This 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.
God Is Love
In the future, when trial and difficulties await you, do not be fearful, whatever and whoever you may lose faith in, let not this faith slip from you—God is Love; whisper it not only to your heart in its hour of darkness, but here in your corner of God’s earth and man’s great city, live in the belief of it; preach it by your sweetened, chastened, happy life; sing it in consecrated moments of peaceful joy….
The world does not bid you sing, but God does. Song is the sign of an unburdened heart; then sing your songs of love unbidden, ever rising higher and higher into a fuller conception of the greatest, grandest fact on the stage of Time—God is Love.
From The Love Of God
Here’s to a new year filled with a greater revelation in your heart of God’s amazing love! May 2014 be full of your love songs to the Greatest Love Of All!
I loved this book! Please read my full book review of God’s Favorite Place On Earth by Frank Viola by clickinghere, but my one-word review is: Wow!
Here are a few quotes that especially caught my attention—
“Jesus talked a lot about losing, taking up our cross, denying ourselves, and laying down our lives. These are the fruits of brokenness before God. It’s not hard to spot a Christian in ministry who isn’t broken. Unbroken people don’t know how to lay their lives down and lose. They only know how to try to win. If they’re criticized they retaliate. If they’re attacked, they return fire. If misunderstood, they defend in anger. They are capable of doing all sorts of damage to others in order to save their own ministries and keep their reputations.
“On the contrary, people who have been broken by the hand of God know how to turn the other cheek. They know how to go the second mile. They know how to give their coats when asked for their shirts. They know how to speak well of those who misrepresent them. They know how to return good for evil. They know how to lose. And in so doing, they exhibit the Spirit of the Lamb and allow God to win.”
“All service must flow out of a razor-sharp desire to please God rather than a desire to get noticed by others. If it does not, it will lead to either complaint or criticism.”
“As high as God is going to elevate you is as deep as He digs to lay the foundation. Sometimes the brightest light comes from the darkest places. And what doesn’t destroy you ends up defining you in some significant way.”
“Suffering is worldwide and neck deep. But for the Christian, suffering has a special purpose. It’s the chiseling of God designed to transform you into the image of His Son.”
“A Spirit-led man or woman is someone who has faced tragedy, faced loss, looked unbearable and exquisite pain in the face … and has stood his or her ground. With their garments still smoking, these men and women have said before God, mortals, and angels: ‘It is well with my soul. God’s enemy has thrown his best at me, and I’m still here. I’m still on the Rock. I’ve not sunk. I’m still standing. I’ve not been destroyed, and I’ve not gone under. I will continue to follow my Lord, come hell or high water, He is still on the throne!’”
“Christ saves as the Son of God, but He feels as the Son of man.”
“Faith often takes a nosedive when we are on the brink of tragedy. At such times, we forget the Lord’s words. Sometimes confessions and creeds, as important as they are, are not enough to move God to act. Only falling at His feel and weeping will suffice.”
“Every crisis in our lives is an opportunity to broaden, deepen, and heighten our revelation of Christ.”
“Basing your faith on God’s performance—what you think He should do according to what you’ve been taught about His promises—is a profound mistake. … Thus the only solid basis for unwavering faith and an unshakable devotion is to believe that God is … and that He does ‘all things well,’ no matter what takes place.”
“Christians aren’t saved from troubles or delivered from problems. We have been given an ascendant life to rise above them.”
“Sharing what one has with others is what keeps our hearts detached from earthly treasures.”
A nice touch I appreciated in Andrew Murray’s book Raising Your Child To Love God was the prayers he included at the end of each of the 52 chapters of this book. Below are some of the lines of prayer which I found noteworthy. If you would like to read some other quotes from this book, click here. If you would like to read my book review of this book, click here.
“Give us a deep sense of our holy calling to train their immortal souls for You and for our glory.”
“By my life, by my words, by my prayers, by gentleness and love, by authority and instruction, I would lead them in the way of the Lord. Be my helper, Lord.”
“As we see the power of sin and the world threatening our children, may we plead for them as for our own life.”
“O Father, open the eyes of all Your people, that in each little one You give them their faith may see an extraordinary child.”
“I acknowledge, Lord, that I do not sufficiently realize the value of my children or the danger to which they are exposed from the prince and the spirit of this world. Lord, teach me fully to recognize the danger and yet never to fear the commandment of the King. Open my eyes to see that in the light of heaven each child is a special child, entrusted to my keeping and training for your work and kingdom. Help me in the humility and watchfulness and boldness of faith to keep him sheltered, to hide him from the power of the world and of sin. May my own life be the life of faith, hid with Christ in God, that my child may know no other dwelling place.”
