My Utmost for His Highest in Crewe, England [Great Britain], United Kingdom “The Initiative Against Despair” by Oswald Chambers for Saturday, 18 February 2017

My Utmost for His Highest in Crewe, England [Great Britain], United Kingdom “The Initiative Against Despair” by Oswald Chambers for Saturday, 18 February 2017
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Rise, let us be going.[Matthew 26:46]
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples went to sleep when they should have stayed awake, and once they realized what they had done it produced despair. The sense of having done something irreversible tends to make us despair. We say, “Well, it’s all over and ruined now; what’s the point in trying anymore.” If we think this kind of despair is an exception, we are mistaken. It is a very ordinary human experience. Whenever we realize we have not taken advantage of a magnificent opportunity, we are apt to sink into despair. But Jesus comes and lovingly says to us, in essence, “Sleep on now. That opportunity is lost forever and you can’t change that. But get up, and let’s go on to the next thing.” In other words, let the past sleep, but let it sleep in the sweet embrace of Christ, and let us go on into the invincible future with Him.
There will be experiences like this in each of our lives. We will have times of despair caused by real events in our lives, and we will be unable to lift ourselves out of them. The disciples, in this instance, had done a downright unthinkable thing— they had gone to sleep instead of watching with Jesus. But our Lord came to them taking the spiritual initiative against their despair and said, in effect, “Get up, and do the next thing.” If we are inspired by God, what is the next thing? It is to trust Him absolutely and to pray on the basis of His redemption.
Never let the sense of past failure defeat your next step.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

It is impossible to read too much, but always keep before you why you read. Remember that “the need to receive, recognize, and rely on the Holy Spirit” is before all else.[Approved Unto God, 11 L=
Bible in One Year: Leviticus 23-24; Mark 1:1-22 
Leviticus 23:1 (iv) Adonai said to Moshe, 2 “Tell the people of Isra’el: ‘The designated times of Adonai which you are to proclaim as holy convocations are my designated times.
3 “‘Work is to be done on six days; but the seventh day is a Shabbat of complete rest, a holy convocation; you are not to do any kind of work; it is a Shabbat for Adonai, even in your homes.
4 “‘These are the designated times of Adonai, the holy convocations you are to proclaim at their designated times.
5 “‘In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, between sundown and complete darkness, comes Pesach for Adonai. 6 On the fifteenth day of the same month is the festival of matzah; for seven days you are to eat matzah. 7 On the first day you are to have a holy convocation; don’t do any kind of ordinary work. 8 Bring an offering made by fire to Adonai for seven days. On the seventh day is a holy convocation; do not do any kind of ordinary work.’”

9 Adonai said to Moshe, 10 “Tell the people of Isra’el, ‘After you enter the land I am giving you and harvest its ripe crops, you are to bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the cohen. 11 He is to wave the sheaf before Adonai, so that you will be accepted; the cohen is to wave it on the day after the Shabbat. 12 On the day that you wave the sheaf, you are to offer a male lamb without defect, in its first year, as a burnt offering for Adonai. 13 Its grain offering is to be one gallon of fine flour mixed with olive oil, an offering made by fire to Adonai as a fragrant aroma; its drink offering is to be of wine, one quart. 14 You are not to eat bread, dried grain or fresh grain until the day you bring the offering for your God; this is a permanent regulation through all your generations, no matter where you live.
15 “‘From the day after the day of rest — that is, from the day you bring the sheaf for waving — you are to count seven full weeks, 16 until the day after the seventh week; you are to count fifty days; and then you are to present a new grain offering to Adonai. 17 You must bring bread from your homes for waving — two loaves made with one gallon of fine flour, baked with leaven — as firstfruits for Adonai. 18 Along with the bread, present seven lambs without defect one year old, one young bull and two rams; these will be a burnt offering for Adonai, with their grain and drink offerings, an offering made by fire as a fragrant aroma for Adonai. 19 Offer one male goat as a sin offering and two male lambs one year old as a sacrifice of peace offerings. 20 The cohen will wave them with the bread of the firstfruits as a wave offering before Adonai, with the two lambs; these will be holy for Adonai for the cohen. 21 On the same day, you are to call a holy convocation; do not do any kind of ordinary work; this is a permanent regulation through all your generations, no matter where you live.
