Friday, October 31, 2008

Friday's CUP

I read something this morning that was very encouraging to me.....

Oswald Chambers wrote about Discernment of Faith from the verse in Matthew "Faith as a grain of mustard seed....". "We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith. It may be so in the initial stages, but we do not earn anything by faith; faith brings us into right relationship with God and gives God His opportunity. God has frequently to knock the bottom board out of your experience if you are a saint in order to get you into contact with Himself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of sentimental enjoyment of His blessings. Your earlier life of faith was narrow and intense, settled around a little sun-spot of experience that had as much of sense as of faith in it, full or light and sweetness; then God withdrew His conscious blessing in order to teach you to walk by faith. You are worth far more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight and thrilling testimony."

Walking by Faith is so hard at times but I was reminded this morning that I'd much rather be in a place of living by Faith than in a place where I'm full of worldly joys and gifts, as pleasing as they sometimes are and as much we desire them...they still leave us empty once the initial pleasing has worn off. Worldly joys aren't in and of themselves bad, but when they are what makes us content and happy and full of joy, we are gravely mislead.

Happy Friday! Cheers!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very encouraging...thank you! Let's live this out daily.

Jenny M. said...

Good stuff, as usual. Amen and amen. I need to dust off that 'ol Oswald book of mine, always a good read.

Love the background...see you soon!!!

Mary said...

Andrea-
I can't tell you what a blessing you are to me. Your encouraging words have blessed me more than I can say. Thank you for your kindness. I am very grateful for you.
Mary