Thursdays With Oswald—You Can Be A Terror To The Devil

April 6, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

Oswald ChambersThis is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

You Can Be A Terror To The Devil

      Jesus Christ came to fit men to fight, He came to make the lame, the halt, the paralyzed, the all but sin-damned, into terrors to the prince of this world. … 

     That is what Jesus Christ can do by His marvelous salvation; He can put into the man whose energy has been sapped by sin and wrong until he is all but in hell, a life so strong and full that satan has to flee whenever he meets him. Is there a man here who would not give his right arm, nay, his very life, if God would fit him to fight, and make him more than conqueror over sin and satan and circumstances? Thank God, He can do it! Oh, let me repeat it, I do not care how defaced you may be morally, how weak and backslidden, I do know that Jesus Christ can make you more than conqueror as you draw on His Resurrection life. … 

     Is tribulation making you wilt? making you swoon for sympathy? making you stagnate? It is an easy business to want to get away from tribulation, but fighting makes us strong, gloriously strong. 

From The Fighting Chance

Oswald Chambers says God wants to make you a terror to the devil … a warrior that causes satan to flee … an irresistible force for God’s Kingdom!

Paul said we are more than conquerors through Jesus (Romans 8:37), and thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ (2 Corinthians 2:14).

How do you become this irresistible conqueror? Chambers says it’s when “we let Him have His right of way through us [that] He begins to unveil something more of His purposes in our lives.”

Are you ready?!

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BC / AD

April 5, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

BC/AD is just a dating system. There is no such thing as “BC” when it comes to Jesus because there has never been a time before Christ!

How soon does Jesus appear in the Bible? Just four words in: “In the beginning GOD…” (Genesis 1:1). Right from the beginning we see Jesus revealing Himself.

From the Garden of Eden, to the ark that saved Noah’s family from the flood, to the rainbow following the flood, to the call of Abraham, to the rescue of the Israelites from Egypt, to the example of Boaz, and on, and on, and on it goes. Jesus is perpetually revealing aspects of Himself in pictures and stories and people and places. Then as the “AD” period dawns, we see Jesus in all His brilliance fulfilling every single one of those foreshadowings.

Join us on this journey of revelation as we discover Jesus in both the BC and AD time periods. It’s going to be an eye-opening time! You can find out more about Calvary Assembly of God, including service times and where we meet, by clicking here.

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10 Quotes From “The Broken Way”

April 5, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

All of us will deal with brokenness at some point in our lives. Ann Voskamp’s The Broken Way is a brilliant light shining in the darkness of brokenness and pain. Check out my review of Ann’s book by clicking here.

“When the church isn’t for the suffering and broken, then the church isn’t for Christ. Because Jesus, with His pierced side, is always on the side of the broken. Jesus always moves into places moved with grief. Jesus always seeks out where the suffering is, and that’s where Jesus stays. The wound in His side proves that Jesus is always on the side of the suffering, the wounded, the busted, the broken.”

“The body of Christ doesn’t offer you some clichés, but something to cling to—right here in our own scarred hands. His body doesn’t offer some platitudes, but some place for your pain—right here in our offered time. His body doesn’t offer some excuses, but we’ll be an example—right here in our bending down and washing your wounds.”

“A Wounded Healer uses nails to buy freedom and crosses to resurrect hope and He never treats those who hurt on the inside as less than those who hurt on the outside.”

“Get busy, get distracted, and you can forget God. Forget God, and you lose your mind and your peace. Forget God, and all you remember is anxiety. Anxiety can give you God-Alzheimer’s. Forget the face of God, and you forget your own name is Beloved.”

“The art of giving is believing there is enough love in you, that you are loved enough by Him, to be made enough love to give.”

