Month Six
DAY 1
PICK UP YOUR CROSS
Jesus invites us to be His disciples. If we choose to accept His loving invitation, we must understand that there are certain conditions to be fulfilled. One of them is a willingness to accept the cross. Is this a once-for-all taking up of one particular burden? I don’t think so. It seems to me that my cross is each particular occasion when I am given the chance to die—that is, to offer up my own will whenever it crosses Christ’s. This happens very often. A disagreement with my husband can cause an argument and harsh words, even if the matter is ridiculously small—“When are you going to get that dashboard light fixed in the car?” I have already mentioned the light three times. It may be time to keep my mouth shut, but I don’t want to keep my mouth shut. Here, then, is a chance to die. A decision that affects both of us may be a fairly big one, but we find ourselves on two sides of the fence. One of us, then, must die. It is never easy for me. Shall I make excuses for myself (“That’s the way I am”; “It’s my personality”; “It’s the way I was raised”; “I’m tired”; “I can’t hack it”; “It doesn’t turn me on”; “You don’t understand”)—or shall I pick up this cross?
Perhaps my illustration seems to trivialize the cross of Christ. His was so unimaginably greater. What cross could I possibly take up that would be analogous? Just here is the lesson for me: When Jesus took up His cross, He was saying yes with all His being to the will of the Father. If I am unwilling to say yes in even a very little thing, how shall I accept a more painful thing? What sort of practice does it take for a disciple to learn to follow the Crucified? A friend hurts us, a plan goes awry, an effort fails—small things indeed. But then cancer strikes, a daughter marries unwisely, a business folds, a wife abandons her home and family. The call still comes to us: “Take up your cross and come with Me.” “With You, Lord?” “Yes, with Me.” “Will You give me strength and show me the way?” “That was My promise—is it My custom to break promises?”
DAY 2
NO OTHER CHOICE
No Christian ever gets beyond the power of temptation as long as he lives in “this mortal coil.” Jesus was not beyond it—who are we that we should become more spiritual than Jesus? If we say that we have been delivered forever from sin, we are deceiving ourselves. We are never in a more vulnerable spot than when someone sins against us. All the old nature in us rises up to retaliate. Perhaps we control the urge to punch the person or even to retort with the withering words that spring to mind. But then we wake up in the night and think about all the ways we could put this individual in his place—polite ways, we tell ourselves, Christian ways, but put him in his place we certainly will. The still, small voice asks, Is that Christlike?
The love of Christ leaves us no choice. . . . His purpose in dying for all was that men, while still in life, should cease to live for themselves (2 Cor. 5:14-15).
No other choice but love. Cease to live for yourself. Live for Christ. Don’t bother singing, “Oh, how I love Jesus,” as long as you are plotting retaliation. You don’t really have that choice, not if you’re a Christian.
DAY 3
SURRENDER EVERY THOUGHT
Although we lead normal human lives, the battle we are fighting is on the spiritual level. The very weapons we use are not human but powerful in God’s warfare for the destruction of the enemy’s strongholds. Our battle is to bring down every deceptive argument. . . . We fight to capture every thought until it acknowledges the authority of Christ.
2 CORINTHIANS 10:4-6, PHILLIPS
As I was praying this morning, these words were in my mind.
There were other things in my mind as well, things that had certainly not acknowledged the authority of Christ. I had been praying for months: “Lord, have mercy on so-and-so.” There was evidence that He was answering that prayer, and far from being thankful for that, I found in my heart Jonah’s anger. Why should God be merciful to the people of Nineveh or to this person? They didn’t deserve it!
Right then and there the spiritual battle was drawn. Whose side was I on anyway? Everything that was opposed to God and His purposes had to be surrendered. I had been trying to explain to God why my own feelings ought to be considered, why His were all wrong. That, too, had to be captured, be made to acknowledge Christ’s authority. A surrendered mind is not one that is no longer in operation. It is, rather, a mind freed from rebellion and opposition. To be Christ’s captive is to be perfectly free.
DAY 4
YOUR TROUBLES—WHOSE FAULT?