“O God, teach us to feel deeply that You have need of our children. For the building up of Your temple, in the struggle of Your kingdom with the powers of darkness, in the gathering of Your people from the millions of lost, You have need of our children. We give them to You. We will train them for You. We will wait in prayer and faith, and we beseech You to inspire them with a holy enthusiasm for the kingdom and its conquests.”
“Grant that I may always live worthy of all honor. And may the holy power to train young souls to keep Your commandments, to honor and serve You, be the fruit of Your own Spirit’s work in me.”
“Make our home a blessing to others, encouraging them to take a stand for You.”
“Teach me always to speak to him of Your love so that his heart will early be won to You. May my whole life be an inspiration, guiding him to what is pure and lovely, to what is holy and well pleasing to You.”
“Dear God, help me to teach my children the fear of the Lord by instruction, example, and the spirit of my own life. May thoughtfulness, truthfulness, and lovingkindness mark the conversation of my home. May the life of all in my care by holy unto the Lord. Daily I would show them, through Your grace, how departing from every evil, doing every good, and following after peace and holiness is what true fear of the Lord produces.”
“I am weak, but I know Your almighty power is working in me to keep me humble yet hopeful, conscious of my weakness yet confident in You.”
“O Lord, we draw nigh to You to claim the fulfillment of this promise on behalf of our beloved children. Lord, may they from their very youth have Your Spirit poured out upon them that even in the simplicity of childhood they may say, ‘I belong to the Lord.’”
“Because our child has been presented to You as Jesus was, may this be the beginning of a likeness that will take possession of his whole life. Give grace to Your servants. May we be worthy parents, guardians, and guides of this child who has been given to the Lord. For Your name’s sake. Amen.”
“May my daily experience of the way in which Your shepherd-love does its work be a lesson that teaches me how to feed my little flock. … Let Your holy love in my heart be the inspiring power of all my communion with You and with them. And let me so prove how wonderfully You are my Shepherd and blessed I am to be their shepherd.”
“O God, how we bless You for the promise that our home is to be Your home, the abode of Your Holy Spirit, and that in the happy life of love between parents and children, the Spirit of Your divine love is to be the link that binds us together.”
“Set me apart as a parent so to live as one baptized into Christ’s death that first my life and later my teaching may lead my child to experience this blessed life in Christ.”
“I come to You humbly confessing my sin. Often misbehavior in my children has been met by sinful response on my part. I know that this only discourages them. I want to be a parent who models patient love, helping them in their weakness, and by my example encouraging them with the assurance that they, too, can overcome difficulty.”
Twice in one chapter of the life of Abraham this phrase appears: The word of the Lord came to him (Genesis 15:1, 4). As awe-inspiring as it is to think about God speaking, what’s even more astounding to me is Abraham’s response.
Obedience.
God spoke. Abraham obeyed.
His first obedience was believing. So the Bible tells us, “Abraham believed God, and He credited to him as righteousness” (verse 6). By definition, righteousness means “right doing.” But doing comes directly out of believing, so Abraham had to first believe that what God said was the real deal.
God spoke. Abraham believed. God said, “You are righteous.” Then Abraham followed through on the word of God which he believed.
Why can’t it be the same with me? Or with you?
God speaks, I believe, God sees me as righteous, I act. It should be just that simple—there’s absolutely no need for me to add, subtract, modify, clarify, or delay.
It Is Finished was an amazingly confronting and encouraging book. You can read my full book review by clicking here, but below are some of the quotes from David Wilkerson that especially caught my attention…
“Jesus was speaking as co-signer of the covenant. He said, ‘Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are’ (John 17:11). He was saying to the Father, ‘We agreed that I could bring into Our covenant everyone who trusts in Me. Now, Father, I ask You to bring these beloved ones under the same covenant promises You made to Me.”
“The covenant, cut before the world was formed, has in it the sworn oath of almighty God to save and deliver His people from the power and dominion of satan. Faith in Christ brings us into God’s covenant oath to keep us as faithfully as He kept His own Son.”
“This is an ongoing problem with many Christians. We look to the Holy Spirit as some kind of booster shot to empower or energize our human will. We expect Him to build up our supply of grit and determination, so we can stand up to temptation the next time it comes. We cry, ‘Make me strong, Lord! Give me an iron will, so I can withstand all sin.’ But God knows this would only make our flesh stronger, enabling it to boast. … Scripture says the Spirit of God actually ‘subdues’ our sins and turns us from them: ‘He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast our sins into the depths of the sea’ (Micah 7:19). Think of it! Not I, but my God, will subdue and conquer all my sins, by the inner working of the Holy Spirit.”
