Good Words

Our pastor here ends the service each week with "these good words"  -- a bene diction. I've been diligently searching lately for many benedictions. Reading, reading, studying, re-reading, thinking. The brain is slow and sluggish, and it's hard to think. Sometimes, good words have to be dug out with effort.

Oswalt Chambers had this to say to me yesterday:

"Have you been wondering why you are going through the things you are? It is not that you have to go through them; it is because of the relation into which the Son of God has come in His Father's providence in your particular sainthood. Let Him have His way, keep in perfect union with Him."

Okay, I had to read that about a dozen times at least, to understand it!

Oswalt Chambers

Chambers's devotional has to do with how Jesus lives in us. We have a vicarious existence, a "symbiotic" existence, for you sci-fi folks. I have to live in Jesus, in order to be saved in him, and be a child of God in him. But Jesus also lives in me. As I walk through my days, I take him with me. Am I living a life fit for him? Am I living always before the Father's face, in His house, as His child? These are Chambers's thoughts.

So, when I ask, "Why am I going through this situation?" I'm perhaps not asking rightly, according to Chambers. The situation exists, not for me to go through it, but (as he says) for Jesus to live it, through me. In the Father's providence, as he sanctifies me, He's ordained for Jesus to live out this situation in my life also. If Christ is in me, then he is living out this crisis also. He would live it in a holy way. He is my trainer, and as I'm in union with him, he teaches me how to respond to a crisis, a heart-ache, a sorrow.  I pattern my movements after his lead.

I could go on and on. Chambers's devotional for today continues the same theme. Too much to digest!

And this morning, I read this verse in Joshua 21:45. "Not one of the good promises which the LORD had made to the house of Israel failed; all came to pass."

I need to hear that! As I've done before, I want to search out God's promises to me. I know when I find a promise in his Word, it's the truth, and I can claim it. I want to be cautious, and not claim promises that friends tell me, wanting to be helpful. Sometimes they proclaim, "God will do this!" or "God will do that for you!" They mean well, but I want to hear it from the one who'll be doing the promise-keeping. What the friend means is, "I hope God will do this for you!"

So, I want to fully claim God's promises to me, but not presume on him one inch. As his child, I want to know when I can confidently tell Him, "You promised me this," and when I can only say, "Lord, if it's your will, please do this." There's a difference.

Any thoughts on these? What do you think of Chambers's description of "life in Christ"?