Oswald Chambers
My Utmost for His Highest
A year of reflections on surrender, faith, and wholehearted devotion to Christ. Classic English edition.
366 readings · Includes February 29
Start reading →366 readings
January 1 — Let Us Keep To The Point
My Utmost for His Highest. “My eager desire and hope being that I may never feel ashamed.” We shall all feel very much ashamed if we do not yield to Jesus on the point He has asked…
Read →January 2 — Will You Go Out Without Knowing?
Have you been “out” in this way? If so, there is no logical statement possible when anyone asks you what you are doing. One of the difficulties in Christian work is this question —…
Read →January 3 — Clouds And Darkness
A man who has not been born of the Spirit of God will tell you that the teachings of Jesus are simple. But when you are baptised with the Holy Ghost, you find “clouds and darkness …
Read →January 4 — Why Cannot I Follow Thee Now?
There are times when you cannot understand why you cannot do what you want to do. When God brings the blank space, see that you do not fill it in, but wait. The blank space may com…
Read →January 5 — The Afterwards Of The Life Of Power
“And when He had spoken this, He saith unto him, Follow Me.” Three years before, Jesus had said — “Follow Me,” and Peter had followed easily, the fascination of Jesus was upon him,…
Read →January 6 — Worship
Worship is giving God the best that He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love gift. Take …
Read →January 7 — Intimate With Jesus
These words are not spoken as a rebuke, nor even with surprise; Jesus is leading Philip on. The last One with whom we get intimate is Jesus. Before Pentecost the disciples knew Jes…
Read →January 8 — Does My Sacrifice Live?
This incident is a picture of the blunder we make in thinking that the final thing God wants of us is the sacrifice of death. What God wants is the sacrifice through death which en…
Read →January 9 — Intercessory Introspection
“Your whole spirit…” The great mystical work of the Holy Spirit is in the dim regions of our personality which we cannot get at. Read the 139th Psalm; the Psalmist implies — “Thou …
Read →January 10 — The Opened Sight
This verse is the grandest condensation of the propaganda of a disciple of Jesus Christ in the whole of the New Testament.…
Read →January 11 — What My Obedience To God Costs Other People
If we obey God it is going to cost other people more than it costs us, and that is where the sting comes in. If we are in love with our Lord, obedience does not cost us anything, i…
Read →January 12 — Have You Ever Been Alone With God?
Our Solitude with Him. Jesus does not take us alone and expound things to us all the time; He expounds things to us as we can understand them. Other lives are parables. God is maki…
Read →January 13 — Have You Ever Been Alone With God? (2)
His Solitude with Us. When God gets us alone by affliction, heartbreak, or temptation, by disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted affection, by a broken friendship, or by a new fr…
Read →January 14 — Called Of God
God did not address the call to Isaiah; Isaiah overheard God saying — “Who will go for us?” The call of God is not for the special few, it is for everyone. Whether or not I hear Go…
Read →January 15 — Do You Walk In White?
No one enters into the experience of entire sanctification without going through a “white funeral”* — the burial of the old life. If there has never been this crisis of death, sanc…
Read →January 16 — The Voice Of The Nature Of God
When we speak of the call of God, we are apt to forget the most important feature, viz., the nature of the One Who calls. There is the call of the sea, the call of the mountains, t…
Read →January 17 — The Vocation Of The Natural Life
The call of God is not a call to any particular service; my interpretation of it may be, because contact with the nature of God has made me realize what I would like to do for Him.…
Read →January 18 — It Is The Lord!
“Give Me to drink.” How many of us are set upon Jesus Christ slaking our thirst when we ought to be satisfying Him? We should be pouring out now, spending to the last limit, not dr…
Read →January 19 — Vision And Darkness
Whenever God gives a vision to a saint, He puts him, as it were, in the shadow of His hand, and the saint’s duty is to be still and listen. There is a darkness which comes from exc…
Read →January 20 — Are You Fresh For Everything?
Sometimes we are fresh for a prayer meeting but not fresh for cleaning boots!…
Read →January 21 — Recall What God Remembers
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 little things that cheer His heart over me, or am I whimpering beca…
Read →January 22 — What Am I Looking At?
Do we expect God to 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 bles…
Read →January 23 — Transformed By Insight
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 transf…
Read →January 24 — The Overmastering Direction
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 he…
Read →January 25 — Leave Room For God
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 f…
Read →January 26 — Look Again And Consecrate
A simple statement of Jesus is always a puzzle to us if we are not simple. How are we going to be simple with the simplicity of Jesus? By receiving His Spirit, recognizing and rely…
Read →January 27 — Look Again And Think
A warning which needs to be reiterated is that 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 a…
Read →January 28 — But It Is Hardly Credible That One Could So Persecute Jesus!
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 Ghost and fire. Obstinacy and self-will will a…
Read →January 29 — But It Is Hardly Credible That One Could Be So Positively Ignorant!
“The Lord spake 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 d…
Read →January 30 — The Dilemma Of Obedience
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 …
Read →January 31 — Do You See Your Calling?
Our calling is not primarily to be holy men and women, but to be proclaimers of the Gospel of God. The one thing that is all important is that the Gospel of God should be realized …
Read →February 1 — The Call Of God
Paul states here that the call of God is to preach the gospel; but remember what Paul means by “the gospel” viz., the reality of Redemption in our Lord Jesus Christ. We are apt to …
Read →February 2 — The Constraint Of The Call
Beware of stopping your ears to the call of God. Everyone who is saved is called to testify to the fact; but that is not the call to preach, it is merely an illustration in preachi…
Read →February 3 — The Recognized Ban Of Relationship
These words are not an exaggeration. The reason they are not true of us who call ourselves ministers of the gospel is not that Paul forgot the exact truth in using them, but that w…
Read →February 4 — The Overmastering Majesty Of Personal Power
Paul says he is overruled, overmastered, held as in a vice, by the love of Christ. Very few of us know what it means to be held in a grip by the love of God; we are held by the con…
Read →February 5 — Are You Ready To Be Offered?
Are you willing to be offered for the work of the faithful — to pour out your life blood as a libation on the sacrifice of the faith of others? Or do you say — “I am not going to b…
Read →February 6 — Are You Ready To Be Offered?
“I am ready to be offered” (kjv). It is a transaction of will, not of sentiment. Tell God you are ready to be offered; then let the consequences be what they may, there is no stran…
Read →February 7 — The Discipline Of Dejection
Every fact that the disciples stated was right; but the inferences they drew from those facts were wrong. Anything that savours of dejection spiritually is always wrong. If depress…
Read →February 8 — Instantaneous And Insistent Sanctification
When we pray to be sanctified, are we prepared to face the standard of these verses? We take the term sanctification much too lightly. Are we prepared for what sanctification will …
Read →February 9 — Are You Exhausted Spiritually?
Exhaustion means that the vital forces are worn right out. Spiritual exhaustion never comes through sin but only through service, and whether or not you are exhausted will depend u…
Read →February 10 — Is Your Imagination Of God Starved?
The people of God in Isaiah’s day had starved their imagination by looking on the face of idols, and Isaiah made them look up at the heavens; that is, he made them begin to use the…
Read →February 11 — Is Your Hope In God Faint And Dying?
Is your imagination stayed on God or is it starved? The starvation of the imagination is one of the most fruitful sources of exhaustion and sapping in a worker’s life. If you have …
Read →February 12 — Must I Listen?
We do not consciously disobey God, we simply do not heed Him. God has given us His commands; there they are, but we do not pay any attention to them, not because of wilful disobedi…
Read →February 13 — The Devotion Of Hearing
Because I have listened definitely to one thing from God, it does not follow that I will listen to everything He says. The way in which I show God that I neither love nor respect H…
Read →February 14 — The Discipline Of Heeding
At times God puts us through the discipline of darkness to teach us to heed Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and we are put into the shadow of God’s hand until we le…
Read →February 15 — Am I My Brother’s Keeper?