“God’s Spirit will accomplish in us what our flesh never has been able to do. How? By indwelling us. The New Covenant is all about the Holy Spirit coming to live and work in us, by promise in answer to faith.”
“It is vital for every follower of Jesus not to judge God’s New Covenant promises according to past experiences.”
“God says, ‘There is one work the Spirit must perform in you before any of these others. He is going to put in you the true fear of God concerning sin. He will implant in you a profound awe of My holiness so you will not depart from My commands. Otherwise, your sin will always lead you away from Me.’ Very simply, the Holy Spirit changes the way we look at our sin. … So He shows us how deeply it grieves and provokes Him.”
“Many flesh-driven Christians try to shake off the guilt that God’s convicting arrows produce. They do not want to feel the dread of their sin, so they constantly claim the verse, ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 8:1). But they neglect to read the last part of this verse: ‘who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.’ If you continue in sin, you are walking in the flesh—and you have no claim on God’s promise of ‘no condemnation.’ The guilt we feel under Holy Spirit conviction is actually a work of God’s grace. It is meant to expose the deceitfulness of sin in us.”
“Ask the Holy Spirit to accomplish in you the precedent work of instilling godly fear in you, to keep your heart open and accepting of God’s Word. When you do, the Spirit promises to give you a soft heart, one that is pliable in His hand. … The implantation of godly fear by the Holy Spirit is designed to produce obedience through surrender, rather than through discipline.”
“God the Father gave His Son, Jesus, access to all of His own riches and wealth. In other words, He invested in Him all the wisdom, knowledge, power and glory of Heaven. And by being made wealthy in all these things, Jesus became the only One worthy to be co-signer of the covenant. ‘By so much more Jesus has become a surety [guarantor, sponsor, co-signer] of a better covenant’ (Hebrews 7:22). Could there be any greater mercy than this? God so loved us that He made His Son rich beyond all comprehension. Then He made Him both our kinsman and our co-signer. He has become the person responsible to settle all our debts. He pays when we cannot.”
“In this covenant, God pledges to do the following four things:
He swears to write His law on our hearts and minds.
He takes an oath that He will be God to us, and that we will be His children.
He promises we will know Him and His ways because we will be taught by the Holy Spirit.
He pledges to be merciful to our unrighteousness, forgiving all our sins and iniquities.”
“A stronghold is an accusation planted firmly in your mind. satan establishes strongholds in God’s people by implanting in their minds falsehoods and misconceptions, especially regarding God’s nature.”
“The only weapon that scares the devil and his armies is the same one that scared him in the wilderness temptation of Jesus. That weapon is the truth of the New Covenant—the living Word of God. Only the Lord’s truth can set us free.”
“This is the doctrine of God’s preventing goodness: He has anticipated all our struggles—all our battles with sin, flesh and the devil—and in His mercy and goodness, He has paid our debt before it can even come due. Through the covenant, He has prepaid for all our failures and relapses. His covenant oath assures us of His preventing goodness in our lives.”
“In God’s eyes, our problem is not sin, it is trust. Jesus settled our sin problem once and for all at Calvary. He does not constantly harp on us now, barking, ‘What have you done this time?’ or ‘Now you’ve gone too far,’ or ‘This time you’ve crossed the line.’ No, never! Our Lord’s attitude toward us is just the opposite. His Spirit is constantly wooing us, reminding us of the Father’s lovingkindness—even in the midst of failure.”
“To be a mother is the greatest vocation in the world. No being has a position of such great power and influence. She holds in her hands the destiny of nations….” —Hannah Whitall Smith
A great example of this is a woman by the name of Rahab who lived in ancient Jericho. She was doing her best to provide for her family in a very unsavory way: she was a prostitute. Yet this is a woman who is commended for her faith in God (Hebrews 11:31) and her righteous actions (James 2:25).
I know many moms who work hard to provide for their families, sometimes taking jobs that are very difficult and pay a low wage. They still find the time to buy the groceries, fix the meals, do the laundry, help with homework, attend after-school functions, and a million other things. Even after all this they feel inadequate, like they are not quite measuring up to the “best mom” standard.
To those moms, I say this: Look at Rahab, and learn what she learned. Rahab tried to provide for her family too, but when she got to the point where she was completely desperate she turned her family over to God. By helping the young Jewish spies, she turned her back on her countrymen and lost any other options for help. She said, “I believe in God, and I’m willing to trust Him with my family completely” (see Joshua 2:1-13).
