I'm right here. Don't ever wonder, my One.

4/3/25

We Are His Workmanship 

"...grace and truth are seen in the lives of believers because Christ indwells them. From this we learn how a Christian should act, and, in addition, these evidences of the Christian life become tests whereby we can know whether or not we have eternal life. John tells us that the Christ life within the believer will express itself in a certain way, and this in turn becomes a means of identifying the true believer.

Other portions of the Bible teach this same truth. For instance, James said, "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him?" (James 2:14). He was saying, "Is the faith that does not result in good works the kind of faith that saves?" Then he goes on to show that the person who has saving faith will exhibit it in the kind of life he lives.

Paul, in writing to the Ephesians, stated the same truth. Sometimes we quote Ephesians 2:8,9 but fail to recognize what verse 10 says. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works," So in this way we confess our faith."

We acknowledge the truth.

We confess it.

It is life, light, and love.

We confess this and cannot divert from it because He does not change, therefore who we are in Him cannot change. It is the very life of the Son of God in us which relentlessly brings us to this. 

In Him there is light, and no darkness. He is going nowhere. He will never, ever, fail.

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3/31/25

https://youtu.be/7LQ4rWKlUnI?si=854GgVC0kgY9d7U9

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3/31/25

Worship

By Oswald Chambers

And he…pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west and Ai on the east: and there he builded an altar. — Genesis 12:8 (RV)

Worship is giving God the best that He has given you. Be careful what you do with the best you have. Whenever you get a blessing from God, give it back to Him as a love gift. Take time to meditate before God and offer the blessing back to Him in a deliberate act of worship. If you hoard a thing for yourself, it will turn into spiritual dry rot, as the manna did when it was hoarded. God will never let you hold a spiritual thing for yourself, it has to be given back to Him that He may make it a blessing to others.

Bethel is the symbol of communion with God; Ai is the symbol of the world. Abraham pitched his tent between the two. The measure of the worth of our public activity for God is the private profound communion we have with Him. Rush is wrong every time; there is always plenty of time to worship God. Quiet days with God may be a snare. We have to pitch our tents where we shall always have quiet times with God, however noisy our times with the world may be. There are not three stages in spiritual life — worship, waiting and work. Some of us go in jumps like spiritual frogs, we jump from worship to waiting, and from waiting to work. God’s idea is that the three should go together. They were always together in the life of Our Lord. He was unhasting and unresting. It is a discipline, we cannot get into it all at once.
--

Worship is deliberate. 

It can be uncomfortable. It's an interruption of personal agenda. It's surrender to One Who is more important. It's my best, offered. 

It's taking up my cross, willingly. It's dying to my self, willingly. It's offering. It's the sacrifice, the expression; I will endure this because I love You, Lord. I will walk this out. I will see this through. I will worship You. Nothing in my life is hidden, hoarded, kept back just in case, from You. 

I. Will. Not. 

My "continual assertion of trusting You"... is worship.

My trust... my trust is worship!

I surrender, in worship. I let go, in worship. I will endure anything, whatever the cost, in worship. Take this, Holy One. And this, Holy One. And even this, most Beautiful One. 

I may fear, but even that I give to You in worship. 

leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.

Matthew 5:24

I worship You, Holy One. I surrender unto You. I love this cross I take up for You, Beautiful One. It is my love for You.

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3/30/25

Holy Wife. Godly wife. Righteous wife.

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3/29/25

Phillipians 2 is one of the most beautiful parts of the Bible. It's so humbling. And it sets me free.

We dont have to strive to be significant. I can be last. I can wait. I can be quiet. I can serve. And it's storing up treasure in Heaven. And Jesus Himself shows me how. 

[Phl 2:1-7 NASB95] 1 Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, 2 make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. 3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; 4 do not look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. 5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, being made in the likeness of men.

The important part begins at 12:00. Despite the untucked shirt, it's a phenomenal, deeply Christ-centered, highly biblical message. 

https://youtu.be/g3IUVxdo9Cs?si=YkUHip1VV7TF8Huh

...yes. With all my heart.