Has it ever dawned on you that you are responsible for other souls spiritually before God? For instance, if I allow any private deflection from God in my life, everyone about me su…
Read →February 16 — The Inspiration Of Spiritual Initiative
All initiative is not inspired. A man may say to you – “Buck up, take your disinclination by the throat, throw it overboard, and walk out into the thing!” That is ordinary human in…
Read →February 17 — The Initiative Against Depression
The angel did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable; he told Elijah to do the most ordinary thing, viz., to get up and eat. If we we…
Read →February 18 — The Initiative Against Despair
The disciples went to sleep when they should have kept awake, and when they realized what they had done it produced despair. The sense of the irreparable is apt to make us despair,…
Read →February 19 — The Initiative Against Drudgery
We have to take the first step as though there were no God. It is no use to wait for God to help us, He will not; but immediately we arise we find He is there. Whenever God inspire…
Read →February 20 — The Initiative Against Dreaming
Dreaming about a thing in order to do it properly is right; but dreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong. After Our Lord had said those wonderful things to His discipl…
Read →February 21 — Have You Ever Been Carried Away For Him?
If human love does not carry a man beyond himself, it is not love. If love is always discreet, always wise, always sensible and calculating, never carried beyond itself, it is not …
Read →February 22 — The Discipline Of Spiritual Tenacity
Tenacity is more than endurance, it is endurance combined with the absolute certainty that what we are looking for is going to transpire. Tenacity is more than hanging on, which ma…
Read →February 23 — The Determination To Serve
Paul’s idea of service is the same as Our Lord’s: “I am among you as He that serveth”; “ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.” We have the idea that a man called to the ministry…
Read →February 24 — The Delight Of Sacrifice
When the Spirit of God has shed abroad the love of God in our hearts, we begin deliberately to identify ourselves with Jesus Christ’s interests in other people, and Jesus Christ is…
Read →February 25 — The Destitution Of Service
Natural love expects some return, but Paul says – “I do not care whether you love me or not, I am willing to destitute myself completely, not merely for your sakes, but that I may …
Read →February 26 — Inferior Misgivings About Jesus
“I am impressed with the wonder of what God says, but He cannot expect me really to live it out in the details of my life!” When it comes to facing Jesus Christ on His own merits, …
Read →February 27 — The Impoverished Ministry Of Jesus
“The well is deep” – and a great deal deeper than the Samaritan woman knew! Think of the depths of human nature, of human life, think of the depths of the “wells” in you. Have you …
Read →February 28 — Do Ye Now Believe?
“Now we believe.” Jesus says – “Do you? The time is coming when you will leave Me alone.” Many a Christian worker has left Jesus Christ alone and gone into work from a sense of dut…
Read →February 29 — What Do You Want The Lord To Do For You?
What is the thing that not only disturbs you but makes you a disturbance? It is always something you cannot deal with yourself. “They rebuked him, that he should hold his peace: bu…
Read →March 1 — The Undeviating Question
Peter declares nothing now (cf. Matthew 26:33-35). Natural individuality professes and declares; the love of the personality is only discovered by the hurt of the question of Jesus…
Read →March 2 — Have You Felt The Hurt Of The Lord?
Have you felt the hurt of the Lord to the uncovered quick, the place where the real sensitiveness of your life is lodged? The devil never hurts there, neither sin nor human affecti…
Read →March 3 — The Unrelieved Quest
This is love in the making. The love of God is un-made, it is God’s nature. When we receive the Holy Spirit He unites us with God so that His love is manifested in us. When the sou…
Read →March 4 — Could This Be True Of Me?
It is easier to serve God without a vision, easier to work for God without a call, because then you are not bothered by what God requires; common sense is your guide, veneered over…
Read →March 5 — Is He Really Lord?
Joy means the perfect fulfilment of that for which I was created and regenerated, not the successful doing of a thing. The joy Our Lord had lay in doing what the Father sent Him to…
Read →March 6 — Amid A Crowd Of Paltry Things
It takes Almighty grace to take the next step when there is no vision and no spectator – the next step in devotion, the next step in your study, in your reading, in your kitchen; t…
Read →March 7 — Undaunted Radiance
Paul is speaking of the things that might seem likely to separate or wedge in between the saint and the love of God; but the remarkable thing is that nothing can wedge in between t…
Read →March 8 — The Relinquished Life
No one is ever united with Jesus Christ until he is willing to relinquish not sin only, but his whole way of looking at things. To be born from above (rv mg) of the Spirit of God m…
Read →March 9 — The Time Of Relapse
A penetrating question. Our Lord’s words come home most when He talks in the most simple way. We know Who Jesus is, but in spite of that He says – “Will ye also go away?” We have t…
Read →March 10 — Have A Message And Be One
We are not saved to be “channels only,” but to be sons and daughters of God. We are not turned into spiritual mediums, but into spiritual messengers; the message must be part of ou…
Read →March 11 — Vision
If we lose the vision, we alone are responsible, and the way we lose the vision is by spiritual leakage. If we do not run our belief about God into practical issues, it is all up w…
Read →March 12 — Abandonment
Our Lord replies in effect, that abandonment is for Himself, and not for what the disciples themselves will get from it. Beware of an abandonment which has the commercial spirit in…
Read →March 13 — The Abandonment Of God
Salvation is not merely deliverance from sin, nor the experience of personal holiness; the salvation of God is deliverance out of self entirely into union with Himself. My experime…
Read →March 14 — Obedience
The first thing to do in examining the power that dominates me is to take hold of the unwelcome fact that I am responsible for being thus dominated. If I am a slave to myself, I am…
Read →March 15 — The Discipline Of Dismay
At the beginning we were sure we knew all about Jesus Christ, it was a delight to sell all and to fling ourselves out in a hardihood of love; but now we are not quite so sure. Jesu…
Read →March 16 — The Master Assizes
Paul says that we must all, preacher and people alike, “appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” If you learn to live in the white light of Christ here and now, judgment finally…
Read →March 17 — The Worker’s Ruling Passion
“Wherefore we labour….” It is arduous work to keep the master ambition in front. It means holding one’s self to the high ideal year in and year out, not being ambitious to win soul…
Read →March 18 — Shall I Rouse Myself Up To This?
“Having therefore these promises.” I claim the fulfilment of God’s promises, and rightly, but that is only the human side; the Divine side is that through the promises I recognize …
Read →March 19 — The Way Of Abraham In Faith
In the Old Testament, personal relationship with God showed itself in separation, and this is symbolized in the life of Abraham by his separation from his country and from his kith…
Read →March 20 — Friendship With God
Its Delights. This chapter brings out the delight of real friendship with God as compared with occasional feelings of His presence in prayer. To be so much in contact with God that…
Read →March 21 — Interest Or Identification?
The imperative need spiritually is to sign the death warrant of the disposition of sin, to turn all emotional impressions and intellectual beliefs into a moral verdict against the …
Read →March 22 — The Burning Heart
We need to learn this secret of the burning heart. Suddenly Jesus appears to us, the fires are kindled, we have wonderful visions; then we have to learn to keep the secret of the b…
Read →March 23 — Am I Carnally Minded?
No natural man knows anything about carnality. The flesh lusting against the Spirit that came in at regeneration, and the Spirit lusting against the flesh, produces carnality. “Wal…
Read →March 24 — Decreasing Into His Purpose
If you become a necessity to a soul, you are out of God’s order. As a worker, your great responsibility is to be a friend of the Bridegroom. When once you see a soul in sight of th…
Read →March 25 — The Most Delicate Mission On Earth
Goodness and purity ought never to attract attention to themselves, they ought simply to be magnets to draw to Jesus Christ. If my holiness is not drawing towards Him, it is not ho…
Read →March 26 — Vision By Personal Purity
Purity is not innocence, it is much more. Purity is the outcome of sustained spiritual sympathy with God. We have to grow in purity. The life with God may be right and the inner pu…
Read →March 27 — Vision By Personal Character
An elevated mood can only come out of an elevated habit of personal character. If in the externals of your life you live up to the highest you know, God will continually say — “Fri…
Read →March 28 — Isn’t There Some Misunderstanding?
I may not understand what Jesus Christ says, but it is dangerous to say that therefore He was mistaken in what He said. It is never right to think that my obedience to a word of Go…
Read →March 29 — Our Lord’s Surprise Visits
The great need for the Christian worker is to be ready to face Jesus Christ at any and every turn. This is not easy, no matter what our experience is. The battle is not against sin…
Read →March 30 — Holiness v. Hardness Towards God
The reason many of us leave off praying and become hard towards God is because we have only a sentimental interest in prayer. It sounds right to say that we pray; we read books on …
Read →March 31 — Heedfulness v. Hypocrisy In Ourselves
If we are not heedful of the way the Spirit of God works in us, we will become spiritual hypocrites. We see where other folks are failing, and we turn our discernment into the gibe…
Read →April 1 — Heartiness v. Heartlessness Towards Others
Do we need any more argument than this to become intercessors — that Christ “ever liveth to make intercession”; that the Holy Spirit “maketh intercession for the saints”? Are we li…
Read →April 2 — The Glory That Excels
When Paul received his sight, he received spiritually an insight into the Person of Jesus Christ, and the whole of his subsequent life and preaching was nothing but Jesus Christ — …
Read →April 3 — If Thou Hadst Known!
