My Utmost for His Highest from Crew, England [Great Britain], United Kingdom "The Sacrament Of The Saint" by Oswald Chambers for Wednesday, 10 August 2016

My Utmost for His Highest from Crew, England [Great Britain], United Kingdom "The Sacrament Of The Saint" by Oswald Chambers for Wednesday, 10 August 2016

Let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing.[1 Peter 4:19]
To choose to suffer means that there is something wrong; to choose God’s will even if it means suffering is a very different thing. No healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he chooses God’s will, as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. No saint dare interfere with the discipline of suffering in another saint.
The saint who satisfies the heart of Jesus will make other saints strong and mature for God. The people who do us good are never those who sympathize with us, they always hinder, because sympathy enervates. No one understands a saint but the saint who is nearest to the Saviour. If we accept the sympathy of a saint, the reflex feeling is — “Well, God is dealing hardly with me.” That is why Jesus said self-pity was of the devil (see Matt. 16:23). Be merciful to God’s reputation. It is easy to blacken God’s character because God never answers back, He never vindicates Himself. Beware of the thought that Jesus needed sympathy in His earthly life; He refused sympathy from man because He knew far too wisely that no one on earth understood what He was after. He took sympathy from His Father only, and from the angels in heaven. (Cf. Luke15:10.)
Notice God’s unutterable waste of saints. According to the judgment of the world, God plants His saints in the most useless places. We say — “God intends me to be here because I am so useful.” God puts His saints where they will glorify Him, and we are no judges at all of where that is.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One Who is leading.[My Utmost for His Highest, March 19, 761 L]
Bible in One Year: Psalms 79-80; Romans 11:1-18
Psalms 79: (0) A psalm of Asaf:
(1) God, the pagans have entered your heritage.
They have defiled your holy temple
and turned Yerushalayim into rubble.
2 They have given the corpses of your servants
as food for the birds in the air,
yes, the flesh of those faithful to you
for the wild animals of the earth.
3 All around Yerushalayim
they have shed their blood like water,
and no one is left to bury them.
4 We suffer the taunts of our neighbors,
we are mocked and scorned by those around us.
5 How long, Adonai?
Will you be angry forever?
How long will your jealousy burn like fire?
6 Pour out your wrath on the nations that don’t know you,
on the kingdoms that don’t call out your name;
7 for they have devoured Ya‘akov
and left his home a waste.
8 Don’t count past iniquities against us,
but let your compassion come quickly to meet us,
for we have been brought very low.
9 Help us, God of our salvation,
for the sake of the glory of your name.
Deliver us, forgive our sins,
for your name’s sake.
10 Why should the nations ask,
“Where is their God?”
Let the vengeance taken on your servants’ shed blood
be known among the nations before our eyes.
11 Let the groaning of the captives come before you;
by your great strength save those condemned to death.
12 Repay our neighbors sevenfold where they can feel it
for the insults they inflicted on you, Adonai.
13 Then we, your people and the flock in your pasture,
will give you thanks forever.
From generation to generation
we will proclaim your praise.
80:1 (0) For the leader. Set to “Lilies.” A testimony. A psalm of Asaf:
2 (1) Shepherd of Isra’el, listen!
You who lead Yosef like a flock,
you whose throne is on the k’ruvim,
shine out!
3 (2) Before Efrayim, Binyamin and M’nasheh,
rouse your power; and come to save us.
4 (3) God, restore us!
Make your face shine, and we will be saved.
5 (4) Adonai, God of armies, how long
will you be angry with your people’s prayers?
6 (5) You have fed them tears as their bread
and made them drink tears in abundance.
7 (6) You make our neighbors fight over us,
and our enemies mock us.
8 (7) God of armies, restore us!
Make your face shine, and we will be saved.
9 (8) You brought a vine out of Egypt,
you expelled the nations and planted it,
10 (9) you cleared a space for it;
then it took root firmly and filled the land.
11 (10) The mountains were covered with its shade,
the mighty cedars with its branches;
12 (11) It put out branches as far as the sea
and shoots to the [Euphrates] River.
13 (12) Why did you break down [the vineyard’s] wall,
so that all passing by can pluck [its fruit]?
14 (13) The boar from the forest tears it apart;
wild creatures from the fields feed on it.
15 (14) God of armies, please come back!
Look from heaven, see, and tend this vine!
16 (15) Protect what your right hand planted,
the son you made strong for yourself.
17 (16) It is burned by fire, it is cut down;
they perish at your frown of rebuke.
18 (17) Help the man at your right hand,
the son of man you made strong for yourself.
19 (18) Then we won’t turn away from you —
if you revive us, we will call on your name.
20 (19) Adonai, God of armies, restore us!
Make your face shine, and we will be saved.
Romans 11:1 “In that case, I say, isn’t it that God has repudiated his people?” Heaven forbid! For I myself am a son of Isra’el, from the seed of Avraham,[Romans 11:1 2 Chronicles 20:7, Psalm 105:6] of the tribe of Binyamin. 2 God has not repudiated his people,[Romans 11:2 1 Samuel 12:22, Psalm 94:14] whom he chose in advance. Or don’t you know what the Tanakh says about Eliyahu? He pleads with God against Isra’el, 3 “Adonai, they have killed your prophets and torn down your altars, and I’m the only one left, and now they want to kill me too!”[Romans 11:3 1 Kings 19:10, 14] 4 But what is God’s answer to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not knelt down to Ba‘al.”[Romans 11:4 1 Kings 19:18] 5 It’s the same way in the present age: there is a remnant, chosen by grace. 6 (Now if it is by grace, it is accordingly not based on legalistic works; if it were otherwise, grace would no longer be grace.) 7 What follows is that Isra’el has not attained the goal for which she is striving. The ones chosen have obtained it, but the rest have been made stonelike, 8 just as the Tanakh says,
“God has given them a spirit of dullness —
eyes that do not see
and ears that do not hear,
right down to the present day.”[Romans 11:8 Deuteronomy 29:3(4), Isaiah 29:10]
9 And David says,
“Let their dining table become for them
a snare and a trap, a pitfall and a punishment.
10 Let their eyes be darkened, so that they can’t see,
with their backs bent continually.”[Romans 11:10 Psalm 69:23–24(22–23)]
11 “In that case, I say, isn’t it that they have stumbled with the result that they have permanently fallen away?” Heaven forbid! Quite the contrary, it is by means of their stumbling that the deliverance has come to the Gentiles, in order to provoke them to jealousy.[Romans 11:11 Deuteronomy 32:21] 12 Moreover, if their stumbling is bringing riches to the world — that is, if Isra’el’s being placed temporarily in a condition less favored than that of the Gentiles is bringing riches to the latter — how much greater riches will Isra’el in its fullness bring them!
13 However, to those of you who are Gentiles I say this: since I myself am an emissary sent to the Gentiles, I make known the importance of my work 14 in the hope that somehow I may provoke some of my own people to jealousy and save some of them! 15 For if their casting Yeshua aside means reconciliation for the world, what will their accepting him mean? It will be life from the dead!
16 Now if the hallah offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole loaf. And if the root is holy, so are the branches. 17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you — a wild olive — were grafted in among them and have become equal sharers in the rich root of the olive tree, 18 then don’t boast as if you were better than the branches! However, if you do boast, remember that you are not supporting the root, the root is supporting you.
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BUY NOWMy Utmost for His Highest © 1927 in the U.K. by Oswald Chambers Publications Association, Ltd. © 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.
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