yes, they chop them in pieces,
like flesh in a caldron, like meat in a pot.’”
4 Then they will call to Adonai,
but he will not answer them;
when that time comes, he will hide his face from them,
because their deeds were so wicked.
5 Here is what Adonai says in regard to the prophets who cause my people to go astray, who cry, “Peace” as soon as they are given food to eat but prepare war against anyone who fails to put something in their mouths:
6 “Therefore you will have night, not vision,
darkness and not divination;
the sun will go down on the prophets,
over them the day will be black.”
7 The seers will be put to shame,
the diviners will be disgraced.
They will have to cover their mouths,
because there will be no answer from God.
8 On the other hand, I am full of power
by the Spirit of Adonai,
full of justice and full of might,
to declare to Ya‘akov his crime,
to Isra’el his sin.
9 Hear this, please, leaders of the house of Ya‘akov,
rulers of the house of Isra’el,
you who abhor what is just
and pervert anything that is right,
10 who build up Tziyon with blood
and Yerushalayim with wickedness.
11 Her leaders sell verdicts for bribes,
her cohanim teach for a price,
her prophets divine for money —
yet they claim to rely on Adonai!
“Isn’t Adonai here with us?” they say.
“No evil can come upon us.”
12 Therefore, because of you,
Tziyon will be plowed under like a field,
Yerushalayim will become heaps of ruins,
and the mountain of the house like a forested height.
Revelation 11:1 I was given a measuring rod like a stick and told, “Get up, and measure the Temple of God and the altar, and count how many people are worshipping there! 2 But the court outside the Temple, leave that out; don’t measure it; because it has been given to the Goyim, and they will trample over the holy city for forty-two months.
3 “Also I will give power to my two witnesses; and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, dressed in sackcloth.” 4 These are the two olive trees and the two menorahs standing before the Lord of the earth. 5 If anyone tries to do them harm, fire comes out of their mouth and consumes their enemies — yes, if anyone tries to harm them, that is how he must die. 6 They have the authority to shut up the sky, so that no rain falls during the period of their prophesying; also they have the authority to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want.
7 When they finish their witnessing, the beast coming up out of the Abyss will fight against them, overcome them and kill them; 8 and their dead bodies will lie in the main street of the great city whose name, to reflect its spiritual condition, is “S’dom” and “Egypt” — the city where their Lord was executed on a stake. 9 Some from the nations, tribes, languages and peoples see their bodies for three-and-a-half days and do not permit the corpses to be placed in a tomb. 10 The people living in the Land rejoice over them, they celebrate and send each other gifts, because these two prophets tormented them so.
11 But after the three-and-a-half days a breath of life from God entered them, they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. 12 Then the two heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up into heaven in a cloud, while their enemies watched them. 13 In that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were awestruck and gave glory to the God of heaven.
14 The second woe has passed; see, the third woe is coming quickly
15 The seventh angel sounded his shofar; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying,
“The kingdom of the world
has become the Kingdom
of our Lord and his Messiah,
and he will rule forever and ever!”
16 The twenty-four elders sitting on their thrones in God’s presence fell on their faces and worshipped God, 17 saying,
“We thank you, Adonai,
God of heaven’s armies,[Revelation 11:17 Amos 3:13; 4:13]
the One who is and was,
that you have taken your power
and have begun to rule.
18 “The Goyim raged.[Revelation 11:18 Psalm 2:1]
But now your rage has come,
the time for the dead to be judged,
the time for rewarding your servants the prophets
and your holy people,
those who stand in awe of your name,
both small and great.
It is also the time for destroying
those who destroy the earth.”
19 Then the Temple of God in heaven was opened, and the Ark of the Covenant was seen in his Temple; and there were flashes of lightning, voices, peals of thunder, an earthquake and violent hail.
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WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Jesus Christ reveals, not an embarrassed God, not a confused God, not a God who stands apart from the problems, but One who stands in the thick of the whole thing with man. (from Disciples Indeed, 388 L)
---Jesus Christ reveals, not an embarrassed God, not a confused God, not a God who stands apart from the problems, but One who stands in the thick of the whole thing with man. (from Disciples Indeed, 388 L)
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