The Ministry of the Inner Life - we must get to the point of being sick of ourselves, until there is no longer any surprise at anything God might tell us about ourselves. There is only one place where we are right with God, and that is in Christ Jesus. We have to pour out our lives for all we are worth in this ministry of the inner life. Don’t worry anymore about yourself, but begin to do as Jesus Christ has said, in essence, “Pray for the friend who comes to you at midnight, pray for the saints of God, and pray for all men”

"You are … a royal priesthood …" - 1 Peter 2:9

By what right have we become “a royal priesthood”?

It is by the right of the atonement by the Cross of Christ that this has been accomplished. 

Are we prepared to purposely disregard ourselves and to launch out into the priestly work of prayer?

The continual inner–searching we do in an effort to see if we are what we ought to be generates a self–centered, sickly type of Christianity, not the vigorous and simple life of a child of God. 

Until we get into this right and proper relationship with God, it is simply a case of our “hanging on by the skin of our teeth.”

Although we say, “What a wonderful victory I have!” 

Yet there is nothing at all in that which indicates the miracle of redemption. 

Launch out in reckless, unrestrained belief that the redemption is complete.

Then don’t worry anymore about yourself, but begin to do as Jesus Christ has said, in essence, “Pray for the friend who comes to you at midnight, pray for the saints of God, and pray for all men.” 

Pray with the realization that you are perfect only in Christ Jesus, not on the basis of this argument: “Oh, Lord, I have done my best; please hear me now.”

How long is it going to take God to free us from the unhealthy habit of thinking only about ourselves?

We must get to the point of being sick to death of ourselves, until there is no longer any surprise at anything God might tell us about ourselves. 

We cannot reach and understand the depths of our own meagerness. 

There is only one place where we are right with God, and that is in Christ Jesus. 

Once we are there, we have to pour out our lives for all we are worth in this ministry of the inner life.

Bible in One Year: Esther 3-5; Acts 5:22-42

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

The Bible is a relation of facts, the truth of which must be tested. 

Life may go on all right for a while, when suddenly a bereavement comes, or some crisis; unrequited love or a new love, a disaster, a business collapse.

Or a shocking sin, and we turn up our Bibles again and God’s word comes straight home, and we say, 

“Why, I never saw that there before.”

from Shade of His Hand

The Life of Oswald Chambers

Oswald Chambers was born in Scotland and spent much of his boyhood there. His ministry of teaching and preaching took him for a time to the United States and Japan.

The last six years of his life were spent as principal of the Bible Training College in London, and as a chaplain to British Commonwealth troops in Egypt during World War l.

After his death, the books which bear his name were compiled by his wife from her own verbatim shorthand notes of his talks.

odb.org

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