Jesus had entered into Jerusalem in triumph, the city was stirred to its foundations; but a strange god was there, the pride of Pharisaism; it was religious and upright, but a “whi…
Read →April 4 — Those Borders Of Distrust
Jesus is not rebuking the disciples, their faith was real, but it was disturbed; it was not at work in actual things. The disciples were scattered to their own interests, alive to …
Read →April 5 — His Agony And Our Fellowship
We can never fathom the agony in Gethsemane, but at least we need not misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and Man in one, face to face with sin. We know nothing about Gethsema…
Read →April 6 — The Collision Of God And Sin
The Cross of Jesus is the revelation of God’s judgment on sin. Never tolerate the idea of martyrdom about the Cross of Jesus Christ. The Cross was a superb triumph in which the fou…
Read →April 7 — Why Are We Not Told Plainly?
Say nothing until the Son of man is risen in you — until the life of the risen Christ so dominates you that you understand what the historic Christ taught. When you get to the righ…
Read →April 8 — His Resurrection Destiny
Our Lord’s Cross is the gateway into His life: His Resurrection means that He has power now to convey His life to me. When I am born again from above (rv mg), I receive from the Ri…
Read →April 9 — Have I Seen Him?
Being saved and seeing Jesus are not the same thing. Many are partakers of God’s grace who have never seen Jesus. When once you have seen Jesus, you can never be the same, other th…
Read →April 10 — Moral Decision About Sin
Co-Crucifixion. Have I made this decision about sin — that it must be killed right out in me? It takes a long time to come to a moral decision about sin, but it is the great moment…
Read →April 11 — Moral Divinity
Co-Resurrection. The proof that I have been through crucifixion with Jesus is that I have a decided likeness to Him. The incoming of the Spirit of Jesus into me readjusts my person…
Read →April 12 — Moral Dominion
Co-Eternal Life. Eternal life was the life which Jesus Christ exhibited on the human plane, and it is the same life, not a copy of it, which is manifested in our mortal flesh when …
Read →April 13 — What To Do Under The Conditions
We must distinguish between the burden-bearing that is right and the burden-bearing that is wrong. We ought never to bear the burden of sin or of doubt, but there are burdens place…
Read →April 14 — Inspired Invincibility
“Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.” How petty our complaining is! Our Lord begins to bring us into the place where we can have communion with Him, and we groan and say — “O Lord,…
Read →April 15 — The Relapse Of Concentration
Asa was incomplete in his external obedience, he was right in the main but not entirely right. Beware of the thing of which you say — “Oh, that does not matter much.” The fact that…
Read →April 16 — Can You Come Down?
We all have moments when we feel better than our best, and we say — “I feel fit for anything; if only I could be like this always!” We are not meant to be. Those moments are moment…
Read →April 17 — Neck Or Nothing
Have you ever had a crisis in which you deliberately and emphatically and recklessly abandoned everything? It is a crisis of will. You may come up to it many times externally, but …
Read →April 18 — Readiness
When God speaks, many of us are like men in a fog, we give no answer. Moses’ reply revealed that he was somewhere. Readiness means a right relationship to God and a knowledge of wh…
Read →April 19 — Is It Not In The Least Likely?
Joab stood the big test, he remained absolutely loyal and true to David and did not turn after the fascinating and ambitious Absalom, but yet towards the end of his life he turned …
Read →April 20 — Can A Saint Slander God?
Jesus told the parable of the talents recorded in Matthew 25 as a warning that it is possible for us to misjudge our capacity. This parable has not to do with natural gifts, but wi…
Read →April 21 — Now Don’t Hurt The Lord!
Our Lord must be repeatedly astounded at us — astounded at how un-simple we are. It is opinions of our own which make us stupid; when we are simple we are never stupid, we discern …
Read →April 22 — The Light That Fails
A servant of God must stand so much alone that he never knows he is alone. In the first phases of Christian life disheartenments come, people who used to be lights flicker out, and…
Read →April 23 — The Worship Of The Work
Beware of any work for God which enables you to evade concentration on Him. A great many Christian workers worship their work. The one concern of a worker should be concentration o…
Read →April 24 — The Warning Against Wantoning
As Christian workers, worldliness is not our snare, sin is not our snare, but spiritual wantoning is, viz.: taking the pattern and print of the religious age we live in, making eye…
Read →April 25 — Instant In Season
Many of us suffer from the morbid tendency to be instant “out of season.” The season does not refer to time, but to us. “Be instant in season, out of season,” whether we feel like …
Read →April 26 — The Supreme Climb
Character determines how a man interprets God’s will (cf. Psalm 18:25-26). Abraham interpreted God’s command to mean that he had to kill his son, and he could only leave this tradi…
Read →April 27 — What Do You Want?
Are you seeking great things for yourself? Not seeking to be a great one, but seeking great things from God for yourself. God wants you in a closer relationship to Himself than rec…
Read →April 28 — What You Will Get
This is the unshakable secret of the Lord to those who trust Him — I will give thee thy life. What more does a man want than his life? It is the essential thing. “Thy life…for a pr…
Read →April 29 — The Graciousness Of Uncertainty
Naturally, we are inclined to be so mathematical and calculating that we look upon uncertainty as a bad thing. We imagine that we have to reach some end, but that is not the nature…
Read →April 30 — The Spontaneity Of Love
Love is not premeditated, it is spontaneous, that is, it bursts up in extraordinary ways. There is nothing of mathematical certainty in Paul’s category of love. We cannot say — “No…
Read →May 1 — Insight Not Emotion
For a time we are conscious of God’s attentions, then, when God begins to use us in His enterprises, we take on a pathetic look and talk of the trials and the difficulties, and all…
Read →May 2 — The Passion Of Patience
Patience is not indifference; patience conveys the idea of an immensely strong rock withstanding all onslaughts. The vision of God is the source of patience, because it imparts a m…
Read →May 3 — Vital Intercession
As we go on in intercession we may find that our obedience to God is going to cost other people more than we thought. The danger then is to begin to intercede in sympathy with thos…
Read →May 4 — Vicarious Intercession
Beware of imagining that intercession means bringing our personal sympathies into the presence of God and demanding that He does what we ask. Our approach to God is due entirely to…
Read →May 5 — Judgment On The Abyss Of Love
The Christian worker must never forget that salvation is God’s thought, not man’s; therefore it is an unfathomable abyss. Salvation is the great thought of God, not an experience. …
Read →May 6 — Liberty On The Abyss Of The Gospel
A spiritually minded man will never come to you with the demand — “Believe this and that”; but with the demand that you square your life with the standards of Jesus. We are not ask…
Read →May 7 — Building For Eternity
Our Lord refers not to a cost we have to count, but to a cost which He has counted. The cost was those thirty years in Nazareth, those three years of popularity, scandal and hatred…
Read →May 8 — The Patience Of Faith
Patience is more than endurance. A saint’s life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, and He stret…
Read →May 9 — Grasp Without Reach
