Clearing Up Spiritual Confusion

Hi, there!

This is another excerpt from Oswald Chambers’ “My Utmost For His Highest” found at http://utmost.org/arguments-or-obedience/ which follows up nicely with the last Category on “Spiritual Confusion”.

Editing and emphasis will be mine throughout….and here we go:

“…the simplicity that is in Christ.  (2 Corinthians 11:3)

SIMPLICITY IS THE SECRET TO SEEING THINGS CLEARLY.

A saint does not think clearly until a long time passes, but a saint ought to see clearly without any difficulty. You CANNOT think through spiritual confusion to make things clear; to make things clear, you must obey.

In intellectual matters you can think things out, but in spiritual matters you will only think yourself into further wandering  thoughts and more confusion.

If there is something in your life upon which God has put His pressure, then obey Him in that matter. Bring ALL your “arguments and…every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” regarding the matter, and everything will become as clear as daylight to you (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Your reasoning capacity will come later, but reasoning is not how we see. We see like children, and when we try to be wise WE SEE NOTHING (see Matthew 11:25).

Even the very smallest thing that we allow in our lives that is NOT under the control of the Holy Spirit, is completely sufficient to account for spiritual confusion, and spending all of our time thinking about it will still NEVER make it clear.

Spiritual confusion can ONLY be conquered through obedience. As soon as we obey, we have discernment.

….when our natural power of sight is devoted and submitted in obedience to the Holy Spirit, it becomes the very power by which we perceive God’s will, and our ENTIRE life is kept in simplicity .”

All the best, in Him.

Fred

Identified Or Simply Interested?

Hey, there!

I have another entry for you from Oswald Chambers’ MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST, of which this and all his entries can be accessed FREE as explained in the Category by the same title:

” ‘I have been crucified with Christ….’ (Galatians 2:20)

The inescapable spiritual need each of us has is the need to sign the death certificate of our sin nature. I must take my emotional opinions and intellectual beliefs and be willing to turn them into a moral verdict against the nature of sin; that is, against any claim I have to my right to myself. Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ….” He did not say, “I have made a determination to imitate Jesus Christ,” or, “I will really make an effort to follow Him” —but— “I have been identified with Him in His death.” Once I reach this moral decision and act on it, all that Christ accomplished for me on the Cross is accomplished in me. My unrestrained commitment of myself to God gives the Holy Spirit the opportunity to grant to me the holiness of Jesus Christ.

“…it is no longer I who live….” My individuality remains, but my primary motivation for living and the nature that rules me are radically changed. I have the same human body, but the old satanic right to myself has been destroyed.

“…and the life which I now live in the flesh,” not the life which I long to live or even pray that I live, but the life I now live in my mortal flesh— the life which others can see, “I live by faith in the Son of God….” This faith was not Paul’s own faith in Jesus Christ, but the faith the Son God had given to him (see Ephesians 2:8). It is no longer a faith in faith, but a faith that transcends all imaginable limits— a faith that comes only from the Son of God.”

Take care, in Him.

Fred