Recognizing Him

Three convicting thoughts this morning from Oswald Chambers:

The love of God is that He laid down His life for His enemies.  Think of the worst man or woman you know; can you say to yourself, with any degree of joyful certainty, “That man-that woman-perfect in Christ Jesus”?  You will soon see how much you believe in Christ Jesus and how much in common sense.

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We can always know whether we are hearkening to God’s voice by whether or not we have joy;  if there is no joy, we are not hearkening.  Hearkening to the voice of God will produce the joy that Jesus had.  A life of intimacy with God is characterized by joy.  You cannot counterfeit joy or peace.  What is of value to God is what we are, not what we affect to be.

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To be faithful in every circumstance means that we have only one loyalty, and that is to our Lord.  Most of us are too devoted to our own ideas of what God wants even to hear His call when it comes.  We may be loyal to what we like, but we may find we have been disloyal to God’s calling of us by not recognizing Him in either the distress and humiliation or the joy and blessing.