Oswald Chambers: What to Concentrate On

WHAT TO CONCENTRATE ON

"I came not to send peace,
but a sword." Matthew 10:34

Never be sympathetic with the soul whose
case makes you come to the conclusion that
God is hard. God is more tender than we
can conceive, and every now and again He
gives us the chance of being the rugged one
that He may be the tender One.

If a man cannot get through to God it is
because there is a secret thing he does
not intend to give up - I will admit
I have done wrong, but I no more intend
to give up that thing than fly. It is
impossible to deal sympathetically with a
case like that: we have to get right deep
down to the root until there is antagonism
and resentment against the message. People
want the blessing of God, but they will
not stand the thing that goes straight to
the quick.

If God has had His way with you, your
message as His servant is merciless insistence
on the one line, cut down to the very root,
otherwise there will be no healing. Drive
home the message until there is no possible
refuge from its application.

Begin to get at people where they are until
you get them to realize what they lack, and
then erect the standard of Jesus Christ for
their lives - "We never can be that."
Then drive it home - "Jesus Christ says
you must." "But how can we be?" "You cannot,
unless you have a new Spirit." (Luke 11:13.)

There must be a sense of need before your
message is of any use. Thousands of people are
happy without God in this world. If I was
happy and moral till Jesus came, why did He
come? Because that kind of happiness and
peace is on a wrong level; Jesus Christ came
to send a sword through every peace that is
not based on a personal relationship to Himself.

--Oswald Chambers

photo taken in Colorado Springs, CO

"Pressured man on the run is always
postponing his encounter with God to
a ‘free moment’ or a ‘time of prayer’
that must constantly be rescheduled,
a time that he must laboriously wrest
from his overburdened workday. A child
that knows God can find him at every
moment because every moment opens up
for him the very ground of time: as if
it reposed on eternity itself."

Hans Urs von Balthasar,
"Unless You Become Like This Child"


photo taken at Somers Congregational
Church, Somers, CT: nativity display.

Now men say, "I am in no wise prepared for this
work, and therefore it cannot be wrought in me,"
and thus they find an excuse, so that they neither
are ready nor in the way to be so. And truly there
is no one to blame for this but themselves. For if
a man were looking and striving after nothing but to
find a preparation in all things, and diligently
gave his whole mind to see how he might become
prepared; verily God would well prepare him, for
God giveth as much care and earnestness and love
to the preparing of a man, as to the pouring in of
His Spirit when the man is prepared.

... Theologia Germanica [1518], Anonymous

photo taken in Westford, MA

When we find our souls at all declining, it is best to raise them up presently by some awakening meditations, such as of the presence of God, of the strict reckoning we are to make, of the infinite love of God in Christ and the fruits of it, of the excellency of a Christian's calling, of the short and uncertain time of this life, of how little good all those things that steal away our hearts will do us before long, and of how it shall be for ever with us hereafter, as we spend this short time well or ill. The more we make way for such considerations to sink into our hearts, the more we shall rise nearer to that state of soul which we shall enjoy in heaven.

—Richard Sibbes (Puritan author)

photo taken in Garibaldi, Oregon

Show me where it hurts,

God said

And every cell in my body

burst into tears

Before His tender eyes.

- Rabia of Barsa (c. 717-801 C.E.)

PHOTO: The Wreck of the Peter Iredale, Ft Stevens,
Oregon (solarized)

The Peter Iredale was a four-masted steel barque
ailing vessel that ran ashore October 25, 1906,
on the Oregon coast en route to the Columbia River.
It was abandoned on Clatsop Spit near Fort Stevens
in Warrenton about four miles south of the Columbia
River channel. Wreckage is still visible, making it
a popular tourist attraction as one of the most
accessible shipwrecks of the Graveyard of the Pacific.


Oregon Photography
Peter Iredale

"Be persuaded, timid soul, that He
has  loved you too much to cease
loving you."
--Fenelon

photo taken in Garibaldi, Oregon


love of  God
encouragement

We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise
and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how
nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the
stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...
We need silence to be able to touch souls.

