Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? —Acts 26:14

Are we determined to serve God in our own way, or in his? Until we undergo the baptism by fire of the Holy Spirit, we will always be tempted to put our own ambitions and interests first. We won’t understand that our self-will and stubbornness stab Jesus, that our insistence on our own dignity and rightness hurts him. Every time we stand on our right to ourselves and insist that this is what we intend to do, we persecute our Lord.

When we realize what we’ve been doing, it is the most crushing thing. We see that we’ve been lying, see that every time we went out into the world with the Lord’s name on our lips and selfishness in our hearts, we were persecuting Christ. We were preaching sanctification while exhibiting the spirit of Satan.

Is the word of God alive and true in me as I hand it on to you, or does my life prove the lie of what I say? That is the question we must ask ourselves. The Spirit of Jesus is conscious of one thing only: a perfect oneness with the Father. All we do should be founded on this oneness, not a prideful determination to “be godly.” “Learn from me,” Jesus said, “for I am gentle and humble in heart” (Matthew 11:29). If we are gentle and humble, it means that we can be easily taken advantage of, easily snubbed, and easily ignored. But if we submit to this treatment for his sake, we will prevent Jesus Christ being persecuted.

Exodus 19-20; Matthew 18:21-35

Wisdom from Oswald

There is no condition of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus. We have to learn to abide in Him wherever we are placed.Our Brilliant Heritage

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Do not worry about your life. —Matthew 6:25

How easy following this command would be if we could just decide, once and for all, to stop worrying about the world and its demands; if, having pledged ourselves to Jesus, we could just forget about the things that used to obsess us. But answering the call is never this easy. The cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the pull of desire and hunger and lust—these are recurring tides, always lapping at our shores. If we don’t allow the Spirit of God to rise up against them, they’ll come flooding in.

Jesus is telling us to be careful about one thing only: our relationship to him. Common sense shouts that this is ridiculous, that we must think about what we’re going to eat and drink and wear. Jesus says we must not. Beware of thinking that Jesus’s words don’t apply to your particular circumstances, that he doesn’t understand what you’re going through right now. Jesus understands your circumstances better than you do, and he says you must not make these things the central concern of your life. Whenever there’s a competition, put your relationship to God first.

“Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34). How much trouble has begun to threaten you today? What mean little imps have been looking in and saying, “What are you going to do next month, next summer, next year?” “Do not be anxious,” Paul tells us (Philippians 4:6). Look again, and think, drawing your awareness to the “much more” of your heavenly Father: “Will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:30).

Exodus 16-18; Matthew 18:1-20

Wisdom from Oswald

The main characteristic which is the proof of the indwelling Spirit is an amazing tenderness in personal dealing, and a blazing truthfulness with regard to God’s Word.Disciples Indeed, 386 R

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I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness. —Acts 26:16

Paul’s vision on the road to Damascus was no passing dream. It was a vision that brought with it clear and emphatic instructions. Jesus told Paul that from now on Paul’s whole life was to be mastered: it was to be subdued, to have no end, aim, or purpose except Christ’s. “I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant.”

All of us, when we are born again, have visions of what Jesus wants us to be. The big thing we must learn is not to be disobedient to the vision; we must not say that it can’t be attained. We think it can’t be attained because our faith doesn’t have the proper foundations. It isn’t enough to believe that God has redeemed the world, or that the Holy Spirit can make all that Jesus did come alive in us. We must have the basis of a personal relationship with him. Paul wasn’t given a script or a doctrine to proclaim; he was brought into a vivid, personal, overmastering relationship with Jesus Christ, and on this basis he became a witness.

We too must have as the foundation of our faith a personal relationship with Jesus. This is the only way our vision will be attained, and the only way we’ll succeed in obeying it. Verse 16 is immensely commanding: “to appoint you as a servant and as a witness.” There is nothing there apart from a personal relationship.

Paul was devoted to a person, not a cause. He was absolutely Jesus Christ’s. He saw nothing else; he lived for nothing else. “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).

Exodus 9-11; Matthew 15:21-39

Wisdom from Oswald

To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.”
The Shadow of an Agony

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Look unto me, and be ye saved. —Isaiah 45:22 kjv

The mind wanders, casting about. It worries over today and tomorrow, growing dizzy with its troubles and trials. These troubles vanish when we look to God, but we must truly look: to look means to concentrate fully on Jesus. This, in effect, is the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount: we must narrow all our interests until the attitude of our mind and heart and body is concentration on Jesus Christ (Matthew 5–7).

