Spiritual Hypocrisy By Oswald Chambers

Edition Modern Classic Updated Classic If we aren’t mindful of the way the Spirit of God works in us, we will become spiritual hypocrites. Instead of interceding in prayer when we see another person failing, we’ll turn our discernment into criticism. Be very careful that you don’t act like a hypocrite and try to fix other people before you yourself are right with God. The Holy Spirit isn’t revealed to us through the intellectual workings of our mind, but through the direct penetration of our souls. If we aren’t alert to the source of the revelation—to the fact that it is God, not us—we will become cauldrons of criticism. We’ll forget what Scripture says about our dealings with others: “You should pray and God will give them life.” One of the subtlest burdens God puts on his disciples is this burden of using discernment when it comes to other souls. Why does he reveal certain things about others to us? It isn’t so we’ll criticize them. It’s so we’ll take their burden before God. It’s so we’ll form the mind of Christ regarding them, interceding with him on their behalf. God says he will give them life if we pray in this way. To intercede in prayer isn’t to tell God our opinions or to let him in on the workings of our minds. It’s to stir ourselves up to get at his mind, his thoughts, about the people for whom we intercede. Is Jesus Christ seeing the workings of his soul in us? He can’t—not until we are so identified with him that we strive to know his mind. If we want Jesus to be satisfied with us, we must learn to intercede wholeheartedly on others’ behalf, as he intercedes for us: “Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them” (Hebrews 7:25).

Just a minute!

Childlike Faith

What would Jesus say to you? By Frank Hunting

More from Oswald Chambers

Turning Back or Walking with Jesus? By Oswald Chambers Do you also want to go away? —John 6:67 What a penetrating question! Our Lord’s words often hit home for us when He speaks in the simplest way. In spite of the fact that we know who Jesus is, He asks, “Do you also want to go away?” We must continually maintain an adventurous attitude toward Him, despite any potential personal risk. “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more” (John 6:66). They turned back from walking with Jesus; not into sin, but away from Him. Many people today are pouring their lives out and working for Jesus Christ, but are not really walking with Him. One thing God constantly requires of us is a oneness with Jesus Christ. After being set apart through sanctification, we should discipline our lives spiritually to maintain this intimate oneness. When God gives you a clear determination of His will for you, all your striving to maintain that relationship by some particular method is completely unnecessary. All that is required is to live a natural life of absolute dependence on Jesus Christ. Never try to live your life with God in any other way than His way. And His way means absolute devotion to Him. Showing no concern for the uncertainties that lie ahead is the secret of walking with Jesus. Peter saw in Jesus only someone who could minister salvation to him and to the world. But our Lord wants us to be fellow laborers with Him. In John 6:70 Jesus lovingly reminded Peter that he was chosen to go with Him. And each of us must answer this question for ourselves and no one else: “Do you also want to go away?” share this devotional with a friend Wisdom From Oswald Chambers The measure of the worth of our public activity for God is the private profound communion we have with Him.… We have to pitch our tents where we shall always have quiet times with God, however noisy our times with the world may be. My Utmost for His Highest, January 6, 736 R

In His time- More time for reflection.

Abiding in Jesus

Abiding in Jesus. Continuing series from Offbeat responses to the Bible.Something all Christians need to learn to do and what most of us are not very good at.

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His Resurrection Destiny

By Oswald Chambers

 

 

Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory? —Luke 24:26

Our Lord’s Cross is the gateway into His life. His resurrection means that He has the power to convey His life to me. When I was born again, I received the very life of the risen Lord from Jesus Himself.
Christ’s resurrection destiny— His foreordained purpose— was to bring “many sons to glory” (Hebrews 2:10). The fulfilling of His destiny gives Him the right to make us sons and daughters of God. We never have exactly the same relationship to God that the Son of God has, but we are brought by the Son into the relation of sonship. When our Lord rose from the dead, He rose to an absolutely new life— a life He had never lived before He was God Incarnate. He rose to a life that had never been before. And what His resurrection means for us is that we are raised to His risen life, not to our old life. One day we will have a body like His glorious body, but we can know here and now the power and effectiveness of His resurrection and can “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Paul’s determined purpose was to “know Him and the power of His resurrection” (Philippians 3:10).
Jesus prayed, “…as You have given Him authority over all flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him” (John 17:2). The term Holy Spirit is actually another name for the experience of eternal life working in human beings here and now. The Holy Spirit is the deity of God who continues to apply the power of the atonement by the Cross of Christ to our lives. Thank God for the glorious and majestic truth that His Spirit can work the very nature of Jesus into us, if we will only obey Him.

