for Wednesday, 10 October 2018 "Whereby Shall I Know?"
"Whereby Shall I Know?"
I thank Thee, O Father,…because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. (MATTHEW 11:25)In spiritual relationship we do not grow step by step, we are either there or we are not. God does not cleanse us more and more from sin, but when we are in the light, walking in the light, we are cleansed from all sin. It is a question of obedience, and instantly the relationship is perfected. Turn away for one second out of obedience, and darkness and death are at work at once.All God’s revelations are sealed until they are opened to us by obedience. You will never get them open by philosophy or thinking. Immediately you obey, a flash of light comes. Let God’s truth work in you by soaking in it, not by worrying into it. The only way you can get to know is to stop trying to find out and by being born again. Obey God in the thing He shows you, and instantly the next thing is opened up. We read tomes on the work of the Holy Spirit, when one five minutes of drastic obedience would make things as clear as a sunbeam. “I suppose I shall understand these things some day!” You can understand them now. It is not study that does it, but obedience. The tiniest fragment of obedience, and heaven opens and the profoundest truths of God are yours straight away. God will never reveal more truth about Himself until you have obeyed what you know already. Beware of becoming “wise and prudent.” (From My Utmost for His Highest Classic Edition)
***
Wednesday, 10 October 2018 Daily Devotional from My Utmost for His Highest "How Will I Know?"
"How Will I Know?"
Jesus answered and said, "I thank You, Father…that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes." (MATTHEW 11:25)We do not grow into a spiritual relationship step by step— we either have a relationship or we do not. God does not continue to cleanse us more and more from sin— “But if we walk in the light,” we are cleansed “from all sin” (1 John 1:7). It is a matter of obedience, and once we obey, the relationship is instantly perfected. But if we turn away from obedience for even one second, darkness and death are immediately at work again.
All of God’s revealed truths are sealed until they are opened to us through obedience. You will never open them through philosophy or thinking. But once you obey, a flash of light comes immediately. Let God’s truth work into you by immersing yourself in it, not by worrying into it. The only way you can get to know the truth of God is to stop trying to find out and by being born again. If you obey God in the first thing He shows you, then He instantly opens up the next truth to you. You could read volumes on the work of the Holy Spirit, when five minutes of total, uncompromising obedience would make things as clear as sunlight. Don’t say, “I suppose I will understand these things someday!” You can understand them now. And it is not study that brings understanding to you, but obedience. Even the smallest bit of obedience opens heaven, and the deepest truths of God immediately become yours. Yet God will never reveal more truth about Himself to you, until you have obeyed what you know already. Beware of becoming one of the “wise and prudent.” “If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know…” (John 7:17). (From My Utmost for His Highest Updated Edition)
Bible in One Year: Isaiah 34-36; Colossians 2
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The great word of Jesus to His disciples is Abandon. When God has brought us into the relationship of disciples, we have to venture on His word; trust entirely to Him and watch that when He brings us to the venture, we take it. (from Studies in the Sermon on the Mount)***
Bible in One Year: Isaiah 34-36; Colossians 2
Isaiah 34:1 Come close, you nations, and listen!
Pay close attention, you peoples!
Let the earth hear, and everything in it;
the world, with all it produces.
2 For Adonai is angry at every nation,
furious with all their armies;
he has completely destroyed them,
handed them over to slaughter.
3 Their slain will be thrown out,
the stench will rise from their corpses,
the mountains will flow with their blood.
4 The whole host of heaven will decompose,
the heavens themselves be rolled up like a scroll;
all their array will wither away
like a withering grape-leaf that falls from a vine
or a withered fig from a fig tree.
5 “For my sword has drunk its fill in heaven;
now it descends on Edom to judge them,
the people I have doomed to destruction.”
6 There is a sword that belongs to Adonai.
It is filled with blood, gorged with fat,
filled with the blood of lambs and goats,
gorged with the fat of the kidneys of rams.
For Adonai has a sacrifice in Botzrah,
a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7 The wild oxen will fall with them,
the young bulls with the strong, mature ones.
Their land will be drunk with blood
and their dust made greasy with fat.
8 For Adonai has a day of vengeance,
a year of requital for fighting with Tziyon.
9 Its streams will be changed to tar,
its dust to sulfur, its land burning tar
10 that will not be quenched night or day;
its smoke will rise forever.
In all generations it will lie waste;
no one will pass through it ever again.
11 Horned owl and hawk will possess it,
screech owl and raven will live there;
he will stretch over it the measuring line of confusion
and the plumbline of the empty void.