Mother Teresa


photo taken in Bloomfield, CT

Have you been holding back from a
risky, costly course to which you know
 in your heart God has called you?
Hold back no longer. Your God is
faithful to you, and adequate for you.
 You will never need more than He
can supply, and what He supplies,
both  materially and spiritually,
will always be enough for the
present.

--James I (J. I.) Packer

deer feeding by the wayside, Astoria, Oregon

Love all God's creation, the whole and every

 grain of sand of it. Love every leaf, every ray of

 God's light. Love the animals, love the

 plants, love everything.  If you love everything,

you will perceive the  divine mystery in things. Once you

perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every

day. And you will come at last to love the

 whole world with an all-embracing love.

-Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

photo taken past sunset  in Feeding Hills, MA

Letting Go: It Only Hurts for a Minute!

We are a funny lot. Adults, babies, dogs, cats,
birds, chipmunks, squirrels. All of us seem to
like to hang onto things. Babies, even from
a young age, have a sense of entitlement,
they can hang onto sweets for dear life only
minutes after they have learned to use their
hands. Dogs hold onto their toys with their
teeth. Chipmunks and squirrels pack their
mouths full. Crows gather shiny things. Me,
mine and more mine.

In the bible study that I have we have
been looking at hardness of heart. Its been
a penetrating study and I have had the
privilege of seeing how and why I hold
onto things way past when I should! :)
The things that we often hold onto
are intangible but they hold us as tightly
as any chain ever could.

We hold onto our sense of being right;
we hold onto our rights, our repugnance
at being "used" or taken advantage of,
we hold onto our sense of what is ours,
and what we place our value upon. We
hold onto our life and ourselves.

These things become part of us and
when we have to let them go, we feel
as if part of ourselves is going with them.

Recently as I have been made aware of
how I protect myself, and how I hold
things to prevent injury or loss, I have
heard the voice of the Lord coming
up quickly behind me. His calm,
authoritative Voice, with a hint of
playfulness, has often recently said,
"Let go, it only hurts for a minute."

We hang onto so very much: our rights, our
possessions, our sense of ourselves; and when
we think of letting go, of surrender,
of turning the other cheek, we often
feel something clench tightly inside.
We anticipate the ache of pain or loss.

But God's advice is to let it go. He
doesn't say there won't be pain, He says
that it just hurts for a minute. A wall
of pain that, once pierced through, sets us
loose into a calm, clear place of immense
freedom.

On the other hand, when we hang onto things
when we shouldn't, things like unforgiveness
or self-focus, or entitlement, or pride;
then we have hell to pay for hours, days,
weeks, months, or years after. We think
we are protecting ourselves but we are
only walling ourselves away from the life
of God flowing through us.

You see, "letting go" is another name for
surrendered obedience. It is meant to take
us deeper into the Kingdom of God. It is
meant to take us out of this world and
put us in the Kingdom of our God and of
His Christ.

We always see the whole idea of walking
the extra mile or turning the other cheek
as a burden, as something to steel ourselves
against, or at best, our "Christian" duty,
when it should be our delight and our joy
because of what it does within us and
where it brings us in God.

Letting go is the gateway into the Kingdom
of God. The Beatitudes (Matthew 5), those
that Jesus calls "blessed" are those that
have mastered the art of "letting go."
They are meek: they have let go of pride.
They are merciful: they have let go of the
spirit of retaliation; they are pure in heart
because they have let go of impurity; they
are peacemakers because there is no war in
their souls.

They inherit the earth, they see God, they
obtain mercy, they are truly called "sons
of God because they have learned one
beautiful thing: how to let go.

How much pain we will save ourselves if
we quickly let go when God says to.
The earlier the better. There
is always the moment of grace, early on,
when there is grace to let go. If you look
at any addiction, there was a moment, long
forgotten, when just one "no" would have
closed the door. Always God gives us
that moment, no matter how weak we are,
we have that moment, and it is held out
to all men and women, no matter what their
past was or what has happened to them.