There is a difference between an ideal and a vision. An ideal has no moral inspiration; a vision has. The people who give themselves over to ideals rarely do anything. A man’s conc…
Read →May 10 — Take The Initiative
“Add” means there is something we have to do. We are in danger of forgetting that we cannot do what God does, and that God will not do what we can do. We cannot save ourselves nor …
Read →May 11 — You Won’t Reach It On Tiptoe
Love is indefinite to most of us, we do not know what we mean when we talk about love. Love is the sovereign preference of one person for another, and spiritually Jesus demands tha…
Read →May 12 — Make A Habit Of Having No Habits
When we begin to form a habit we are conscious of it. There are times when we are conscious of becoming virtuous and patient and godly, but it is only a stage; if we stop there we …
Read →May 13 — The Habit Of A Good Conscience
God’s commands are given to the life of His Son in us, consequently to the human nature in which His Son has been formed, His commands are difficult, but immediately we obey they b…
Read →May 14 — The Habit Of Enjoying The Disagreeable
We have to form habits to express what God’s grace has done in us. It is not a question of being saved from hell, but of being saved in order to manifest the life of the Son of God…
Read →May 15 — The Habit Of Rising To The Occasion
Remember what you are saved for — that the Son of God might be manifested in your mortal flesh. Bend the whole energy of your powers to realize your election as a child of God; ris…
Read →May 16 — The Habit Of Wealth
We are made partakers of the Divine nature through the promises; then we have to “manipulate” the Divine nature in our human nature by habits, and the first habit to form is the ha…
Read →May 17 — His Ascension And Our Union
We have no corresponding experience to the events in Our Lord’s life after the Transfiguration. From then onwards Our Lord’s life was altogether vicarious. Up to the time of the Tr…
Read →May 18 — Careful Unreasonableness
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they simply are! Think of the sea, the air, the sun, the stars and the moon — all these are, and what a ministration they exert. So…
Read →May 19 — “Out Of The Wreck I Rise”
God does not keep a man immune from trouble; He says — “I will be with him in trouble.” It does not matter what actual troubles in the most extreme form get hold of a man’s life, n…
Read →May 20 — The Realm Of The Real
When a man is born again, there is not the same robustness in his thinking or reasoning for a time as formerly. We have to make an expression of the new life, to form the mind of C…
Read →May 21 — Divine Reasonings Of Faith
Immediately we look at these words of Jesus, we find them the most revolutionary statement human ears ever listened to. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” We argue in exactly the …
Read →May 22 — Now This Explains It
If you are going through a solitary way, read John 17, it will explain exactly why you are where you are — Jesus has prayed that you may be one with the Father as He is. Are you he…
Read →May 23 — Careful Infidelity
Jesus sums up commonsense carefulness in a disciple as infidelity. If we have received the Spirit of God, He will press through and say — “Now where does God come in in this relati…
Read →May 24 — The Delight Of Despair
It may be that like the apostle John you know Jesus Christ intimately, when suddenly He appears with no familiar characteristic at all, and the only thing you can do is to fall at …
Read →May 25 — The Test Of Self-interest
As soon as you begin to live the life of faith in God, fascinating and luxurious prospects will open up before you, and these things are yours by right; but if you are living the l…
Read →May 26 — Think As Jesus Taught
We think rightly or wrongly about prayer according to the conception we have in our minds of prayer. If we think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts,…
Read →May 27 — The Life That Lives
The disciples had to tarry until the day of Pentecost not for their own preparation only; they had to wait until the Lord was glorified historically. As soon as He was glorified, w…
Read →May 28 — Unquestioned Revelation
When is “that day”? When the Ascended Lord makes you one with the Father. In that day you will be one with the Father as Jesus is, and “in that day,” Jesus says, “ye shall ask Me n…
Read →May 29 — Undisturbed Relationship
“At that day ye shall ask in My name,” i.e., in My nature. Not — “You shall use My name as a magic word,” but — “You will be so intimate with Me that you will be one with Me.” “Tha…
Read →May 30 — Yes — But…!
Supposing God tells you to do something which is an enormous test to your common sense, what are you going to do? Hang back? If you get into the habit of doing a thing in the physi…
Read →May 31 — God First
Put God First in Trust. “Jesus did not commit Himself unto them,…for He knew what was in man” (John 2:24-25).…
Read →June 1 — The Staggering Question
Can that sinner be turned into a saint? Can that twisted life be put right? There is only one answer: “O Lord, Thou knowest, I don’t.” Never trample in with religious common sense …
Read →June 2 — What Are You Haunted By?
What are you haunted by? You will say — “By nothing,” but we are all haunted by something, generally by ourselves, or, if we are Christians, by our experience. The Psalmist says we…
Read →June 3 — The Secret Of The Lord
What is the sign of a friend? That he tells you secret sorrows? No, that he tells you secret joys. Many will confide to you their secret sorrows, but the last mark of intimacy is t…
Read →June 4 — The Never-Failing God
What line does my thought take? Does it turn to what God says or to what I fear? Am I learning to say not what God says, but to say something after I have heard what He says? “He h…
Read →June 5 — God’s Say-So
My say-so is to be built on God’s say-so. God says — “I will never leave thee,” then I can with good courage say — “The Lord is my helper, I will not fear” — I will not be haunted …
Read →June 6 — Work Out What God Works In
Your will agrees with God, but in your flesh there is a disposition which renders you powerless to do what you know you ought to do. When the Lord is presented to the conscience, t…
Read →June 7 — Don’t Slack Off
Am I fulfilling this ministry of the interior? There is no snare or any danger of infatuation or pride in intercession, it is a hidden ministry that brings forth fruit whereby the …
Read →June 8 — What Next?
Determine to Know More Than Others…
Read →June 9 — The Next Best Thing To Do
Ask If You Have Not Received…
Read →June 10 — The Next Best Thing to Do
Seek If You Have Not Found…
Read →June 11 — Getting There
Where the Sin and the Sorrow Cease and the Song and the Saint Commence…
Read →June 12 — Getting There
Where the Self-Interest Sleeps and the Real Interest Awakens…
Read →June 13 — Getting There
Where the Selective Affinity Dies and the Sanctified Abandon Lives…
Read →June 14 — Get A Move On
In the Matter of Determination…
Read →June 15 — Get A Move On
In the Matter of Drudgery…
Read →June 16 — What Do You Make Of This?
Jesus does not ask me to die for Him, but to lay down my life for Him. Peter said — “I will lay down my life for Thy sake,” and he meant it; his sense of the heroic was magnificent…
Read →June 17 — The Uncritical Temper
Jesus says regarding judging — Don’t. The average Christian is the most penetratingly critical individual. Criticism is a part of the ordinary faculty of man; but in the spiritual …
Read →June 18 — Don’t Think Now, Take The Road
The wind was actually boisterous, the waves were actually high, but Peter did not see them at first. He did not reckon with them, he simply recognised his Lord and stepped out in r…
Read →June 19 — Service Of Passionate Devotion
Jesus did not say — Make converts to your way of thinking, but look after My sheep, see that they get nourished in the knowledge of Me. We count as service what we do in the way of…
Read →June 20 — Have You Come To “When” Yet?
