Today's "My Utmost For His Highest" by Oswald Chambers is very good and also very important!
Sublime Intimacy
Said I not unto you, that, if you would believe, thou
should see the glory of God? — John 11:40
Every time you venture out in the life of faith, you will
find something in your commonsense circumstances that flatly contradicts your
faith. Common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense; they stand in
the relation of the natural and the spiritual. Can you trust Jesus Christ where
your common sense cannot trust Him? Can you venture heroically on Jesus
Christ’s statements when the facts of your commonsense life shout “It’s a lie”?
On the mount it is easy to say — “Oh, yes, I believe God can do it”; but you
have to come down into the demon-possessed valley and meet with facts that
laugh ironically at the whole of your mount-of-transfiguration belief. Every
time my programme of belief is clear to my own mind, I come across something
that contradicts it. Let me say I believe God will supply all my need, and then
let me run dry, with no outlook, and see whether I will go through the trial of
faith, or whether I will sink back to something lower.
Faith must be tested, because it can be turned into a
personal possession only through conflict. What is your faith up against just
now? The test will either prove that your faith is right, or it will kill it.
“Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me.” The final thing is
confidence in Jesus. Believe steadfastly on Him and all you come up against
will develop your faith. There is continual testing in the life of faith, and
the last great test is death. May God keep us in fighting trim! Faith is
unutterable trust in God, trust which never dreams that He will not stand by
us.