I never noticed until this morning the context of this command in the epistle of James: “My brothers, do not blame your troubles on one another, or you will fall under judgment” (5:9). The context is patience. A farmer’s precious crop comes up only as he waits patiently for autumn rains, winter snows, spring sunshine. Anything worth having is worth waiting for. Troubles are permitted in order to teach us many lessons, not the least of which is patience. If we instantly assign responsibility for those troubles to somebody else, our energies will go into resentment instead of into learning God’s lesson of patient waiting. The Lord’s coming is far more certain than even autumn rains and winter snows. We can stand firm and patient no matter how others treat us, knowing that in the end our troubles will be transformed. “The Lord is full of pity and compassion” (v. 11)—can we believe that, even when we feel sorry for ourselves because we are so badly treated? He knows it all. He purposes a crop. Be patient. It will come.
DAY 5
EXERT YOURSELVES
The vigor of our response reveals how much we care about something. If a man is stung by a bee, he cares. It takes very little time for him to respond. When taxes are raised, howls of complaint follow rather quickly. The winner of a state lottery presents himself without delay.
Salvation is a free gift. It includes everything that makes for life and godliness, here and hereafter. What is it worth? It’s beyond calculation, priceless. We share in the very being of God. “Um hmm,” we say. “How do we get it?” Oh—by faith. Yes. Very simple. Accept Jesus. The price is all paid. My sins are forgiven. I’m on the Hallelujah Train.
All true. That is the gospel. But that is not all. Gifts must be received, possessed and fostered. God’s choice and calling, we must clinch. This is an aspect of the gospel that many Christians (Protestants in particular) have overlooked. The apostle Peter writes, “Exert yourselves to clinch God’s choice and calling. . . . Thus you will be afforded full and free admission into the eternal kingdom” (2 Pet. 1:10-11). How do I exert myself? Peter tells us: “Try your hardest to supplement your faith with virtue [right action and thinking], virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with fortitude, fortitude with piety, piety with brotherly kindness, and brotherly kindness with love” (vv. 5-7). Check that passage. It is still true that nothing can wash away my sin but the blood of Jesus. It is also true that God gives us responsibility—that is, the obligation to respond. How much do we care? The vigor of our response will reveal how much.
DAY 6
THE CALM SPIRIT OF CHRIST
Today is moving day. There will be plenty of reason for fretting and stewing, impatience and turbulence. I am one who seems to feel that unless I do things or unless they are done my way, they will not be done right, and the day will disintegrate. But I have been watching the sea—very turbulent this morning because of a tropical storm hundreds of miles away—and I remember Him whose word was enough to calm it.
Speak that word to me today, dear Lord: peace. Let Your calm spirit, through the many potentially rough minutes of this day, in every task, say to my soul, Be still. Even this day’s chaos, with all its clutter and exertion, will be ordered by Your quiet power if my heart is subject to Your word of peace. Thank You, Lord.
DAY 7
THE FOCUS OF FAITH
In one of the photo albums from my years in Ecuador is a close-up of a big scorpion on a window screen. I know what was beyond that ugly thing—a green lawn set about with palm trees, a garden of pineapples, a sweep of pastureland and then the curve of a wide river. The photograph knows nothing of all that. The photographer had focused on the scorpion. He got a very good picture of a scorpion. The eye of the camera saw nothing else.
The eye of faith looks through and past that which the human eye focuses on. Faith looks at the facts—even the ugly ones (remember Abraham, who looked at his wife’s barrenness and his own impotence)—but does not stop there. It looks beyond to the beauty of things the human eye can never see—things as invisible as the palms and the pineapples are in my photograph.
When the eye of the heart is fixed on the world and the self, everything eternal and invisible is blurred and obscure. No wonder we cannot recognize God—we are studying the scorpion. Instead of gazing at Him in all His majesty and love, we peer at the screen, horrified at what we see there.
“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8, KJV).
Make my heart pure, Lord, that I may will to do Your will. Give me the courage to see my world with all its evil and pain, but change the focus of my life.
