I highly recommend the whole series, but the final talk is the one I've chosen to present to you here. It took me somewhere beyond just spiritual teaching. It stretched my picture of now and of the radiant future God has been planning since before the beginning of time.
Over the past week, I've been watching a series from the 2014 Keswick Convention. Presented by Vaughan Roberts, the series looks at the book of Romans to help address some of the key questions of life: What has gone wrong with the world? How can I get right with God? Who am I? How can I change? and, last but certainly not least, What hope is there?
I highly recommend the whole series, but the final talk is the one I've chosen to present to you here. It took me somewhere beyond just spiritual teaching. It stretched my picture of now and of the radiant future God has been planning since before the beginning of time. Yesterday was an interesting day for me. Something I was hoping for fell through, leaving me unable to meet an important commitment. However, I also finally completed a project that has been holding me back for a very long time, which has freed me up to begin shifting gears. How interesting that God would allow these events to converge on the same day.
This is a very tricky time for me -- a crossroads. I have a lot of things to sort through in a very short time. Back to my eventful day yesterday... a friend had very kindly invited me to supper. I had a bit of time before I had to leave, so I strolled over (digitally) to Iver, in England, and began listening to the sermon I've linked to below. How very like the Lord to take me to this place on such a day. (I love You so much, Lord Jesus.) What He had in mind was not just a tonic for the moment -- He wanted me to have the tools today to say "NO" to a dark thought that can so often wander through our minds when the chips are down -- the thought, sent straight from hell, that says life in a pit is just something we need to get used to. My deepest thanks to the Lord for this adjustment in perspective. I am the King's daughter. My life has a purpose -- His purpose. If this sermon is timely for you as well, I pray that it lifts your eyes up to our glorious King, helping you move forward in His arms. "[W]e sooner or later learn that if Jesus Christ was merely a Teacher, He adds to the burdens of human nature, for He erects an ideal that human nature can never attain. He tantalizes us by statements that poor human nature can never fit itself for. By no prayer, by no self-sacrifice, by no devotion, and by no climbing can any man attain to that 'Blessed are the pure in heart,' which Jesus Christ says is essential to seeing God.
When we come to the New Testament interpretation of our Lord we find He is not a Teacher, we find He is a Saviour. We find that His teaching is but a statement of the kind of life we will live when we have let Him re-make us by means of His Cross and by the incoming of His Spirit. The life of Jesus is to be made ours, not by our imitation, not by our climbing, but by means of His Death. It is not admiration for holiness, nor aspirations after holiness, but attainment of holiness, and this is ours from God, not from any ritual of imitation. ...[F]or the instruction and courage of those whose hearts are fainting in the way, ...to whom life holds out no more promises, ...let me bring the message contained in this Psalm [121], even as a cup of water from the clear sparkling spring of life. 'My help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth.' He will take you up, He will re-make you, He will make your soul young and will restore to you the years that the cankerworm hath eaten, and place you higher than the loftiest mountain peak, safe in the arms of the Lord Himself, secure from all alarms, and with an imperturbable peace that the world cannot take away." Excerpt from Oswald Chambers, The Place of Help: A Book of Devotional Readings (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1936) 5-6 |
To soak inFood-for-thought Archives
November 2022
Tags
All
Christ Jesus is
gold without alloy -- light without darkness -- glory without cloud -- "Yea, He is altogether lovely." Charles Spurgeon |