Imitation

There was a quote in my inbox today from Oswald Chambers, a man whose journal was compiled into the devotional 'My Utmost for His Highest.'

 “I was doing Christian work and winning souls for Christ, but I had no conscious communion with Him. The Bible was the dullest, most uninteresting book in existence. I knew that if what I had was all the Christianity there was, the whole thing was a fraud.”

During a Christian gathering, Oswald Chambers stood up and admitted before the group that he desperately needed a real encounter with God. He had finally stopped fighting, stood still, and realized that all the Christian training, spiritual leadership, and religious activities he was involved in did not equal a living, passionate, power-filled relationship with Jesus. He recognized that he was faking, and his show of Christianity... wasn't as good as the real deal. If there was one. So Mr. Chambers started pursuing something more. He set out to find the real Jesus.

So I sat down to take a good look.
Am I pretending?
Am I a "Hi how are you? Fine how are you?" talking the talk on Sunday Christian?
Am I just playing at being a Christian, and wanting the appearance, but not the real thing?
Am I just floating along with the flow of family and expediencies and friends and just doing what is expected of me without actually fighting for my own, real relationship with Jesus?

Am I satisfied to "live a good life" be a "good girl" and make better choices than those around me?
Do I want/need something more?

Do I have a passionate relationship with Jesus?
How do I get one?
Do I even want one?

Am I pursuing my relationship with Jesus the way I should?
How bad do I want one? Is God testing me to see if I really want this?
Am I content to stop where I am and say "I can't have a better relationship with God than this... and anybody who looks like they do is obviously putting on a show, or is an exception."

Why am I stopping pursuing and seeking Him?

Is there a relationship, hobby/spare time filler, thought pattern, object, something I want to do, an interest, or a job opportunity that I'm not willing to give up?

Is there something I don't want to do? An attitude I don't want to change, a place I don't want to go, someone I don't want to speak to, or fear of what someone will think that is keeping me back?

Do I trust Him enough to look out for and take care of 'me' if I turn and focus on serving Him and others?

Do I know what Christianity looks like? Have I bought the wrong brand? Am I working and re-arranging situations, setting up 'coincidences', and manipulating appearances to make me look like I am 'as wise, mature, and godly as So n' So.'

Am I following after, struggling toward, or imitating a person, not the Lord Jesus?

Am I looking to God and to His Word to:

Fix my problems
Satisfy my longings for a heart to heart friendship
Always be there for me
Advise me
Teach me
Tell me when I'm wrong
Protect me
Keep me from worrying
Give me everything that I need
Justify me
and more?

 Am I comfortable with the fact that I have problems,  but don't think God can give me victory over my problems?

 Is God big enough and strong enough for my problems, or only the problems of others?

Subconsciously, have I been thinking that I don't have much sin?
That the sin I do have isn't that bad?
Am I allowing sin to grow and infiltrate and take over?
Am I treating my sin like sin?

Have I climbed back on the throne of my life, and made my wants and desires ruler over me instead of God's righteousness?

Have I figured out my own set of rules that make being a christian uncomplicated, easy, and 'do-able' without God?

Does my Christianity match up with Jesus's [since He came to show us how to 'do it right' and make it possible]?

Where have I gone wrong?

Are you asking these questions with me? Of yourself, not those around you?
Grab a journal or a scrap piece of paper and put in writing what God wants you to change.
Take it to Him in prayer.
Struggle and wrestle over it with Him, if You haven't given in to His plans yet, but give those areas to Him. [Experience speaking : Its easier to give it now than to wait!]
Ask God to show you want He wants you to STOP doing,
and what He wants you to START doing  in those areas.
Make a commitment to do it till it becomes habit.
This is a promise to GOD.
Don't take it lightly.
God won't.

Write it in your journal... and personally... its easier to actually do, not just plan to do, if you sit down and brain storm a list of how you could do it... this afternoon... and how it could fit in tomorrows schedule... and how you could do it in a week or so when you're getting better at it... and what it'll probably look like when you are good at it. That way you have an idea of where you are going.
Final job: Find someone to hold you accountable AND/you don't see this word [or] take a bunch of sticky notes or 3x5's and write reminders and hide them in your dresser, and shoes, and favorite books, and pencil drawer, and anywhere you'll run into them often, to remind you throughout the day.

God wants you to do this.

He loves His children.

He's waiting to bless you

He wants to show Himself to you

He just asks that you prove that you want Him.

Are you willing?

Me too.

Prayer

There is no power like that of prevailing prayer – of Abraham pleading for

Sodom, Jacob wrestling in the stillness of the night, Moses standing in the

breach, Hannah intoxicated with sorrow, David heartbroken with remorse

and grief, Jesus in sweat of blood. Such prayer prevails. It turns ordinary

mortals into men of power. It brings power. It brings fire. It brings rain.

It brings life. It brings God.

Samuel Chadwick

Prayer in its highest form of faith is that prayer which carries the whole

man as a sacrificial offering. Thus devoting the whole man himself, and

his all, to God in a definite, intelligent vow, never to be broken, in a

quenchless and impassioned desire for heaven.