Lord Jesus, make Thyself to me
A living, bright reality,
More present to faith’s vision keen
Than any outward object seen,
More dear, more intimately nigh
Than e’en the sweetest earthly tie.
(J. B. French)
DAY 8
COSMIC ORPHANS
Modern man has been described as a cosmic orphan. He no longer knows the Father of us all and feels isolated and bewildered in an ever-expanding universe. The diameter of our own galaxy is 100,000 light years, and astronomers tell us that the farthest object they can see in the universe is perhaps 10 billion (billion!) light years away. Such distances, the enormity of that space, are awesome, even terrifying to those who feel orphaned. The huge advances of scientific knowledge serve only to notify us of how huge our ignorance is.
When we’ve explored ten thousand worlds
By scientific scan,
Omniscience still belongs to God
As always—not to man.
The prophet Isaiah wrote that with the span of the palm of His hand God “set limits to the heavens” (Isa. 40:12). To Him coasts and islands weigh as little as specks of dust (see v. 15). “Lift up your eyes to the heavens; consider who created it all, led out their host one by one and called them all by their names. . . . Do you not know, have you not heard? The Lord, the everlasting God, creator of the wide world . . . gives vigor to the weary, new strength to the exhausted” (vv. 26-29).
If God can fling out a galaxy so that it stays where He wants it and yet observes one exhausted person and strengthens him, can we believe that we are adrift in a fathomless void? Hear the promise of Jesus: “No, I will not abandon you or leave you as orphans in the storm—I will come to you” (John 14:18, TLB).
DAY 9
ONE OF THE MYSTERIES OF OUR HUMANITY
Have you ever thought much about the fact that we, created by God for His own pleasure and glory, are permitted by the Creator Himself to deny Him? Even though we are totally dependent on Him for our next breath, with that breath we may declare that He does not exist or that we refuse to do what He wants us to do. We live by the life He gives us, moment by moment. We enjoy rain, sunshine, the growth of crops and flowers, sensations, delights, satisfactions of many kinds. Yet we often act as though we were sufficient in ourselves, needing no interference from Him. I can, by the power mysteriously granted me by my Creator and Redeemer, declare myself master of my fate, captain of my soul, and say, “My will be done.” That the Lord should expose Himself to this effrontery in a million forms, for millions of days and nights, is the mystery of love and grace. Still He draws us with cords of love, calls us to come, waits (amazing grace) for us to bow and say, “My Lord and my God!”
DAY 10
CHRIST IS MESSAGE AND MESSENGER
Every word spoken by Jesus must be understood by the life of Jesus. The one cannot be separated from the other. If we attempt to understand what He said without reference to what He did, we do violence to God’s revelation of Himself. Here are some examples:
“Give up your right to yourself” (see Luke 9:23). Can this mean self-destruction, masochism, obliteration of the personality? See the perfect Son of God, exercising His human will in the fullness of its God-given power, as He offers Himself, pours out His soul unto death. What life streams from that giving up! What strength springs from His weakness!
“The truth shall make you free” (John 8:32, KJV)—words often wrested away from their context (“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free” [see vv. 31-32]) and also away from the Man who spoke them. His life, His every act, was perfectly free. It was free because He heard the word of the Father, did what He saw Him do and knew Him. His freedom was the result of His obedience. There is no shortcut to our freedom. We must live the life Christ lived—a life of faith, a will offered to the Father, daily obedience.
DAY 11
LIMITATIONS ARE GIFTS
Yesterday as I was reading The Achievement of C. S. Lewis, a book that my brother Tom wrote, I was admiring again the scope of my brother’s knowledge, his ability to comprehend another’s genius and his wonderful command of English. By contrast, my own limitations seemed severe indeed. They are of many kinds—analytical, critical, articulatory, not to mention educational. But my limitations, placing me in a different category from Tom Howard’s or anyone else’s, become, in the sovereignty of God, gifts. For it is with the equipment that I have been given that I am to glorify God. It is this job, not that one, that He gave me.
For some, the limitations are not intellectual but physical. The same truth applies. Within the context of their suffering, with whatever strength they have, be it ever so small, they are to glorify God. The apostle Paul actually claimed that he gloried in infirmities, because it was there that the power of Christ was made known to him (see 2 Cor. 12:9).