The plaintive, self-centred, morbid kind of prayer, a dead-set that I want to be right, is never found in the New Testament. The fact that I am trying to be right with God is a sig…
Read →June 21 — The Ministry Of The Interior
By what right do we become “a royal priesthood”? By the right of the Atonement. Are we prepared to leave ourselves resolutely alone and to launch out into the priestly work of pray…
Read →June 22 — The Undeviating Test
This statement is not a haphazard guess, it is an eternal law of God. Whatever judgment you give, it is measured to you again. There is a difference between retaliation and retribu…
Read →June 23 — Acquaintance With Grief
We are not acquainted with grief in the way in which Our Lord was acquainted with it; we endure it, we get through it, but we do not become intimate with it. At the beginning of li…
Read →June 24 — Reconciling One’s Self To The Fact Of Sin
It is not being reconciled to the fact of sin that produces all the disasters in life. You may talk about the nobility of human nature, but there is something in human nature which…
Read →June 25 — Receiving One’s Self In The Fires Of Sorrow
My attitude as a saint to sorrow and difficulty is not to ask that they may be prevented, but to ask that I may preserve the self God created me to be through every fire of sorrow.…
Read →June 26 — Always Now
The grace you had yesterday will not do for to-day. Grace is the overflowing favour of God; you can always reckon it is there to draw upon. “In much patience, in afflictions, in ne…
Read →June 27 — The Overshadowing Personal Deliverance
God promised Jeremiah that He would deliver him personally — “Thy life will I give unto thee for a prey.” That is all God promises His children. Wherever God sends us, He will guar…
Read →June 28 — Apprehended By God
Never choose to be a worker; but when once God has put His call on you, woe be to you if you turn to the right hand or to the left. We are not here to work for God because we have …
Read →June 29 — Direction Of Discipline
Jesus did not say that everyone must cut off the right hand, but — “If your right hand offends you in your walk with Me, cut it off.” There are many things that are perfectly legit…
Read →June 30 — Do It Now
Jesus Christ is laying down this principle — Do what you know you must do, now, and do it quickly; if you do not, the inevitable process will begin to work and you will have to pay…
Read →July 1 — The Inevitable Penalty
“There is no heaven with a little of hell in it.” God is determined to make you pure and holy and right; He will not allow you to escape for one moment from the scrutiny of the Hol…
Read →July 2 — The Conditions Of Discipleship
If the closest relationships of life clash with the claims of Jesus Christ, He says it must be instant obedience to Himself. Discipleship means personal, passionate devotion to a P…
Read →July 3 — The Concentration Of Personal Sin
When I get into the presence of God, I do not realize that I am a sinner in an indefinite sense; I realize the concentration of sin in a particular feature of my life. A man will s…
Read →July 4 — One Of God’s Great Don’ts
Fretting means getting out at elbows mentally or spiritually. It is one thing to say “Fret not,” but a very different thing to have such a disposition that you find yourself able n…
Read →July 5 — Don’t Calculate Without God
Don’t calculate without God. God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the things we have calculated on without taking Him into account. We get into circumstances which were …
Read →July 6 — Vision And Reality
We always have visions before a thing is made real. When we realize that although the vision is real, it is not real in us, then is the time that Satan comes in with his temptation…
Read →July 7 — All Noble Things Are Difficult
If we are going to live as disciples of Jesus, we have to remember that all noble things are difficult. The Christian life is gloriously difficult, but the difficulty of it does no…
Read →July 8 — The Will To Loyalty
Will is the whole man active. I cannot give up my will, I must exercise it. I must will to obey, and I must will to receive God’s Spirit. When God gives a vision of truth it is nev…
Read →July 9 — The Great Probing
Have you the slightest reliance on anything other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural virtue, any set of circumstances? Are you relying on yourself in any …
Read →July 10 — The Spiritual Sluggard
We are all capable of being spiritual sluggards; we do not want to mix with the rough and tumble of life as it is, our one object is to secure retirement. The note struck in Hebrew…
Read →July 11 — The Spiritual Saint
The initiative of the saint is not towards self-realisation, but towards knowing Jesus Christ. The spiritual saint never believes circumstances to be haphazard, or thinks of his li…
Read →July 12 — The Spiritual Society
Rehabilitation means the putting back of the whole human race into the relationship God designed it to be in, and this is what Jesus Christ did in Redemption. The Church ceases to …
Read →July 13 — The Price Of Vision
Our soul’s history with God is frequently the history of the “passing of the hero.” Over and over again God has to remove our friends in order to bring Himself in their place, and …
Read →July 14 — The Account With Persecution
These verses reveal the humiliation of being a Christian. Naturally, if a man does not hit back, it is because he is a coward; but spiritually if a man does not hit back, it is a m…
Read →July 15 — The Point Of Spiritual Honour
Paul was overwhelmed with the sense of his indebtedness to Jesus Christ, and he spent himself to express it. The great inspiration in Paul’s life was his view of Jesus Christ as hi…
Read →July 16 — The Notion Of Divine Control
Jesus is laying down rules of conduct for those who have His Spirit. By the simple argument of these verses He urges us to keep our minds filled with the notion of God’s control be…
Read →July 17 — The Miracle Of Belief
Paul was a scholar and an orator of the first rank; he is not speaking out of abject humility; but saying that he would veil the power of God if, when he preached the gospel, he im…
Read →July 18 — The Mystery Of Believing
By the miracle of Redemption Saul of Tarsus was turned in one second from a strong-willed, intense Pharisee into a humble, devoted slave of the Lord Jesus.…
Read →July 19 — Mastery Over The Believer
Our Lord never insists on having authority; He never says — “Thou shalt.” He leaves us perfectly free — so free that we can spit in His face, as men did; so free that we can put Hi…
Read →July 20 — Dependent On God’s Presence
There is no thrill in walking; it is the test of all the stable qualities. To “walk and not faint” is the highest reach possible for strength. The word “walk” is used in the Bible …
Read →July 21 — The Gateway To The Kingdom
Beware of placing Our Lord as a Teacher first. If Jesus Christ is a Teacher only, then all He can do is to tantalise me by erecting a standard I cannot attain. What is the use of p…
Read →July 22 — Sanctification
The Death Side. In sanctification God has to deal with us on the death side as well as on the life side. Many of us spend so much time in the place of death that we get sepulchral.…
Read →July 23 — Sanctification
The Life Side. The mystery of sanctification is that the perfections of Jesus Christ are imparted to me, not gradually, but instantly when by faith I enter into the realisation tha…
Read →July 24 — Disposition And Deeds
The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in motive because he has been made good by the supernatural grace of God. The only thing that …
Read →July 25 — Am I Blessed Like This?
When we first read the statements of Jesus they seem wonderfully simple and unstartling, and they sink unobserved into our unconscious minds. For instance, the Beatitudes seem mere…
Read →July 26 — The Account With Purity
We begin by trusting our ignorance and calling it innocence, by trusting our innocence and calling it purity; and when we hear these rugged statements of Our Lord’s, we shrink and …
Read →July 27 — The Way To Know
The golden rule for understanding spiritually is not intellect, but obedience. If a man wants scientific knowledge, intellectual curiosity is his guide; but if he wants insight int…
Read →July 28 — After Obedience – What?
We are apt to imagine that if Jesus Christ constrains us, and we obey Him, He will lead us to great success. We must never put our dreams of success as God’s purpose for us; His pu…
Read →July 29 — What Do You See In Your Clouds?
In the Bible clouds are always connected with God. Clouds are those sorrows or sufferings or providences, within or without our personal lives, which seem to dispute the rule of Go…
Read →July 30 — The Discipline Of Disillusionment
Disillusionment means that there are no more false judgments in life. To be undeceived by disillusionment may leave us cynical and unkindly severe in our judgment of others, but th…
Read →July 31 — Till You Are Entirely His
Many of us are all right in the main, but there are some domains in which we are slovenly. It is not a question of sin, but of the remnants of the carnal life which are apt to make…
Read →August 1 — Something More About His Ways
He comes where He commands us to leave. If when God said “Go,” you stayed, because you were so concerned about your people at home, you robbed them of the teaching and preaching of…
Read →August 2 — The Discipline Of Difficulty
An average view of the Christian life is that it means deliverance from trouble. It is deliverance in trouble, which is very different. “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the…
Read →August 3 — The Big Compelling Of God
Jerusalem stands in the life of Our Lord as the place where He reached the climax of His Father’s will. “I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me.” T…
Read →August 4 — The Brave Comradeship Of God
The bravery of God in trusting us! You say — “But He has been unwise to choose me, because there is nothing in me; I am not of any value.” That is why He chose you. As long as you …
Read →August 5 — The Baffling Call Of God
God called Jesus Christ to what seemed unmitigated disaster. Jesus Christ called His disciples to see Him put to death; He led every one of them to the place where their hearts wer…
Read →August 6 — The Cross In Prayer
We are too much given to thinking of the Cross as something we have to get through; we get through it only in order to get into it. The Cross stands for one thing only for us — a c…
Read →August 7 — Prayer In The Father’s House
Our Lord’s childhood was not immature manhood; our Lord’s childhood is an eternal fact. Am I a holy innocent child of God by identification with my Lord and Saviour? Do I look upon…
Read →August 8 — Prayer In The Father’s Honour
If the Son of God is born into my mortal flesh, is His holy innocence and simplicity and oneness with the Father getting a chance to manifest itself in me? What was true of the Vir…
Read →August 9 — Prayer In The Father’s Hearing
When the Son of God prays, He has only one consciousness, and that consciousness is of His Father. God always hears the prayers of His Son, and if the Son of God is formed in me th…
Read →August 10 — The Sacrament Of The Saint
To choose to suffer means that there is something wrong; to choose God’s will even if it means suffering is a very different thing. No healthy saint ever chooses suffering; he choo…
Read →August 11 — This Experience Must Come
It is not wrong to depend upon Elijah as long as God gives him to you, but remember the time will come when he will have to go; when he stands no more to you as your guide and lead…
Read →August 12 — The Theology Of Rest
When we are in fear we can do nothing less than pray to God, but Our Lord has a right to expect that those who name His Name should have an understanding confidence in Him. God exp…
Read →August 13 — Quench Not The Spirit
The voice of the Spirit is as gentle as a zephyr, so gentle that unless you are living in perfect communion with God, you never hear it. The checks of the Spirit come in the most e…
Read →August 14 — Chastening
It is very easy to quench the Spirit; we do it by despising the chastening of the Lord, by fainting when we are rebuked by Him. If we have only a shallow experience of sanctificati…
Read →August 15 — Signs Of The New Birth
The answer to the question “How can a man be born when he is old?” is — When he is old enough to die — to die right out to his “rag rights,” to his virtues, to his religion, to eve…
Read →August 16 — Does He Know Me?