To look to God is to be saved. We have stories and ideas in our minds of great Christian saints and heroes. We think we must emulate their lives to be saved. But there is no salvation in emulation; it is not simple enough. “Look unto me, and be ye saved,” says God. Not “you will be saved” but “you are saved.” We get preoccupied and grumpy with God, and all the time he is saying, “Just look.”

Concentrating on God is a great spiritual challenge. It is easier in times of trouble, when we desperately need him, than in times of peace and contentment. God’s blessings absorb us, pulling us away in delighted distraction. We must not let them. Though a thousand wonderful things vie for our attention, we must learn to let them come and go, keeping our focus on God.

“Look unto me,” says God. The moment you look, salvation is.

Exodus 4-6; Matthew 14:22-36

Wisdom from Oswald

It is not what a man does that is of final importance, but what he is in what he does. The atmosphere produced by a man, much more than his activities, has the lasting influence. Baffled to Fight Better, 51 L

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I remember the devotion of your youth. —Jeremiah 2:2

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 sort of small, simple actions and thoughts that cheer his heart? Or am I constantly irritated, obsessed with the idea that things aren’t going my way?

There is no joy in the soul that has forgotten what God loves and needs. Think on this: God needs you. Do you know that? It is a great thing. “Will you give me a drink?” Jesus asked the Samaritan woman, counting on the spontaneous spark of goodness and charity that might lead someone from a different people, a different tribe, to offer help (John 4:7). We too must act in spontaneous joy and love for his sake—the sake of his reputation with others.

Do I remember how it was in the beginning of my relationship with him? God does: “I remember the devotion of your youth.” God remembers when I cared for nothing but him, when I had an extravagance of love for Jesus, when I would have gone anywhere, done anything, to prove my love.

Am I still so in love that I take no consideration for myself? Or have I grown calculating, always watching for the respect I think I deserve, weighing how much service I should give, asking if it’s worth it?

Remember as God remembers. And if you find that he is not what he used to be—your soul’s beloved—let it produce shame and humiliation. The shame will bring the goodly, godly sorrow that works repentance.

Exodus 1-3; Matthew 14:1-21

Wisdom from Oswald

The great word of Jesus to His disciples is Abandon. When God has brought us into the relationship of disciples, we have to venture on His word; trust entirely to Him and watch that when He brings us to the venture, we take it. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1459 R

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No one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. —John 3:3

Being born again of the Spirit is an unmistakable work of God, as mysterious as the wind, as surprising as God himself. We do not know where it begins; it is hidden away in the depths of our personal lives.

Being born again from above is a perennial, perpetual, and eternal beginning. It is a freshness all the time in thinking and talking and living, the continual surprise of the life of God. Sometimes, we are fresh for a prayer meeting, but not for cleaning boots! If this is the case, it’s a sign that something isn’t right between our souls and God. If we’ve ever found ourselves grumbling, “I have to do this thing or it will never get done,” we’ve let staleness creep in.

Consider the moment you are in right now: Do you feel the spark of eternity, of life itself, lighting you from within? The spark never comes from our own efforts. Obedience keeps us in the light, but it doesn’t fill us with vibrant, vital, untiring life. This can only come from the Spirit. To keep in touch with the Spirit within, we must jealously guard our relationship to God. Jesus prayed that we would be one as he and the Father are one—with absolutely nothing in between (John 17:21).

Keep every area of your life continually open to Jesus Christ. Don’t pretend with him. Are you drawing on any other source than God himself? If you’re depending upon anything but him, you will never know when he is gone. Being born of the Spirit means much more than we generally take it to mean. It gives us a new vision and keeps us absolutely fresh for everything, thanks to the perennial supply of the life of God.

Genesis 49-50; Matthew 13:31-58

Wisdom from Oswald

Our danger is to water down God’s word to suit ourselves. God never fits His word to suit me; He fits me to suit His word.Not Knowing Whither, 901 R

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We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that . . . we too may live a new life. —Romans 6:4

No one enters into the experience of entire sanctification without going through a “white funeral,” a burial of the old life. If this crisis has never taken place, if you’ve never put your old life to death, sanctification is nothing more than a vision. It is a death followed by one resurrection—a resurrection into the life of Jesus Christ. Nothing can upset such a life. It is one with God for one purpose: to be a witness to him.