If we regard each limitation that we are conscious of today as a gift—that is, as one of the terms of our particular service to the Master—we won’t complain or pity or excuse ourselves. We will rather offer up those gifts as a sacrifice, with thanksgiving.
DAY 12
NOBODY KNOWS THE TROUBLE I’VE SEEN
When we begin to imagine that our own problems are so deep, so insoluble or so unusual that no one really understands us, we delude ourselves. It is one of the many delusions of pride, for Scripture tells us not only that our High Priest, Christ, has been tempted in every way as we are, but also that no temptation has ever come our way that is not common to man (see Heb. 4:15; 1 Cor. 10:13). There are no more new temptations than there are new sins. Our story, whatever it is, is an old one, and He who has walked the human road has entered fully into our experiences of sorrow and pain and has overcome them. He has comforted others in our situation, gone with them into the same furnaces and lions’ dens, has brought them out without smell of fire or mark of tooth.
It is a bad thing to take refuge in difficulties, thus excusing ourselves from responsibility to others because we think our situation is unique. If we are willing to receive help, our Helper is standing by—sometimes in the form of another human being sent by Him, qualified by Him to help us. It may be a case of our not receiving help because we were too proud to receive the kind God sent. Sometimes we really prefer to wallow.
Ours is not a high priest unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who, because of his likeness to us, has been tested every way, only without sin. Let us therefore boldly approach the throne of our gracious God, where we may receive mercy and in his grace find timely help (Heb. 4:15-16).
DAY 13
DIE QUICKLY
To hold on to something with a desperate grip is not the way to die. Death is a painful process, and restoratives offered to the dying wretch bound to his wheel only prolong his agony. There are times when the thing to do is simply to die. I am thinking, of course, of dying to the self. We clutch so tenaciously to our rights, hopes, ambitions, something to which God has perhaps said a plain no. If would-be comforters offer us consolation and sympathy, if they assist us to strengthen our grasp when it should be loosened, they do not love us as God loves us. The way into life is death; and if we refuse it, we are refusing Him who showed us that way and no other. The love that is strong as death is not only willing to save the beloved but is also willing to seem, if necessary, pitiless, insensitive, unloving, if that is what will help the beloved to die—that is, to be released from the bondage of self, which is death, and thus enter the gateway of life.
Archbishop Fenelon wrote to the countess of Montberon, “You want to die, but to die without any pain . . . you must give all or nothing when God asks it. If you have not the courage to give, at least let Him take.”
DAY 14
ONE CAUSE OF COLLAPSE
One excuse that is a catchall for any failure to do our jobs is burnout. It’s an occupational hazard in just about every occupation modern man has ever heard of. Strangely enough, we never heard about burnout until the past couple of decades, but now everybody suffers from it. Exhaustion—physical, mental, emotional—is pandemic. Why?
One reason is lack of humility. In our anxiety to compete, to prove ourselves, to be a success as the world defines it, we are wearied and overburdened. If we sought instead only the greatness of the Kingdom, we would become childlike. The truly important things are hidden from the clever and intelligent and are shown to those who are willing to come and be shown, to put on the yoke Christ bears, which is the will of the Father. We need to learn to walk side by side with Him, bearing humbly and gently the yoke He places on us, not the unbearable burdens of competition and recognition and something called fulfillment. If we do this, any burden He allows—of loss or pain or insult or responsibility or heartbreak—will be both bearable and light, for the weight is shared with Him. No yoke laid on us in this way will cause us to burn out or collapse. This yoke itself will in fact be the very means of our finding rest. There is no form of recreation or relaxation or therapy to compare with the rest, the gentle ease, of Christ’s yoke. “Come,” He says to us, “and learn of Me” (see Matt. 11:28-30).