When I have sadly misunderstood Him? (John 20:17). It is possible to know all about doctrine and yet not know Jesus. The soul is in danger when knowledge of doctrine outsteps intim…
Read →August 17 — Are You Discouraged In Devotion?
“And when he heard this…” Have you ever heard the Master say a hard word? If you have not, I question whether you have heard Him say anything. Jesus Christ says a great deal that w…
Read →August 18 — Have You Ever Been Expressionless With Sorrow?
The rich young ruler went away expressionless with sorrow; he had not a word to say. He had no doubt as to what Jesus said, no debate as to what it meant, and it produced in him a …
Read →August 19 — Self-consciousness
God means us to live a fully-orbed life in Christ Jesus, but there are times when that life is attacked from the outside, and we tumble into a way of introspection which we thought…
Read →August 20 — Completeness
Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once and ask Him to establish rest. Never allow anything to remain which is making the dis-peac…
Read →August 21 — The Ministry Of The Unnoticed
The New Testament notices things which from our standards do not seem to count. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” literally — Blessed are the paupers — an exceedingly commonplace t…
Read →August 22 — “I Indeed… But He”
Have I ever come to a place in my experience where I can say — “I indeed…but He”? Until that moment does come, I will never know what the baptism of the Holy Ghost means. “I indeed…
Read →August 23 — Prayer Choice And Prayer Conflict
Jesus did not say — “Dream about thy Father in secret,” but “pray to thy Father in secret.” Prayer is an effort of will. After we have entered our secret place and have shut the do…
Read →August 24 — The Spiritual Index
The illustration of prayer that Our Lord uses here is that of a good child asking for a good thing. We talk about prayer as if God heard us irrespective of the fact of our relation…
Read →August 25 — The Fruitfulness Of Friendship
We never know the joy of self-sacrifice until we abandon in every particular. Self-surrender is the most difficult thing — “I will if…!” “Oh, well, I suppose I must devote my life …
Read →August 26 — Are You Ever Disturbed?
There are times when our peace is based upon ignorance, but when we awaken to the facts of life, inner peace is impossible unless it is received from Jesus. When Our Lord speaks pe…
Read →August 27 — Theology Alive
Beware of not acting upon what you see in your moments on the mount with God. If you do not obey the light, it will turn into darkness. “If therefore the light that is in thee be d…
Read →August 28 — What’s The Good Of Prayer?
It is not part of the life of a natural man to pray. We hear it said that a man will suffer in his life if he does not pray; I question it. What will suffer is the life of the Son …
Read →August 29 — Sublime Intimacy
Every time you venture out in the life of faith, you will find something in your commonsense circumstances that flatly contradicts your faith. Common sense is not faith, and faith …
Read →August 30 — Am I Convinced By Christ?
Jesus Christ says, in effect, Don’t rejoice in successful service, but rejoice because you are rightly related to Me. The snare in Christian work is to rejoice in successful servic…
Read →August 31 — My Joy . . . Your Joy
What was the joy that Jesus had? It is an insult to use the word happiness in connection with Jesus Christ. The joy of Jesus was the absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice of H…
Read →September 1 — Destiny Of Holiness
Continually restate to yourself what the purpose of your life is. The destined end of man is not happiness, nor health, but holiness. Nowadays we have far too many affinities, we a…
Read →September 2 — The Sacrament Of Sacrifice
Jesus did not say — “he that believeth in Me shall realize the blessing of the fullness of God,” but — “he that believeth in Me out of him shall escape everything he receives.” Our…
Read →September 3 — The Waters Of Satisfaction Scattered
What has been like water from the well of Bethlehem to you recently — love, friendship, spiritual blessing? Then at the peril of your soul, you take it to satisfy yourself. If you …
Read →September 4 — His!
The missionary is one in whom the Holy Ghost has wrought this realization — “Ye are not your own.” To say “I am not my own,” is to have reached a great point in spiritual nobility.…
Read →September 5 — The Missionary Watching
“Watch with Me” — with no private point of view of your own at all, but watch entirely with Me. In the early stages we do not watch with Jesus, we watch for Him. We do not watch wi…
Read →September 6 — Diffusiveness Of Life
A river touches places of which its source knows nothing, and Jesus says if we have received of His fulness, however small the visible measure of our lives, out of us will flow the…
Read →September 7 — Springs Of Benignity
The picture Our Lord gives is not that of a channel but a fountain. Be being filled, and the sweetness of vital relationship to Jesus will flow out of the saint as lavishly as it i…
Read →September 8 — Do It Yourself
Determinedly Demolish Some Things.…
Read →September 9 — Do It Yourself
Determinedly Discipline Other Things.…
Read →September 10 — Missionary Munitions
Worshipping as Occasion Serves.…
Read →September 11 — Missionary Munitions
Ministering as opportunity surrounds us.…
Read →September 12 — By Spiritual Confusion
There are times in spiritual life when there is confusion, and it is no way out to say that there ought not to be confusion. It is not a question of right and wrong, but a question…
Read →September 13 — After Surrender – What?
Surrender is not the surrender of the external life, but of the will; when that is done, all is done. There are very few crises in life; the great crisis is the surrender of the wi…
Read →September 14 — Imagination v. Inspiration
Simplicity is the secret of seeing things clearly. A saint does not think clearly for a long while, but a saint ought to see clearly without any difficulty. You cannot think a spir…
Read →September 15 — What To Renounce
Have you “renounced the hidden things of dishonesty” — the things that your sense of honour will not allow to come to the light? You can easily hide them. Is there a thought in you…
Read →September 16 — The Divine Region Of Religion
The main idea in the region of religion is — Your eyes upon God, not on men. Do not have as your motive the desire to be known as a praying man. Get an inner chamber in which to pr…
Read →September 17 — What’s The Good Of Temptation?
The word “temptation” has come down in the world; we are apt to use it wrongly: Temptation is not sin, it is the thing we are bound to meet if we are men. Not to be tempted would b…
Read →September 18 — His Temptation And Ours
Until we are born again, the only kind of temptation we understand is that mentioned by St. James — “Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.” But …
Read →September 19 — Do You Continue To Go With Jesus?
It is true that Jesus Christ is with us in our temptations, but are we going with Him in His temptations? Many of us cease to go with Jesus from the moment we have an experience of…
Read →September 20 — The Divine Rule Of Life
Our Lord’s exhortation in these verses is to be generous in our behaviour to all men. In the spiritual life beware of walking according to natural affinities. Everyone has natural …
Read →September 21 — Missionary Predestinations
The first thing that happens after we have realized our election to God in Christ Jesus is the destruction of our prejudices and our parochial notions and our patriotisms; we are t…
Read →September 22 — The Missionary’s Master
To have a master and to be mastered is not the same thing. To have a master means that there is one who knows me better than I know myself, one who is closer than a friend, one who…
Read →September 23 — The Missionary’s Goal
In the natural life our ambitions alter as we develop; in the Christian life the goal is given at the beginning, the beginning and the end are the same, viz., Our Lord Himself. We …
Read →September 24 — The “Go” Of Preparation
It is easy to imagine that we will get to a place where we are complete and ready, but preparation is not suddenly accomplished, it is a process steadily maintained. It is dangerou…
Read →September 25 — The “Go” Of Relationship
The summing up of Our Lord’s teaching is that the relationship which He demands is an impossible one unless He has done a supernatural work in us. Jesus Christ demands that there b…
Read →September 26 — The Unblameable Attitude
If when you come to the altar, there you remember that your brother has anything against you, not — If you rake up something by a morbid sensitiveness, but — “If thou…rememberest,”…
Read →September 27 — The “Go” Of Renunciation
Our Lord’s attitude to this man is one of severe discouragement because He knew what was in man. We would have said — “Fancy losing the opportunity of winning that man!” “Fancy bri…
Read →September 28 — The “Go” Of Unconditional Identification
The rich young ruler had the master passion to be perfect. When he saw Jesus Christ, he wanted to be like Him. Our Lord never puts personal holiness to the fore when He calls a dis…
Read →September 29 — The Consciousness Of The Call
We are apt to forget the mystical, supernatural touch of God. If you can tell where you got the call of God and all about it, I question whether you have ever had a call. The call …
Read →September 30 — The Commission Of The Call
We make calls out of our own spiritual consecration, but when we get right with God He brushes all these aside, and rivets us with a pain that is terrific to one thing we never dre…
Read →October 1 — The Sphere Of Exaltation
We have all had times on the mount, when we have seen things from God’s standpoint and have wanted to stay there; but God will never allow us to stay there. The test of our spiritu…
Read →October 2 — The Sphere Of Humiliation
After every time of exaltation we are brought down with a sudden rush into things as they are where it is neither beautiful nor poetic nor thrilling. The height of the mountain top…
Read →October 3 — The Sphere Of Ministration
“Why could not we cast him out?” The answer lies in a personal relationship to Jesus Christ. This kind can come forth by nothing but by concentration and redoubled concentration on…
Read →October 4 — The Vision And The Verity
Thank God for the sight of all you have never yet been. You have had the vision, but you are not there yet by any means. It is when we are in the valley, where we prove whether we …
Read →October 5 — The Bias Of Degeneration
The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man’s sin; but that the disposition of sin, viz., my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race by one…
Read →October 6 — The Bent Of Regeneration
If Jesus Christ is to regenerate me, what is the problem He is up against? I have a heredity I had no say in; I am not holy, nor likely to be; and if all Jesus Christ can do is to …
Read →October 7 — Reconciliation
Sin is a fundamental relationship; it is not wrong doing, it is wrong being, deliberate and emphatic independence of God. The Christian religion bases everything on the positive*, …
Read →October 8 — The Exclusiveness Of Christ
Is it not humiliating to be told that we must come to Jesus! Think of the things we will not come to Jesus Christ about. If you want to know how real you are, test yourself by thes…
Read →October 9 — Pull Yourself Together
I cannot save and sanctify myself; I cannot atone for sin; I cannot redeem the world; I can not make right what is wrong, pure what is impure, holy what is unholy. That is all the …
Read →October 10 — Whereby Shall I Know?