22 “‘When you harvest the ripe crops produced in your land, don’t harvest all the way to the corners of your field, and don’t gather the ears of grain left by the harvesters; leave them for the poor and the foreigner; I am Adonai your God.’”
(v) 23 Adonai said to Moshe, 24 “Tell the people of Isra’el, ‘In the seventh month, the first of the month is to be for you a day of complete rest for remembering, a holy convocation announced with blasts on the shofar. 25 Do not do any kind of ordinary work, and bring an offering made by fire to Adonai.’”
26 Adonai said to Moshe, 27 “The tenth day of this seventh month is Yom-Kippur; you are to have a holy convocation, you are to deny yourselves, and you are to bring an offering made by fire to Adonai. 28 You are not to do any kind of work on that day, because it is Yom-Kippur, to make atonement for you before Adonai your God. 29 Anyone who does not deny himself on that day is to be cut off from his people; 30 and anyone who does any kind of work on that day, I will destroy from among his people. 31 You are not to do any kind of work; it is a permanent regulation through all your generations, no matter where you live. 32 It will be for you a Shabbat of complete rest, and you are to deny yourselves; you are to rest on your Shabbat from evening the ninth day of the month until the following evening.”
(vi) 33 Adonai said to Moshe, 34 “Tell the people of Isra’el, ‘On the fifteenth day of this seventh month is the feast of Sukkot for seven days to Adonai. 35 On the first day there is to be a holy convocation; do not do any kind of ordinary work. 36 For seven days you are to bring an offering made by fire to Adonai; on the eighth day you are to have a holy convocation and bring an offering made by fire to Adonai ; it is a day of public assembly; do not do any kind of ordinary work.
37 “‘These are the designated times of Adonai that you are to proclaim as holy convocations and bring an offering made by fire to Adonai — a burnt offering, a grain offering, a sacrifice and drink offerings, each on its own day — 38 besides the Shabbats of Adonai, your gifts, all your vows and all your voluntary offerings that you give to Adonai.
39 “‘But on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered the produce of the land, you are to observe the festival of Adonai seven days; the first day is to be a complete rest and the eighth day is to be a complete rest. 40 On the first day you are to take choice fruit, palm fronds, thick branches and river-willows, and celebrate in the presence of Adonai your God for seven days. 41 You are to observe it as a feast to Adonai seven days in the year; it is a permanent regulation, generation after generation; keep it in the seventh month. 42 You are to live in sukkot for seven days; every citizen of Isra’el is to live in a sukkah, 43 so that generation after generation of you will know that I made the people of Isra’el live in sukkot when I brought them out of the land of Egypt; I am Adonai your God.’”
44 Thus Moshe announced to the people of Isra’el the designated times of Adonai.
24:1 (vii) Adonai said to Moshe, 2 “Order the people of Isra’el to bring you pure oil from crushed olives for the light, to keep lamps burning always. 3 Outside the curtain of the testimony in the tent of meeting, Aharon is to arrange for the light to be kept burning always from evening until morning before Adonai ; this is to be a permanent regulation through all your generations. 4 He is always to keep in order the lamps on the pure menorah before Adonai.
5 “You are to take fine flour and use it to bake twelve loaves, one gallon per loaf. 6 Arrange them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure table before Adonai. 7 Put frankincense with each row to be an offering made by fire to Adonai in place of the bread and as a reminder of it. 8 Regularly, every Shabbat, he is to arrange them before Adonai ; they are from the people of Isra’el, as a covenant forever. 9 They will belong to Aharon and his sons; and they are to eat them in a holy place; because for him they are, of the offerings for Adonai made by fire, especially holy. This is a permanent law.”
