Jesus Christ – Mum's devotional

Now I’m just being evil…

January 4th

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

Revelation 22:13-14, 17 (NIV)

It is true that the temporal order has its time; but the Eternal shall always have time. If this should not happen within a man’s life, then the Eternal comes again under another name, and once again shall always have time. This is repentance. Confession is a holy act, which calls for a collected mind. A collected mind is a mind that has collected itself from every distraction, from every relation, in order to center itself upon this relation to itself as an individual who is responsible to God. It is a mind that has collected itself from every distraction, and therefore also from all comparison. For comparison may either tempt a man to an earthly and fortuitous despondency because the one who compares must admit to himself that he is behind many others, or it may tempt him to pride because, humanly speaking, he seems to be ahead of many others.

Father in Heaven! What is a man without Thee! What is all that he knows, vast accumulation though it be, but a chipped fragment if he does not know Thee! What is all his striving, could it even encompass the world, but a half-finished work if he does not know Thee: Thee the One, who art one thing and who art all! So may Thou give to the intellect, wisdom to comprehend that one thing; to the heart, sincerity to receive this understanding; to the will, purity that wills only one thing. In prosperity may Thou grant perseverance to will one thing; amid distractions, collectedness to will one thing; in suffering, patience to will one thing. Oh, Thou that giveth both the beginning and the completion, may Thou early, at the dawn of day, give to the young man the resolution to will one thing. As the day wanes, may Thou give to the old man a renewed remembrance of his first resolution, that the first may be like the last, the last like the first, in possession of a life that has willed only one thing. Alas, but this has indeed not come to pass. Something has come in between. The separation of sin lies in between. Each day, and day after day something is being placed in between: delay, blockage, interruption, delusion, corruption. So in this time of repentance may Thou give the courage once again to will one thing. True, it is an interruption of our daily tasks; we do lay down our work as though it were a day of rest, when the penitent (and it is only in a time of repentance that the heavy-laden worker may be quiet in the confession of sin) is alone before Thee. This is indeed an interruption. But it is an interruption that searches back into its very beginnings that it might bind up anew that which sin has separated, that in its grief it might atone for lost time, that in its anxiety it might bring to completion that which lies beforeit. Oh, Thou that givest both the beginning and the completion, give Thou victory in the day of need so that what neither a man’s burning wish nor his determined resolution may attain to, may be granted unto him in the sorrowing of repentance: to will only one thing.

from Kierkegaard’s Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing (Ch. 15)

The good news is that since this is the last (daily) post, you will not be seeing any more Kierkegaard. The bad news is…. actually I don’t have any bad news. Sorry?

In the flesh, in our hearts, and in glory

December 1st, First Sunday of Advent

…He will proclaim peace to the nations.

Zechariah 9:10 (HCSB)

When they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage at the Mount of Olives, Jesus then sent two disciples, telling them, “Go into the village ahead of you. At once you will find a donkey tied there, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to Me. If anyone says anything to you, you should say that the Lord needs them, and immediately he will send them.”

This took place so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled:

Tell Daughter Zion, “See, your King is coming to you, gentle, and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.”

The disciples went and did just as Jesus directed them. They brought the donkey and the colt; then they laid their robes on them, and He sat on them. A very large crowd spread their robes on the roads; others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them on the road. Then the crowds who went ahead of Him and those who followed kept shouting:

Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!

When He entered Jerusalem, the whole city was shaken, saying, “Who is this?” And the crowds kept saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee!”

Matthew 21:1-10 (HCSB)

Here is the King’s Singers’ Veni, Veni Emmanuel on Youtube and Spotify. Because Latin, is cool. There’s also Josh Wilson’s O Come Emmanuel, for those of you that don’t think Latin is cool.

…and here is a photo of the Lagoon Nebula from last year’s Hubble Advent Calendar in The Atlantic. I’m sure there’s one this year, but I want to be able to post it on the right day. (I love Advent calendars, because, deep down, I’m actually just a really verbose five year old, and like to put things in their proper cubbyholes. Bonus points if they’re shiny.)

Organism vs. organization

November 2nd

Now we are writing you nothing other than what you can read and also understand. I hope you will understand completely —as you have partially understood us— that we are your reason for pride, as you are ours, in the day of our Lord Jesus.

2 Corinthians 1:13-14 (HCSB)

The Church of Jesus Christ is an organism; we are built up into Him, baptised by one Spirit into one body. Churchianity is an organisation; Christianity is an organism. Organisation is an enormous benefit until it is mistaken for the life. God has no concern about our organisations. When their purpose is finished He allows them to be swept aside, and if we are attached to the organisation, we shall go with it. Organisation is a great necessity, but not an end in itself, and to live for any organisation is a spiritual disaster.

from Oswald Chambers’ Shadow of an Agony,
(Humanity and Holiness)

Natural life

October 30th

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

John 3:6 (ESV)

…If I do not put to death the things in me that are not of God, they will put to death the things that are of God.