12 Of its nobles, none will be called to be king,
and all its princes will be nothing.
13 Thorns will overgrow its palaces,
nettles and thistles its fortresses;
it will become a lair for jackals,
an enclosure for ostriches.
14 Wildcats and hyenas will meet there;
and billy-goats call to each other;
Lilit [the night monster] will lurk there
and find herself a place to rest.
15 There the hoot owl will nest, lay her eggs,
hatch and gather her young in its shade.
There the vultures will assemble,
every one with its mate.
16 Consult the book of Adonai and read it:
not one of these will be missing,
none will be lacking a mate.
For by his own mouth he gave the order,
and by his Spirit he brought them together.
17 It is he who cast the lot for them,
his hand measured out their shares.
They will possess it forever,
and live there through all generations.
35:1 The desert and the dry land will be glad;
the ‘Aravah will rejoice and blossom like the lily.
2 It will burst into flower,
will rejoice with joy and singing,
will be given the glory of the L’vanon,
the splendor of Karmel and the Sharon.
They will see the glory of Adonai,
the splendor of our God.
3 Strengthen your drooping arms,
and steady your tottering knees.
4 Say to the fainthearted, “Be strong and unafraid!
Here is your God; he will come with vengeance;
with God’s retribution he will come and save you.”
5 Then the eyes of the blind will be opened,
and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped;
6 then the lame man will leap like a deer,
and the mute person’s tongue will sing.
For in the desert, springs will burst forth,
streams of water in the ‘Aravah;
7 the sandy mirage will become a pool,
the thirsty ground springs of water.
The haunts where jackals lie down will become
a marsh filled with reeds and papyrus.
8 A highway will be there, a way,
called the Way of Holiness.
The unclean will not pass over it,
but it will be for those whom he guides —
fools will not stray along it.
9 No lion or other beast of prey
will be there, traveling on it.
They will not be found there,
but the redeemed will go there.
10 Those ransomed by Adonai will return
and come with singing to Tziyon,
on their heads will be everlasting joy.
They will acquire gladness and joy,
while sorrow and sighing will flee.
36:1 It was in the fourteenth year of King Hizkiyahu that Sancheriv king of Ashur advanced against all the fortified cities of Y’hudah and captured them. 2 From Lakhish the king of Ashur sent Rav-Shakeh to Hizkiyahu in Yerushalayim with a large army. He positioned himself by the aqueduct from the Upper Pool, which is by the road to the Launderers’ Field. 3 Elyakim the son of Hilkiyahu, who was in charge of the household, Shevnah the general secretary and Yo’ach the son of Asaf the foreign minister went out to meet him.
4 Rav-Shakeh addressed them: “Tell Hizkiyahu: ‘Here is what the great king, the king of Ashur, says: “What makes you so confident? 5 I say: do mere words constitute strategy and strength for battle? In whom, then, are you trusting when you rebel against me like this? 6 Look! Relying on Egypt is like using a broken stick as a staff — when you lean on it, it punctures your hand. That’s what Pharaoh king of Egypt is like for anyone who puts his trust in him. 7 But if you tell me, ‘We trust in Adonai our God,’ then isn’t he the one whose high places and altars Hizkiyahu has removed, telling Y’hudah and Yerushalayim, ‘You must worship before this altar’? 8 All right, then, make a wager with my lord the king of Ashur: I will give you two thousand horses if you can find enough riders for them. 9 How then can you repulse even one of my master’s lowest-ranked army officers? Yet you are relying on Egypt for chariots and riders! 10 Do you think I have come up to this land to destroy it without Adonai’s approval? Adonai said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it!’ ” ’ ”
11 Elyakim, Shevnah and Yo’ach said to Rav-Shakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it; don’t speak to us in Hebrew while the people on the wall are listening.” 12 But Rav-Shakeh answered, “Did my master send me to deliver my message just to your master and yourselves? Didn’t he send me to address the men sitting on the wall, who, like you, are going to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?” 13 Then Rav-Shakeh stood up and, speaking loudly in Hebrew, said: “Hear what the great king, the king of Ashur, says! 14 This is what the king says: ‘Don’t let Hizkiyahu deceive you, because he won’t be able to save you. 15 And don’t let Hizkiyahu make you trust in Adonaiby saying, “Adonai will surely save us; this city will not be given over to the king of Ashur.” 16 Don’t listen to Hizkiyahu.’ For this is what the king says: ‘Make peace with me, surrender to me. Then every one of you can eat from his vine and fig tree and drink the water in his own cistern, 17 until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land with grain and wine, a land with bread and vineyards. 18 Beware of Hizkiyahu; he is only deluding you when he says, “Adonai will save us.” Has any god of any nation ever saved his land from the power of the king of Ashur? 19 Where are the gods of Hamat and Arpad? Where are the gods of S’farvayim? Did they save Shomron from my power? 20 Where is the god of any of these countries that has saved its country from my power, so that Adonai might be able to save Yerushalayim from my power?’” 21 But they kept still and didn’t answer him so much as a word, for the king’s order was, “Don’t answer him.”