In spiritual relationship we do not grow step by step, we are either there or we are not. God does not cleanse us more and more from sin, but when we are in the light, walking in t…
Read →October 11 — After God’s Silence – What?
Has God trusted you with a silence — a silence that is big with meaning? God’s silences are His answers. Think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there an…
Read →October 12 — Getting Into God’s Stride
The test of a man’s religious life and character is not what he does in the exceptional moments of life, but what he does in the ordinary times, when there is nothing tremendous or…
Read →October 13 — Individual Discouragement And Personal Enlargement
Moses saw the oppression of his people and felt certain that he was the one to deliver them, and in the righteous indignation of his own spirit he started to right their wrongs. Af…
Read →October 14 — The Key To The Missionary
The basis of missionary appeals is the authority of Jesus Christ, not the needs of the heathen. We are apt to look upon Our Lord as One Who assists us in our enterprises for God. O…
Read →October 15 — The Key To The Missionary Message
The key to the missionary message is the propitiation of Christ Jesus. Take any phase of Christ’s work — the healing phase, the saving and sanctifying phase; there is nothing limit…
Read →October 16 — The Key To The Master’s Orders
The key to the missionary problem is in the hand of God, and that key is prayer, not work, that is, not work as the word is popularly understood to-day because that may mean the ev…
Read →October 17 — Greater Works
Prayer does not fit us for the greater works; prayer is the greater work. We think of prayer as a commonsense exercise of our higher powers in order to prepare us for God’s work. I…
Read →October 18 — The Key To The Missionary Devotion
Our Lord has told us how love to Him is to manifest itself. “Lovest thou Me?…Feed My sheep” — identify yourself with My interests in other people, not, identify Me with your intere…
Read →October 19 — The Unheeded Secret
The great enemy to the Lord Jesus Christ in the present day is the conception of practical work that has not come from the New Testament, but from the Systems of the world in which…
Read →October 20 — Is God’s Will My Will?
It is not a question of whether God is willing to sanctify me; is it my will? Am I willing to let God do in me all that has been made possible by the Atonement? Am I willing to let…
Read →October 21 — Direction By Impulse
There was nothing either of the nature of impulse or of cold-bloodedness about Our Lord, but only a calm strength that never got into panic. Most of us develop our Christianity alo…
Read →October 22 — The Witness Of The Spirit
We are in danger of getting the barter spirit when we come to God, we want the witness before we have done what God tells us to do. “Why does not God reveal Himself to me?” He cann…
Read →October 23 — Not A Bit Of It!
Our Lord never nurses our prejudices, He mortifies them, runs clean athwart them. We imagine that God has a special interest in our particular prejudices; we are quite sure that Go…
Read →October 24 — The Viewpoint
The viewpoint of a worker for God must not be as near the highest as he can get, it must be the highest. Be careful to maintain strenuously God’s point of view, it has to be done e…
Read →October 25 — The External Crush Of Things
A Christian worker has to learn how to be God’s noble man or woman amid a crowd of ignoble things. Never make this plea — “If only I were somewhere else!” All God’s men are ordinar…
Read →October 26 — What Is A Missionary?
A missionary is one sent by Jesus Christ as He was sent by God. The great dominant note is not the needs of men, but the command of Jesus. The source of our inspiration in work for…
Read →October 27 — The Method Of Missions
Jesus Christ did not say — “Go and save souls” (the salvation of souls is the supernatural work of God), but — “Go and teach,” i.e., disciple, “all nations,” and you cannot make di…
Read →October 28 — Justification By Faith
I am not saved by believing; I realise I am saved by believing. It is not repentance that saves me; repentance is the sign that I realise what God has done in Christ Jesus. The dan…
Read →October 29 — Substitution
The modern view of the death of Jesus is that He died for our sins out of sympathy. The New Testament view is that He bore our sin not by sympathy, but by identification. He was ma…
Read →October 30 — Faith
Faith in antagonism to common sense is fanaticism, and common sense in antagonism to faith is rationalism. The life of faith brings the two into a right relation. Common sense is n…
Read →October 31 — Discernment Of Faith
We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, it may be so in the initial stages; but we do not earn anything by faith. Faith brings us into right relationship with God and g…
Read →November 1 — Ye Are Not Your Own
There is no such thing as a private life — “a world within the world” — for a man or woman who is brought into fellowship with Jesus Christ’s sufferings. God breaks up the private …
Read →November 2 — Authority And Independence
Our Lord never insists upon obedience; He tells us very emphatically what we ought to do, but He never takes means to make us do it. We have to obey Him out of a oneness of spirit.…
Read →November 3 — A Bond-slave Of Jesus
These words mean the breaking of my independence with my own hand and surrendering to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus. No one can do this for me, I must do it myself. God may bring…
Read →November 4 — The Authority Of Reality
It is essential to give people a chance of acting on the truth of God. The responsibility must be left with the individual, you cannot act for him, it must be his own deliberate ac…
Read →November 5 — Partakers Of His Sufferings
If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a multitude of experiences that are not meant for you at all; they are meant to make you useful in His hands, and to en…
Read →November 6 — Programme Of Belief
Martha believed in the power at the disposal of Jesus Christ; she believed that if He had been present He could have healed her brother. She also believed that Jesus had a peculiar…
Read →November 7 — The Undetected Sacredness Of Circumstances
The circumstances of a saint’s life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you canno…
Read →November 8 — The Unrivalled Power Of Prayer
We realize that we are energized by the Holy Spirit for prayer; we know what it is to pray in the Spirit; but we do not so often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prays in us pr…
Read →November 9 — Sacramental Service
The Christian worker has to be a sacramental “go-between,” to be so identified with his Lord and the reality of His Redemption that He can continually bring His creating life throu…
Read →November 10 — Fellowship In The Gospel
After sanctification it is difficult to state what your aim in life is, because God has taken you up into His purpose by the Holy Ghost. He is using you now for His purposes throug…
Read →November 11 — The Supreme Climb
God’s command is— Take now, not presently. It is extraordinary how we debate! We know a thing is right, but we try to find excuses for not doing it at once. To climb to the height …
Read →November 12 — The Transfigured Life
What idea have you of the salvation of your soul? The experience of salvation means that in your actual life things are really altered, you no longer look at things as you used to;…
Read →November 13 — Faith And Experience
We have to battle through our moods into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus, to get out of the hole-and-corner business of our experience into abandoned devotion to Him. Think Who…
Read →November 14 — Discovering Divine Designs
We have to be so one with God that we do not continually need to ask for guidance. Sanctification means that we are made the children of God, and the natural life of a child is obe…
Read →November 15 — What Is That To Thee?