Never, ever, wonder.

*

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3/28/25

Isn’t There Some Misunderstanding?

Let us go into Judea again. His disciples say unto Him…Goest Thou thither again? John 11:7-8

I may not understand what Jesus Christ says, but it is dangerous to say that therefore He was mistaken in what He said. It is never right to think that my obedience to a word of God will bring dishonour to Jesus. The only thing that will bring dishonour is not obeying Him. To put my view of His honour in place of what He is plainly impelling me to do is never right, although it may arise from a real desire to prevent Him being put to open shame. I know when the proposition comes from God because of its quiet persistence. When I have to weigh the pros and cons, and doubt and debate come in, I am bringing in an element that is not of God, and I come to the conclusion that the suggestion was not a right one. Many of us are loyal to our notions of Jesus Christ, but how many of us are loyal to Him? Loyalty to Jesus means I have to step out where I do not see anything (cf. Matt. 14:29); loyalty to my notions means that I clear the ground first by my intelligence. Faith is not intelligent understanding, faith is deliberate commitment to a Person where I see no way.

Are you debating whether to take a step in faith in Jesus or to wait until you can see how to do the thing yourself? Obey Him with glad reckless joy. When He says something and you begin to debate, it is because you have a conception of His honour which is not His honour. Are you loyal to Jesus or loyal to your notion of Him? Are you loyal to what He says, or are you trying to compromise with conceptions which never came from Him? 

"Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it."

John 2:5

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3/27/25

I must become smaller. He must become larger.

He must increase, but I must decrease. [John 3:30]

[The following three entries from Utmost are one message, to me. They are in order from the 25th-27th.]

March 25, My Utmost For His Highest

The Most Delicate Mission On Earth

The friend of the Bridegroom. John 3:29

Goodness and purity ought never to attract attention to themselves, they ought simply to be magnets to draw to Jesus Christ. If my holiness is not drawing towards Him, it is not holiness of the right order, but an influence that will awaken inordinate affection and lead souls away into side–eddies. A beautiful saint may be a hindrance if he does not present Jesus Christ but only what Christ has done for him; he will leave the impression — “What a fine character that man is!” — that is not being a true friend of the Bridegroom; I am increasing all the time, He is not.

In order to maintain this friendship and loyalty to the Bridegroom, we have to be more careful of our moral and vital relationship to Him than of any other thing, even of obedience. Sometimes there is nothing to obey, the only thing to do is to maintain a vital connection with Jesus Christ, to see that nothing interferes with that. Only occasionally do we have to obey. When a crisis arises we have to find out what God’s will is, but the greater part of the life is not conscious obedience but the maintenance of this relationship — the friend of the Bridegroom. Christian work may be a means of evading the soul’s concentration on Jesus Christ. Instead of being friends of the Bridegroom, we may become amateur providences, and may work against Him whilst we use His weapons.

March 26, My Utmost For His Highest

Vision By Personal Purity

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Matthew 5:8

Purity is not innocence, it is much more. Purity is the outcome of sustained spiritual sympathy with God. We have to grow in purity. The life with God may be right and the inner purity remain unsullied, and yet every now and again the bloom on the outside may be sullied. God does not shield us from this possibility, because in this way we realize the necessity of maintaining the vision by personal purity. If the spiritual bloom of our life with God is getting impaired in the tiniest degree, we must leave off everything and get it put right. Remember that vision depends on character — the pure in heart see God.

God makes us pure by His sovereign grace, but we have something to look after, this bodily life by which we come in contact with other people and with other points of view; it is these that are apt to sully. Not only must the inner sanctuary be kept right with God, but the outer courts as well are to be brought into perfect accord with the purity God gives us by His grace. The spiritual understanding is blurred immediately the outer court is sullied. If we are going to retain personal contact with the Lord Jesus Christ, it will mean there are some things we must scorn to do or to think, some legitimate things we must scorn to touch.