22 Then Elyakim the son of Hilkiyahu, who was in charge of the household, Shevnah the general secretary and Yo’ach the son of Asaf the foreign minister went to Hizkiyahu with their clothes torn and reported to him what Rav-Shakeh had said.; Colossians 2:1 For I want you to know how hard I work for you, for those in Laodicea, and for the rest of those who have not met me personally. 2 My purpose is that they may be encouraged, that they may be joined together in love, and that they may have all the riches derived from being assured of understanding and fully knowing God’s secret truth, which is — the Messiah! 3 It is in him that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.
4 I say this so that no one will fool you with plausible but specious arguments. 5 For although I am away from you physically, I am with you in spirit, rejoicing as I see the disciplined and resolute firmness of your trust in the Messiah. 6 Therefore, just as you received the Messiah Yeshua as Lord, keep living your life united with him. 7 Remain deeply rooted in him; continue being built up in him and confirmed in your trust, the way you were taught, so that you overflow in thanksgiving.
8 Watch out, so that no one will take you captive by means of philosophy and empty deceit, following human tradition which accords with the elemental spirits of the world but does not accord with the Messiah. 9 For in him, bodily, lives the fullness of all that God is. 10 And it is in union with him that you have been made full — he is the head of every rule and authority.
11 Also it was in union with him that you were circumcised with a circumcision not done by human hands, but accomplished by stripping away the old nature’s control over the body. In this circumcision done by the Messiah, 12 you were buried along with him by being immersed; and in union with him, you were also raised up along with him by God’s faithfulness that worked when he raised Yeshua from the dead. 13 You were dead because of your sins, that is, because of your “foreskin,” your old nature. But God made you alive along with the Messiah by forgiving you all your sins. 14 He wiped away the bill of charges against us. Because of the regulations, it stood as a testimony against us; but he removed it by nailing it to the execution-stake. 15 Stripping the rulers and authorities of their power, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by means of the stake.
16 So don’t let anyone pass judgment on you in connection with eating and drinking, or in regard to a Jewish festival or Rosh-Hodesh or Shabbat. 17 These are a shadow of things that are coming, but the body is of the Messiah.
18 Don’t let anyone deny you the prize by insisting that you engage in self-mortification or angel-worship. Such people are always going on about some vision they have had, and they vainly puff themselves up by their worldly outlook. 19 They fail to hold to the Head, from whom the whole Body, receiving supply and being held together by its joints and ligaments, grows as God makes it grow. 20 If, along with the Messiah, you died to the elemental spirits of the world, then why, as if you still belonged to the world, are you letting yourselves be bothered by its rules? — 21 “Don’t touch this!” “Don’t eat that!” “Don’t handle the other!” 22 Such prohibitions are concerned with things meant to perish by being used [not by being avoided!], and they are based on man-made rules and teachings.[Colossians 2:22 Isaiah 29:13] 23 They do indeed have the outward appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed religious observances, false humility and asceticism; but they have no value at all in restraining people from indulging their old nature. (Complete Jewish Bible).
Pay close attention, you peoples!
Let the earth hear, and everything in it;
the world, with all it produces.
2 For Adonai is angry at every nation,
furious with all their armies;
he has completely destroyed them,
handed them over to slaughter.
3 Their slain will be thrown out,
the stench will rise from their corpses,
the mountains will flow with their blood.
4 The whole host of heaven will decompose,
the heavens themselves be rolled up like a scroll;
all their array will wither away
like a withering grape-leaf that falls from a vine
or a withered fig from a fig tree.
5 “For my sword has drunk its fill in heaven;
now it descends on Edom to judge them,
the people I have doomed to destruction.”
6 There is a sword that belongs to Adonai.
It is filled with blood, gorged with fat,
filled with the blood of lambs and goats,
gorged with the fat of the kidneys of rams.
For Adonai has a sacrifice in Botzrah,
a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7 The wild oxen will fall with them,
the young bulls with the strong, mature ones.
Their land will be drunk with blood
and their dust made greasy with fat.