DAY 15
THE REAL TEST OF LOVE
It is not difficult to imagine, in certain moods and settings, that we love people. We may feel expansive and good-natured for a variety of reasons—our own good health or digestion, for example, or beautiful weather, comfortable circumstances, nice folks doing nice things for us. The Bible is a sword that cuts through mere sentiment. It tells us that the accurate test of our love for God’s children is obedience to God: “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments” (1 John 5:2, RSV). It is an objective test, not a subjective one. Love as the Bible defines it is perceptible through action rather than through mere feeling. It is not a glandular condition, as Eric Alexander of Scotland put it.
Much of the talk nowadays about loving one another is soupy and silly. It will not stand the biblical test. Love for people goes hand in hand with love for God—if you don’t love the brother you see, how can you love the God you don’t see (see v. 20)? Loving God requires submission to His discipline—He rebukes, chastens, refines with fire, purifies by trial. Do we love Him enough to say yes to all that? Do we love others enough to encourage endurance in them?
Jesus, Thou art all compassion,
Pure, unbounded Love Thou art;
Visit us with Thy salvation,
Enter every trembling heart.
(Charles Wesley)
DAY 16
THE FEAR OF LOSS
In C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, we see with startling clarity the cleverness of the enemy in deceiving human beings. Selfishness has a thousand forms, most of which we are slow to recognize for what they are. I was thinking about the fear of loss and what a stranglehold it can have on me. As I listed some of the things I dreaded to lose, it occurred to me that this fear is a deadly form of selfishness. Selfishness does terrible things to us, but it does not stop there. It does terrible things to others. “Saving our own skin” usually results in skinning somebody else. Think, for example, of the fear of losing reputation, opportunity for advancement, credit, recognition, position, beauty, youth, health, money, the love of friends or children, compliments, popularity, security, privacy, rights, people you love, job, home, dreams and power.
As I considered each of these separately, I began to think what sort of sin each kind of loss tempts me to commit. Then I thought about what kind of faith is required to enable me to commit those fears to God. Has He, in fact, made provision for these things? The list is not a list of sins—make no mistake about that. It is a list of blessings, of gifts from God. But to grasp them selfishly and greedily, to hang on to them fiercely and allow myself to be enslaved by the fear of losing them, is to deny Christ. “Do not fear,” He says to us. “I am with you” (see Isa. 41:10).
DAY 17
FREEDOM FROM FEAR
There is a sense in which every form of fear is essentially the fear of death. Jesus came to deliver us from that in all its forms. “He also became a human being, so that by going through death as a man he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; and might also set free those who lived their whole lives a prey to the fear of death” (Heb. 2:14-15, Phillips).
I know people whose lives are totally controlled by fear. There is no bondage more powerful and crippling. Fear takes over the mind, coercing and circumscribing all its activity. We know where that spirit of fear originates, and we know the name of the enemy who would hold us enslaved. In the name of our God we must tread down our enemies, including all the nagging what-ifs of our lives. To those frightening possibilities Christ answers, “I will never leave you or forsake you” (see 13:5). Let the very worst thing come to pass—even there, especially there, His hand will hold us. If we go into darkness, He is there, has been there before us, has conquered all its powers. That’s why He became a man. That’s why He died. That’s why He rose again.
My Lord and my God—forgive my fears. Deliver me from bondage by the power of Your resurrection.
DAY 18
THE RUPTURE OF SELF
Sometimes our prayers are for deliverance from conditions that are morally indispensable—that is, conditions that are absolutely necessary to our redemption. God does not grant us those requests. He will not because He loves us with a pure and implacable purpose: that Christ be formed in us. If Christ is to live in my heart, if His life is to be lived in me, I will not be able to contain Him. The self, small and hard and resistant as a nut, will have to be ruptured. My own purposes and desires and hopes will have to, at times, be exploded. The rupture of the self is death, but out of death comes life. The acorn must rupture if an oak tree is to grow.
It will help us to remember, when we do not receive the answer we hoped for, that it is morally necessary, morally indispensable, that some of our prayers be denied, “that the life of Jesus may be plainly seen in our mortal lives” (2 Cor. 4:11, Phillips). Then think of this: The agonized prayer of Jesus in the garden went unanswered, too. Why? In order that life—our life—might spring forth from death—His death.