“You can be glued to a screen or glued to your schedule or glued to your stuff—and maybe that’s just a bit of lost living. You can be a slave to getting ahead, a slave to the clock, a slave to convenience, a slave to some ill-advised American dream—and maybe that’s a lot of lost living. Maybe even in a bit of brokenness, grace moves in you to get up and give to people you love and people that you’re learning to love, to go to the park and laugh with your kids or any kids, to give an elderly woman a hand and a listening ear and the gift of presence—that’s large living.”

“The world is brokenhearted and full of suffering, and if you listen to what life needs instead of what you need from it, you could fill the brokenness with your own brokenhearted love—and this will in turn fill you. … You are where you are for such a time as this—not to make an impression, but to make a difference.”

“When you are filled to the brim with the enoughness of Christ, the only way you can possibly have more is to pour yourself out.”

“The wondrous order of Christianity isn’t ‘go and sin no more and Jesus won’t condemn you.’ The order of Christ and Christianity is ‘neither do I condemn you—go and sin no more.’”

“The only way to live a truly remarkable life is not to get everyone to notice you, but to leave noticeable marks of God’s love everywhere you go.”

I will be sharing more quotes from The Broken Way soon. If you would like to be notified as soon as these quotes are posted, please subscribe to my blog. And to read other inspiring quotes I share every day, follow me on Twitter or Tumblr (or both!).

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The Broken Way (book review)

April 4, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

“What in God’s holy name do you do when it feels like you’re broken and cut up, and love has failed, and you’ve failed, and you feel like Somebody’s love has failed you?” With these raw, penetrating questions, Ann Voskamp opens her book The Broken Way.

Not only does she open her book, but she opens her heart. In every chapter we are gifted with Ann’s vulnerability and realness. Yes, it is a gift that someone like Ann would be so transparent in sharing her pain, her questions, and also her path to healing and wholeness.

Yet Ann would probably tell me that “wholeness” is not the goal. The goal is brokenness and givenness before God and to the other broken, hurting people around me. It’s in the embracing of the healing that comes from the Healer, and in giving that healing to others, that we truly find how Jesus walks with us on the broken way.

This is a book of healing. A book that will remind you that you are not alone in your pain, in your questions, in your searching for answers. This book is a gift to anyone who feels broken, cut up, cut off, or beaten down.

Perhaps you need this book for yourself. Perhaps you can read it with a broken friend. In either case, reading this book will help reveal the depths of love that can flood into your life when you encounter the Wounded Healer: Jesus!

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4 Quotes On The Destructive Nature Of Pornography

April 3, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

“Pornography is based on and fed by always needing to see something new. It works neurologically to create an obsessive demand for more of something you’ve never seen before. The promise of something new is what gets you excited and interested, which means, by definition, that you can never be fully satisfied. That’s the opposite of cherish. Pornography works off volume, not individuality; it works off the novel, not the known. Learning to cherish a solo picture of a unique mate shapes our hearts and minds to cherish a particular individual above all others.” —Gary Thomas, in Cherish

“Pornography, by its very nature, is an equal opportunity toxin. It damages the viewer, the performer, and the spouses and the children of the viewers and the performers. It is toxic mis-education about sex and relationships. It is more toxic the more you consume.” —Dr. Mary Anne Layden 

“We can’t fill up our eyes with our wives if our eyes have been previously filled with someone else. One of the many dangers of porn is that it neurologically trains us to find our wives less beautiful.” —Gary Thomas, in Cherish

“When it comes to porn, it turns an intimate relationship love-connection into a rehearsed performance that’s less about the emotional bonding that happens when people have sex. No emotional connection, no commitment, no kissing and cuddling, just performing and self-focusing. Porn fails to emphasize the most real parts in relationships. It doesn’t depict real people with real bodies with real (and beautiful) flaws. In fact, it tries to sell the complete opposite—a photoshop fantasy that reality should never have to compete with. So it only makes sense that those who are exposed to porn have their perceptions of sex twisted and warped. Soon, real people don’t measure up, and partners are considered less exciting when compared to an exaggerated production on a computer screen.” —Fight The New Drug

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Who Can Bridge The Gap Between God And Man?

