Not peace, but a sword

Today, as always, Oswald Chambers has a powerfully relevant message for preachers, and I cannot thank the Lord (and my friend B.P.) enough for pointing me to these devotionals.

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What Jesus says in Mt 10:34, is

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."

This saying is where Chambers draws on his reasoning here:

Never be sympathetic with a person whose situation causes you to conclude that God is dealing harshly with him. God can be more tender than we can conceive, and every once in a while He gives us the opportunity to deal firmly with someone so that He may be viewed as the tender One.

We should never dull the sword of the Lord, but keep it very clean and sharp. If we would let the sword do it's cutting, we cannot pretend to give peace to someone who has no peace with God, as by flattering and agreeable words. The message "repent" was never liked by those who had no mind to repent. So peace is destroyed as long as sin reigns. To really help people as a pastor is to give them the hard words. I love Misn. Sarah Barry, because she always exemplified this "mind of Christ". Whoever went to her to complain about someone else was rebuked first. For whether we have failed to forgive the person or harbor hate, justly or not, we are in the wrong. Hidden sin, likewise, loves to find fellow sinners to share company with. If we don't "hold high the standard of Jesus" to people, we cannot give them HIS peace, but only the superficial peace of this world, whereas

"Jesus Christ came to `bring . . . a sword' through every kind of peace that is not based on a personal relationship with Himself."

Wielding this sword is hard and painful to us, as to those who must suffer the blow to their false peace. But this is the spiritual warfare we are truly engaged in, and we shepherds must not shrink back.

As for me, dealing with my children may be the hardest place to apply this. They do not want me, as their father, to make them feel bad when they harbor spiritual enmity in their hearts. If the young generation does not even HEAR Jesus' message of repentance and faith, what chance do they have to follow it? So we must not lower the standard as parents, nor as pastors. To carry both crosses is perhaps not so bad when we consider that they are one in the same, only the pastor cares for ALL children, not merely his own.

Lord, give me the grace and truth that filled your Son Jesus, and enable me to hold up his standard, faithfully, fearlessly. Move those you want to save to hear and obey.

Preach only Christ crucified

For Dec 17, Chambers writes, "The gospel of God creates the sense of need for the gospel." And he goes on to demonstrate why this is a good thing. The things of God are foolish to the natural man [1 Corinthians 2:14, which is the text for this devotion.] Thus we don't know we need the good news until we hear it. While "Creating the need it satisfies" is a rather offensive kind of religious system to a worldly man---even though he uses the same thing in all his advertising and promoting his own business or wares---we surely have the need already. The gospel doesn't create a new need, but removes our ignorance of it AS it offers the one and only solution.

Anyway, the point he makes that is so beautiful is in the second paragraph. He writes,

Jesus said, "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself" (John 12:32). When we preach our own experiences, people may be interested, but it awakens no real sense of need. But once Jesus Christ is "lifted up," the Spirit of God creates an awareness of the need for Him.

What this means is that my preaching, if it does nothing else whatsoever, must lift up Jesus Christ. I have done nothing to advance Christ and his kingdom if I have only convinced my listeners of some moral or made a good point or entertained them with poetic and humorous anecdotes. Even if I bring them to tears with emotional stories or work them into a frenzy with sensational polemics, if I have not lifted up Jesus and shown people their need of HIM and his Truth, I have done nothing at all.

Lord, let me lift up Jesus alone. As my name Christopher means "bearer of Christ", let at least live up to that name. And when you are ready to use me, please send me in your Power to do it with all my heart and soul. Yes, you have already sent me. Lord, please forgive me for lifting up other things. Lord, I resolve to know nothing and preach nothing except Christ and him crucified. [1Cor 2:2] Father, help me to this end. IJNA

Personality and Unity

Reflections on the daily reading for Dec 12 from "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers, entitled

Personality

"I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." [John 17:22,32]

Jesus' prayer was for Christians to have unity. The reason we don't have unity is nearly always personality conflict. Chambers writes, "Personality is the characteristic mark of the inner, spiritual man, just as individuality is the characteristic of the outer, natural man." He likens the personality to the top of a huge mountain in the ocean, of which we see only the relatively small island showing above the surface. Since what we know of our own (or anyone's) personality is so small, we cannot measure ourselves. Only God who made us can know us.