DAY 19
ADVERSARIES
The psalms are full of prayers to God to defeat adversaries—nations, foes, enemies. The Lord of hosts (also translated as the Lord of the armies of heaven) is called upon to arise and conquer. People who live in a country not at war may tend to skip over such prayers as not applicable to them, unless they recognize as an adversary anything or anyone that would defeat the purpose of God. Adverse circumstances affect us all, and we feel as helpless as the Israelites, hotly pursued by the cavalry, infantry, horses and chariots of Egypt. As I write this, it happens that we find ourselves impotent to untangle a certain legal matter—helpless before the delays, the refusal to accept responsibility, the apparent dilatoriness of the attorneys involved. Money is being wasted, people’s rights ignored; frustrations abound.
The peoples shake their heads at us; . . .
I am covered with shame.
But we do not forget thee; . . .
we have not gone back on our purpose.
Bestir thyself, Lord; why dost thou sleep?
Arise and come to our help;
for thy love’s sake set us free.
(Ps. 44:14-15,17-18,23,26)
If it were not for the adversaries who make us conscious of our impotence, how would we learn to trust God’s omnipotence?
Lord of the armies of heaven, I praise You for Your power to conquer. Teach me to trust Your power, not mine.
DAY 20
SPIRITUAL
TRANSPORT
Most of us experience from time to time happy feelings that we think are somehow religious. We feel that we are, in a special way, in touch with the divine. Our hearts are, as John Wesley put it, strangely warmed. But most of life is not like this. We do not live on the Mount of Transfiguration. We are not riding continually in chariots of fire.
When Jesus was preparing His disciples for His departure from them, He said, “Believe in God. Believe also in Me” (see John 14:1).
The obedience of faith requires that we do our work. We must go on day after day, simply and humbly, not waiting for chills and thrills. Grace, not revelation, is our daily bread. Grace is enough. Receiving that, in the portion given according to the loving-kindness of our God, we must act responsibly in the situation in which He puts us, as the disciples had to do when left behind at Christ’s ascension. No doubt they felt bewildered and abandoned and would have liked to have risen with Him through the clouds. When the angels suddenly stood beside them and asked why they were gazing into the sky, the disciples came down to Earth, as it were, went back to Jerusalem to the lodging where they belonged and carried on with their prayers (see Acts 1:9-14).
Lord, help me today to receive what You want me to have and to do my work as a good and faithful servant.
DAY 21
NOT POWER BUT PRIVILEGE
Jesus gave responsibility and power to those who were willing to take the path He took. They were to represent the Kingdom wherever they went—their peace to rest on those who received them. Those who rejected them were actually rejecting Christ. His followers would have power over snakes and scorpions (see Luke 10:1-9,19).
There are principles here for us today, I believe. Surely every believer represents Christ and His kingdom. We are promised power from the Holy Spirit. But as soon as His power is manifest, another spirit is there instantly to tempt us to take credit to ourselves. If we are thanked for something we were merely the instrument for, it can become a heady business. “Wow!” we say, imagining that we deserve the credit.
Jesus warned the disciples not to be impressed when spirits submitted to them. It was not by their might or power that the enemy was subdued. They were nothing more than bearers of the Kingdom. He told them to rejoice, not that they had performed a miraculous feat, but that their names were written in heaven (see v. 20).
Open my eyes, Lord, to recognize that the power is always Yours. What is mine is the privilege, given from above for Your glory.
DAY 22
COURAGE TO LOVE
God’s love holds us to the highest. This was the kind of love Amy Carmichael of India prayed for and taught to the children in Dohnavur—this love, the kind wherewith God loved us. “Hold one another to the highest,” she told them. God’s purpose was to lift us out of ourselves, out of the miry clay, and set our feet on a rock. We are not saviors, but we can help others toward faith. This means not only loving them while they’re still in the mire but also loving them out of it. We must love them as they are and love them enough to draw them higher.
Someone has said that the best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. This demonstration far outshines all the homilies he can preach at them. By daily example he holds them to the highest. Jesus said, “For their sakes I sanctify myself” (John 17:19, KJV). His holy obedience to the Father saved us. Our holy obedience to the Father makes a difference to those we love.