8 For Adonai has a day of vengeance,
a year of requital for fighting with Tziyon.
9 Its streams will be changed to tar,
its dust to sulfur, its land burning tar
10 that will not be quenched night or day;
its smoke will rise forever.
In all generations it will lie waste;
no one will pass through it ever again.
11 Horned owl and hawk will possess it,
screech owl and raven will live there;
he will stretch over it the measuring line of confusion
and the plumbline of the empty void.
12 Of its nobles, none will be called to be king,
and all its princes will be nothing.
13 Thorns will overgrow its palaces,
nettles and thistles its fortresses;
it will become a lair for jackals,
an enclosure for ostriches.
14 Wildcats and hyenas will meet there;
and billy-goats call to each other;
Lilit [the night monster] will lurk there
and find herself a place to rest.
15 There the hoot owl will nest, lay her eggs,
hatch and gather her young in its shade.
There the vultures will assemble,
every one with its mate.
16 Consult the book of Adonai and read it:
not one of these will be missing,
none will be lacking a mate.
For by his own mouth he gave the order,
and by his Spirit he brought them together.
17 It is he who cast the lot for them,
his hand measured out their shares.
They will possess it forever,
and live there through all generations.
35:1 The desert and the dry land will be glad;
the ‘Aravah will rejoice and blossom like the lily.
2 It will burst into flower,
will rejoice with joy and singing,
will be given the glory of the L’vanon,
the splendor of Karmel and the Sharon.
They will see the glory of Adonai,
the splendor of our God.
3 Strengthen your drooping arms,
and steady your tottering knees.
4 Say to the fainthearted, “Be strong and unafraid!
Here is your God; he will come with vengeance;
with God’s retribution he will come and save you.”
5 Then the eyes of the blind will be opened,
and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped;
6 then the lame man will leap like a deer,
and the mute person’s tongue will sing.
For in the desert, springs will burst forth,
streams of water in the ‘Aravah;
7 the sandy mirage will become a pool,
the thirsty ground springs of water.
The haunts where jackals lie down will become
a marsh filled with reeds and papyrus.
8 A highway will be there, a way,
called the Way of Holiness.
The unclean will not pass over it,
but it will be for those whom he guides —
fools will not stray along it.
9 No lion or other beast of prey
will be there, traveling on it.
They will not be found there,
but the redeemed will go there.
10 Those ransomed by Adonai will return
and come with singing to Tziyon,
on their heads will be everlasting joy.
They will acquire gladness and joy,
while sorrow and sighing will flee.
36:1 It was in the fourteenth year of King Hizkiyahu that Sancheriv king of Ashur advanced against all the fortified cities of Y’hudah and captured them. 2 From Lakhish the king of Ashur sent Rav-Shakeh to Hizkiyahu in Yerushalayim with a large army. He positioned himself by the aqueduct from the Upper Pool, which is by the road to the Launderers’ Field. 3 Elyakim the son of Hilkiyahu, who was in charge of the household, Shevnah the general secretary and Yo’ach the son of Asaf the foreign minister went out to meet him.
4 Rav-Shakeh addressed them: “Tell Hizkiyahu: ‘Here is what the great king, the king of Ashur, says: “What makes you so confident? 5 I say: do mere words constitute strategy and strength for battle? In whom, then, are you trusting when you rebel against me like this? 6 Look! Relying on Egypt is like using a broken stick as a staff — when you lean on it, it punctures your hand. That’s what Pharaoh king of Egypt is like for anyone who puts his trust in him. 7 But if you tell me, ‘We trust in Adonai our God,’ then isn’t he the one whose high places and altars Hizkiyahu has removed, telling Y’hudah and Yerushalayim, ‘You must worship before this altar’? 8 All right, then, make a wager with my lord the king of Ashur: I will give you two thousand horses if you can find enough riders for them. 9 How then can you repulse even one of my master’s lowest-ranked army officers? Yet you are relying on Egypt for chariots and riders! 10 Do you think I have come up to this land to destroy it without Adonai’s approval? Adonai said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it!’ ” ’ ”
11 Elyakim, Shevnah and Yo’ach said to Rav-Shakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it; don’t speak to us in Hebrew while the people on the wall are listening.” 12 But Rav-Shakeh answered, “Did my master send me to deliver my message just to your master and yourselves? Didn’t he send me to address the men sitting on the wall, who, like you, are going to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?” 13 Then Rav-Shakeh stood up and, speaking loudly in Hebrew, said: “Hear what the great king, the king of Ashur, says! 14 This is what the king says: ‘Don’t let Hizkiyahu deceive you, because he won’t be able to save you. 15 And don’t let Hizkiyahu make you trust in Adonaiby saying, “Adonai will surely save us; this city will not be given over to the king of Ashur.” 16 Don’t listen to Hizkiyahu.’ For this is what the king says: ‘Make peace with me, surrender to me. Then every one of you can eat from his vine and fig tree and drink the water in his own cistern, 17 until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land with grain and wine, a land with bread and vineyards. 18 Beware of Hizkiyahu; he is only deluding you when he says, “Adonai will save us.” Has any god of any nation ever saved his land from the power of the king of Ashur? 19 Where are the gods of Hamat and Arpad? Where are the gods of S’farvayim? Did they save Shomron from my power? 20 Where is the god of any of these countries that has saved its country from my power, so that Adonai might be able to save Yerushalayim from my power?’” 21 But they kept still and didn’t answer him so much as a word, for the king’s order was, “Don’t answer him.”