There are things in a man’s natural life that are fine and beautiful, but when a man comes to Jesus Christ, he has to forgo them, and go to their “white funeral.” This is a phrase Tennyson uses in speaking of the “white funeral” of the single life; and that aspect is the only one that suits the spiritual life. Think of it in reference to babyhood, there comes a time when that phase dies and child life begins; there is a “white funeral” of the baby; and then a “white funeral” of the child and girlhood begins. Apply that spiritually.

There is any amount in paganism that is good and virtuous, but if I am going on with Jesus Christ, I have to give those things a “white funeral,” make a termination of them, and we very often get there through disenchantment. It is not true that everything in life apart from Christ is bad; there are many virtues that are good and moral, pride and self-interest are remarkably fine things in some aspects, “highly esteemed among men,” but when I see Jesus Christ I have to go to their moral death. Any fool will give up wrongdoing and the devil, if he knows how to do it; but it takes a man in love with Jesus Christ to give up the best he has for Him. Jesus Christ does not demand that I give up the wrong, but the right, the best I have for Him, viz., my right to myself. Will I agree to go through my “white funeral” and say I deliberately cut out my claim to my right to myself, deliberately go to the death of my self- will? If I will, instantly the Spirit of God begins to work, and slowly the new mind is formed.

These crises are reached in personal life, and we find the same thing in the life outside, and the only line of solution is this one. If we find a line of emancipation and solution for ourselves, we have also found a line of solution for problems outside ourselves. Moral problems are only solved by obedience. We cannot see what we see until we see it. Intellectually things can be worked out, but morally the solution is only reached by obedience. One step in obedience is worth years of study, and will take us into the centre of God’s will for us. All our darkness comes because we will try to get into the thing head first. We must be born into the kingdom of God, Jesus says, before we can begin to think about it…

from Oswald Chambers’ Shadow of an Agony
(The Psychological Phase-II, Man Becomes What He Is)

The nature of goodness

October 24th

…one came and said to Him, “Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?”

Matthew 19:16 (NKJV)

…the Son no more thought of his own goodness than an honest man thinks of his honesty. When the good man sees goodness, he thinks of his own evil: Jesus had no evil to think of, but neither does he think of his goodness; he delights in his Father’s. ‘Why callest thou me good? None is good save one, even God.‘

Checked thus, the youth turns to the question which, working in his heart, had brought him running, and made him kneel: what good thing shall he do that he may have eternal life? It is unnecessary to inquire precisely what he meant by eternal life. Whatever shape the thing took to him, that shape represented a something he needed and had not got—a something which, it was clear to him, could be gained only in some path of good. But he thought to gain a thing by a doing, when the very thing desired was a being: he would have that as a possession which must possess him.

The Lord cared neither for isolated truth nor for orphaned deed. It was truth in the inward parts, it was the good heart, the mother of good deeds, he cherished. It was the live, active, knowing, breathing good he came to further. He cared for no speculation in morals or religion. It was good men he cared about, not notions of good things, or even good actions, save as the outcome of life… Could he by one word have set at rest all the questionings of philosophy as to the supreme good and the absolute truth, I venture to say that word he would not have uttered. But he would die to make men good and true. His whole heart would respond to the cry of sad publican or despairing pharisee, ‘How am I to be good?’

It is not with this good thing and that good thing we have to do, but with that power whence comes our power even to speak the word good. We have to do with him to whom no one can look without the need of being good waking up in his heart; to think about him is to begin to be good. To do a good thing is to do a good thing; to know God is to be good. It is not to make us do all things right he cares, but to make us hunger and thirst after a righteousness possessing which we shall never need to think of what is or is not good, but shall refuse the evil and choose the good by a motion of the will which is at once necessity and choice.

from George MacDonald’s Unspoken Sermons (Vol. 2, The Way)

The mentality of Christ

October 18th

We are here for God’s designs, not for our own. We have to learn that this is the dispensation of the humiliation of the saints. The Christian Church has blundered by not recognising this. In another dispensation the manifestation of the saints will take place, but in this dispensation we are to be disciples of Jesus Christ, not following our own convictions but remaining true to Him.

The great lack to-day is of people who will think along Christian lines; we know a great deal about salvation but we do not go on to explore the “unsearchable riches of Christ.” We do not know much about giving up the right to ourselves to Jesus Christ, or about the intense patience of “hanging in” in perfect certainty that what Jesus says is true.

Oswald Chambers

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus:

Who, existing in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God
something to be grasped,
but emptied Himself,
taking the form of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
He humbled Himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross.
Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place
and gave Him the name above all names,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:5-11 (BSB)

…and I have forgotten completely which particular Oswald Chambers work that came from. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Peccavi nimis…

….what, too much?