Lord, give me the courage to love as You loved me.
DAY 23
THE LUST FOR SECURITY
Once we have set ourselves to be pilgrims and strangers on the earth, which is what Christians are meant to be, it is incongruous for us to continue to insist upon the sort of security the world tries to guarantee. Our security lies not in protecting ourselves from suffering but in putting ourselves fully into the hands of God. The desire for physical and material security makes us sly and hard. No. We must be like little children. The child in its father’s arms is not worried. It lies quietly at rest because it trusts its father.
We disobey sometimes because we say it is impossible to do what God asks. Impossible? Perhaps what we mean is impossible to do that and keep our security, impossible to obey without tremendous cost or at least tremendous risk. Where, then, will we find safety? Is it likely that we will find it elsewhere than in the arms of the Father?
Teach me to rest in Your everlasting arms. Make me know that all other security is illusion.
DAY 24
HOW FAR TO GO
We say that we are willing to follow Jesus. Peter said he would go with Him to prison and to death, not expecting that either would likely be required. Let us settle it once and for all—to follow Him will mean death. Not crucifixion in the literal sense, probably, but the coming to the end of ourselves, our expectations, our dreams. He must bring us to that end in order to bring us to the beginning of the Christ-life. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live” (Gal. 2:20, KJV) was Paul’s testimony.
But does this mean none of my hopes will be fulfilled? Is it all wilderness and sorrow? The people of Israel must have asked this while en route to Canaan. Must we follow so far? And when they were desperate for water, God led them to Marah where the water was bitter. Terrible disappointment. But then—the miracle of the tree that made it sweet (see Exod. 15:22-25)!
How far shall we go with Him who calls us to fellowship with Himself? Shall we stop dead in our tracks if the water is bitter? Shall we turn tail and run if we glimpse a cross? “Whoever cares for his own safety is lost” (Matt. 16:25). Think of missing the miracle of the water. Think of missing the Resurrection.
Savior Christ, I want to go the whole way. Keep me from faltering today. Show the tree that transforms bitter water, and help me to live in its shade.
DAY 25
HOW TO DO THE JOB YOU DON’T REALLY WANT TO DO
Certain aspects of the job the Lord has given me to do are very easy to postpone. I make excuses, find other things that take precedence, and when I finally get down to business to do it, it is not always with much grace. A new perspective has helped me recently:
The job has been given to me to do.
Therefore it is a gift.
Therefore it is a privilege.
Therefore it is an offering I may make to God.
Therefore it is to be done gladly, if it is done for Him.
Therefore it is the route to sanctity.
Here, not somewhere else, I may learn God’s way. In this job, not in some other. God looks for faithfulness. The discipline of this job is, in fact, the chisel God has chosen to shape me with—into the image of Christ.
Thank You, Lord, for the work You have assigned me. I take it as Your gift; I offer it back to You. With Your help I will do it gladly, faithfully, and I will trust You to make me holy.
DAY 26
SPIRITUAL PLAYPENS
Love is the way to maturity. Selfishness stunts growth and keeps us in a spiritual playpen. The world is full of emotional babies, crawling over each other, screaming, “Mine! This I want, and this I shall have, and never mind what it does to anybody else!” What a relief, what peace, when one who has reached spiritual adulthood, who by love has grown out of himself, comes along. He freely gives up his own aims and ambitions, his safety and his cherished plans, his possessions, his feelings, anything at all that will help, and says, “My life for yours.” Such a one comes as a rescuer.
To give myself up is the last thing I think of doing. It looks like weakness. In God’s eyes, though, it is power.
We who share his weakness shall by the power of God live with him in your service (2 Cor. 13:4).
DAY 27
THE SOURCE AND THE COURSE
If the Spirit is the source of our life, let the Spirit also direct our course.
