Today's "My Utmost For His Highest" by Oswald Chambers is an exhortation to born again believers to make sure that we are keeping our focus right!
Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things. — Isaiah 40:26
The people of God in Isaiah’s day had starved their imagination by looking on the face of idols, and Isaiah made them look up at the heavens; that is, he made them begin to use their imagination aright. Nature to a saint is sacramental. If we are children of God, we have a tremendous treasure in Nature. In every wind that blows, in every night and day of the year, in every sign of the sky, in every blossoming and in every withering of the earth, there is a real coming of God to us if we will simply use our starved imagination to realize it.
The test of spiritual concentration is bringing the imagination into captivity. Is your imagination looking on the face of an idol? Is the idol yourself? Your work? Your conception of what a worker should be? Your experience of salvation and sanctification? Then your imagination of God is starved, and when you are up against difficulties you have no power, you can only endure in darkness. If your imagination is starved, do not look back to your own experience; it is God Whom you need. Go right out of yourself, away from the face of your idols, away from everything that has been starving your imagination. Rouse yourself, take the gibe that Isaiah gave the people, and deliberately turn your imagination to God.
When I look at beautiful things in nature, I instantly think of Genesis 1:1:1 In the beginning God (prepared, formed, fashioned, and) created the heavens and the earth.
GOD did that! Every beautiful scene, from sunrises to sunsets, from skies, land and seas, every beautiful thing was created by the One, True, Most High, Living, Almighty God of the Bible! Everything NOT beautiful once WAS beautiful, but because of sin and the curse that is in the earth because of sin, it may now be completely the opposite! I have been so awed by the beautiful skies that I have seen the last couple of years! I am sure that they were always there, but I am in a better position now to notice them and to appreciate where they came from! Many years ago we sang a song at The Spoken Word Church that had these words in it: "Maker of the Heavens, Painter of the sky". THAT was JESUS! I encourage you to make a decision to actively thank and appreciate HIM whenever you see something beautiful, receive something wonderful, hear any good report, and then TELL others about your GOOD, GOOD GOD! AMEN! Here is Hillsong with "Oceans Will Part":
Shalom in Him!