April 3, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

Mankind was created good and upright in God’s image and given dominion over everything God had created (see Genesis 1:26-28; Psalm 8:3-8). But man was not given dominion over himself (Genesis 2:15-17).

As Oswald Chambers said, “The temptation came to him on this line—‘Disobey, and you will become as God.’ Man took dominion over himself and thereby lost his lordship over everything else. According to the Bible, the disposition of sin is my claim to my right to myself” (see Genesis 3:1-7).

“And sure enough, they then had knowledge of good and evil, but it was from the standpoint of becoming evil and remembering how good they once were” (Nancy Guthrie). Their disobedience created an unbridgeable gulf between God and man. 

There were other consequences of their sin too:

  • Consequence #1—They realized they were naked, making them ashamed of themselves and ashamed to be in God’s presence.
  • Consequence #2—They feared God and tried to hide from Him.
  • Consequence #3—They couldn’t accept responsibility for what they did because that acceptance would mean they would also be responsible for bridging the gulf, something they were utterly unable to do.
  • Consequence #4—They were completely separated from God. Now there was nothing that they could do except work, have children, raise a family, and try to make the best of things.

Even in the midst of this despair, God foreshadowed the hope that would be their salvation. First, God promised that their offspring would one day crush satan’s head. Then God sacrificed an innocent animal and used those skins to make more permanent clothes for Adam and Eve, foreshadowing what Jesus would do.

Adam must have glimpsed this ray of hope because he then named his wife Eve, which means life!

But who could bridge this chasm? Who could be a mediator between God and man? The only possible candidate would have to be Someone who was both fully God and fully Man—that is Jesus Christ!

Only Jesus can fully and eternally cover our nakedness, remove our fear and shame, and present us without sin before His Father (see Jude 24 and Romans 5:6-11).

If, as Oswald Chambers says, sin is my claim to my right to myself, then salvation is God’s right to myself because I have surrendered to the reconciling work of Jesus.

“Believers in Christ are seen by God exactly as Christ is seen by God,” wrote Ann Voskamp, because those who believe in Jesus are clothed in His righteousness!

If you haven’t surrendered yourself to God’s right to you, what’s holding you back from doing that today? If you have surrendered yourself to God, don’t ever let satan lie to you about your nakedness, shame, or unworthiness—you are “Christ’s friend, God’s child, Spirit’s home!” (Ann Voskamp).

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Poetry Saturday—Grace Great Enough

April 1, 2017 — Craig T. Owens
God’s grace is great enough to meet the great things—
The crashing waves that overwhelm the soul,
The roaring winds that leave us stunned and breathless,
The sudden storms beyond our life’s control.
His grace is great enough to meet the small things—
The little pinprick troubles that annoy,
The insect worries, buzzing and persistent,
The squeaking wheels that grate upon our joy. —Annie Johnson Flint
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Killing Giants & Lifting Lids

March 30, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

… David … Abishai … Sibbechai … Elhanan … Jonathan …

What do these five men have in common? They all killed giants in one-on-one combat.

David went first.

Before he killed Goliath, there are no recorded giant killers in the Bible. But after David, four men followed David’s lead (see 2 Samuel 21:15-21).

What was once considered impossible became possible because David lifted the lid.

In 1954 Roger Bannister broke another “unbreakable” barrier—he ran one mile in under four minutes (3:59.4 to be exact).

As soon as the myth of the “impossible barrier” was broken, the limit was broken again and again and again in the following months.

Twenty-six different men broke the 4-minute mile 66 times in the following months all because Roger Bannister lifted the lid.

What giants are you taking on?

What “impossible” barriers are you breaking?

What lids are you lifting for other potential giant-killers and 4-minute-milers that are just waiting for you to show them the way?