Have you come to your last days really? You may have come to them many times in your thoughts and dreams; you may have grown excited at the thought of being baptized into death with your Lord. But have you actually done it? You cannot die in excitement. Death means you stop being, stop striving. Do you agree with God to stop being the kind of striving, eager Christian you’ve been up to now? We circle the cemetery all the time, refusing to actually go to our deaths.

Are you ready to be buried with Christ, or are you playing the fool with your soul? Is there a moment you can identify as your last? Can you go back to it in your memory and say, with a chastened and grateful spirit, “Yes, it was then, at that ‘white funeral,’ that I made an agreement with God”?

“It is God’s will that you should be sanctified” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). When you realize that sanctification is what God wants, you will enter into death naturally. Are you willing to do it now? Do you agree with God that this day will be your last? The moment of agreement depends on you.

Genesis 36-38; Matthew 10:21-42

Wisdom from Oswald

The Bible is the only Book that gives us any indication of the true nature of sin, and where it came from.The Philosophy of Sin, 1107 R

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I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” —Isaiah 6:8

God didn’t call Isaiah by name; he called for anyone willing to go. Isaiah simply heard and answered.

The call of God isn’t reserved for a special few; it’s for everyone. Whether or not we hear it depends on us. Are our ears open? Is our temperament in line with Christ’s? “For many are invited, but few are chosen,” Jesus said (Matthew 22:14). He meant that few prove themselves chosen. Chosen ones are those who, through Jesus Christ, have come into a relationship with God that has changed their temperament and opened their ears. All the time, they hear God asking, “Whom shall I send?”

God’s call leaves us free to answer or not to answer. When Isaiah answered the call, it wasn’t because God commanded him to. Isaiah was in God’s presence and, when the call came, realized that there was nothing for him to do but to answer, consciously and freely, “Send me.”

We have to get rid of the idea that if God really wants us to do something, he will come at us with force or pleading. When Jesus called the disciples, there was no irresistible compulsion from the outside. Instead, Jesus came with a quiet, passionate insistence, speaking to men who were wide awake, with all their powers and faculties intact. If we let the Spirit bring us face-to-face with God, we too will hear what Isaiah heard—“Whom shall I send?”—and we will say, in perfect freedom, “Here am I. Send me.”

Genesis 33-35; Matthew 10:1-20

Wisdom from Oswald

To live a life alone with God does not mean that we live it apart from everyone else. The connection between godly men and women and those associated with them is continually revealed in the Bible, e.g., 1 Timothy 4:10. Not Knowing Whither, 867 L

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Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place. —Mark 6:31

When God gets us alone—isolating us through sickness, heartbreak, or disappointment, through affliction, temptation, or unrequited love—when he gets us totally alone and we are so bewildered that we cannot ask him even one question, this is when he begins to teach us.

Most of the time, we are not alone with God in this way: it’s why he must produce a crisis. We spend our lives distracted by fussy little worries about our work or our health or what other people are doing. Jesus can explain nothing to us until we learn to quiet our minds and leave others alone. If I am walking with him, the only thing he intends me to see clearly is how he is dealing with my soul. We think we understand other people’s situations; then God shows us our own hearts, and we see that there are whole regions of stubbornness and ignorance inside us that we cannot access on our own. Only the Holy Spirit can reach these places.

If God has gotten you alone right now, if you are feeling isolated and bewildered, turn to the Spirit he has placed inside. It is the fine art of the Holy Spirit to be alone with God; it is a purpose of the Holy Spirit to guide and instruct: “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things” (John 14:26). Remember that God has not left you alone; he has gotten you alone with him. Go with God to a quiet place, and his Spirit will teach you all you need to know.

Genesis 31-32; Matthew 9:18-38

Wisdom from Oswald

The emphasis to-day is placed on the furtherance of an organization; the note is, “We must keep this thing going.” If we are in God’s order the thing will go; if we are not in His order, it won’t. Conformed to His Image, 357 R

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I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light . . . so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. —Acts 26:17–18

“To open their eyes . . . so that they may receive.” This is the Bible’s clearest statement of where the disciple’s work begins and ends. As disciples of Jesus, we have a responsibility to open people’s eyes to the gospel, to help them turn toward the light. But this is only the work of conversion, not of salvation. Conversion is the effort of a roused human being. Salvation requires receiving something—not from another person but from God himself. This is the first mighty work of grace: “That they may receive forgiveness of sins.”

