Posted on 10/09/2005 8:24:25 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
We do not grow into a spiritual relationship step by step— we either have a relationship or we do not. God does not continue to cleanse us more and more from sin— "But if we walk in the light," we are cleansed "from all sin" ( 1 John 1:7 ). It is a matter of obedience, and once we obey, the relationship is instantly perfected. But if we turn away from obedience for even one second, darkness and death are immediately at work again.
All of God’s revealed truths are sealed until they are opened to us through obedience. You will never open them through philosophy or thinking. But once you obey, a flash of light comes immediately. Let God’s truth work into you by immersing yourself in it, not by worrying into it. The only way you can get to know the truth of God is to stop trying to find out and by being born again. If you obey God in the first thing He shows you, then He instantly opens up the next truth to you. You could read volumes on the work of the Holy Spirit, when five minutes of total, uncompromising obedience would make things as clear as sunlight. Don’t say, "I suppose I will understand these things someday!" You can understand them now. And it is not study that brings understanding to you, but obedience. Even the smallest bit of obedience opens heaven, and the deepest truths of God immediately become yours. Yet God will never reveal more truth about Himself to you, until you have obeyed what you know already. Beware of becoming one of the "wise and prudent." "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know . . ." ( John 7:17 ).
In 1910 Chambers married Gertrude Hobbs. They had one daughter, Kathleen, who still resides in London (as of 1992).
In 1911 he founded and became principal of the Bible Training College in Clapham, London, where he lectured until the school was closed in 1915 because of World War I. In October 1915 he sailed for Zeitoun, Egypt (near Cairo), where he ministered to Australian and New Zealand troops as a YMCA chaplain. He died there November 15, 1917, following surgery for a ruptured appendix.
My Utmost for His Highest, his best-known book, has been continuously in print in the United States since 1935 and in this, the last decade of the century, remains in the top ten titles of the religious book bestseller list with millions of copies in print. It has become a Christian classic. [from the flyleaf of the book]
Absolutely no flaming! These daily threads are intended to be devotional in nature. If a particular day's offering says nothing to you, please just go on and wait for the next day. Consider these threads a DMZ of sorts, a place where a perpetual truce is in effect and a place where all other arguments and disagreements from other times and places are left behind.
I can attest from personal experience that reading from Chambers daily will almost certainly change - not one's faith - but one's perspective of his/her own faith, and open up new vistas in your spiritual life. If - when - this happens to a reader of these threads, and they choose to share what has happened within them - we are treading on hallowed ground. Be respectful.
- Religion Moderator
This is so true and yet so evasive to the "wise and learned" who seek to "figure it out" and make it all add up logically. How true the verse that opens this devotion, (in the New Life version):
The very first step of obedience is the very same message both John the Forerunner and Jesus Christ Himself proclaimed: "Repent!"
If we never reach the obedient act of repentance by seeing how evil our hearts and works have been, confessing that we are indeed liars, workers of iniquity, in short sinners, just as God has said, no other thing will follow...all else remains veiled, in darkness. This is why there are so many who say with a straight face, "Indeed, Jesus was a prophet and teacher," but never receive the power of regeneration, forgiveness, and a brand new life: They do not know that they are sinners, or rather, deny that they are so, and thus deny the necessity of the cross, the death and resurrection of the Christ of God.
Choose Ye This Day had a post a couple of days ago which inspired me to share my testimony of salvation, but on that day I had no time to do so! I've recently written it out in long form anew, to send to a pastor in Tanzania I am now partnering with through Gospelink.org. It is definitely the looooong version, but I hope you all won't mind if I post it.
My mother was a Catholic who baptized all her children as babies, and sent me and my brother and sister to "First Communion" classes at the church she attended in Montpelier, Vermont. This was where I first heard about how loving Jesus is, but there was no Power in any of this for me personally. In fact, my mother was "excommunicated" from the Catholic church for remarrying after my father abandoned her when I was only 3 years old. My father has been married and divorced FOUR times, and my mother married and divorced TWICE. (I myself am on my THIRD divorce: O God deliver my family from this curse!)
Neither of my parents taught me The Word, although when I was a teenager my mother received true Salvation in Jesus Christ and began speaking in tongues. Of course this was ridiculous to me and my siblings, who did not know the Spirit or the Power of God. I was a very rebellious teenager and remained so through my twenties; relations between myself and both my parents were completely cut off for a time. My first sexual experience was drugged and drunken deathtrap at the age of 16; that same year I was raped again at gunpoint having been picked up hitchhiking in a miniskirt. I aborted my first child at the age of 19; two years later my second baby was aborted to save my life; the combination of these abortions and their complications left me barren.
It wasn't until I was 29 years old that I was delivered from the way of darkness. I was in my own second marriage, my first husband having shown himself to be a practicing homosexual. My second husband was a violent alcoholic and I was his "party girl." I was into the occult - Tarot cards, horoscopes, (American) Indian spiritism, drinking and drugs and complete selfishness. I knew there was a 'god' "up there somewhere" and could even see the hand of a creator in all of nature for which I was thankful, but I was otherwise completely blind and deaf to the truth, and counted it unthinkable to "know God personally."