A practical way of keeping personal purity unsullied in relation to other people is to say to yourself — That man, that woman, perfect in Christ Jesus! That friend, that relative, perfect in Christ Jesus!

March 27,  My Utmost For His Highest

Vision By Personal Character

Come up hither, and I will shew thee things. Revelation 4:1

An elevated mood can only come out of an elevated habit of personal character. If in the externals of your life you live up to the highest you know, God will continually say — “Friend, go up higher.” The golden rule in temptation is — “Go higher.” When you get higher up, you face other temptations and characteristics. Satan uses the strategy of elevation in temptation, and God does the same, but the effect is different. When the devil puts you into an elevated place, he makes you screw your idea of holiness beyond what flesh and blood could ever bear. It is a spiritual acrobatic performance, you are just poised and dare not move; but when God elevates you by His grace into the heavenly places, instead of finding a pinnacle to cling to, you find a great table–land where it is easy to move.

Compare this week in your spiritual history with the same week last year and see how God has called you up higher. We have all been brought to see from a higher standpoint. Never let God give you one point of truth which you do not instantly live up to. Always work it out, keep in the light of it.

Growth in grace is measured not by the fact that you have not gone back, but that you have an insight into where you are spiritually; you have heard God say “Come up higher,” not to you personally, but to the insight of your character.

“Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” God has to hide from us what He does until by personal character we get to the place where He can reveal it.

--

Everything that is good in me, is Him. And it's  not for me to use in order to take. It is for Him to use to give Himself. 

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3/26/25

"15 Brethren, I speak in the manner of men: Even though it is only a man’s covenant, yet if it is confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it." 

"17 And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect. 18 For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise." 

[Galatians 3:16, 17-18 NKJV]

Even the law itself, cannot annul a promise previously made. 

That promise cannot be altered, or rendered nul. It is in full effect. It remains in force. 

That promise is in effect. No subsequent vow, oath, is meaningful, as the promise, the original, the first, has already been made, and witnessed, confirmed. The witness is the confirmation. 

Even in the manner of the courts of men, people swear oaths to try to change, cover, or nullify something they did or didn’t do at a time in the past (before the trial.) But if one witness comes forth who can reliably confirm what they did or did not do, the subsequent claim is nullified. It's rendered null, zero, void, empty of truth. It is not real. There is a previous truth which nullifies all subsequent claims, no matter the swearing of the vow, oath, or claim. In fact, the swearing of the subsequent vow, oath, or claim is a crime. 

It is bearing false witness. It is purjury.

God swears by Himself. There is no higher witness. In fact, our very sin will be judged based solely upon His witness of the truth, the record which will be made known for all to see, not our claims.

God bears witness to our promise, together, with Him.

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3/24/25

I say it with you each time. "3... 2... 1......"

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3/22/25

Devote yourselves to prayer, being
watchful and thankful.
COLOSSIANS 4:2

"I am with you and will watch over
you wherever you go, and I will
bring you back to this land."
GENESIS 28:15

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3/21/25

Holy wife, I am remarkably at peace. Longing, expectant, but no fear, only faith. 

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3/21/25

WHHHHHHHhhhhhhffffffffff...

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3/21/25

Not faith in faith, but a change of identity.

Please do a word study of identify, identity, identification.

Oswald:

Interest Or Identification?

I have been crucified with Christ. Galatians 2:20

The imperative need spiritually is to sign the death warrant of the disposition of sin, to turn all emotional impressions and intellectual beliefs into a moral verdict against the disposition of sin, viz., my claim to my right to myself. 

Paul says — “I have been crucified with Christ”; he does not say, “I have determined to imitate Jesus Christ,” or, “I will endeavour to follow Him,” but, “I have been identified with Him in His death.” When I come to such a moral decision and act upon it, then all that Christ wrought for me on the Cross is wrought in me. The free committal of myself to God gives the Holy Spirit the chance to impart to me the holiness of Jesus Christ.  “…nevertheless I live….” The individuality remains, but the mainspring, the ruling disposition, is radically altered. The same human body remains, but the old satanic right to myself is destroyed.