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Wisdom From Oswald Chambers

It is in the middle that human choices are made; the beginning and the end remain with God. The decrees of God are birth and death, and in between those limits man makes his own distress or joy.  Shade of His Hand, 1223 L

Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 10-12; Luke 9:37-62

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Heedfulness or Hypocrisy in Ourselves?

By Oswald Chambers

If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. —1 John 5:16

If we are not heedful and pay no attention to the way the Spirit of God works in us, we will become spiritual hypocrites. We see where other people are failing, and then we take our discernment and turn it into comments of ridicule and criticism, instead of turning it into intercession on their behalf. God reveals this truth about others to us not through the sharpness of our minds but through the direct penetration of His Spirit. If we are not attentive, we will be completely unaware of the source of the discernment God has given us, becoming critical of others and forgetting that God says, “…he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death.” Be careful that you don’t become a hypocrite by spending all your time trying to get others right with God before you worship Him yourself.
One of the most subtle and illusive burdens God ever places on us as saints is this burden of discernment concerning others. He gives us discernment so that we may accept the responsibility for those souls before Him and form the mind of Christ about them (see Philippians 2:5). We should intercede in accordance with what God says He will give us, namely, “life for those who commit sin not leading to death.” It is not that we are able to bring God into contact with our minds, but that we awaken ourselves to the point where God is able to convey His mind to us regarding the people for whom we intercede.
Can Jesus Christ see the agony of His soul in us? He can’t unless we are so closely identified with Him that we have His view concerning the people for whom we pray. May we learn to intercede so wholeheartedly that Jesus Christ will be completely and overwhelmingly satisfied with us as intercessors.

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Wisdom From Oswald Chambers

When we no longer seek God for His blessings, we have time to seek Him for Himself.  The Moral Foundations of Life, 728 L

Bible in a Year: Judges 11-12; Luke 6:1-26

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Spiritual Vision Through Personal Purity from My Utmost for His highest

Spiritual Vision Through Personal Purity

By Oswald Chambers

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. —Matthew 5:8

Purity is not innocence— it is much more than that. Purity is the result of continued spiritual harmony with God. We have to grow in purity. Our life with God may be right and our inner purity unblemished, yet occasionally our outer life may become spotted and stained. God intentionally does not protect us from this possibility, because this is the way we recognize the necessity of maintaining our spiritual vision through personal purity. If the outer level of our spiritual life with God is impaired to the slightest degree, we must put everything else aside until we make it right. Remember that spiritual vision depends on our character— it is “the pure in heart” who “see God.”
God makes us pure by an act of His sovereign grace, but we still have something that we must carefully watch. It is through our bodily life coming in contact with other people and other points of view that we tend to become tarnished. Not only must our “inner sanctuary” be kept right with God, but also the “outer courts” must be brought into perfect harmony with the purity God gives us through His grace. Our spiritual vision and understanding is immediately blurred when our “outer court” is stained. If we want to maintain personal intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ, it will mean refusing to do or even think certain things. And some things that are acceptable for others will become unacceptable for us.
A practical help in keeping your personal purity unblemished in your relations with other people is to begin to see them as God does. Say to yourself, “That man or that woman is perfect in Christ Jesus! That friend or that relative is perfect in Christ Jesus!”

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Wisdom From Oswald Chambers

We can understand the attributes of God in other ways, but we can only understand the Father’s heart in the Cross of Christ.  The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 558 L

Bible in a Year: Joshua 22-24; Luke 3

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Speaking Personally- Devotional Readings

You will find many sermons and studies by the late Pastor Frank Hunting on this blog and my youtube channel.
I have started an occasional reading of some of his devotional booklet material and Bible Studies.
More to come.