We as human beings have something wonderful
given to us by God: the power to will to
forgive. Our animals friends may hold onto
things because their souls say they should.
Play tug of war with a large dog and see
what holding on is like. We, as humans,
have been given an additional grace to
let go, to choose not to serve ourselves,
to forgive, to go higher, to be like God.

It all starts with letting go when God
says to. It wont always be easy or
instanteous, but this I do know,
it is far easier then we are led to
believe by the world.

It is vitally important that we cultivate
a listening ear to the voice of God,
carefully listening to that moment when,
in the face of our many difficult day
to day situations, He urges us to "let go."

This is not a sign of weakness or a giving
in to evil or abuse. It is a making way for
God to act, and for God to change not only
our enemy or opposer, but WE OURSELVES.

I've noticed a marked change in my approach
to opposition lately. I can feel God,
and those great cloud of witnesses saying,
"For heaven sake, RM, let go!" I'm actually
having a good time...why don't you give
it a try? It only hurts for a minute.

surrender to God
forgiveness
spiritual preparedness
cloud of witnesses
letting go
beatitudes

A.W. Tozer: Taught by the Spirit?

“The church or individual who is Bible
taught without being Spirit taught has
simply failed to see that truth lies deeper
than the theological statement of it. We
only possess what we experience. The devil
is a better theologian than any of us and
is a devil still.”

~ A. W. Tozer

photo taken near Abergavenny, Wales

A.W.Tozer
Abergavenny, Wales

Relatives I Didn't Know I Had: Hebrews 11: 22-24

Recently I have been researching my family tree.
My relatives on my mom's side, the DelNegro's,
come from a tiny village in the mountains of Italy
called Atena Lucana. It's amazing to me all
that had to transpire for each of us to come into
the world, and we are largely unaware
of all those little destined moments crossing into
time so we could come to be!

I guess it has surprised me to find out just how
many relatives I do have, since the part of
our family that I know seems relatively limited.
I started to think about this, and how, even
on an earthly level, this fact somehow expanded
me, made me see a bigger picture. Then, I really
started to think about this concept spiritually.

No matter how large our earthly families are, most
of us have felt, at least at times, alone,
out of place, misunderstood, and longing
to find "our people." I think because the
Body of Christ seems fragmented (from our
point of view, anyway, from God's point
of view it really isn't) we feel a bit
more solitary than we need to. Let's face
it, sometimes its hard to find fellowship
with people who really love and understand us,
and are rooting for us!

What we fail to realize is how many relatives
we have that we don't know that we have!
Paul, and the person who authored the book
of Hebrews, and even John, in Revelation,
see things in terms of earth being a large
theatre for spiritual truths to play out
before those in the heavenlies. Angels watch
and learn, but listen to this:

"On the contrary you have come to Mount Zion,
and to the city of the ever-living God, the
heavenly Jerusalem, to countless hosts of angels,
to the great festal gathering and Church of the
first-born, whose names are recorded in Heaven,
and to a Judge who is God of all, and to the
spirits of righteous men made perfect,
and to Jesus the negotiator of a new Covenant,
and to the sprinkled blood which speaks in more
gracious tones than that of Abel."
"Hebrews 11:22-24 Weymouth translation"

Beloved, if we could know in our hearts just
what kind of glorious family surrounds us, if we
could know that "our people" are watching us and
cheering us on, if we could sense that we
are not alone in our little enclaves but actively
part of a universal Body, unhindered by the
constraints of space and time, and undivided
from God's point of view, we would have
a greatly enlarged perspective of what our
life means. The sinful, self-focused part of
our experience could be diminished and the
good, "I'm part of a greater Whole" part could
be increased. "Little ole me" would seem
both less important but also more important.