When someone fails in personal Christian experience, it is nearly always because they’ve never received anything. They’ve opened their eyes, but they haven’t accepted God’s gifts. They may make vows and promises, they may swear to walk in the light as God is in the light, they may even succeed for a time, but none of this is salvation. Salvation means that we have been brought, humble and open, to the place where we are able to receive. The only sign that a person is saved is that they have received the gift Jesus Christ bought for them on the cross.

“A place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.” Sanctification is the second mighty work of grace, God’s second great gift to us. In receiving the Holy Spirit, the reborn soul deliberately gives up its right to itself, turns itself over to Jesus, and identifies entirely with God’s will. To be born again in the Spirit is to know beyond a doubt that it is only through God’s generosity that we are saved, not through any decision of our own.

Genesis 25-26; Matthew 8:1-17

Wisdom from Oswald

We are not to preach the doing of good things; good deeds are not to be preached, they are to be performed.So Send I You, 1330 L

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May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless. —1 Thessalonians 5:23

Paul’s prayer for the Thessalonians, that they be kept blameless in their whole spirit, soul, and body, is a prayer that can only be answered through the great mystical work of the Holy Spirit.

Far beneath the surface of our personality lies a shadowy region we ourselves can’t get at. This is where our deepest fears and motivations are found, those unconscious forces we haven’t chosen and can’t control. If we are to be made blameless here, we need the Spirit to seek us out: “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me,” writes David in Psalm 139:1. “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” (v. 7).

The psalm is a testimony to God’s omnipresence and eternity, his everywhereness and alwaysness. David is saying, “You are the God of the early mornings and the late-at-nights, the God of the mountain peaks and of the sea. But, my God, my soul has further horizons than the early mornings, deeper darknesses than the night, higher peaks than any mountain, greater depths than any sea. You who are God of all these things, be my God. There are motives I cannot understand, dreams I cannot grasp. Please, Lord, search them out.”

Do we believe that God can garrison our imagination far beyond where we can go? As the ancient Romans sent garrisons of soldiers beyond the reaches of their empire, so God sends the Spirit to the outer limits of our soul. It is only when we are garrisoned by God in this way that we are made blameless. Blameless does not mean perfection but preserved in unspotted integrity, undeserving of censure in God’s sight, until Jesus comes.

Genesis 23-24; Matthew 7

Wisdom from Oswald

It is perilously possible to make our conceptions of God like molten lead poured into a specially designed mould, and when it is cold and hard we fling it at the heads of the religious people who don’t agree with us.Disciples Indeed, 388 R

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Abraham built an altar there and . . . bound his son Isaac. —Genesis 22:9

Abraham’s intentions in offering his son to God were good, but it was not the offering God wanted. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” the angel of the Lord told Abraham. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son” (Genesis 22:12). God didn’t want Isaac’s death; he wanted Abraham’s life.

We make a version of Abraham’s mistake. We think that the ultimate thing God wants from us is the sacrifice of death. What God wants from us is the sacrifice through death that enables us to do what Jesus did: sacrifice our lives. The idea isn’t “I am willing to go to death with Jesus,” but “I am willing to be identified with Jesus’s death so that I may sacrifice my life to God.” Nowhere in Scripture does God ask us to give things up simply for the sake of giving them up. He asks us to give things up for the sake of the only thing worth having: a life with him.

God disciplined Abraham to show him the error of his belief, and the same discipline goes on in our lives. The goal is to loosen the ties that constrict the life of Christ in us, so that we can enter into a relationship with him. We may be challenged and disciplined until we finally understand: it is of no value to God to give him our lives for death. He wants us to be a living sacrifice, to let him have all our vibrant, vital powers. This is the offering that is acceptable to God.

Genesis 20-22; Matthew 6:19-34

Wisdom from Oswald

Both nations and individuals have tried Christianity and abandoned it, because it has been found too difficult; but no man has ever gone through the crisis of deliberately making Jesus Lord and found Him to be a failure.The Love of God—The Making of a Christian, 680 R

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Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip?” —John 14:9

