Spiritual Ponderings

Am I as spontaneously kind to God as I used to be, or am I only expecting God to be kind to me? Am I full of the little things that cheer His heart over me, or am I whimpering because things are going hardly with me? There is no joy in the soul that has forgotten what God prizes. It is a great thing to think that Jesus Christ has need of me—“Give Me to drink.” How much kindness have I shown Him this past week? Have I been kind to His reputation in my life? { My Utmost for His Highest : January 21} This paragraph really stirs up all sorts of emotions and thoughts in my mind and heart this morning. It really resonates with many of the things that I have been musing about for several days now. A new thought jumped out at me when I read this that I want to examine more closely. With the deeper definition of joy as my context, this statement seems to strongly suggest that joy is the birthplace of true love. Joy is something like the bones where the life-giving blood is forme...

Guard jealously your relationship to God. Jesus prayed “that they may be one, even as We are one”—nothing between. Keep all the life perennially open to Jesus Christ, don’t pretend with Him. Are you drawing your life from any other source than God Himself? If you are depending upon anything but Him, you will never know when He is gone. { My Utmost for His Highest : January 20} There are several specific subjects that I have been dwelling on and learning about and applying to my own life and heart over the past few weeks. I have sensed that God has brought to my attention these things and impressed me to focus on them intently until the real truth about them begins to emerge and to transform my life. As I have done this with each subject I quickly began to notice striking links and strong connections between these apparently separate things and I see better how they fit together much closer in the puzzle and complement each other. I have been seeking to unpack the deeper meani...

The man who attempts to keep the commandments of God from a sense of obligation merely – because he is required to do so – will never enter into the joy of obedience . He does not obey . When the requirements of God are accounted a burden because they cut across human inclination, we may know that the life is not a Christian life . True obedience is the outworking of a principle within. It springs from the love of righteousness, the love of the law of God. The essence of all righteousness is loyalty to our Redeemer. This will lead us to do right because it is right – because right doing is pleasing to God. {COL 97} Beware of anything that competes with loyalty to Jesus Christ. The greatest competitor of devotion to Jesus is service for Him . It is easier to serve than to be drunk to the dregs. The one aim of the call of God is the satisfaction of God, not a call to do something for Him. We are not sent to battle for God, but to be used by God in His battlings. Are we being...