When Hebrews 12:1 says, "Therefore, surrounded
as we are by such a vast cloud of witnesses, let
us fling aside every encumbrance and the sin that
so readily entangles our feet. And let us run with
patient endurance the race that lies before us"

You go, men and women! boys and girls! You are
included in the spiritual genealogy of Jesus, and
of God, the Father! You have family immeasurable,
and holy, royal family at that! You are not alone,
not forgotten, not poor for resources! We can think
ourselves poor when we are rich beyond our wildest
dreams. We can think ourselves alone when we are
included in a Family more numerous than the grains of
sands are on the beach.

Dear hidden ones that dwell in the solitary wood (Micah
7:14) know you are well cared for. You are never alone!
Perhaps I am writing to just one person out there,
but I know in my spirit that I am writing to MANY
of you. Sleep well in the safety of your Shepherd,
know that you matter and are noticed, know that
in the heavenlies, your true family cheers you on.

And so do I.....

spiritual preparedness
cloud of witnesses
Hebrews 11:22-24
Hebrews 12:1
Micah 7:14
Atena Lucana, Italy

Seeking the Knowledge of His Will

To the individual believer indwelt
by the Holy Spirit there is granted
the direct impression of the Spirit
of God on the spirit of an individual,
imparting the knowledge of His will
in matters of the smallest and greatest
importance. This has to be sought and
waited for.
- G. Campbell Morgan

photo taken in Feeding Hills, MA

He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day:
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself his own dungeon.
~John Milton


photo taken in Feeding Hills, MA

John Milton

Decide at Once

We Christians too often substitute prayer
for playing the game. Prayer is good; but
when used as a substitute for obedience,
it is nothing but a blatant hypocrisy,
a despicable Pharisaism... To your knees, man!
and to your Bible! Decide at once! Don't hedge!
Time flies! Cease your insults to God, quit
consulting flesh and blood. Stop your lame,
lying, and cowardly excuses. Enlist!

... C. T. Studd (1860-1931)

photo taken in Barnstable, MA

spiritual preparedness
C.T. Studd

With My Face into the Wind

"I work now as I have always worked:
with my face into the wind... I'm only an
instrument that God is using for
the moment. Afterwards, things will be
as God wants them."
..... Fr. Alexander Men

photo taken at Beach near Wreck of the Peter Iredale"
(Fort Stevens State Park near Astoria, Oregon)

Oregon photography
spiritual resistance

Embracing Detours in Our Spiritual Lives

Detours are inevitable both in our natural and our
spiritual lives. We often have a negative view
of them because we want to be "on with it." We
want to get there, we want to proceed with our
plans and go the way we want. God, often,
in His Wisdom, has other plans. We must learn
to trust Him in the detours of life, even
when we do not know where the detours will take us,
and even when they are confusing.

Detours are not always bad. Sometimes they are
ordained of God. In the natural, detours are
meant to steer you around trouble. In the town
that I live in, they are laying sewage lines,
and God knows we need the sewage pumped out
of town. Where the road once was, are deep, deep
holes. To proceed as you have always done would be to
find your car and yourself wrecked in a ditch.

The authorities, well-meaning folk that they
are, have posted a traffic sign recommending
that you take a detour. Of course, there is no
easy way around. As the old Vermonter's used
to say when asked directions: "You can't get
there from here." Sometimes detours feel
like that. But God has His ways. Going the
long way around may be a pain,
but not as much of one as going through
a forbidden zone.

When Paul preached the gospel he encountered
Holy Ghost detours: "Now when they had gone
throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia,
and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach
the word in Asia, 7 After they were come to
Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia: but
the Spirit suffered them not. 8 And they
passing by Mysia and came down to Troas.
9 And a vision appeared to Paul in the night;
There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him,
saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.
10 And after he had seen the vision, immediately
we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly
gathering that the Lord had called us for to
preach the gospel unto them. (Acts 16:9-10)

We make plans, but the Lord continues to guide
us in the best way. Sometimes doing the
right thing will include a detour.
The story of the good Samaritan is one such
example: "But a Samaritan, as he traveled,
came where the [wounded]man was; and when he
saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to
him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil
and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey,
took him to an inn and took care of him.
35 The next day he took out two silver coins
and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’
he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you
for any extra expense you may have.’ (Luke 10:33-35).