One night in the fall of my 29th year my second husband and I went out drinking and doing drugs. We ended up in the darkest, dirtiest bar in town at closing time, 2am. We were both exceedingly intoxicated and he had a severe and sure tendency to get angry and violent when he was that drunk. He became very jealous as I spoke with two other men in the bar and he left suddenly; when I looked for him he was gone. He had met me in town (I worked as a bartender) and both of us had our cars there. I went out to the parking lot and looked for him; seeing him gone I started driving home.
As I got on the road my angry husband came screeching around the corner, chasing me. It is a miracle of God that we made it home alive at all in our drunken state. Getting out of our cars in the driveway he started fighting with me immediately, yelling and cursing and threatening. I became very afraid and ran to the house to try to call my dad - the only one I could think to call at that hour of the morning: he was also a heavy drinker and stayed up very late at night. (Thank you, Father, that my dad has since quit drinking entirely!)
My husband ripped the entire phone out of the wall and threw it across the room. Then I was really, really scared! You must remember how incredibly drunk we were, and that both of us were completely overcome by the spirit of drink and not thinking clearly at all. We had a small collection of guns for hunting and target shooting on the wall and I went for my .30 carbine. We stored them with the ammunition separate from them, and I was so drunk that I could not load the cartridges (in the clip) into the carbine's magazine. This was the grace of God, for I believe in my drunken fear I would have shot my husband.
He wrestled the gun from my grip along with the ammunition and I thought, 'He is going to kill me with my own gun!' I was terrified and ran from the house; he was chasing me with the gun in his hands! I was so drunk that I stumbled and fell to my knees on the lawn. There was no time to get up, no time to think! I bent with my face to the ground, my hands over my face, sobbing and shaking. I started screaming words that only afterward made sense to me:
Of course in my drunken state I was thinking of my earthly daddy, and how I had tried to call on him for help. But my Heavenly Daddy was there and it was His Spirit that caused me to cry out to Him with just those words!
To my utter amazement, my husband did stop, and turned around, and went back into the house! I was delivered! I ran to my vehicle and found to my surprise that my keys were still in it! I drove away to a secret place and slept in the car that night, very scared and cold and confused. I awoke safe and hung-over, wobbly and still afraid. I did not know what to do but knew I had to get to work that day and must go home. I was hoping my husband would have already left by the time I got there.
He met me in the driveway. He said he would be moving out and would be back over the next couple of days for his things. He left.
It was over that next three or four days that I came to terms with the Lord of my Salvation. I was ready to commit suicide: All my plans and all my ways had failed utterly and I knew there was nothing I could do to change myself or my circumstances. As I contemplated death, taking my own life and "putting myself out of this misery" I pictured hell for the first time as a real place, and knew (by the conviction of the Holy Spirit alone) that if I killed myself then and there I would go to hell and I would deserve it.
That was when I spoke aloud to the Lord God Almighty, He Who Hears in Secret, for the first time from my heart, with a very small faith. I didn't know what I was doing was called "repenting" until much later. I said, "God, I don't know if You are there, or if You can hear me, but I sure need You. If what I have heard about Jesus is true, and if You are really there, I need You to save me, and to show me that You have heard me. I've messed it all up, and I can't fix it. If You will bring my husband back I will know that You have heard me, and I will read Your Book and I will tell everyone what You have done for me."
When I finished that prayer I was able to stand up, and to go on about the business of life, even with the pain of not knowing - it was the beginnings in my heart of "the peace that passes all understanding."
God did bring my husband back (though it was not His will that he remain), and He graciously sent people to my door to teach me how to read His Word. (How many of you have ever welcomed Jehovah's Witnesses to your house by saying, "I'm so glad you are here! God sent you to teach me how to read the Bible!"? (; I am not and never have been a member of that group, however.)
Because I didn't know all the Christian terms for being "born again of the Spirit" and "repentance" and "regeneration" and "prayer in the Spirit, " because I had no education in the Word or the Ways of God, I did not keep track of dates or specific events as they transpired. I only know this, that I was truly saved in the fall of '94, and within a year had begun reading God's Word, beginning with the Gospel of John, had found a good pastor and a Bible-believing church, had sincerely repented of my sins, asking forgiveness through the sufficient atonement of Jesus Christ God's Son, believed on Him Alone for Salvation, Justification, and Glorification, and had asked Jesus to become my Lord and Savior and take up residence in my heart! I was baptized in a local pond with tears of joy, all captured on video!
I was delivered from many, many evil ways and have a new life, walk in a righteousness not my own but His, and grow in wisdom and knowledge and faith as Jesus the Word and Spirit brings me through this process of sanctification until His Coming for me.
I have been His friend for 11 years now, and love him with my whole heart. I love His Word and read the Bible daily. I memorize whole Psalms, whole chapters of the New Testament, and love to sing His praises! I pray on my knees every day, often three times a day, and pray with "all-prayer" in the Spirit all day long, fellowshipping with Him Who Is My Hope and Strength and Stay and Rock and Vine of Life, and delighting in our union through the Holy Spirit. I delight in the fellowship of the Saints. I love my enemies and pray for them. I preach the Good News of Salvation in Christ, sent to live and die and rise again by the God Who Loves Us. He has made me what I am today, and continues to make me into His image. He is my Redeemer, transforming not only me, but all my former works into a testimony to His Goodness and Deliverance Transforming Power! Amen!