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Thursdays With Oswald—Teach Them While They’re Young

March 30, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

Oswald ChambersThis is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

Teach Them While They’re Young

      We need a personal knowledge of God through all our life. The time to discover Him for ourselves is in life’s earliest morning—“that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation,” wrote Paul to Timothy (2 Timothy 3:15). “And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).

     We are so built that in childhood we can more easily come to a knowledge of God in simplicity than in later years. And in those formative years the personal life can be shaped and fitted to God’s standard more surely than later on.

From Shade Of His Hand

At the end of Ecclesiastes, Solomon wrote, “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come” (Ecclesiastes 12:1).

Oswald Chambers notes that parents lay a much stronger foundation for their children’s future spiritual attainment by talking often of the love of God while those children are still young.

Parents—start early, keep at it often, and don’t ever quit telling your children about God’s love. 

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:6-9)

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

[Mom and Dad, be sure to check out Andrew Murray’s exceptional book Raising Your Child To Love God. You can read some quotes from Murray’s book here, and some of his prayers for children here.]

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11 Quotes From “Shade Of His Hand”

March 29, 2017 — Craig T. Owens

The book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible can be a challenging read for many people. In Shade Of His Hand, Oswald Chambers walks us through this biblical book of wisdom chapter-by-chapter. Shade is a great companion for your personal Bible study time in Ecclesiastes. Check out my full book review by clicking here.

Below are just a few of the many (many!) passages I highlighted in Shade. Some of the longer passages I have already shared in my weekly “Thursdays With Oswald” posts. You can read those by clicking here.

“We always get out of touch with the Bible attitude to things when we come to it with our own conclusions.”

“The intellectual order of life does not take things as it finds them, it makes us shut our eyes to actual facts and try to live only in the ideal world. … Solomon is fearless in facing facts as they are. … It is not a question of living a blind life in the brain away from actuality, not of living in dawns or on mountain tops; but of bringing what you see there straight down to the valley where things are sordid, and living out the vision there.”

“Unless you bank your faith in God, you will not only be wrongly related in practical life and have your heart broken, but you will break other things you touch.”

“Almighty God does not matter to me, He is in the clouds. To be of any use to me, He must come down to the domain in which I live; and I do not live in the clouds but on the earth. The doctrine of the Incarnation is that God did come down into our domain. The Wisdom of God, the Word of God, the exact expression of God, was manifest in the flesh.”

“To serve God in order to gain heaven, is not the teaching of Christianity. Satisfaction cannot be found in gain, but only in a personal relationship to God. … A man is not to serve God for the sake of gain, but to get to the place where the whole of his life is seen as a personal relationship to God.”

“Whenever we put theology or a plan of salvation or any line of explanation before a man’s personal relationship to God, we depart from the Bible line, because religion in the Bible is not faith in the rule of God, but faith in the God Who rules.”

“Sometimes it is cowardly to speak, and sometimes it is cowardly to keep silence. In the Bible the great test of a man’s character is his tongue (see James 1:26). The tongue only came to its right place with in the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ, because He never spoke from His right to Himself. He Who was the Wisdom of God Incarnate, said ‘the words that I speak unto you, I speak not of Myself.’ … We are either too hasty or too slow; either we won’t speak at all, or we speak too much, or we speak in the wrong mood. The thing that makes us speak is the lust to vindicate ourselves.”

“The general history of Christianity is that it has been tried and abandoned because it is found to be difficult; but wherever it has been tried and honorably gone on with, it has never failed.”

“The Christian faith is exhibited by the man who has the spiritual courage to say that that is the God he trusts in, and it takes some moral backbone to do it.” 

“We reap terrific damage to our own characters when we vow and do not perform. … Promises are a way of shirking responsibility.”

“It is appalling to find spiritual people when they come into a crisis taking an ordinary common-sense standpoint as if Jesus Christ had never lived or died.”

More quotes from Shade Of His Hand are coming soon…

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