The "Good Samaritan" had to stop to help the man.
He had to take time to tend to his wounds, and
take him to a place where he could recuperate.
Perhaps not much time was lost, but whatever
he had planned for that day was disrupted.

Can we see these detours as divine appointments?
Can we trust that even when we are delayed
that God is watching out for us? Sometimes
the right road to proceed on is not abundantly
clear. We look one one way and there is a detour,
we look another way, and that way has a detour
also. How can this be of God? As long as we
are looking to God and are willing to
submit to Him, we will be on the right
track, no matter what. Sometimes the
detour is so bad we have to come to
a complete stop. Being puzzled at that
point is all part of it.

Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit out into
the desert to be tempted! Upon his return
He went to His home town of Nazareth but
was not well received. God created His
own detour for Jesus. The people of
Nazareth "rose up, and thrust him out of
the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill
whereon their city was built, that they might
cast him down headlong.

30But he passing through the midst of them
went his way. (Luke 4:19-30). Sometimes
when God detours us, it is to protect us.

The detours of God can be God's most
swift and efficient ways of getting
us to where we need to be. Trust God
in this season of detours. You are not
alone!

photo taken in Southwick, Massachusetts

The Sleeper Cells of God

In a day when we hear much, and
possibly fear much, about embedded
terrorist sleeper cells even in
our "sleepy" suburban neighborhoods, be
greatly encouraged that God has a plan.
His plan includes righteous and Godly
sleeper cells for His purposes. And
realize, too, that you have a call
to be a member of those holy cells!
If you look around, like Elijah, and
wonder where the people are who have
not bowed their knee to Baal, rest
assured God has them out there! He
may have them hidden, but they are
hidden for His purposes.

I am a child of God, born of God, but also
born in the atomic age. Atomic is back
"in," you know: atomic as in nuclear,
"duck and cover," Cold War kind of stuff.
I grew up with the spy movies where the bad
guys, and the good guys, plant "sleepers"
into everyday Springfield kind of cities
to live soccer mom and banker dad kind of
lives until the red phone rings in their closet.
Then they are called out on their Man from
U.N.C.L.E kind of missions.

Consider this. God also has a plan.
An anti-evil, anti-terrorist,
anti-antiChrist plan. You may feel not
very useful in your situation, you
may wonder if God is using you at
all, you may try and figure out what
in the world it is you should be
doing.

Well, perhaps you are all already doing
it: perhaps you are just meant to be
who you are as a Christian, little ole
you, just living your life, seeking
God daily, loving others, being salt
and light in your neighborhood, but
in the back of your mind you were
expecting it to be different. You
know, somehow more dramatic. Well,
more drama may very well be coming and
the only way you will live through
it is to faithfully keep doing what you
are doing. Be faithful to your calling.
Be faithful vehemently!

Although you may be part of God's
sleeper cell for the coming Day,
you should not be sleeping. And
when you do need to rest, you should
rest in spiritual preparedness and
be ever ready in your heart.
You never know when the red phone
is going to ring in your closet
and you need to be ready.

Remember the parable of the ten virgins?
The bible says that ALL the virgins were
asleep, not just the slackers. A lot of
time had gone by since the Lord had sent them out
to prepare for His return. The point
is, when the Lord calls us into
an active service, for an appointed
hour, will we be ready?

Or will the cares of this world cause
us to ignore the call? Will we have so
assimilated into worldliness that
we will have forgotten who we really are?
Will our tools be rusted over, and
the weapons of our spiritual warfare
dormant? Will we care about the
spiritual mission we are called to
or will we say, "just a minute
after I finish watching the game,
or "just as soon as I am able to
get a moment in my busy schedule."

