Day: January 28, 2012

Look Again And Think

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Oswald Chambers 90x115by Oswald Chambers

Take no thought for your life. — Matthew 6:25

A warning which needs to be reiterated is that the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things entering in, will choke all that God puts in. We are never free from the recurring tides of this encroachment. If it does not come on the line of clothes and food, it will come on the line of money or lack of money; of friends or lack of friends; or on the line of difficult circumstances. It is one steady encroachment all the time, and unless we allow the Spirit of God to raise up the standard against it, these things will come in like a flood.

"Take no thought for your life." "Be careful about one thing only," says our Lord – "your relationship to Me." Common sense shouts loud and says – "That is absurd, I must consider how I am going to live, I must consider what I am going to eat and drink." Jesus says you must not. Beware of allowing the thought that this statement is made by One Who does not understand our particular circumstances. Jesus Christ knows our circumstances better than we do, and He says we must not think about these things so as to make them the one concern of our life. Whenever there is competition, be sure that you put your relationship to God first.

Subtilty And Simplicity

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Vance Havner 90x115by Vance Havner

“But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” 2 Corinthians 11:3.

Strictly speaking, what is in mind here is the simplicity of our faith in Christ rather than the simplicity of the Gospel, but we need not stop there. What stands out most is the contrast between subtilty and simplicity. Satan deals in subtilties. Our Lord deals in simplicities. There is sublimity aplenty but the sublimity is revealed to the simple, kept from the wise and prudent and revealed unto babes. We have let our minds be corrupted by Satan’s subtilties away from the Saviour’s simplicities. Beware of any teaching, any movement that is sneaking and insidious. The truth is frank and honest and aboveboard. Satan’s subtilties bear the mark of the serpent—“the snake in the grass.” Our Lord stood in the public place and invited men to Him. The Early Church came out in the open. Paul said, “This thing was not done in a corner.”

It is part of Satan’s program to make our faith and practice complicated and involved. Now and then we need a rediscovery of the simplicity that is both in and toward Christ, in Him and in our faith in Him.

by Vance Havner