Whole Hearted Repentance

“Now, therefore,” says the LORD,
“Turn to me with all your heart,
With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” . . .
Then the LORD will be zealous for His land,
And pity His people.
JOEL 2:12, 18

True repentance is not a pleasant experience, at least not initially. It involves a broken heart and deep sorrow. In Joel 2:12, such wholehearted repentance is characterized by fasting, weeping, and mourning. No, it’s not pleasant to get a glimpse of our sin-stained self from our holy God’s perspective. . . .
But, ideally, that accurate picture of who we are in all our sin compels us to cry out to God, and whenever we do so, He hears us. Whenever we are brokenhearted and genuinely humbled by the reality of our sin, God will have compassion on us and forgive us. Sometimes in our pride, though, we think that not even God can forgive us. Know that such thoughts are the enemy’s lies, and counter them with the truth of Scripture. The truth of 1 John 1:8–9 is a powerful weapon when Satan whispers in your ear that you’ve committed the unforgivable.
Also know that, when you’ve repented of your sin and received God’s gracious forgiveness, the outcome is a new beginning, a conspicuous change in the direction of your life, the Lord’s blessing rather than His judgment, and joy. The result of repentance is always amazing!


Henry Blackaby and Richard Blackaby, Being Still with God Every Day (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2014).

In Times of Crisis

But You, O LORD, do not be far from Me; O My Strength, hasten to help Me!
PSALM 22:19

Psalm 22 immediately reveals that David was in trouble. “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” the psalm opens. David boldly complained that God was not hearing his prayers. He told God—as if the Lord didn’t already know—that “trouble is near” and added rather accusingly that “there is none to help [me]” (v. 11). The accusations continued: “You have brought Me to the dust of death” (v. 15). As his enemies surrounded him, the situation looked grim for David.
Maybe your circumstances don’t look good right now. In times of crisis, however, what others are attempting is not as important as what God is doing. The advance of the enemy, their weapons, their proximity—none of these is as important as God’s presence and activity. When we focus on God in even the worst of predicaments, we always discover that He is near and that His presence is our deliverance.
Right now, focus on God’s presence right where you are. Ask Him to deliver you from what besets you—the enemies of doubt, fear, poverty, loneliness, broken relationships, illness, loss—and watch Him work His perfect plan in His perfect way in His perfect time.


Henry Blackaby and Richard Blackaby, Being Still with God Every Day (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2014).

Completing a Kingdom Task

The elders of the Jews . . . built and finished [the temple], according to the commandment of the God of Israel.
EZRA 6:14

Anyone who has attempted to rebuild something knows that unexpected events happen along the way. That was true for the Israelites as they rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem . . .
The unexpected for them, however, involved extra blessings rather than difficulties with contractors, delays in getting city approval, or additional expenses. Hear what King Darius of Persia decreed: “Let the cost [for building this house of God] be paid at the king’s expense” (v. 8). Darius added, “Whatever they need [for offering to God] . . . let it be given them day by day without fail” (v. 9).
Often God adds bonus delights and blessings when He answers our prayers. Perhaps He does so in response to our faithfulness or obedience. The fundamental reason, however, is that He loves us dearly.
God showed His love for Israel by providing for the construction effort through a pagan king and people, enabling His children to persevere and complete the temple. What a cause for celebration!
What God-given assignment are you carrying out? Persevere—and watch God provide for you. The celebration of completing your kingdom task is worth the effort!


Henry Blackaby and Richard Blackaby, Being Still with God Every Day (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2014).

Mercy And Grace

I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant.
1 TIMOTHY 1:13–14

Peanut butter and jelly. Forks and spoons. Mercy and grace. Some things just go together—and, thankfully, mercy and grace are such a pair in the kingdom of God.
To obtain mercy means “to receive exemption from the punishment that one deserves.” And every one of us deserves punishment for our sins. Perhaps those sins aren’t as dramatic as Paul’s—or maybe they’re every bit as intense or worse. But God doesn’t rank sin. Sin is sin, and all who sin—and that’s everyone—deserves the punishment of separation from God forever.
Now for mercy’s theological partner . . . grace. Whereas mercy is deserved punishment withheld, grace is undeserved favor bestowed. Our loving God hasn’t given us what we sinners rightly deserve. Instead He has freely offered salvation through Jesus, who took our sin upon Himself. The apostle Paul deserved punishment as a blasphemer and persecutor of the church, but God showed him mercy.
Cups and saucers. Salt and pepper. And, yes, mercy and grace. Some things go together perfectly.
Thank You, Lord!