Jesus calls us to follow Him. He
tells the one who hesitates because
he needs to go bury a dead relative,
"Let the dead bury the dead." Not
a very "politically correct" admonition,
but a totally "spiritually correct" one.

Soon, even now, God will be waking up HIS
sleeper cells to serve on the spiritual
battlefronts of the end of the Age.
"Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that
sleepest, and arise from the dead, and
Christ shall give thee light."
(Ephesians 5:14).

"And this, knowing the time, that for us,
the hour already is to be aroused out of
sleep, for now nearer is our salvation than
when we did believe." (Romans 13:11)

Finally, may the Lord of the Harvest
find us faithful and ready when He needs us.
Let us continue to walk, day in and day out,
in the simple tasks that He presents us
with. But do know this, there is most
probably, for our generation, much
more to the story. Be ready for
His call. Be faithful NOW.

spiritual preparedness
sleeper
cells
parable of the ten virgins
Matthew 25

7000 not bowed down to Baal

Judgment amidst the Falling Apples

We have this really old apple tree in our yard.
When we have the pruning man over to trim it, he
is always amazed. Its a great tree, although
by now it has lost quite a few major limbs.
It still, however, produces large quantities
of apples. Baldwin apples to be exact.

My job, each fall, is to pick them all up.
We are an organic folk, and don't spray,
and our hand apple picker just doesn't
work right. So all the apples fall to their
destiny on the ground. I hear them, especially
at night, falling with a padded "thud" to the
earth below.

What got me to thinking is my approach to
picking the apples up. It takes longer
than it should because, being a "waste not,
want not" kind of gal, I examine each
apple to see if it worth saving. We make
applesauce, apple pies, dried apples,
apple cakes. You really should stop by
in the autumn if you are hungry.

Instead of just picking up all the apples
and throwing them all away, I sort through
and inspect their defects, hoping that,
through any means, some can be "saved."

I think about how God looks at me, and
where it not for the grace of Jesus,
and His sacrifice for us, there would
be no hope, but realize that all our
works shall be judged by God and
He shall look so very carefully
at us and make all hidden things
manifest.

So it takes forever to sort the apples,
not wanting to be unfair to the good ones
and just dismiss them with the bad.

Some apples, perhaps most, because we do not
spray, have worms in them. So some are
too wormy to be saved. Some have fallen
on the hard, wooden steps and because
of the hardness are broken to pieces,
Many of the large ones make it to the
ground safely, but then are eaten
by chipmunks or squirrels. The sweetest
ones are attacked by ants and slugs.
The hardest ones will never ripen properly.
Some look fine but have fallen in such
a way that the damage is hidden.
Others have rot and will damage the
other apples if they get too close.
If Jesus had been born in New England
the parable of the sower might
have been about fallen apples.

Yes, spiritual lessons left and right,
overwhelming my thinking and causing
my ability to judge them to slow way
down. Yikes. Now I have moved from
how God will judge me to how careful
I need to be in judging others.

This morning as I was out there picking
up the apples, judging them into good
and bad piles, I saw a little apple
that, for some reason made me smile.
it didn't have much going for it,
not overly big, a bit mishapen,
but a lovely red, shining in the sun,
but no worms, no rot, no damage.
Something in that apple made me want
to save it. I love that God looks
at me that way, and you, too.

May we co-operate with who God has
made us to be, no matter where we
have fallen, or no matter what
issues we have. God's grace is different
from man's opinions and man's judgements.
His judgments are righteous and true.
Sobering but comforting at the same time.

As I picked up the apples, I told
God, "You can have the judgment job,
its just too much too handle."

A word to the wise is sufficient.

Praising God in the Approaching Storm

"You will never find Jesus so precious as
when the world is one vast howling wilderness.
Then he is like a rose blooming in the midst
of the desolation—a rock rising above the storm.

... Robert Murray M'Cheyne (1813-1843),


photo taken near Oceanside, Oregon