“And the life which I now live in the flesh,…” not the life which I long to live and pray to live, but the life I now live in my mortal flesh, the life which men can see, “I live by the faith of the Son of God.” This faith is not Paul’s faith in Jesus Christ, but the faith that the Son of God has imparted to him — “the faith of the Son of God.” It is no longer faith in faith, but faith which has overleapt all conscious bounds, the identical faith of the Son of God.

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3/20/25

What is one of the most loving, beautiful things I've ever seen?

"Count with me, three, two, one...

Wwwwwwhhhhhhffffffffffff........"

It filled me with such joy, Holy Wife. 

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3/15/25

13 For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if those who are of the Law are heirs, then faith is made void and the promise is nullified; 15 for the Law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, there also is no violation. 16 For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, 17 (as it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed, that is, God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that do not exist. 18 In hope against hope he believed, so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken, “So shall your descendants be.” 19 Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb; 20 yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, 21 and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform. 22 Therefore it was also credited to him as righteousness. 23 Now not for his sake only was it written that it was credited to him, 24 but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, to us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25 He who was delivered over because of our wrongdoings, and was raised because of our justification.

Romans 4

He gave me this on November 4th. I have been on it ever since:

May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip YOU with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. 

Hebrews 13:20-21

The same God of Peace who raised Jesus, is at work, here. The same resurrection power is at work here. And not by our wills, but His.

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3/12/25

Our Creator has more interest in your life than you do. 

You are His idea, not yours. He also has more interest in blessing your life than you do. So you can get over worrying that you're not going to "get enough stuff." I know, it's a crass way of expressing it, but it is, truthfully, how humans think. You can put your mind at ease, however, because our Maker wants people to be drawn to you. 

Look, we need to see where God is, so He brings what He calls "glory" to Himself, which is like lights on a runway in the dark. In one sense, that's glory. The Lord knows you have need of these things, and the world seeks after all these things, but God will do a far better job of showing the evidence of His Presence in your life than you will. Utterly abandon yourself to Him. Seek Him first. All the rest will be added to you, so relax about that. 

But there's a gate we have to go through... and there's a strange dichotomy, two distinct ideas which seem contradictory, but they aren't. They... are... not. Jesus says His yoke is easy, His burden is light (Matt 11:28-30), and it is. It's the easiest, most freeing, lightest thing you'll ever carry. In fact, you won't carry it at all, it will carry you. Your eyes will become so clear that you can see all the way to the end of time, to the very last period in the book of Revelation. But there is also a cost. 

Then Peter began to say unto Him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed Thee…. Mark 10:28

21 Jesus said to him, “... go, sell what you have... and come, follow Me.”

22 But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

Matt 19-21,22

“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple."

Luke 14:26

These are not the deep sayings of an ancient mystic. This is not for the hard-core Christian. He is telling us: 

"I Am God. I Am not like you, or anyone or anything you understand. I Am perfect, I Am entirely good. I Am SO good in fact, that even the best things you have and are, can't come to me with you. Let them go. TRUST ME. And let them go... TO ME. To My care.

You are not helping them.

You are only hurting them.

Doing your best isn't remotely enough. Humans need perfect, and you can't. You cannot do perfect.

But I can. And yes, I want to. And yes, I tell you up front, I will. I will.

Seek Me first. 

Sell all you have and buy this field. Sit on the floor and let the housekeeping go and listen to me. Let Lazarus die. Grow old and toothless while waiting for your promised first child. Let your wife turn her face from you. Take up a cross, voluntarily, climb up on it and die...

Because I am not like you. 

Though you die, you will live a million times better. 

Though it tarries, it will not tarry.

Though you become poor, Solomon himself was not dressed like I will dress you. 

