My Utmost for His Highest

2 Timothy 2

15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.

By Oswald Chambers - If you cannot express yourself on any subject, struggle until you can. If you do not, someone will be poorer all the days of his life. Struggle to reexpress some truth of God to yourself, and God will use that expression to someone else. Go through the winepress of God where the grapes are chrushed. You must struggle to get expression experimentally, then will come a time when that expression will become the very wine of strengthening to someone else, but if you say lazily, "I am
not going to struggle to express this thing for myself, I will borrow
what I say," the expression will not only be of no use to you, but of no use to anyone. Try to state to yourself what you feel implicitly to be God's truth, and you give God a chance to pass it on to someone else through you.
Always make a practice of provoking your mind to think out what it accepts easily. Our position is not ours until we make it ours by suffering. The author who benefits you most is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but gives expression
to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance.

What am I looking at?

Isaiah 45

22 Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, and there is no other.

Do we expect God t come to us with His blessings and save us? He says -- Look unto Me and be saved . The great difficulty spiritually is to concentrate on God and it is His blessings that make it difficult. Troubles nearly always make us look to God. His blessings are apt to make us look elsewhere. The teaching of the Sermon on the mount is, in effect -- Narrow all your interests until the attitude of mind and heart and body is concentration on Jesus Christ. "Look unto Me."

Many of us have a mental conception of what a Christian should be, and the lives of the saints become a hindrance to our concentration on God. There is no salvation in this way, it is not simple enough. "Look unto Me." and -- not "you wil be saved," but "you are saved." The very thing we look for, we shall find if we will concentrate on Him. We get preoccupied and sulky with God, while all the time He is saying, "Look up and be saved." The difficulties and trials -- the casting about in our minds as to what we shall do this summer, or tomorrow, all vanish when we look to God.

Rouse yourself up and look to God. Build your hope on Him. no matter if there are a hundred and one things that press, resolutely exclude them all and look to Him. "Look unto Me."
and salvation is the moment you look.

Transformed By Insight

2 Corinthians 3

18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the
glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same
image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.


The outstanding characteristic of a Christian is this unveiled frankness before God so that the life becomes a mirror for other lives. By being filled with the Spirit we are transformed and by beholding we become mirrors. You always know when a man has been beholding the glory of the Lord; you feel in your inner spirit that he is the mirror of the Lord's own character. Beware of anything which would sully that mirror in you; it is nearly always a good thing, the good that is not the best.

The golden rule for your life and mine is this concentrated keeping of the life open towards God. Let everything else -- work, clothes, food, everything on earth -- go by the board, saving that one thing. The rush of other things always tends to obscure this concentration on God. We have to maintain ourselves in the place of beholding, keeping the life absolutely spiritual all through. Let other things come and go as they may, let other people criticize as they will, but never allow anything to obscure the life that is hid with Christ in God. Never be hurried out of the relationship of abiding in Him. It is the one thing that is apt to fluctuate but it ought not to. The severest discipline of a Christian's life is to learn how to keep "beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord."

The Overmastering Direction



Acts 26

16 "But get up and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you;

The vision Paul had on the road to Damascus was no passing emotion, but a vision that had very clear and emphatic directions for him and he says, "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision." Our Lord said, in effect, to Paul -- Your whole life is to be overmastered by Me, you are to have no end, no aim and no purpose but Mine. "I have chosen Him ."

When we are born again we all have visions, if we are spiritual in all of what Jesus wants us to be, and the great thing is to learn not to be disobedient to the vision, not to say that it cannot be attained. It is not sufficient to know that God has redeemed the world, and to know that the Holy Spirit can make all that Jesus did effectual in me; I must have the basis of a personal relationship to Him. Paul was nto given a message or a doctrine to proclaim, he was brought into a vivid personal, overmastering relationship to Jesus Christ. Verse 16 is immensely commanding, "to appoint you a minister and a witness." There is nothing there apart from the personal relationship. Paul was devoted to a Person not to a cause. He was absolutely Jesus Christ's, he saw nothing else, he lived for nothing else. "For I deternined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified."

Leave Room for God

Galatians 1
15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's
womb and called me through His grace

As workers for God we have to learn to make room for God -- to give God "elbow room." We calculate and estimate and say that this and that will happen, and we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses. Would we be surprised if God came into our meeting or into our preaching in a way we had never looked for Him to come? Do not look for God to come in any particular way, but look for Him. That is the way to make room for Him. Expect Him to come, but do not expect him only in a certain way. However much we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that at any minute He may break in. We are apt to overlook this element of surprise, yet, God never works in any other way. All of a sudden God meets the life, "When it was the good pleasure of God..."

Keep your life so constant in its contact with God that His suprising power may break out on the right hand and on the left. Always be in a state of expectancy and see that you leave room for God to come in as He likes.

Look Again and Congregate

Matthew 6

30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

A simple statement of Jesus is always a puzzle to us if we are not simple. How are we going t be simple with the simplicity of Jesus?
By receiving His Spirit, rocognizing and relying on Him, obeying Him as He brings the Word of God, and life will become amazingly simple. "Consider," says Jesus, "How much more your Father who clothes the grass of the field will clothe you, if you keep your relationship right with Him." everytime we have gone back in spiritual communion it has been because we have impertenently known better than Jesus Christ. We have allowed the cares of the world to come in and have forgotten the "much more" of our Heavenly Father.

"Behold the fowls of the air" -- their main aim is to obey the principle of life that is in them and God looks after them. Jesus says that if you are rightly related to Him and obey his Spirit that is in you, God will look after your "feathers."

