Devotional: Our Daily Bread

The Realm Of The Real — Sun May 20, 2012

Sun, 20 May 2012div id=”mu-item”h4Verse/h4div class=”verse”In your patience possess ye your souls./divP#8212; a href=”http://www.biblestudytools.com/search/?q=lu+21%3A19″lu 21:19/a/Ph4Thought/h4PPWhen a man is born again, there is not the same robustness in his thinking or reasoning for a time as formerly. We have to make an expression of the new life, to form the mind of Christ. quot;Acquire your soul with patience.quot; Many of us prefer to stay at the threshold of the Christian life instead of going on to construct a soul in accordance with the new life God has put within. We fail because we are ignorant of the way we are made, we put things down to the devil instead of our own undisciplined natures. Think what we can be when we are roused! P There are certain things we must not pray about – moods, for instance. Moods never go by praying, moods go by kicking. A mood nearly always has its seat in the physical condition, not in the moral. It is a continual effort not to listen to the moods which arise from a physical condition, never submit to them for a second. We have to take ourselves by the scruff of the neck and shake ourselves, and we will find that we can do what we said we could not. The curse with most of us is that we won’t. The Christian life is one of incarnate spiritual pluck./P/divimg src=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/hl-devos-mu/~4/19b7pIUvSkA” height=”1″ width=”1″/… Read More

“out Of The Wreck I Rise” — Sat May 19, 2012

Sat, 19 May 2012div id=”mu-item”h4Verse/h4div class=”verse”Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?/divP#8212; a href=”http://www.biblestudytools.com/search/?q=ro+8%3A35″ro 8:35/a/Ph4Thought/h4PPGod does not keep a man immune from trouble; He says – quot;I will be with him in trouble.quot; It does not matter what actual troubles in the most extreme form get hold of a man’s life, not one of them can separate him from his relationship to God. We are quot;more than conquerors in all these things.quot; Paul is not talking of imaginary things, but of things that are desperately actual; and he says we are super-victors in the midst of them, not by our ingenuity, or by our courage, or by anything other than the fact that not one of them affects our relationship to God in Jesus Christ. Rightly or wrongly, we are where we are, exactly in the condition we are in. I am sorry for the Christian who has not something in his circumstances he wishes was not there. P quot;Shall tribulation#133;?quot; Tribulation is never a noble thing; but let tribulation be what it may – exhausting, galling, fatiguing, it is not able to separate us from the love of God. Never let cares or tribulations separate you from the fact that God loves you. P quot;Shall anguish#133;?quot; – can God’s love hold when everything says that His love is a lie, and that there is no such thing as justice? P quot;Shall famine#133;?quot; – can we not only believe in the love of God but be more than conquerors, even while we are being starved? P Either Jesus Christ is a deceiver and Paul is deluded, or some extraordinary thing happens to a man who holds on to the love of God when the odds are all against God’s character. Logic is silenced in the face of every one of these things. Only one thing can account for it – the Ilove of God in Christ Jesus./I quot;Out of the wreck I risequot; every time./P/divimg src=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/hl-devos-mu/~4/RDIH5OQgfFI” height=”1″ width=”1″/… Read More

Careful Unreasonableness — Fri May 18, 2012

Fri, 18 May 2012div id=”mu-item”h4Verse/h4div class=”verse”Behold the fowls of the air./divP#8212; a href=”http://www.biblestudytools.com/search/?q=mt+6%3A26%2C28″mt 6:26,28/a/Ph4Thought/h4PPConsider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they simply Iare!/I Think of the sea, the air, the sun, the stars and the moon – all these are, and what a ministration they exert. So often we mar God’s designed influence through us by our self-conscious effort to be consistent and useful. Jesus says that there is only one way to develop spiritually, and that is by concentration on God. quot;Do not bother about being of use to others; believe on Mequot; – pay attention to the Source, and out of you will flow rivers of living water. We cannot get at the springs of our natural life by common sense, and Jesus is teaching that growth in spiritual life does not depend on our watching it, but on concentration on our Father in heaven. Our heavenly Father knows the circumstances we are in, and if we keep concentrated on Him we will grow spiritually as the lilies. P The people who influence us most are not those who buttonhole us and talk to us, but those who live their lives like the stars in heaven and the lilies in the field, perfectly simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mould us. P If you want to be of use to God, get rightly related to Jesus Christ and He will make you of use unconsciously every minute you live./P/divimg src=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/hl-devos-mu/~4/hY4eOEu4O7g” height=”1″ width=”1″/… Read More

His Ascension And Our Union — Thu May 17, 2012

Thu, 17 May 2012div id=”mu-item”h4Verse/h4div class=”verse”PIAnd it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.” /Inbsp;/divP#8212; a href=”http://www.biblestudytools.com/search/?q=lu+24%3A51″lu 24:51/a/Ph4Thought/h4PPWe have no corresponding experience to the events in Our Lord’s life after the Transfiguration. From then onwards Our Lord’s life’ was altogether vicarious. Up to the time of the Transfiguration He had exhibited the normal perfect life of a man; from the Transfiguration onwards – Gethsemane, the Cross, the Resurrection – everything is unfamiliar to us. His Cross is the door by which every member of the human race can enter into the life of God; by His Resurrection He has the right to give eternal life to any man, and by His Ascension Our Lord enters heaven and keeps the door open for humanity. P On the Mount of Ascension the Transfiguration is completed. If Jesus had gone to heaven from the Mount of Transfiguration, He would have gone alone; He would have been nothing more to us than a glorious Figure. But He turned His back on the glory, and came down from the Mount to identify Himself with fallen humanity. P The Ascension is the consummation of the Transfiguration. Our Lord does now go back into His primal glory; but He does not go back simply as Son of God; He goes back to God as ISon of Man/I as well as Son of God. There is now freedom of access for anyone straight to the very throne of God by the Ascension of the Son of Man. As Son of Man Jesus Christ deliberately limited omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience in Himself. Now they are His in absolute full power. As Son of Man Jesus Christ has all power at the throne of God. He is King of kings and Lord of lords from the day of His Ascension until now./P/divimg src=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/hl-devos-mu/~4/a0BmIGryOPY” height=”1″ width=”1″/… Read More