You do not know "BETTER." 

I do. I know better. I created better. I Am BETTER.

So let it go.

Forget about the stuff, the people you can't handle anyway, and come to Me for Me. 

Give them to Me. They are mine. I will take care of them for you. I have said it, and I will do it.

But YOU... you come to Me, for Me.

ABANDON... but abandon it all to Me."

28 Peter began to say to Him, “Behold, we have left everything and have followed You.” 29 Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, 30 but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last, first.”

Mark 10

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March 12 Daily Devotional

My Utmost For His Highest - Oswald Chambers 

Abandonment

Then Peter began to say unto Him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed Thee…. Mark 10:28

Our Lord replies in effect, that abandonment is for Himself, and not for what the disciples themselves will get from it. Beware of an abandonment which has the commercial spirit in it – “I am going to give myself to God because I want to be delivered from sin, because I want to be made holy.” All that is the result of being right with God, but that spirit is not of the essential nature of Christianity. Abandonment is not for anything at all. We have got so commercialized that we only go to God for something from Him, and not for Himself. It is like saying – “No, Lord, I don’t want Thee, I want myself; but I want myself clean and filled with the Holy Ghost; I want to be put in Thy show room and be able to say – ‘This is what God has done for me.’ ” If we only give up something to God because we want more back, there is nothing of the Holy Spirit in our abandonment; it is miserable commercial self–interest. That we gain heaven, that we are delivered from sin, that we are made useful to God – these things never enter as considerations into real abandonment, which is a personal sovereign preference for Jesus Christ Himself.

When we come up against the barriers of natural relationship, where is Jesus Christ? Most of us desert Him – “Yes, Lord, I did hear Thy call; but my mother is in the road, my wife, my self–interest, and I can go no further.” “Then,” Jesus says, “you cannot be My disciple.”

The test of abandonment is always over the neck of natural devotion. Go over it, and God’s own abandonment will embrace all those you had to hurt in abandoning. Beware of stopping short of abandonment to God. Most of us know abandonment in vision only.

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For my house, and all those associated with my house:

"25 “Your locks will be iron and bronze, And according to your days, so will your leisurely walk be. 

(KJV: "so shall thy strength be." I prefer the literal "leisurely walk." I see myself walking out the door on a foggy morning before dawn, whispering His Word with every step, coffee in hand, walking my lands, covering my family and all of my house. Getting old but no time to notice.)

26 “There is none like the God of Jeshurun, Who rides the heavens to your help, And through the skies in His majesty. 

(The fire in the sky of the rising sun is my Father's Presence, coming to the Meeting Place.)

27 “The eternal God is a dwelling place, And underneath are the everlasting arms; And He drove out the enemy from before you, And said, ‘Destroy!’ 

(The Lord never sleeps nor slumbers. As I rest under the protection of His hardened angelic detail, Lord Jehovah Sabaoth is dealing with enemies I don't even know I have.)

28 “So Israel dwells in security, The fountain of Jacob secluded, In a land of grain and new wine; His heavens also drop down dew. 

(There is no man saved by the multitude of an host: a man is not delivered by much strength. I wake up with my head covered in dew, my lands prospered, and all I did was sleep in His Presence.)

29 “Blessed are you, O Israel; Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD, Who is the shield of your help And the sword of your majesty! So your enemies will cringe before you, And you will tread upon their high places.”" 

[Deuteronomy 33:25-29 NASB95]

There is no name like His Name.

Father, allow my house no prosperity that does not come by Your holy hand. Kill every tare, every weed, every vine You do not plant. Rip them out by the roots. I'll burn them and throw out the ashes. 

All I have and am is Yours. I plant my seed on Your lands. Grow Your Holy fruit, bring Your righteous harvest. Bring glory to Yourself, Most High God, Lord and King Jesus Christ, and indwelling Holy Spirit. And Creator-God, let every member of my house, Your house, die old, hardened by Your power in faith, and standing up in Your service.