Henry Blackaby and Richard Blackaby, Being Still with God Every Day (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2014).

Are You Ready To Be Offered?

I am already being poured out as a drink offering. 2 Tim. 4:6 (R.V. marg.).

“I am now ready to be offered.” It is a transaction of will, not of sentiment. Tell God you are ready to be offered; then let the consequences be what they may, there is no strand of complaint now, no matter what God chooses. God puts you through the crisis in private, no one person can help another. Externally the life may be the same; the difference is in will. Go through the crisis in will, then when it comes externally there will be no thought of the cost. If you do not transact in will with God along this line, you will end in awakening sympathy for yourself.
“Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.” The altar means fire—burning and purification and insulation for one purpose only, the destruction of every affinity that God has not started and of every attachment that is not an attachment in God. You do not destroy it, God does; you bind the sacrifice to the horns of the altar; and see that you do not give way to self-pity when the fire begins. After this way of fire, there is nothing that oppresses or depresses. When the crisis arises, you realize that things cannot touch you as they used to do. What is your way of fire?
Tell God you are ready to be offered, and God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be.


Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year (Grand Rapids, MI: Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering, 1986).

Are You Ready to be Offered?

Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all. Phil. 2:17.

Are you willing to be offered for the work of the faithful—to pour out your life blood as a libation on the sacrifice of the faith of others? Or do you say—‘I am not going to be offered up just yet, I do not want God to choose my work. I want to choose the scenery of my own sacrifice; I want to have the right kind of people watching me and saying, “Well done.” ’
It is one thing to go on the lonely way with dignified heroism, but quite another thing if the line mapped out for you by God means being a door-mat under other people’s feet. Suppose God wants to teach you to say, “I know how to be abased”—are you ready to be offered up like that? Are you ready to be not so much as a drop in a bucket—to be so hopelessly insignificant that you are never thought of again in connection with the life you served? Are you willing to spend and be spent; not seeking to be ministered unto, but to minister? Some saints cannot do menial work and remain saints because it is beneath their dignity.


Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year (Grand Rapids, MI: Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering, 1986).

The Overmastering Majesty of Personal Power

For the love of Christ constraineth us. 2 Cor. 5:14.

Paul says he is overruled, overmastered, held as in a vice, by the love of Christ. Very few of us know what it means to be held in a grip by the love of God; we are held by the constraint of our experience only. The one thing that held Paul, until there was nothing else on his horizon, was the love of God. “The love of Christ constraineth us”—when you hear that note in a man or woman, you can never mistake it. You know that the Spirit of God is getting unhindered way in that life.
When we are born again of the Spirit of God, the note of testimony is on what God has done for us, and rightly so. But the baptism of the Holy Ghost obliterates that for ever, and we begin to realize what Jesus meant when He said—“Ye shall be witnesses unto Me.” Not witnesses to what Jesus can do—that is an elementary witness—but “witnesses unto Me.” We will take everything that happens as happening to Him, whether it be praise or blame, persecution or commendation. No one can stand like that for Jesus Christ who is not constrained by the majesty of His personal power. It is the only thing that matters, and the strange thing is that it is the last thing realized by the Christian worker. Paul says he is gripped by the love of Christ; that is why he acts as he does. Men may call him mad or sober, but he does not care; there is only one thing he is living for, and that is to persuade men of the judgment seat of God, and of the love of Christ. This abandon to the love of Christ is the one thing that bears fruit in the life, and it will always leave the impression of the holiness and of the power of God, never of our personal holiness.


Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year (Grand Rapids, MI: Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering, 1986).