Amen.
I have been His friend for 11 years now, and love him with my whole heart. I love His Word and read the Bible daily. I memorize whole Psalms, whole chapters of the New Testament, and love to sing His praises! I pray on my knees every day, often three times a day, and pray with "all-prayer" in the Spirit all day long, fellowshipping with Him Who Is My Hope and Strength and Stay and Rock and Vine of Life, and delighting in our union through the Holy Spirit. I delight in the fellowship of the Saints. I love my enemies and pray for them. I preach the Good News of Salvation in Christ, sent to live and die and rise again by the God Who Loves Us. He has made me what I am today, and continues to make me into His image. He is my Redeemer, transforming not only me, but all my former works into a testimony to His Goodness and Deliverance Transforming Power! Amen!
Awesome, Awesome Witness to our Blessed Redeemer and the Transformation of a Life through the Regenerating Power of our Lord's Holy Spirit! Wonderful, Wonderful! I Give Praise to our Beloved Papa-Father for the Work He has Done in You, and for the Work He Continues to Do. I can't Even Find the Appropriate Words to Write about How I Felt as I was Reading your Testimony; I'm that Awestruck. Some of your Experiences were so Frightening and Terrible, but the 'Son of Righteousness has now Arisen Upon you', and His Radiance is Shining from Within you, Bless His Name! You are Now 'Sheltered in the Secret Place of the Most High,' 'Abiding under His Protective Shadow,' and 'Nothing Shall by Any Means Hurt you' Ever Again. Though the Lambs of our Shepherd may Face Temporal Danger or Attack, Nevertheless, He Takes us Up, and Bears us in His Arms, so that we Come to no Ultimate Harm. Praise You, my King! Bless Your Holy Name! Though we may Pass through the (Trials of) Fire, we will not be Burned, and though Deep Waters may Overflow us, we shall not Drown! O King of Heaven, how can we but Praise, Exalt, and Glorify Your Name!
One Thing I Know, your children 'Do Always Behold the Face of our Father,' and 'you will Go to them,' even as David did to his dear Little One, and, oh, that will be a Joyous Reunion!
Dearest (((((((Carbine,))))))) sweet Servant of our Lord Most High, you are Truly Blessed, and like Daniel, you are Beloved of our God. Thank you for Posting this, for Giving me yet Another Reason to Worship, Reverence, and Adore from my Heart our Glorious, Gracious, and Merciful Lord of Love!
"And this is the promise He Himself promised us: eternal life". 1 John 2:25
"The word of God is active and powerful and sharper than a twoedged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow; and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart."
Hebrews 4:12
"So shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." Isaiah 55:11
(11)"For other foundation can no man lay than that is
laid which is Jesus Christ.
(12)Now if any man build upon this foundation gold,
silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
(13)Everyman's work shall be made manifest; for the day
shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by
fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what
sort it is.
(14) If any man's work abide which he has built
thereupon, he shall receive a reward."
1 Corinthians 3:11-14
Let us not build with wood, hay, stubble that is easily burned.
Let us abide in the word of God,
Let us abide in His Spirit,
Let us abide in His love,
Let us abide in His grace,
Let us abide in his forgiveness,
Let us abide in His mercy,
Let us abide in His will.
Let us abide in thanksgiving ...
Powerful testimony, you have passed from death to life eternal. Your testimony touched my inner being, drawing forth tears of empathy and compassion; and praise and joy.
We do not know how our testimony will effect another. God uses us in powerful ways. May our walk be the straight and narrow path, turning neither to the right or to the left.
Thank you for your willingness to tell your experience.
Live to/for the glory of God
Lots of times the atheists around here demand proof that God is, that Christ lives - and I tell them if they would listen to anyone who knew us before and knows us now they would have that proof. Your testimony is a profound example of being reborn in the spirit by the will of God.
Thank you oh so very much for the beautiful passages from the Scriptures and for you exhortation to abide in Him!!!
Thank you for your powerful post to me, all those mighty reminders of God's provision and protection! You are a dear, dear sister to me, Kitty Mittens. Thank you for your love and praise to God on my behalf. He is so, so worthy of our praise!
Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction,
your teachers will be hidden no more;
with your own eyes you will see them.
Whether you turn to the right or to the left,
your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying,
"This is the Way; walk in it."
Isaiah 30:20-21
Dear Alamo-Girl, thank you so much for your words. You have by your faithful service here provided the canvas upon which the Servants of the Most High may paint their unique pictures of His Greatness and Power and Love and Mercy and Wisdom and Light and Truth and Way. It is all awesome, and all of it a testimony. Amen.
I am so very grateful that you and others are speaking your testimonies on these threads. And truly, Chambers has authored an amazing series of devotions which encourage exactly that kind of reflection and strengthening of the spiritual body. I thank God for all of this witnessing!
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