As a result, God’s faithfulness to her is something we still are blessed by today. In giving us the genealogy of Jesus Christ, Matthew says this: Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David (Matthew 1:5-6). Rahab went all-in with God, and is now an indispensable part of the lineage of Jesus Christ!
Here’s the pattern for all moms to follow:
Concern for your family → Your utter reliance on God → The salvation of all in your family who will listen → A legacy of God’s provision and faithfulness
Moms, you have great power and you hold in your hands the destiny of nations, if you will just turn your concerns for your family over to God, and leave them in His loving hands.
I hope these quotes from Smith Wigglesworth On Healing will excite you to read this book. If you’d like to read my book review, please click here.
“Never listen to human plans. God can work mightily when you persist in believing Him in spite of discouragement from the human standpoint. … I am moved by what I believe. I know this: no man looks at the circumstances if he believes.”
“There are times when there seems to be a stone wall in front of us. There are times when there are no feelings. There are times when everything seems as black as midnight, and there is nothing left by confidence in God. What you must do is have the devotion and confidence to believe that He will not fail, and cannot fail. You will never get anywhere if you depend on your feelings. There is something a thousand times better than feelings, and it is the powerful Word of God. There is a divine revelation within you that came when you were born from above, and this is real faith. To be born into the new kingdom is to be born into a new faith.”
“You must be yielded to the Word of God. The Word will work out love in our hearts, and when practical love is in our hearts, there is no room to boast about ourselves. We see ourselves as nothing when we get lost in this divine love.”
“You can never pray ‘the prayer of faith’ (James 5:15) if you look at the person who is needing it; there is only one place to look, and that is to Jesus.”
“Hard things are always opportunities to gain more glory for the Lord as He manifests His power. Every trial is a blessing. … The hardest things are just lifting places into the grace of God.”
“The Master does not want us to reason things out, for carnal reasoning will always land us in a bog of unbelief. He wants us simply to obey.”
“You must come to see how wonderful you are in God and how helpless you are in yourself.”
“May God help us to see this truth. We cannot be ‘to the praise of His glory’ (Ephesians 1:12) until we are ready for trials and are able to triumph in them.”
“God is never tightfisted with any of His blessings.”
“Jesus was manifested in the flesh to destroy the power of the devil (1 John 3:8). What does that mean? It means this: He is God’s example to show us that what God did for and in Jesus, He can do for and in us.”
“The reason the world is not seeing Jesus is that Christian people are not filled with Jesus. They are satisfied with attending meetings weekly, reading the Bible occasionally, and praying sometimes. … It is an awful thing for me to see people who profess to be Christians lifeless, powerless, and in a place where their lives are so parallel to unbelievers’ lives that it is difficult to tell which place they are in, whether in the flesh or in the Spirit.”
“There is no such thing as the Lord’s not meeting your need. There are no ifs or mays; His promises are all shalls. ‘All things are possible to him who believes’ (Mark 9:23).”
“Faith is just the open door through which the Lord comes. Do not say, ‘I was saved by faith’ or ‘I was healed by faith.’ Faith does not save and heal. God saves and heals through that open door. You believe, and the power of Christ comes.”
“I clearly see that we ought to have spiritual giants in the earth, mighty in understanding, amazing in activity, always having a wonderful testimony because of their faith-filled activity. I find instead that there are many people who perhaps have better discernment than the average believer, better knowledge of the Word the the average believer, but they have failed to put their discernment and knowledge into practice, so the gifts lie dormant.”
Whenever I read Smith Wigglesworth’s sermons, my faith is challenged to reach farther than it’s ever reached before! In this collection of messages entitled Smith Wigglesworth On Healing, once again I found myself wanting so much more of God!
Wigglesworth didn’t write his books, he preached them. This plumber-turned-preacher was one of the most faith-filled dynamos I’ve ever heard from. On page after page he confronted me with how much more there is to experience in my relationship with God, and then backed it up with his own personal experiences. In this particular book, the focus is on people who were physically healed (including Wigglesworth himself) from diseases which perplexed doctors. Time and again I found myself saying, “Yes! I want to see this today!”
If you want to give your faith a boost to believe God for miracles, I can think of no better preacher to read than Smith Wigglesworth.
I strongly encourage Christian parents to put a copy of Firsthand into the hands of their children, high school age and older. This book will help them think through making their faith in Jesus something personal to them. You can read my book review by clicking here. Below are some quotes that stood out to me. All of these quotes are by the authors, unless otherwise noted.
“You must be emptied of that of which you are full, so that you may be filled with that of which you are empty.” —Augustine
“One of the most liberating and powerful statements of all time comes from the lips of Jesus: ‘You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’ (John 8:32). And we’re writing this chapter to tell you something that will set you free. The only way we’ve been able to experience freedom is by making the choice to get completely gut-level honest with God and others.”
“God can use you and me through our brokenness, but first we have to get real and vulnerable with Him and with others. I think this powerful ‘get real’ dynamic works for a few reasons. First of all, being real with God and those around us invites us to drop the pride and pretense and to walk in humility. Second, honesty invites us to live every day in gratitude for the incredible grace that Lord has shown us. And third, since now we know we can’t make it on our own—and that’s okay—we’re ready to invite God’s power to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12:9, ‘I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.’ This turns the concept of weakness and vulnerability on its head. We are saying that God makes up for our weaknesses. We are admitting that He is ready to work through them. Our weaknesses can actually become our greatest assets because they draw us closer to the Lord. And once we see how God can use them, we have all the more reason to be open about our struggles.”
“When all you see is a life in pieces, remember: the Remodeler wants to change you from the inside out. And He’s at work building your character to match His great calling and purpose for your life.”
“We have to decide, moment by moment, if we want to act changed or be changed.”
“It is more important to live one word of Scripture than it is to memorize volumes.” —Tim Hansel
“When our faith looks like a long list of things we should do, it’s usually a sign we’re not really focused on knowing God today for ourselves. Firsthand faith is all about a relationship with the God who is always faithful.”
“God is no less with you in your doubts that He is with you in your certainties.”
“Firsthand faith means we’re not afraid to bring our burning questions directly to God. But it also means that we’re not afraid to simply relax in His love. Even when all our questions haven’t yet been answered.”
“The needs of this world are endless. So whenever we feel a divine disturbance, it’s essential that we respond with firsthand action. If we don’t, it will quickly turn into secondhand bitterness.”
“James tells us that faith without works is dead (James 2:26). The most certain way to go back to living a secondhand faith is to refuse to act upon the Holy Spirit’s movement in your heart…. When you do not respond to a divine disturbance of the Holy Spirit, you get bitter and you criticize. That helps no one. … When you don’t respond to a divine disturbance in your life, you become the greatest obstacle between an unbelieving world and a loving God—a judgmental Christian.”
“Your eternal footprint—the impact you make on this earth—will be determined by whether you respond to the calling of the Spirit of the Lord in your heart to love a broken world, to step into the gifts and passions the Lord has blessed you with yo meet the needs that others overlook.”
“When we set out to discover our own firsthand faith, we were disillusioned with church. We had seen how imperfect the church could be, and we were certain that church was the problem. Coming full circle with our firsthand faith, we now realize that church was not the problem. The problem was out view and definition of the church itself. It took us a long time to understand that church wasn’t a building or a pastor or a sermon series. It’s easy to point out everything wrong with the church when you stand outside it and approach it with a consumer mentality. We thought the church had given us a secondhand faith, when in reality we had chosen to avoid a firsthand relationship with the community of Christ follower we claimed to care about.”
“The church is messy and imperfect because it is made up of broken and imperfect people. Are you sitting on the sidelines because the people in your church are imperfect or ‘just not like you’? … God designed you to be in community with your local church. He designed you to have firsthand relationships not only with Him but also with the people in your church. You can come up with plenty of excuses not to get involved and reasons that your church has it wrong, but when was the lat time you looked inside yourself and really searched your own heart for issues?”
“You can try to live out a firsthand faith on your own for as long as you want, but until you live out that faith in a community, you will never realize your full potential in Christ.”
“As a Christian, you are part of a movement that will outlast you, and you are part of the Firsthand Generation. As communities of believers rise up, we will gain momentum and create a movement that is stronger than anything we could ever accomplish on our own. Perhaps God is calling you to gather people and become a leader in the Firsthand Generation. Take up the challenge.”
While I was reading Firsthand by Ryan & Josh Shook, I felt a little bit like I was reading my own autobiography. Ryan & Josh write about their journey to embrace faith in God as something personal for them—something firsthand. Prior to this point in their lives, these brothers felt like they were living and believing in a secondhand relationship with God.
I can relate. I’m a fourth-generation Christian, with my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents professing a relationship with Jesus Christ. I remember vividly my “crisis of faith” as I wrestled with my burning questions: Do I believe what the Bible says about God just because my parents believed it, or do I believe it because it’s true?
I would encourage all Christian parents to purchase a copy of this book for their kids. Ryan & Josh’s words will resonate with them, and will prepare them for their own journey of discovery. We Christian parents must do all we can to help our children successfully navigate this crucial time in their lives, and Firsthand will be an invaluable resource.
Here’s a video review I did for WaterBrook Multnomah Publishers—
Craig T. Owens 