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.
Jesus Is #1, #2, And #3
When we are baptized with the Holy Spirit, self is effaced in a glory of sacrifice for Jesus and we become His witnesses. Self-conscious devotion is gone, self-conscious service is killed, and one thing only remains, Jesus Christ first, second, and third.
From The Highest Good
Jesus said the Holy Spirit “will honor and glorify Me, because He will take of (receive, draw upon) what is Mine and will reveal (declare, disclose, transmit) it to you” (John 16:14, Amplified Bible). When we are baptized with the Holy Spirit, we no longer think about being devoted to Christ, we just are devoted to Christ—He becomes our first priority, our second priority, our third priority …. our only priority.
The baptism with the Holy Spirit changes everything.
(If you are near Cedar Springs, I’ll be sharing the second message in our new series called Come Holy Spirit this Sunday. I’d love to have you join me.)
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.
Don’t Love People Too Highly
The natural man does not like God’s commands; he will not have them, he covers them over and ignores them. Jesus said the first commandment is: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength” [Mark 12:29-31]. Men put the second commandment first: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” The great cry today is “love for mankind.” The cry of Jesus is “love for God first,” and this love, the highest love, the supreme, passionate devotion of the life, springs from the inner center.
Anyone NOT have a busy life? If your life is dull or uneventful, then you can stop reading this book review right now. However, if you have a full, busy life, you need to make the time to read When Work & Family Collide by Andy Stanley.
The subtitle of this book says it all: Keeping your job from cheating your family. The premise of this book is quite simple—you cannot fully satisfy both your office and your family, so someone is going to have to get cheated. In the introduction to the book, Andy Stanley says,
“Daily we decide to shortchange one thing in order to more fully experience another. …So we “cheat.” We give up certain opportunities for the sake of others. We invest in some relationships while neglecting others. We allocate our time the best we can, knowing all the while that somebody’s going to feel cheated. Unfortunately, that “somebody” is usually someone we care a great deal about.”
Pastor Stanley then goes on to outline why it’s so important that work gets cheated and not our families. One of my favorite quotes in the book is, “You do your job. You love your family. It’s when we reverse the order that the tension escalates and the tug of war begins.”
Like me, you may be thinking, “But I can’t ‘cheat’ on work! I’ll lose my job!” Using the biblical example of Daniel and some very practical advice, Andy Stanley helps you to see how you can keep your priorities in order, and make the adjustments that will help you do your job and love your family.
This book has some amazing thoughts, but it’s also a surprisingly easy read. In your busy, go-go-go schedule, you would be wise to make some time on a weekend to read this book, work through the discussion questions at the back of the book with your family, and then make the changes that will help both your work and your family to thrive. Everyone will benefit from this investment of your time.
King David was brilliant as a king, and a disaster as a father. One of the things that is very telling is what is not written when his kids mess up. The Bible tells us that David felt strong emotions, but he simply didn’t act on them. In fact, one of the most telling verses of inaction comes when his son Adonijah is trying to put himself on David’s throne—
His father had never interfered with him by asking, “Why do you behave as you do?” (1 Kings 1:6)
It takes courage to interfere with our kids when they are misbehaving.
So why don’t some dads interfere? I can think of a few reasons…
They didn’t have a good relationship with their own father. In David’s case, his father Jesse didn’t think too highly of David. In fact, David was the overlooked, almost-forgotten son (1 Samuel 16:8-11).
They’re too tired. David was so focused on building up Israel’s defenses, and defeating the bad guys, that he had nothing left emotionally and physically to interact with his kids. We need to make it our priority!John wrote: I have no greater joy than knowing my children all walk in the truth (3 John 4). Now that’s a great priority!
Their past sins haunt them. David sinned against Bathsheba (like Amnon did against Tamar); David murdered Uriah (like Adonijah did Amnon). So perhaps he felt like he didn’t have the moral authority to interfere with his sons. But if you read some of the wise sayings in Proverbs 6:20-29 and 7:1-5, they sound like a man who has had experience. Let your hindsight (good or bad) be your kids’ foresight.
They think it’s too late. It’s never too late! Never! Apparently, David learned this lesson in time and taught his son Solomon (read Proverbs 1:1 and 4:3-4). As long as there is breath in your lungs, you should be your kids’ dad!
Dads, will you be courageous enough to lovingly interfere with your kids if they are getting off track?
Will you be courageous enough to make some changes in your schedule so that you can invest the time and energy and creativity necessary to raise them up?
Will you be courageous enough to confess your past sins, and not let them hold you back from speaking into your kids’ lives?
Will you be courageous enough to start today?
Dad, you kids need you to be involved! Be courageous enough to step into their lives.
My son is playing baseball for his high school this season. Whether I’m at a game or a practice, whether the Red Hawks are up to bat or out in the field, I hear the phrase over and over again: Keep your eye on the ball!
Pretty good advice.
It’s awfully hard to field the ball when you are distracted by something else. It’s next to impossible to hit the ball when you don’t watch it all the way from the pitcher’s hand.
As a pastor, people tell me frequently about a stumble into sin, a failure in their marriage, a relapse into their addiction, a slip of the tongue. And I want to repeat the phrase over and over again: Keep your eyes on Jesus!
It’s awfully hard to say no to sin that seems so attractive when you aren’t looking at the surpassing beauty of Christ.
It’s really hard to stay committed in your marriage when you don’t look at the perfect Bridegroom.
It’s almost impossible to stay morally clean unless your eyes are fixed on the perfect Savior.
Charles Spurgeon gave this warning—
“Some creature steals away your heart, and you are unmindful of Christ upon whom youraffectionoughttobeset. Some earthly business engrosses your attention when you should fixyour eye steadily upon the Cross. It is the incessant turmoil of the world, the constant attraction of earthly things which takes away the soul from Christ.”