22 Then Elyakim the son of Hilkiyahu, who was in charge of the household, Shevnah the general secretary and Yo’ach the son of Asaf the foreign minister went to Hizkiyahu with their clothes torn and reported to him what Rav-Shakeh had said.; Colossians 2:1 For I want you to know how hard I work for you, for those in Laodicea, and for the rest of those who have not met me personally. 2 My purpose is that they may be encouraged, that they may be joined together in love, and that they may have all the riches derived from being assured of understanding and fully knowing God’s secret truth, which is — the Messiah! 3 It is in him that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden.
4 I say this so that no one will fool you with plausible but specious arguments. 5 For although I am away from you physically, I am with you in spirit, rejoicing as I see the disciplined and resolute firmness of your trust in the Messiah. 6 Therefore, just as you received the Messiah Yeshua as Lord, keep living your life united with him. 7 Remain deeply rooted in him; continue being built up in him and confirmed in your trust, the way you were taught, so that you overflow in thanksgiving.
8 Watch out, so that no one will take you captive by means of philosophy and empty deceit, following human tradition which accords with the elemental spirits of the world but does not accord with the Messiah. 9 For in him, bodily, lives the fullness of all that God is. 10 And it is in union with him that you have been made full — he is the head of every rule and authority.
11 Also it was in union with him that you were circumcised with a circumcision not done by human hands, but accomplished by stripping away the old nature’s control over the body. In this circumcision done by the Messiah, 12 you were buried along with him by being immersed; and in union with him, you were also raised up along with him by God’s faithfulness that worked when he raised Yeshua from the dead. 13 You were dead because of your sins, that is, because of your “foreskin,” your old nature. But God made you alive along with the Messiah by forgiving you all your sins. 14 He wiped away the bill of charges against us. Because of the regulations, it stood as a testimony against us; but he removed it by nailing it to the execution-stake. 15 Stripping the rulers and authorities of their power, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by means of the stake.
16 So don’t let anyone pass judgment on you in connection with eating and drinking, or in regard to a Jewish festival or Rosh-Hodesh or Shabbat. 17 These are a shadow of things that are coming, but the body is of the Messiah.
18 Don’t let anyone deny you the prize by insisting that you engage in self-mortification or angel-worship. Such people are always going on about some vision they have had, and they vainly puff themselves up by their worldly outlook. 19 They fail to hold to the Head, from whom the whole Body, receiving supply and being held together by its joints and ligaments, grows as God makes it grow. 20 If, along with the Messiah, you died to the elemental spirits of the world, then why, as if you still belonged to the world, are you letting yourselves be bothered by its rules? — 21 “Don’t touch this!” “Don’t eat that!” “Don’t handle the other!” 22 Such prohibitions are concerned with things meant to perish by being used [not by being avoided!], and they are based on man-made rules and teachings.[Colossians 2:22 Isaiah 29:13] 23 They do indeed have the outward appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed religious observances, false humility and asceticism; but they have no value at all in restraining people from indulging their old nature. (Complete Jewish Bible).
WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
Beware of pronouncing any verdict on the life of faith if you are not living it. (from Not Knowing Whither, 900 R)
My Utmost for His Highest © 1992 by Oswald Chambers Publications Association, Ltd. Original edition © 1935 by Dodd, Mead & Company, Inc. Copyright renewed 1963 by Oswald Chambers Publications Association, Ltd. All rights reserved. United States publication rights are held by Discovery House, which is affiliated with Our Daily Bread Ministries.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
***
No comments:
Post a Comment