Posted on 01/22/2005 7:37:58 AM PST by Religion Moderator
Do we expect God to come to us with His blessings and save us? He says, "Look to Me, and be saved..." The greatest difficulty spiritually is to concentrate on God, and His blessings are what make it so difficult. Troubles almost always make us look to God, but His blessings tend to divert our attention elsewhere. The basic lesson of the Sermon on the Mount is to narrow all your interests until your mind, heart, and body are focused on Jesus Christ. "Look to Me..."
Many of us have a mental picture of what a Christian should be, and looking at this image in other Christians' lives becomes a hindrance to our focusing on God. This is not salvation - it is not simple enough. He says, in effect, "Look to Me, and you are saved." not "You will be saved someday." We will find what we are looking for if we will concentrate on Him. We get distracted from God and irritable with Him while He continues to say to us, "Look to Me, and be saved..." Our difficulties, our trials, and our worries about tomorrow all vanish when we look to God.
Wake yourself up and look to God. Build your hope on Him. No matter how many things seem to be pressing in on you, be determined to push them aside and look to Him. "Look to Me..." Salvation is yours the moment you look.
Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) was born July 24, 1874, in Aberdeen, Scotland. Converted in his teen years under the ministry of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, he studied art and archaeology at the University of Edinburgh before answering a call from God to the Christian ministry. He then studied theology at Dunoon College. From 1906-10 he conducted an itinerant Bible-teaching ministry in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan.
In 1910 Chambers married Gertrude Hobbs. They had one daughter, Kathleen, who still resides in London (as of 1992).
In 1911 he founded and became principal of the Bible Training College in Clapham, London, where he lectured until the school was closed in 1915 because of World War I. In October 1915 he sailed for Zeitoun, Egypt (near Cairo), where he ministered to Australian and New Zealand troops as a YMCA chaplain. He died there November 15, 1917, following surgery for a ruptured appendix.
My Utmost for His Highest, his best-known book, has been continuously in print in the United States since 1935 and in this, the last decade of the century, remains in the top ten titles of the religious book bestseller list with millions of copies in print. It has become a Christian classic. [from the flyleaf of the book]
Absolutely no flaming! These daily threads are intended to be devotional in nature. If a particular day's offering says nothing to you, please just go on and wait for the next day. Consider these threads a DMZ of sorts, a place where a perpetual truce is in effect and a place where all other arguments and disagreements from other times and places are left behind.
I can attest from personal experience that reading from Chambers daily will almost certainly change - not one's faith - but one's perspective of his/her own faith, and open up new vistas in your spiritual life. If - when - this happens to a reader of these threads, and they choose to share what has happened within them - we are treading on hallowed ground. Be respectful.
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This is a great line for us pastors who are so prone to comparing ourselves to other pastors, and who also so easily see the ongoing comparison of themselves to other church members that some members engage in, and who are ourselves guilty of comparing church member to church member.
Best we start at home and get the beam out of our own eye.
Look to Me.....a great instruction!
I was going to use it from now on as my tagline; unfortunately, it's too long to fit. In my view, it speaks directly to the root cause of most of the strife here on the Religion Forum.
Look to Jesus...not to the faults of other Christians!
Can you shorten that to even fewer words?
:>)
Ah, but you see, even you fall into the trap exposed by Chambers. Is it really the faults of other Christians, or is it only your opinion that it's faults they suffer from?
As is always the case, it's not someone else who is one's highest barrier before Christ, but one's self - or in this case, one's self image.
LOL!
"Looking to Jesus...the Author and Finisher of our Faith."
(Are we getting warmer? :>)
What a magnificient devotion! Thank you so very much!
Many of us have a mental picture of what a Christian should be, and looking at this image in other Christians' lives becomes a hindrance to our focusing on God.
Perhaps . . .
LET NO MENTAL IMAGE OF OTHER CHRISTIANS' 'OUGHTS 2 B' FOG YOUR VIEW OF GOD!
or even just:
LET NO MENTAL IMAGE OF OTHER CHRISTIANS FOG YOUR VIEW OF GOD!
or
. . . FOG YOUR STEADFAST VIEW OF GOD!
--just playing with the concept as a tagline. I agree.
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