GALATIANS 5:25
It is only reasonable that He who gives and sustains our life (the Source) should be the One we would want to follow (whose course we would choose). But we are not very reasonable creatures, I’m afraid. Which side am I on—the self or the Spirit? I don’t always know. But I can check myself out by studying the list of the kind of behavior that belongs to the lower nature (fornication, impurity, indecency, idolatry, sorcery, quarrels, contentious temper, envy, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissensions, party intrigues, jealousies, drinking bouts, orgies) and comparing it to the list of the “harvest of the Spirit” (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, self-control). If I pinpoint from those two lists what characterizes my behavior today, it’s easy enough to identify the source.
DAY 28
IDENTITY
The search for recognition hinders faith. We cannot believe so long as we are concerned with the image we present to others. When we think in terms of roles for ourselves and others, instead of simply doing the task given us to do, we are thinking as the world thinks, not as God thinks. Jesus’ thoughts were always and only for the Father. He did what He saw the Father do. He spoke what He heard the Father say. His will was submitted to the Father’s will.
“You have no love for God in you,” He said to the Pharisees. “I have come accredited by my Father, and you have no welcome for me. . . . How can you have faith so long as you receive honour from one another, and care nothing for the honour that comes from him who alone is God?” (John 5:42-44).
DAY 29
FIRST BE QUIET
Our hectic lives involve many changes, and changes require decisions, and decisions must often be made in the midst of a multitude of confusions. We run here and there asking advice. Often we make decisions without sufficient deliberation because we simply haven’t time—or so we tell ourselves.
There is a marvelously helpful practice that we usually overlook. It is quietness. Notice how often in the Gospels we find Jesus going away alone, even when people needed Him. He deliberately chose solitude. The more hectic our lives become, the more necessary is this quietness. When it is impossible to break away physically to a place of solitude for a day or so in order to think and pray over a hard decision, there is one thing that I think helps—do not speak about the decision to anyone but God for 48 hours at least. Just hold it before Him alone. Keep your mouth shut for two days. Pray. Listen. Seek His counsel.
Try this, too—sit before Him for 15 consecutive minutes in silence, focusing your mind on the words of Psalm 86:11: “Guide me, O LORD, that I may be true to thee and follow thy path.”
DAY 30
LOVE OF THE WORLD
John tells us in his first letter that anyone who loves the world is a stranger to the Father’s love. We are not to set our hearts on the world or anything in it (see 2:15). These words have been interpreted in many strange ways by different varieties of Christians, and I have puzzled much over them. The word used in the original is cosmos, which means the whole created order. Is there nothing here that I am allowed to love? What about the thundering, flashing sea that I see from my window? What about the rose on my desk, or even this house where I live with its warmth and pleasantness, the cup of tea in mid-afternoon, the books on my shelves? They are not going to last forever. If I love them, am I then a stranger to my heavenly Father’s love?
It has helped me to think of John’s words in this manner. To love the world in the wrong way is to love it without knowing the Father’s love. It is when a man knows Him and receives everything from His hand that the world is redeemed for Him, no longer a snare and in opposition to the love of God. We must love the world only through and because of the Father, not instead of Him. Our ultimate concern must be God Himself. He is eternal. His gifts are not always so.
Lord, may no gift of Yours ever take Your place in my heart. Help me to hold them lightly in an open palm, that the supreme object of my desire may always be You and You alone. Purify my heart—I want to love You purely.
DAY 31
A DEVIOUS REPENTANCE
Recently I committed a sin of what seemed to me unpardonable thoughtlessness. For days I wanted to kick myself around the block. What is the matter with me? I thought. How could I have acted so? “Fret not thyself because of evildoers” (Ps. 37:1, KJV) came to mind. In this case the evildoer was myself, and I was fretting. My fretting, I discovered, was a subtle kind of pride. “I’m really not that sort of person,” I was saying. I did not want to be thought of as that sort of person. I was very sorry for what I had done, not primarily because I had failed someone I loved, but because my reputation would be smudged. When my reputation becomes my chief concern, my repentance has a hollow ring. No wonder Satan is called the deceiver. He has a thousand tricks, and we fall for them.
Lord, I confess my sin of thoughtlessness and my sin of pride. I pray for a more loving and a purer heart, for Jesus’ sake.