Ability vs. office

September 25th

When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

1 Corinthians 2:1-2 (NIV)

They talk in exalted terms of St, Paul’s brilliance and profundity, of his beautiful similes and so on— that is mere aestheticism. If St. Paul is to be regarded as a genius, then things look black for him.

To say something good of an Apostle, when it is inapposite, does him no service, for as a result he is acclaimed for what in this case is a matter of indifference, and admired as something which essentially he is not, and then what he is is quite forgotten. This kind of thoughtless eloquence is quite as likely to celebrate St. Paul as a stylist and an artist in words or, better still, since it is after all well known that he was also engaged in a craft, as a tent-maker whose masterly work surpassed that of all upholsterers before and since — for as long as one says something good about St. Paul all is well. As a genius St. Paul cannot be compared with either Plato or Shakespeare, as a coiner of beautiful similes he comes pretty low down in the scale, as a stylist his name is quite obscure — and as an upholsterer: well, I frankly admit I have no idea how to place him. The point is that it is always better to treat stupid solemnity as a joke and then the really serious thing becomes apparent, the fact that St. Paul is an Apostle. As an Apostle St. Paul has no connexion whatsoever with Plato or Shakespeare, with stylists or upholsterers, and none of them can possibly be compared with him.

from Kierkegaard’s The Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle

It only occurred to me after picking this that some people can be super-weird about “apostles.” Basically, most of that can be cleared up by actually reading the New Testament. And, of course, practicing the whole ‘he who wants to be first among you should be the servant of all.’ The word “apostle” literally means ‘someone who is sent’ (‘…by God’ is the implication). That’s all.

The Comforter

September 21st

But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.

John 15:26-27 (KJV)

If all Jesus Christ can do is to tell a man he has to cheer up when he is miserable; if all the worker for God can do is to tell a man he has no business to have the “blues”—I say if that is all Jesus Christ’s religion can do, then it is a failure. But the wonder of our Lord Jesus Christ is just this, that you can face Him with any kind of men or women you like, and He can cure them and put them into a right relationship with God.

When a worker meets a soul like that, what is he going to do—preach the gospel of temperament, “Cheer up and look on the bright side,” or preach Jesus Christ?

Oswald Chambers’ The Cure of Souls (Ch. 6)

…and here’s Jars of Clay’s version of The Comforter Has Come on Youtube and Spotify respectively.

Living Temples

September 13th

Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

1 Corinthians 3:16 (NKJV)

God is especially present in the hearts of his people by his Holy Spirit; and the hearts of holy men are temples in the truth of things, and, in type and shadow, they are heaven itself. For God reigns in the hearts of his servants; there is his kingdom. The power of grace has subdued all his enemies: there is his power. They serve him night and day, and give him thanks and praise; that is his glory. This is the religion and worship of God in the temple. The temple itself is the heart of man; Christ is the high-priest, who from there sends up the incense of prayers, and joins them to his own intercession, and presents all together to his Father; and the Holy Ghost, by his dwelling there, has also consecrated it as a temple; and God dwells in our hearts by faith and Christ by his Spirit, and the Spirit by his purities: so that we are also cabinets* of the mysterious Trinity; and how is this short of heaven itself, except as infancy falls short of manhood, and letters of words? It is the same state of life, but not the same age. It is heaven in a looking-glass, dark, but yet true, representing the beauties of the soul, and the graces of God, and the images of his eternal glory.

from Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living (Ch. 1, Section 3)

*’Cabinet’ also meant a room, or even a small hut, at one point.

Childlikeness

September 7th

“Let the little children come to Me. Don’t stop them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

Mark 10:14 (HCSB)

Only Jesus Christ can give that true humility of heart which comes from him. It is born of his grace. It does not consist, as one imagines, in performing exterior acts of humility, although that is good, but in keeping one’s place. He who has a high opinion of himself is not truly humble. He who wants something for himself is no more so. But he… who is full of charity is really humble. He who does not seek his own interest, but the interest of God alone in time and for eternity, is humble. The more we love purely, the more perfect is our humility. Let us then not measure humility by the fabricated exterior. Let us not make it depend on one action or another, but on pure charity. Pure charity divests man of himself. It reclothes him with Jesus Christ. That is what true humility consists [of], which makes us live no longer for ourselves, but lets Jesus Christ live in us.

We are always trying to be something. But he who is humble seeks nothing. It is the same to him to be praised or scorned, because he assumes nothing for himself. Wherever he is placed, he stays. It does not even occur to him that he should be somewhere else.

The truly humble is one of those children of whom Jesus Christ said that the kingdom of heaven belongs to them. A child does not know what he needs. He can do nothing. He lets himself be led. Let us abandon ourselves then with courage… and we shall say with Mary that he has done great things in us…

from Francois Fenelon’s Christian Perfection (Humility)

…and here’s Michael Card’s Let the Children Come, because I couldn’t not.