One of our severest lessons comes from the stubborn refusal to see that we must not interfere in other people’s lives. It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateu…
Read →November 16 — Still Human!
The great marvel of the Incarnation slips into ordinary childhood’s life; the great marvel of the Transfiguration vanishes in the devil-possessed valley; the glory of the Resurrect…
Read →November 17 — The Eternal Goal
Abraham has reached the place where he is in touch with the very nature of God, he understands now the Reality of God.…
Read →November 18 — Winning Into Freedom
If there is any remnant of individual conceit left, it always says – “I can’t.” Personality never says – “I can’t,” but simply absorbs and absorbs. Personality always wants more an…
Read →November 19 — When He Is Come
Very few of us know anything about conviction of sin; we know the experience of being disturbed because of having done wrong things; but conviction of sin by the Holy Ghost blots o…
Read →November 20 — The Forgiveness Of God
Beware of the pleasant view of the Fatherhood of God – God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That sentiment has no place whatever in the New Testament. The o…
Read →November 21 — It Is Finished
The death of Jesus Christ is the performance in history of the very mind of God. There is no room for looking on Jesus Christ as a martyr; His death was not something that happened…
Read →November 22 — Shallow And Profound
Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow concerns of life are not ordained of God; they are as much of God as the profound. It is not your devotion to God that makes y…
Read →November 23 — Distraction Of Antipathy
The thing of which we have to beware is not so much damage to our belief in God as damage to our Christian temper. “Therefore take heed to thy spirit, that ye deal not treacherousl…
Read →November 24 — Direction Of Aspiration
This verse is a description of entire reliance upon God. Just as the eyes of the servant are riveted on his master, so our eyes are up unto God and our knowledge of His countenance…
Read →November 25 — The Secret Of Spiritual Coherence
When a man is first born again, he becomes incoherent, there is an amount of unrelated emotion about him, unrelated phases of external things. In the apostle Paul there was a stron…
Read →November 26 — The Concentration Of Spiritual Energy
If you want to know the energy of God (i.e., the resurrection life of Jesus) in your mortal flesh, you must brood on the tragedy of God. Cut yourself off from prying personal inter…
Read →November 27 — The Consecration Of Spiritual Energy
If I brood on the Cross of Christ, I do not become a subjective pietist, interested in my own whiteness; I become dominantly concentrated on Jesus Christ’s interests. Our Lord was …
Read →November 28 — The Bounty Of The Destitute
The Gospel of the grace of God awakens an intense longing in human souls and an equally intense resentment, because the revelation which it brings is not palatable. There is a cert…
Read →November 29 — The Absoluteness Of Jesus Christ
The pietistic movements of to-day have none of the rugged reality of the New Testament about them; there is nothing about them that needs the Death of Jesus Christ, all that is req…
Read →November 30 — By The Grace Of God I Am What I Am
The way we continually talk about our own inability is an insult to the Creator. The deploring of our own incompetence is a slander against God for having overlooked us. Get into t…
Read →December 1 — The Law And The Gospel
The moral law does not consider us as weak human beings at all, it takes no account of our heredity and infirmities, it demands that we be absolutely moral. The moral law never alt…
Read →December 2 — Christian Perfection
It is a snare to imagine that God wants to make us perfect specimens of what He can do; God’s purpose is to make us one with Himself. The emphasis of holiness movements is apt to b…
Read →December 3 — Not By Might Nor By Power
If in preaching the Gospel you substitute your clear knowledge of the way of salvation for confidence in the power of the Gospel, you hinder people getting to Reality. You have to …
Read →December 4 — The Law Of Antagonism
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.…
Read →December 5 — The Temple Of The Holy Ghost
I have to account to God for the way in which I rule my body under His domination. Paul said he did not “frustrate the grace of God” — make it of no effect. The grace of God is abs…
Read →December 6 — The Bow In The Cloud
It is the will of God that human beings should get into moral relationship with Him, and His covenants are for this purpose. “Why does not God save me?” He has saved me, but I have…
Read →December 7 — Repentance
Conviction of sin is best portrayed in the words —…
Read →December 8 — The Impartial Power Of God
We trample the blood of the Son of God under foot if we think we are forgiven because we are sorry for our sins. The only explanation of the forgiveness of God and of the unfathoma…
Read →December 9 — The Offence Of The Natural
The natural life is not sinful; we must be apostatized from sin, have nothing to do with sin in any shape or form. Sin belongs to hell and the devil; I, as a child of God, belong t…
Read →December 10 — The Offering Of The Natural
Paul is not dealing with sin in this chapter of Galatians, but with the relation of the natural to the spiritual. The natural must be turned into the spiritual by sacrifice, otherw…
Read →December 11 — Individuality
Individuality is the husk of the personal life. Individuality is all elbows, it separates and isolates. It is the characteristic of the child and rightly so; but if we mistake indi…
Read →December 12 — Personality
Personality is that peculiar, incalculable thing that is meant when we speak of ourselves as distinct from everyone else. Our personality is always too big for us to grasp. An isla…
Read →December 13 — What To Pray For
You cannot intercede if you do not believe in the reality of the Redemption; you will turn intercession into futile sympathy with human beings which will only increase their submis…
Read →December 14 — The Great Life
Whenever a thing becomes difficult in personal experience, we are in danger of blaming God, but it is we who are in the wrong, not God, there is some perversity somewhere that we w…
Read →December 15 — Approved Unto God
If you cannot express yourself on any subject, struggle until you can. If you do not, someone will be the poorer all the days of his life. Struggle to re-express some truth of God …
Read →December 16 — Wrestling Before God
You have to wrestle against the things that prevent you from getting to God, and you wrestle in prayer for other souls; but never say that you wrestle with God in prayer, it is scr…
Read →December 17 — Redemption Creates The Need It Satisfies
The Gospel of God creates a sense of need of the Gospel. Paul says — “If our gospel be hid, it is hid” — to those who are blackguards? No, “to them that are lost: in whom the god o…
Read →December 18 — The Test Of Loyalty
It is only the loyal soul who believes that God engineers circumstances. We take such liberty with our circumstances, we do not believe God engineers them, although we say we do; w…
Read →December 19 — What To Concentrate On
Never be sympathetic with the soul whose case makes you come to the conclusion that God is hard. God is more tender than we can conceive, and every now and again He gives us the ch…
Read →December 20 — The Right Lines Of Work
Very few of us have any understanding of the reason why Jesus Christ died. If sympathy is all that human beings need, then the Cross of Christ is a farce, there was no need for it.…
Read →December 21 — Experience Or Revelation
Reality is Redemption, not my experience of Redemption; but Redemption has no meaning for me until it speaks the language of my conscious life. When I am born again, the Spirit of …
Read →December 22 — The Drawing Of The Father
When God draws me, the issue of my will comes in at once — will I react on the revelation which God gives; will I come to Him? Discussion on spiritual matters is an impertinence. N…
Read →December 23 — How Can I Personally Partake In The Atonement?
The Gospel of Jesus Christ always forces an issue of will. Do I accept God’s verdict on sin in the Cross of Christ? Have I the slightest interest in the death of Jesus? Do I want t…
Read →December 24 — The Hidden Life
The Spirit of God witnesses to the simple almighty security of the life hid with Christ in God and this is continually brought out in the Epistles. We talk as if it were the most p…
Read →December 25 — His Birth And Our New Birth
His Birth in History. “Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Jesus Christ was born into this world, not from it. H…
Read →December 26 — Placed In The Light
To mistake conscious freedom from sin for deliverance from sin by the Atonement is a great error. No man knows what sin is until he is born again. Sin is what Jesus Christ faced on…
Read →December 27 — Where The Battle’s Lost And Won
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…
Read →December 28 — Continuous Conversion
These words of Our Lord are true of our initial conversion, but we have to be continuously converted all the days of our lives, continually to turn to God as children. If we trust …
Read →December 29 — Deserter Or Disciple?
When God gives a vision by His Spirit through His word of what He wants, and your mind and soul thrill to it, if you do not walk in the light of that vision, you will sink into ser…
Read →December 30 — “And Every Virtue We Possess”
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 w…
Read →December 31 — Yesterday
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 …
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