"Consider the lilies of the field" -- they grow where they are put . Many of us refuse to grow where we are put, consequently we take root nowhere. Jesus says that if we obey the life God has given us, He will look after all the other things. Has Jesus Christ told us a lie? If we are not experiencing the "much more," it is because we are not obeying the life God has given us, we are taken up with confusing considerations. How much time have we taken up worrying God with questions when we should have been absolutely free to concentrate on his work? Consecration means the continual seperating of myself to one particular thing. We cannot consecrate once and for all. Am I
continually seperating myself to conseder God every day of my life?

Look Again and Think


Matthew 6

25 "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life , what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?"


A warning which needs to be reiterated is the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things entering in, will choke all that God puts in. We are never free from the recurring tides of this encroachment. If it does not come on the line of clothes and food, it will come on the line of money or lack of money; of friends or lack of friends; or on the line of difficult circumstances. It is one steady encroachment all the time, and unless we allow the Spirit of God to raise up the standard against it, these things will come in like a flood.

"Do not worry about your life." "Be careful about one thing only," says our Lord. "your relationship to Me." Common sense shouts loud and says, "That is absurd, I must consider how I am going to live, I must consider what I am going to eat and drink." Jesus says you must not. Beware of allowing the thought that this statement is made by One Who does not understand our particular circumstances. Jesus Christ knows our circumstances better than we do, and He says we must not think about these things so as to make them the one concern of our life. Whenever there is competition, be sure that you put your relationship to God first

"34 "So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble (evil) of its own." How much evil has begun to threaten you today? What kind of mean little imps have been looking in and saying -- Now what are you going to do next month -- this summer? "Be anxious for nothing," Jesus says. Look again and think. Keep your mind on the "much more" of your heavenly Father.

But it is Hardly Credible That One Could So Persecute Jesus!

Acts 26

14 And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew dialect, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads. '

Am I set on my own way for God? We are never free from this snare until we are brought into the experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. Obstinacy and self-will will always stab Jesus Christ. It may hurt no one else, but it wounds his Spirit. Whenever we are obstinate, and self-willed and set upon our own
ambitions, we are hurting Jesus. Every time we stand on our rights and insist that this is what we intend to do, we are persecuting Jesus. Whenerver we stand on our dignity we systematically vex and grieve His Spirit, and when the knowledge
comes home that it is Jesus Whom we have been persecuting all the time, it is the most crushing revelation there could be.

Is the Word of God tremendously keen to me as I hand it on to you, or does my life give the lie to the things I profess to teach? I may teach sanctification and yet exhibit the spirit of Satan, the spirit that persecutes Jesus Christ. The Spirit of Jesus is conscious of one thing only -- a perfect oneness with the Father and he says, "Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." All I do ought to be founded on a perfect oneness with him, not on a self-willed determination to be godly. This will mean that I can be easily put upon, easily over-reached, easily ignored; but if I submit to it for His sake, i prevent Jesus Christ being persecuted.

But It Is Hardly Credible
That One Could Be So Positively Ignorant


Acts 26

15 "Then I asked, `Who are you, Lord?' "`I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,' the Lord replied.


"The Lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand." There is no escape when Our Lord speaks. He always comes with an arrestment of the understanding. Has the voice of God come to you directly? If it has you cannot mistake the intimate insistence with which it has spoken to you in the language you know best, not through your ears, but through your circustances.

God has to destroy our determined confidence in our own convictions. "I know this is what I should do" -- and suddenly the voice of God speaks in a way that overwhelms us by revealing the depths of our ignorance. We have shown our ignorance of Him in the very way we determined to serve Him. We serve Jesus in a spirit that is not His, we hurt Him by our advocacy for Him, we push His claims in the spirit of the devil. Our words sound all right, but our spirit is that of an enemy. "He rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." The spirit of our Lord in an advocate of His is described in 1 Corinthians 13.

Have I been persecuting Jesus by a zealous determination to serve Him in my own way? If I feel I have done my duty and yet have hurt Him in doing it, I may be sure it was not my duty, because it has not fostered the meek and quiet spirit, but the spirit of self-satisfaction. We imagine that whatever is unpleasant is our duty! Is that anything like the spoirit of our Lord. "I delight to do Thy will, O My God."

The Dilemma of Obedience

1 Samuel 3

15 Samuel lay down until morning and then opened the doors of the house of the LORD. He was
afraid to tell Eli the vision,


God never speaks to us in startling ways but in ways that are easy to misunderstand, and we say, "I wonder if that is God;s voice?" Isaiah said that the Lord spake to him "with a strong hand," that is by the pressure of circumstances. Nothing touches our lives but it is God Himself speaking. Do we discern His hand or only mere occurence?

Get into the habit of saying, "Speak, Lord." and life will become a romance. Every time circumstances press, say "Speak, Lord." Make time to listen. Chastening is more than a means of discipline, it is meant to get me to the place of saying, "Speak, Lord." Recall the time when God did speak to you. Have you forgotten what he said? Was it Luke 11:13, or was it
1 Thessalonians 5:23? As we listen, our ear gets acute, and like Jesus we shall hear God all the time.

Shall I tell my "Eli" what God has shown to me? That is where the dilemma of obedience comes in. We disobey God by becoming amateur providences -- I must shield "Eli" the best people we know. God did not tell Samuel to tell Eli, he had to decide that for himself. God's call to you may hurt your "Eli", but if you try to prevent the suffering in another life, it will prove an obsruction between your soul and God. It is at you own peril that you prevent the cutting off of the right hand or the plucking out of the eye.

Never ask the advice oof another about anything God makes you decide before Him. If you ask advice, you will nearly always side with Satan. "Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood."