Today's "My Utmost For His Highest" by Oswald Chambers is one that is VITAL for our continued spiritual growth, so that we can be useful to HIM in this world!
Quench Not The Spirit
Quench not the Spirit. — 1 Thessalonians 5:19
The voice of the Spirit is as
gentle as a zephyr, so gentle that unless you are living in perfect communion
with God, you never hear it. The checks of the Spirit come in the most
extraordinarily gentle ways, and if you are not sensitive enough to detect His
voice you will quench it, and your personal spiritual life will be impaired.
His checks always come as a still small voice, so small that no one but the
saint notices them.
Beware if in personal testimony
you have to hark back and say — “Once, so many years ago, I was saved.” If you
are walking in the light, there is no harking back, the past is transfused into
the present wonder of communion with God. If you get out of the light you
become a sentimental Christian and live on memories, your testimony has a hard,
metallic note. Beware of trying to patch up a present refusal to walk in the
light by recalling past experiences when you did walk in the light. Whenever
the Spirit checks, call a halt and get the thing right, or you will go on
grieving Him without knowing it.
Suppose God has brought you up to
a crisis and you nearly go through but not quite, He will engineer the crisis
again, but it will not be so keen as it was before. There will be less
discernment of God and more humiliation at not having obeyed; and if you go on
grieving the Spirit, there will come a time when that crisis cannot be
repeated, you have grieved Him away. But if you go through the crisis, there
will be the psalm of praise to God. Never sympathize with the thing that is
stabbing God all the time. God has to hurt the thing that must go.
Notice that I struck through the word 'perfect' in the first paragraph. I believe that a better word for the day in which we live would be 'continual'! None of us are perfect, so our communion with Him will never be 'perfect' this side of Heaven! But, we can practice continual communion with Him by keeping ourselves aware of His presence within us! Remember, He will NEVER leave us or forsake us! That means that He is ALWAYS, at ALL times, living IN us! When we are aware of HIM, and when we are not! The problem is that if we do not stay in a state of awareness, we will not have the confidence that He is there and ever ready to be exactly what we need at any given time! Take whatever time is needful for YOU to stay continually aware of HIM in YOU and you will never lack the confidence that HE is WHO HE says that HE is, and YOU are who HE says that YOU are, too! AMEN! Here is Hillsong with the song by that name! Just for you! Shalom in Him!
