Our Hope and our salvation will be born in a manger
Sharing in the Atonement
The gospel of Jesus Christ always forces a decision of our will. Have I accepted God’s verdict on sin as judged on the Cross of Christ? Do I have even the slightest interest in the death of Jesus? Do I want to be identified with His death— to be completely dead to all interest in sin, worldliness, and self? Do I long to be so closely identified with Jesus that I am of no value for anything except Him and His purposes? The great privilege of discipleship is that I can commit myself under the banner of His Cross, and that means death to sin. You must get alone with Jesus and either decide to tell Him that you do not want sin to die out in you, or that at any cost you want to be identified with His death. When you act in confident faith in what our Lord did on the cross, a supernatural identification with His death takes place immediately. And you will come to know through a higher knowledge that your old life was “crucified with Him” (Romans 6:6). The proof that your old life is dead, having been “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20), is the amazing ease with which the life of God in you now enables you to obey the voice of Jesus Christ.
Every once in a while our Lord gives us a glimpse of what we would be like if it were not for Him. This is a confirmation of what He said— “…without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). That is why the underlying foundation of Christianity is personal, passionate devotion to the Lord Jesus. We mistake the joy of our first introduction into God’s kingdom as His purpose for getting us there. Yet God’s purpose in getting us into His kingdom is that we may realize all that identification with Jesus Christ means.
| DECEMBER 23, 2014
From: Crosswalk I Didn’t Have The Courage |
“The people rejoiced at the willing response of their leaders, for they had given freely and wholeheartedly to the LORD…” 1 Chronicles 29:9a (NIV)
I didn’t want to go first. As much as I knew God wanted me to trust Him, I didn’t have the courage.
It was June 1989. I had given my life to Christ six months earlier and was on a college youth retreat. While reading my Bible one day, I sensed God wanted me to share my story. First with my large youth group, and then with others in the coming weeks. Not just the happy parts of my story; but also the hidden, redeemed-by-His grace parts.
I didn’t want to tell people the hard parts of my story, especially not my struggles with depression and anxiety. Yet I knew God wanted me to share the reasons behind the life-changing hope I’d found in Christ.
I wish I could say I gave my story freely and wholeheartedly to the Lord, to use for His glory. Just like King David and his leaders gave their gifts to build a temple for the Lord, as we see in today’s key verse, 1 Chronicles 29:9, I wish I could say my heart responded with a courageous “Yes!”
But that’s not what happened and here’s why:
I couldn’t see the why behind God’s will. Why would God want me to share my story? How could my story help people? Their smiles and seemingly happy-go-lucky Christian lives convinced me they were doing fine. I assumed their problems were minor and their need for Jesus was minimal compared to mine.
I didn’t realize pride had blocked my perspective. I thought I was afraid to share my story, but I’m pretty sure pride was the problem. Sadly, I was more concerned with what people thought about me than what they thought about God. Clinging to the details of my story like priceless jewels, I would not give my brokenness to use for others’ good or for His glory.
I didn’t have the courage to go first. I had never heard Christians share their emotional and spiritual struggles. And I did not want to be the first. What if depression and anxiety were topics under a secret “things we don’t talk about” category I hadn’t been told about? That would be awkward. Maybe if someone else went first, then I’d go next.
I didn’t share my story that weekend or in the 10 years that followed.
I didn’t have courageous willingness like King David. But eventually I became like his leaders and like the people who saw their example and “rejoiced at the willing response of their leaders, for they had given freely and wholeheartedly to the LORD …” 1 Chronicles 29:9a (NIV).
You see, God brought women into my life who followed His lead even when they didn’t understand the why behind His will. Women who recognized pride’s ability to block our perspective and keep us from God’s best.
Women who were willing to go first, which gave me the courage to go next.
Through my church, speakers at women’s conferences and here at Proverbs 31 Ministries, God has surrounded me with women who give Jesus full access to their lives and their stories because they trust Jesus more than their fears.
God uses women who are willing to go first — to give others courage to go next.
I want to be that kind of woman. A woman who is willing to say, “I’ll trust Jesus even when it’s hard. I’ll let my guard down so you can see Christ working in me. I’ll be brave so you know you can be, too. Watch, I’ll go first.”
Why? Because He’s worth it and you’re worth it. We’re worth it, friend. We’re worth the work it takes to follow Christ with all of our hearts and willingly give Him all we’ve got.
Let’s do it. Are you with me? I’ll go first.
Streams In The Desert
12/23/2014
Morning
From: Biblegateway
“Friend, go up higher.”
Luke 14:10
When first the life of grace begins in the soul, we do indeed draw near to God, but it is with great fear and trembling. The soul conscious of guilt, and humbled thereby, is overawed with the solemnity of its position; it is cast to the earth by a sense of the grandeur of Jehovah, in whose presence it stands. With unfeigned bashfulness it takes the lowest room.
But, in after life, as the Christian grows in grace, although he will never forget the solemnity of his position, and will never lose that holy awe which must encompass a gracious man when he is in the presence of the God who can create or can destroy; yet his fear has all its terror taken out of it; it becomes a holy reverence, and no more an overshadowing dread. He is called up higher, to greater access to God in Christ Jesus. Then the man of God, walking amid the splendours of Deity, and veiling his face like the glorious cherubim, with those twin wings, the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, will, reverent and bowed in spirit, approach the throne; and seeing there a God of love, of goodness, and of mercy, he will realize rather the covenant character of God than his absolute Deity. He will see in God rather his goodness than his greatness, and more of his love than of his majesty. Then will the soul, bowing still as humbly as aforetime, enjoy a more sacred liberty of intercession; for while prostrate before the glory of the Infinite God, it will be sustained by the refreshing consciousness of being in the presence of boundless mercy and infinite love, and by the realization of acceptance “in the Beloved.” Thus the believer is bidden to come up higher, and is enabled to exercise the privilege of rejoicing in God, and drawing near to him in holy confidence, saying, “Abba, Father.”
“So may we go from strength to strength,
And daily grow in grace,
Till in thine image raised at length,
We see thee face to face.”
Evening
“The night also is thine.”
Psalm 74:16
Yes, Lord, thou dost not abdicate thy throne when the sun goeth down, nor dost thou leave the world all through these long wintry nights to be the prey of evil; thine eyes watch us as the stars, and thine arms surround us as the zodiac belts the sky. The dews of kindly sleep and all the influences of the moon are in thy hand, and the alarms and solemnities of night are equally with thee. This is very sweet to me when watching through the midnight hours, or tossing to and fro in anguish. There are precious fruits put forth by the moon as well as by the sun: may my Lord make me to be a favoured partaker in them.
The night of affliction is as much under the arrangement and control of the Lord of Love as the bright summer days when all is bliss. Jesus is in the tempest. His love wraps the night about itself as a mantle, but to the eye of faith the sable robe is scarce a disguise. From the first watch of the night even unto the break of day the eternal Watcher observes his saints, and overrules the shades and dews of midnight for his people’s highest good. We believe in no rival deities of good and evil contending for the mastery, but we hear the voice of Jehovah saying, “I create light and I create darkness; I, the Lord, do all these things.”
Gloomy seasons of religious indifference and social sin are not exempted from the divine purpose. When the altars of truth are defiled, and the ways of God forsaken, the Lord’s servants weep with bitter sorrow, but they may not despair, for the darkest eras are governed by the Lord, and shall come to their end at his bidding. What may seem defeat to us may be victory to him.
“Though enwrapt in gloomy night,
We perceive no ray of light;
Since the Lord himself is here,
‘Tis not meet that we should fear.”