E.M. Bounds (p498 TCW)

Success is certain when the Lord has promised it. Although you may have

pleaded month after month without evidence of answer, it is not possible

that the Lord should be deaf when His people are earnest in a matter which

concerns His glory. The prophet on the top of Carmel continued to wrestle

with God, and never for a moment gave way to a fear that he should be

non-suited in Jehovah's courts. Six times the servant returned, but on each

occasion no word was spoken but "Go again." We must not dream of

unbelief, but hold to our faith even to seventy times seven. Faith sends

expectant hope to look from Carmel's brow, and if nothing is beheld, she

sends again and again. So far from being crushed by repeated

disappointment, faith is animated to plead more fervently with her God.

She is humbled, but not abashed: her groans are deeper, and her sighings

more vehement, but she never relaxes her hold or stays her hand. It would

be more agreeable to flesh and blood to have a speedy answer, but

believing souls have learned to be submissive, and to find it good to wait

for as well as upon the Lord. Delayed answers often set the heart searching

itself, and so lead to contrition and spiritual reformation: deadly blows are

thus struck at our corruption, and the chambers of imagery are cleansed.

The great danger is lest men should faint, and miss the blessing. Reader,

do not fall into that sin, but continue in prayer and watching. At last the

little cloud was seen, the sure forerunner of torrents of rain, and even so

with you, the token for good shall surely be given, and you shall rise as a

prevailing prince to enjoy the mercy you have sought. Elijah was a man of

like passions with us: his power with God did not lie in his own merits. If

his believing prayer availed so much, why not yours? Plead the precious

blood with unceasing importunity, and it shall be with you according to

your desire.

Charles H. Spurgeon

He prays not at all who does not press his plea. Our praying needs to be

pressed and pursued with an energy that never tires, a persistency which

will not be denied, and a courage that never fails.

E.M. Bounds

Give me a Love like this [Guest Post]

By Amy Carmichael

Many crowd the Savior's Kingdom,

Few receive His Cross,

Many seek His consolation,

Few will suffer loss

For the dear sake of the Master,

Counting all but dross.

Many sit at Jesus' table,

Few will fast with Him

When the sorrow-cup of anguish

Trembles to the brim.

Few watch with Him in the garden

Who have sung the hymn.

Many will confess His wisdom.

Few embrace his shame,

Many, should He smile upon them,

Will His praise proclaim;

Then, if for a while He leave them,

They desert his Name.

But the souls who love Him truly

In woe or in sweet bliss,

These will count their truest heart's blood

Not their own, but His;

Savior, Thou Who thus hast loved me,

Give me love like this.

In Acceptance Lieth Peace [Guest Post]

Some of you asked for the whole poem:

In Acceptance Lieth Peace"
By Amy Carmichael
Here it is!

He said, ‘I will forget the dying faces;

The empty places,

They shall be filled again.

O voices moaning deep within me, cease.’

But vain the word; vain, vain:

Not in forgetting lieth peace.

He said, ‘I will crowd action upon action,

The strife of faction

Shall stir me and sustain;

O tears that drown the fire of manhood cease.’

But vain the word; vain, vain:

Not in endeavour lieth peace.

He said, ‘I will withdraw me and be quiet,

Why meddle in life’s riot?

Shut be my door to pain.

Desire, thou dost befool me, thou shalt cease.’

But vain the word; vain, vain:

Not in aloofness lieth peace.

He said, ‘I will submit; I am defeated.

God hath depleted

My life of its rich gain.

O futile murmurings, why will ye not cease?’

But vain the word; vain, vain:

Not in submission lieth peace.

He said, ‘I will accept the breaking sorrow

Which God tomorrow

Will to His son explain.’

Then did the turmoil deep within me cease.

Not vain the word, not vain;

For in Acceptance lieth peace.

Hast Thou No Scar? [Guest post]

Amy Carmichael

India, 1912

Hast thou no scar?

No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?

I hear thee sung as mighty in the land,

I hear them hail thy bright ascendant star:

Hast thou no scar?

Hast thou no wound?

Yet, I was wounded by the archers, spent.

Leaned me against the tree to die, and rent

By ravening beasts that compassed me, I swooned:

Hast thou no wound?

No wound? No scar?

Yes, as the master shall the servant be,

And pierced are the feet that follow Me;

But thine are whole. Can he have followed far

Who has no wound? No scar?

Might I add:

Hast thou no scar?

No hidden scar on brow, or back, or heart?

A wound for taking up My part?

Hast thou faced ridicule for me?

How doth the world in name blight thee?

Hast thou no scar?

No wound?

Yes, as the master shall the servant be,

And pierced are the feet that follow Me;

But are mine whole? Examine me!

Where is my courage in foll'wing Thee?
Can it be, I've followed as I ought,

With no scar of battles fought?

[Don't worry, this is not an extinct verse you've never heard before, I added it ;) ]