10 There was a man who was the son of a woman of Isra’el and an Egyptian father. He went out among the people of Isra’el, and this son of a woman of Isra’el had a fight in the camp with a man of Isra’el, 11 in the course of which the son of the woman of Isra’el uttered the Name [Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh] in a curse. So they brought him to Moshe. (His mother’s name was Shlomit the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan.) 12 They put him under guard until Adonai would tell them what to do. 13 Adonai said to Moshe, 14 “Take the man who cursed outside the camp, have everyone who heard him lay their hands on his head, and have the entire community stone him. 15 Then tell the people of Isra’el, ‘Whoever curses his God will bear the consequences of his sin; 16 and whoever blasphemes the name of Adonai must be put to death; the entire community must stone him. The foreigner as well as the citizen is to be put to death if he blasphemes the Name.
17 “‘Anyone who strikes another person and kills him must be put to death. 18 Anyone who strikes an animal and kills it is to make restitution, life for life. 19 If someone injures his neighbor, what he did is to be done to him — 20 break for break, eye for eye, tooth for tooth — whatever injury he has caused the other person is to be rendered to him in return. (Maftir) 21 He who kills an animal is to make restitution, but he who kills another person is to be put to death. 22 You are to apply the same standard of judgment to the foreigner as to the citizen, because I am Adonai your God.”
23 So Moshe spoke to the people of Isra’el, and they took the man who had cursed outside the camp and stoned him to death. Thus the people of Isra’el did as Adonai had ordered Moshe.
Mark 1:1 The beginning of the Good News of Yeshua the Messiah, the Son of God:
2 It is written in the prophet Yesha‘yahu,
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you;
he will prepare the way before you.”[Mark 1:2 Malachi 3:1]
3 “The voice of someone crying out:
‘In the desert prepare the way for Adonai!
Make straight paths for him!’”[Mark 1:3 Isaiah 40:3]
4 So it was that Yochanan the Immerser appeared in the desert, proclaiming an immersion involving turning to God from sin in order to be forgiven. 5 People went out to him from all over Y’hudah, as did all the inhabitants of Yerushalayim. Confessing their sins, they were immersed by him in the Yarden River. 6 Yochanan wore clothes of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist; he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed: “After me is coming someone who is more powerful than I — I’m not worthy even to bend down and untie his sandals. 8 I have immersed you in water, but he will immerse you in the Ruach HaKodesh.”
9 Shortly thereafter, Yeshua came from Natzeret in the Galil and was immersed in the Yarden by Yochanan. 10 Immediately upon coming up out of the water, he saw heaven torn open and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove; 11 then a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, whom I love; I am well pleased with you.”
12 Immediately the Spirit drove him out into the wilderness, 13 and he was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by the Adversary. He was with the wild animals, and the angels took care of him.
14 After Yochanan had been arrested, Yeshua came into the Galil proclaiming the Good News from God:
15 “The time has come,
God’s Kingdom is near!
Turn to God from your sins
and believe the Good News!”
16 As he walked beside Lake Kinneret, he saw Shim‘on and Andrew, Shim‘on’s brother, casting a net into the lake; for they were fishermen. 17 Yeshua said to them, “Come, follow me, and I will make you into fishers for men!” 18 At once they left their nets and followed him.
19 Going on a little farther, he saw Ya‘akov Ben-Zavdai and Yochanan, his brother, in their boat, repairing their nets. 20 Immediately he called them, and they left their father Zavdai in the boat with the hired men and went after Yeshua.
21 They entered K’far-Nachum, and on Shabbat Yeshua went into the synagogue and began teaching. 22 They were amazed at the way he taught, for he did not instruct them like the Torah-teachers but as one who had authority himself.
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My 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.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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