Jesus’s words to Philip weren’t said with criticism, or even with surprise. They were an invitation: Jesus wanted Philip to embrace a more intimate relationship with him.
Before Pentecost, the disciples knew Jesus as someone who gave them power to conquer demons and start a revival (Luke 10:18–20). The intimacy they felt with him was wonderful. But there was a much closer intimacy to come. Jesus said, “I have called you friends” (John 15:15). Friendship—true friendship—is rare on earth. It involves two people identifying with each other in thought and heart and spirit. Friendship with Jesus is the whole point of spiritual discipline, yet it is often the last thing we actually seek. We receive his blessings and know his word, but do we know him?
Jesus said, “It is for your good that I am going away” (16:7). He went so that he could lead his friends to ever greater heights and purposes. It is a joy to Jesus when we follow, when we move toward closer intimacy with him. The result is always abundance: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit” (15:5).
When we are intimate with Jesus, we are never lonely, never need sympathy. We can give tirelessly, pouring ourselves out. The impression we leave behind is never of ourselves, only of the strong, calm sanity of our Lord, a sign that our souls have been entirely satisfied by him.

Genesis 18-19; Matthew 6:1-18

Wisdom from Oswald

Wherever the providence of God may dump us down, in a slum, in a shop, in the desert, we have to labour along the line of His direction. Never allow this thought—“I am of no use where I am,” because you certainly can be of no use where you are not! Wherever He has engineered your circumstances, pray.So Send I You, 1325 L

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He . . . pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord. —Genesis 12:8

Bethel is the symbol of communion with God; Ai is the symbol of the world. Abraham pitched his tent between the two, knowing that the value of his public activity for God depended on the moments of profound private communion spent with him.
The two things—private worship and public work—went together in Abraham’s life, just as they did in the life of Christ. Too many of us think that in order to worship we have to drop out of our everyday lives, to flee Ai and go deep into Bethel, that quiet fortress where nothing and no one can disturb us.
This way of thinking may be a trap. There is always time to worship, no matter where we are or what we’re doing. Rush is wrong every time. Instead of jumping around like spiritual frogs, from working to waiting to worshipping, we should strive to live as Jesus did: unhurrying and unyielding, his entire existence an act of worship.
Worship is giving God the best he has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. If you try to keep a blessing for yourself, it will turn into spiritual rot, just as the manna rotted when the Israelites hoarded it (Exodus 16). Offer it back to God as a love gift, in a deliberate act of worship, and he will make it a blessing to others.

Genesis 16-17; Matthew 5:27-48

Wisdom from Oswald

The life of Abraham is an illustration of two things: of unreserved surrender to God, and of God’s complete possession of a child of His for His own highest end.Not Knowing Whither, 901 R

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For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. —Ephesians 2:8

No one can be saved by their own efforts. We have the sneaking idea that we can earn God’s favor by praying or by believing, by obeying or by repenting. But the only way we get into his favor is by the free gift of his almighty grace.
It takes some of us a long time to understand that we don’t deserve to be saved, and that nothing we do can make us deserving. We say to God, “I really am sorry for what I’ve done. I really am sick of myself.” If only this were true! We have to become sick to death of ourselves, even to the point of despair, even to the point where we can do nothing. Then we will be in the exact right state for receiving his overflowing grace. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace” (Ephesians 1:7).
Think of what God’s forgiveness means: it means he forgets away all our sins. Forgetting, in the human mind, may be a defect; in the divine mind it is an attribute. God illustrates it through vibrant images drawn from his creation: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:12). “I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist” (Isaiah 44:22).
When we think of forgetting in human terms, we place limits on God’s grace that don’t exist. His overflowing grace never ends. When God forgets our sins, he forgets them completely: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool” (Isaiah 1:18). This is the grace of God’s forgetting.

Genesis 7–9; Matthew 3

Wisdom from Oswald

For the past three hundred years men have been pointing out how similar Jesus Christ’s teachings are to other good teachings. We have to remember that Christianity, if it is not a supernatural miracle, is a sham. The Highest Good, 548 L

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By faith Abraham . . . obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. —Hebrews 11:8

Have you ever set off on an unplanned journey, taking, as Christ instructed, no thought for your life, no thought for what you would eat or drink or wear (Matthew 6:25)?
“Where are you going, and what will you do?” If you begin to live for God, people will ask you this all the time. But if you are living in the way Christ wants, you won’t have a logical answer: there is none. You can’t know what you’re going to do; you can’t know what God is going to do. All you can know is that God knows. This is what it means to trust entirely in him.
Have you been begging God to tell you his plans? He never will. God doesn’t tell us what he’s going to do; he reveals to us who he is. It is through taking action, through stepping out in faith, that we receive this revelation. Ask yourself: Do I believe in a miracle-working God, and will I step out in surrender to him until I am not surprised one iota at anything he does? To step out in this way is to journey beyond your convictions and creeds and past experiences, until, as far as your faith is concerned, there is nothing at all between yourself and God.
Imagine, for a moment, that God really is who he says he is: the God of your days and your nights, of your future and your past; the God of all. What an impertinence worry is! Set aside your worries, and let your attitude be one of eager adventure.