As an island cannot "see" what is holding it up, so we cannot really know ourselves. What we CAN know is the God who reveals himself to us, who made his dwelling among us and talks with us and gives us of his own Spirit to be with us and in us. Therefore, I don't need to know myself nearly as desperately as I need to know Him. He is my Mountain. He is my Rock. He is the one with whom I want to be united.

The problem of unity really isn't a problem if we make Him our personality, if we are united with Jesus, dying to our own self, both personality and individuality, and being united in him. How do I effect this very abstract and metaphysical feat? I must "deny myself and take up the cross and follow him." Denying myself means acknowledging Jesus as my Shepherd and serving others as a shepherd for his flock, submitting, willing to serve, not greedy, but humble, all the things Peter says in 1Peter 5:2-9, all the things Jesus is. This is hard. Shepherding is a hard life. But being united with Him is the key to building one flock that is united under Him.

Personality conflicts will always be there in the flock of God, as elsewhere. But we can deal with them as shepherds when we know what we're up against. The wolf, the lion, the bear, these are not animals that flock. They are individualistic hunters, who may fight one another even more than they attack sheep. Sowing discord is like killing and eating, and scattering a flock of sheep is easy to do for a wolf or lion. But defending the flock and gathering them to be one is Job One of the shepherd--that kind of shepherd who risks his life and leaves the ninety-nine to search for the one who is missing.

Where else does personality rear its head? In our times, I would say music and clothes are a biggest sources of personal identity. In the church, those who want "our" music and resent "their" music, and who wage personal battles to get rid of one or the other, these wolves bear the blame for much church disunity. We should rather have NO music if it is going to be a source of division.

The same holds for clothes, art, culture, even language, architecture and decor, ceremonies and all other stuff--they are all part and parcel of our personality, and most of them are idols for destruction. But to yield as a shepherd to our Good shepherd means to fix our eyes on Him, not on any idol, not on ourselves nor one another. THIS is the key to overcoming the trap of personality.

May God make our fellowship one of deep love and unity, not personality cults and cliques and trendy people showing off. May God make us leaders who can protect and serve the flock, rather than sacrificing them to appease wolves.

Struggling

Today's reading from Oswald Chambers is truly inspiring. I've always thought there must be a reason why struggling was so important to God that he named his nation Israel "struggles with God".

The Law of Antagonism

"To him that overcometh. . . ." [Rev 2:7]

Life without war is impossible either in nature or in grace. The basis of physical, mental, moral, and spiritual life is antagonism. This is the open fact of life.

Health is the balance between physical life and external nature, and it is maintained only by sufficient vitality on the inside against things on the outside. Everything outside my physical life is designed to put me to death. Things which keep me going when I am alive, disintegrate me when I am dead. If I have enough fighting power, I produce the balance of health. The same is true of the mental life. If I want to maintain a vigorous mental life, I have to fight, and in that way the mental balance called thought is produced.

Morally it is the same. Everything that does not partake of the nature of virtue is the enemy of virtue in me, and it depends on what moral calibre I have whether I overcome and produce virtue. Immediately I fight, I am moral in that particular. No man is virtuous because he cannot help it; virtue is acquired.

And spiritually it is the same. Jesus said, "In the world ye shall have tribulation," i.e., every thing that is not spiritual makes for my undoing, but - "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." I have to learn to score off the things that come against me, and in that way produce the balance of holiness; then it becomes a delight to meet opposition.

Holiness is the balance between my disposition and the law of God as expressed in Jesus Christ.

I too struggle, and have often felt that delight to meet opposition. It certainly wasn't a delight the first time it happened so long ago. But it is now, and I smile when accused or opposed in some way by someone. But I have discovered that the best and most rewarding struggle is to struggle with God, that is, to struggle to please him and to receive his favor, as Jacob did, as Simon Peter did, as Paul did.

Praise God who is working in me. "Greater is He that is in me than he that is the world!" O Sovereign Lord, bless me! Let me struggle with Thee, rather than men, and bring my crowns to cast at your feet.