I love the chorus of the old hymn:
Turn your eyes upon JesusLook full in His wonderful faceAnd the things of earth will grow strangely dimIn the light of His glory and grace
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
I often have a discussion with my kids (okay, sometimes I have this discussion with myself too!) about the difference between wants and needs.
Needs are requirements for life. I need oxygen, food, water, shelter.
Wants are my desires for life. I want a new computer, a faster car, a closer Starbucks.
But as I mature in my relationship with Christ, shouldn’t my need for Him and my want of Him become more and more similar? Shouldn’t the deepest longing (want) in my heart be for the one thing I need most?
Nicholas of Cusa wrote:
Who would think of paying a man to do what he was yearning to do already? For instance, no one would hire a hungry man to eat, or a thirsty man to drink, or a mother to nurse her own child. Who would think of bribing a farmer to dress his own vineyard, or to dig about his orchard, or to rebuild his house? So, all the more, one who truly loves God asks no other recompense than God Himself.
When my want for God’s closeness and my need for His closeness become one, this is a simple song with a profound meaning:
All I want is more of You
All I want is more of You
Nothing I desire, Lord, but more of You
I pray my wants and needs will more closely align as I fall in love with my Savior again and again and again and again!
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.
A Passion For Christ, Not Souls
The reason some of us have no power in our preaching, no sense of awe, is that we have no passion for God, but only a passion for Humanity….
It is not a passion for men that saves men; a passion for men breaks human hearts. The passion for Christ inwrought by the Holy Spirit goes deeper down than the deepest agony the world, the flesh and the devil can produce. It goes straight down to where Our Lord went, and the Holy Spirit works out, not in thinking, but in living, this passion for Christ.
From Approved Unto God
Wow, tough word. But it’s true: If I love Christ more than my loved ones, I will love my loved ones even better. A passion for Christ will win others to Christ; a passion for souls will only lead to building my ministry.
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.
The Master’s Standard
Jesus Christ’s standard for the worker is Himself. Am I allowing His standard to obsess me? Am I measuring my life by His all the time? The one standard put before us is Our Lord Himself; we have to be saturated in this ideal in thinking and in praying, and allow nothing to blur the standard. We must lift up Jesus Christ not only in the preaching of the Gospel but to our own souls. If my mind and heart and spirit is getting fixed with one Figure only, the Lord Jesus Christ, and other people and other ideas are fading, then I am growing in grace. The one dominant characteristic in the life of the worker is that Jesus Christ is coming more into the ascendant. The motive is not a sentiment but a passion, the blazing passion of the Holy Ghost in the soul of the worker; not—“because Jesus has done so much for me,” that is a sickening, unscriptural statement. The one attitude of the life is Jesus Christ first, second, and third, and nothing apart from Him. The thing that hinders God’s work is not sin, but other claims which are right, but which at a certain point of their rightness conflict with the claims of Jesus Christ. If the conflict should come, remember it is to be Jesus first.
From Approved Unto God
Am I measuring my life by His all the time? Great question!
Yeah, yeah… you know about the Lord’s Prayer. Maybe you know it by heart. Maybe you pray this prayer every week at your church, or maybe even every day in your home. But do you really know the Lord’s Prayer? R.T. Kendall is about to take you on a journey of discovery that will energize this prayer like never before.
The Lord’s Prayer leads you through this powerful prayer phrase by phrase, petition by petition. Dr. Kendall calls this “the perfect prayer,” and after reading his insights, I think you will agree with him.
I know that anything I do or say time and time again can lose some of its meaning. The Lord’s Prayer is so well known that many of us can rattle it off from rote memory, almost in one breath, and never really comprehend what we’re actually praying. Dr. Kendall brings out such a depth of understanding in each phrase of this prayer, that I don’t think I will ever pray it the same way again.
For instance, I never realized the significance of even the order of the prayer. Jesus put the first thing first and then puts each following phrase in its perfect place as well. The way Dr. Kendall explains it brings out such a richness of understanding.
I could imagine this book being the perfect tool to help your personal prayer life go deeper. I can also see this book being used by a church’s prayer team to help energize their prayer times together. Whether personally or corporately, your prayer life will be greatly benefitted by this book.
Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.
We all like “Yes.” That’s a nice word. But here’s the problem: By saying “Yes” to too many things we’re really saying “No” to many of the things we previously said “Yes” to.
Confused?
Let me try it this way. We all have only 24 hours in a day. No more; no less. We can all do a finite number of things during that 24-hour period. Some may be able to do slightly more, but even the most efficient people have a limit.
When we keep saying “Yes” over and over and over again, eventually our mouths are saying “Yes” but we cannot deliver. We’re out of time, out of resources, out of open places on our To Do list, out of patience, out of energy, out of money.
Perhapsthe best way to make your “Yes” mean “Yes” is to say “No.” To truly evaluate what is important, how much time you have, or how much money you have. And then say “No” to the things that you cannot truly commit to.
It’s hard to say “No.” But saying “No” more often will make your “Yes” so much more doable. Otherwise, your verbal “Yes” becomes an “I’ll try,” which eventually is a “Not really,” which in reality is a “No” anyway. So just say “No” upfront.
And don’t say anything you don’t mean. This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, “I’ll pray for you,” and never doing it, or saying, “God be with you,” and not meaning it. You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true. Just say “yes” and “no.” When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong. —Jesus (Matthew 5:33-37 in The Message paraphrase)
You can make your “Yes” so much more powerful by only saying “Yes” to those things that are truly important. That means you will need to get comfortable with saying a loving, but firm “No” more often than you probably have in the past.
Craig T. Owens 