Genesis 4–6; Matthew 2

Wisdom from Oswald

Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.The Moral Foundations of Life, 721 R

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The God of Israel will be your rear guard. — Isaiah 52:12

Security from Yesterday. “God requireth that which is past.” At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise from remembering the yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God’s grace is apt to be checked by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them in order to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual culture for the future. God reminds us of the past lest we get into a shallow security in the present.

Security for To-morrow. “For the Lord will go before you.” This is a gracious revelation, that God will garrison where we have failed to. He will watch lest things trip us up again into like failure, as they assuredly would do if He were not our rereward. God’s hand reaches back to the past and makes a clearing-house for conscience.

Security for To-day. “For ye shall not go out with haste.” As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, unremembering delight, nor with the flight of impulsive thoughtlessness, but with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ.

Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him.

Malachi 1-4; Revelation 22

Wisdom from Oswald

We must keep ourselves in touch, not with theories, but with people, and never get out of touch with human beings, if we are going to use the word of God skilfully amongst them. Workmen of God, 1341 L

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All my fresh springs shall be in Thee. — Psalm 87:7 (PBV)*

Our Lord never patches up our natural virtues, He remakes the whole man on the inside. “Put on the new man” — see that your natural human life puts on the garb that is in keeping with the new life. The life God plants in us develops its own virtues, not the virtues of Adam but of Jesus Christ. Watch how God will wither up your confidence in natural virtues after sanctification, and in any power you have, until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus. Thank God if you are going through a drying-up experience!

The sign that God is at work in us is that He corrupts confidence in the natural virtues, because they are not promises of what we are going to be, but remnants of what God created man to be. We will cling to the natural virtues, while all the time God is trying to get us into contact with the life of Jesus Christ which can never be described in terms of the natural virtues. It is the saddest thing to see people in the service of God depending on that which the grace of God never gave them, depending on what they have by the accident of heredity. God does not build up our natural virtues and transfigure them, because our natural virtues can never come anywhere near what Jesus Christ wants. No natural love, no natural patience, no natural purity can ever come up to His demands. But as we bring every bit of our bodily life into harmony with the new life which God has put in us, He will exhibit in us the virtues that were characteristic of the Lord Jesus.

“And every virtue we possess
Is His alone.”

*PBV: Prayer Book Version. The Book of Common Prayer for the Church of England includes a translation of the Psalter, or Psalms of David.

Zechariah 13-14; Revelation 21

Wisdom from Oswald

The sympathy which is reverent with what it cannot understand is worth its weight in gold. Baffled to Fight Better, 69 L

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If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the Lord… — Jeremiah 4:1

The battle is lost or won in the secret places of the will before God, never first in the external world. The Spirit of God apprehends me and I am obliged to get alone with God and fight the battle out before Him. Until this is done, I lose every time. The battle may take one minute or a year, that will depend on me, not on God; but it must be wrestled out alone before God, and I must resolutely go through the hell of a renunciation before Him. Nothing has any power over the man who has fought out the battle before God and won there. If I say, “I will wait till I get into the circumstances and then put God to the test,” I shall find I cannot. I must get the thing settled between my self and God in the secret places of my soul where no stranger intermeddles, and then I can go forth with the certainty that the battle is won. Lose it there, and calamity and disaster and upset are as sure as God’s decree. The reason the battle is not won is because I try to win it in the external world first. Get alone with God, fight it out before Him, settle the matter there once and for all.

In dealing with other people, the line to take is to push them to an issue of will. That is the way abandonment begins. Every now and again, not often, but sometimes, God brings us to a point of climax. That is the Great Divide in the life; from that point we either go towards a more and more dilatory and useless type of Christian life, or we become more and more ablaze for the glory of God — “My Utmost for His Highest.”

Zechariah 1-4; Revelation 18

Wisdom from Oswald

There is no allowance whatever in the New Testament for the man who says he is saved by grace but who does not produce the graceful goods. Jesus Christ by His Redemption can make our actual life in keeping with our religious profession.Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1465 R

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