The Gateway to the Family of God

I love these thoughts from Oz Chambers this morning, they smack of wonder and awe of Him and His ability to accomplish the impossible in anyone!

Rich

Beware of placing Our Lord as a Teacher first. If Jesus Christ is a Teacher only, then all He can do is to tantalize me by erecting a standard I can not attain. What is the use of presenting me with an ideal I cannot possibly come near? I am happier without knowing it. What is the good of telling me to be what I never can be - to be pure in heart, to do more than my duty, to be perfectly devoted to God? I must know Jesus Christ as Saviour before His teaching has any meaning for me other than that of an ideal which leads to despair. But when I am born again of the Spirit of God, I know that Jesus Christ did not come to teach only: He came to make me what He teaches I should be. The Redemption means that Jesus Christ can put into any man the disposition that ruled His own life, and all the standards God gives are based on that disposition.

The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount produces despair in the natural man - the very thing Jesus means it to do. As long as we have a self-righteous, conceited notion that we can carry out Our Lord's teaching, God will allow us to go on until we break our ignorance over some obstacle, then we are willing to come to Him as paupers and receive from Him. "Blessed are the paupers in spirit," that is the first principle in the Kingdom of God. The bedrock in Jesus Christ's kingdom is poverty, not possession; not decisions for Jesus Christ, but a sense of absolute futility - I cannot begin to do it. Then Jesus says - Blessed are you. That is the entrance, and it does take us a long while to believe we are poor! The knowledge of our own poverty brings us to the moral frontier where Jesus Christ works.

Putting up Blinds

I am so enjoying this book, “Unto Full Stature.”

Rich

“We have on rare occasions observed individuals who developed their soul until there was a natural loveliness to behold in the window. They have discovered some of the natural laws for producing love, joy, gentleness, etc. Yet for everyone who has attained this natural mastery there are ten thousand who have put up blinds over their windows. By this their soul is saying: “Please don’t look in. I am ashamed that you will not see love, joy, meekness, etc. My natural factory has become bankrupt. I am forced to defend myself with these blinds. Please don’t look in my windows.”

“This leads us secondly to see who so many insist upon putting up blinds. Whenever you see a drab, stoical, unexpressive person, you are looking at a life that has somehow become disappointed, disgruntled and warped in their soul by wrong conceptions. Circumstances have seemingly dealt a severe blow and the soul has become passive. The mind cannot be challenged into thinking; the will has become unexpressive. The blinds are the mechanism of the self life which insists upon wearing a mask to hide the emptiness and barrenness of the inner soul.”

“There are many who admit, “I am caught in a web of circumstances that have put blinds over my windows; it is like being in a dungeon. I can’t see out, and I’m not willing for others to see in. Is it really possible under such circumstances to live with open windows?”
In answer I refer you to this passage which explains how God would use the dungeon to work His inward graces. It would seem if you find these inner graces at all it is through the crushing, the breaking, the darkness. Like Jeremiah, you will “find grace in the dungeon” (Jeremiah 31:2 Moffatt). It is not abnormal to be caught, that is, to find yourself unable to get out of the dungeon.
So often that is God’s way-His hour of opportunity. In that moment of complete despair as he offers His grace we discover He is getting the dungeon out of us. It is when HE comes in to bring His Life, Light and Love that the old blinds will come down and there will be a glorious expression out of our inner being. Thus wherever we are there is light. He is that Light which changes every dungeon circumstance.”