YESTERDAY

(today's reading from "My Utmost For His Highest" by Oswald Chambers)

Yesterday
You shall not go out with haste, . . . for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard —Isaiah 52:12


Security from Yesterday. ". . . God requires an account of what is past" ( Ecclesiastes 3:15 ). At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God’s grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present.

Security for Tomorrow. ". . . the Lord will go before you . . . ." This is a gracious revelation— that God will send His forces out where we have failed to do so. He will keep watch so that we will not be tripped up again by the same failures, as would undoubtedly happen if He were not our "rear guard." And God’s hand reaches back to the past, settling all the claims against our conscience.

Security for Today. "You shall not go out with haste . . . ." As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, forgetful delight, nor with the quickness of impulsive thoughtlessness. But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays hold broken and irreversible things for us. It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ.

Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.

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Funny thing…I posted this just before I headed out for work this morning. I was planning to add more to it but didn’t quite have the time. Well, in my hurry to get to work on time I rushed out the door. It was raining and sleeting this morning (as I had already been warned by my sister about the slipperiness of it all and to take my time going to work because the roads were icy). Well, there I went out the door rushing to my car because I hadn’t left as early as I’d originally planned. My bags in one hand and umbrella in the other…in my heels, I stepped onto the sidewalk and bam! My rear end hits the ground and my umbrella flips inside out. It wasn’t painful, but rather funny in my mind knowing how silly I must’ve looked. Perhaps God is the only one who was watching, but He also was speaking to me as well. SLOW DOWN. YOU SHALL NOT GO OUT WITH HASTE…Another reminder from the Lord straight to me.

God has been using my current circumstances to teach me to wait on Him. He’s been strengthening my faith through struggles; and I can’t say I always react as I should in faith and in joy, but God is very patient and loving. When I try to hurry things because I think it must be right or I don’t have time, He lets me “slip on the sidewalk” and reminds me to be still and listen to His voice. The Lord also uses these “slip-ups” to speak to us I believe…We learn from our mistakes as Oswald Chambers said about our yesterdays, “He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future.” In my icy sidewalk situation I was also reminded to take it slow on my way to work so I didn’t end up in a greater predicament like running my car off the road or something much worse than a bent umbrella and a wet bottom. :-)

You shall not go out with haste, . . . for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard —Isaiah 52:12

I thought about this particular verse from Isaiah throughout my day and just thanked God for going before me and coming behind me. We may not always understand what He is doing, but He is in control. We must follow His leading as He goes ahead of us as our shepherd. We must let Him back us up as we wait on Him and His timing. He is God. :-) I am so thankful that He is my God! How awesome He is!

"The name of the LORD is a strong tower; The righteous runs into it and is safe." Proverbs 18:10

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5,6

"It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect." Psalm 18:32

The most wonderful message ever to be heard!

Another word to you all from my book "Knowing God." I actually read this chapter about God incarnate(in human form) a couple months ago. But it is something that I went back and reread because it has everything to do with the Christmas season for this is what Christmas is all about.
It is all too easy for us to get wrapped up in the world's definition of Christmas when we are surrounded by it every day everywhere we go. Let's take the time to meditate on our Savior and the reason why we even have Christmas and why we as Christians may have true "joy" in our hearts as we celebrate the birth of our Lord. May we be reminded of what it meant for Him to come to earth to die, and let's pray that the Lord will use us to share this hope with others who are in need of salvation.
Merry CHRISTmas!
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"The Word became flesh." (Jn 1:14) God became man.
The Christmas message rests on the staggering fact that the child in the manger was- GOD.

The baby born at Bethlehem was God made man. The Word had become flesh: a real human baby. He had not ceased to be God; He was no less God than before; but He had begun to be man. He was not now God MINUS some elements of His deity, but God PLUS all that He had made His own by taking manhood to Himself.
ALL THIS WAS FOR OUR SALVATION!

He became poor. We see now what it meant for the Son of God to empty Himself and become poor. It meant laying aside of glory. It meant love to the uttermost for unlovely human beings, that they through His poverty might become rich.
The Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity- hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory- because at the Father's will Jesus Christ became poor and was born in a stable so that thirty years later He might hang on a cross. It is the most wonderful message that the world has ever heard, or will hear.

We talk glibly of the "Christmas spirit," rarely meaning more by this than sentimental jollity on a family basis. But what we have said makes it clear that the phrase should carry a tremendous weight of meaning. It ought to mean the reproducing in human lives of the temper of Him who for our sake became poor at the first Christmas. And the Christmas spirit itself ought to be the mark of every Christian all the year round.

The Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor- spending and being spent- to enrich their fellow humans, giving time, trouble, care and concern, to do good to others- and not just their own friends- in whatever way there seems need.

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich." 2 Corinthians 8:9

"Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus." Philippians 2:5