Category: Surrender

The Concentration of Personal Sin

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Oswald Chambersby Oswald Chambers

Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips… —Isaiah 6:5

When I come into the very presence of God, I do not realize that I am a sinner in an indefinite sense, but I suddenly realize and the focus of my attention is directed toward the concentration of sin in a particular area of my life. A person will easily say, “Oh yes, I know I am a sinner,” but when he comes into the presence of God he cannot get away with such a broad and indefinite statement. Our conviction is focused on our specific sin, and we realize, as Isaiah did, what we really are. This is always the sign that a person is in the presence of God. There is never any vague sense of sin, but a focusing on the concentration of sin in some specific, personal area of life. God begins by convicting us of the very thing to which His Spirit has directed our mind’s attention. If we will surrender, submitting to His conviction of that particular sin, He will lead us down to where He can reveal the vast underlying nature of sin. That is the way God always deals with us when we are consciously aware of His presence.

This experience of our attention being directed to our concentration of personal sin is true in everyone’s life, from the greatest of saints to the worst of sinners. When a person first begins climbing the ladder of experience, he might say, “I don’t know where I’ve gone wrong,” but the Spirit of God will point out some definite and specific thing to him. The effect of Isaiah’s vision of the holiness of the Lord was the directing of his attention to the fact that he was “a man of unclean lips.” “He touched my mouth with it, and said: ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged’ ” (Isaiah 6:7). The cleansing fire had to be applied where the sin had been concentrated.

by Oswald Chambers

The Broken Tomb

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Jonathan Cahnby Jonathan Cahn

There once was a Jewish man who decided it was time to start preparing his final arrangements. The man’s name was Yosef of Ramata, Joseph of Arimathea. He became a secret follower of the Rabbi Yeshua of Nazareth. Out of compassion, when Yeshua was publicly executed, Joseph gave up the tomb he prepared for himself and placed Yeshua’s body there instead. A tomb is something that most people don’t lend out with the idea of getting it back. But the Rabbi happened to be God and so was only borrowing the tomb. When He rose from the dead, Joseph had his tomb back. But now people saw it as a place of hope and life. A tomb is supposed to be a place of mourning and tears. Yeshua ruined a perfectly good tomb and a perfectly planned funeral. But He doesn’t mind ruining our funerals, spoiling our sorrows, crashing our self-pity parties, and wrecking our fears. Let Him ruin your funeral. Let Him mess up that indulgence of self-pity, let Him mess it all up with joy, and demolish it with thanksgiving and laughter. Let Him mess up your funeral, so you can start living.

Today’s Mission – Is there a funeral that you’re still living in, a sorrow, a regret, a bondage, a grudge, a failure, a scar – Messiah wants to ruin your funeral – let Him!

by Jonathan Cahn