Vision and Reality

              “We always have visions, before a thing is made real. When we realize that although the vision is real, it is not real in us, then is the time that Satan comes in with his temptations, and we are apt to say it is no use to go on. Instead of the vision becoming real, there has come the valley of humiliation.”

(These quotes are taken from Devotions for MORNING and EVENING with Oswald Chambers)

                             “Life is not as idle ore,

                             But iron dug from central gloom,

                             And batter’d by the shocks of doom

                             To shape and use.

               God gives us the vision, then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we will have patience. Think of the enormous leisure of God! He is never in a hurry. We are always in such a frantic hurry. In the light of the glory of the vision we go forth to do things, but the vision is not real in us yet; and God has to take us into the valley, and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the place where He can trust us with the veritable reality. Ever since we had the vision God has been at work, getting us into the shape of the ideal, and over and over again we escape from his hand and try to batter ourselves into our own shape.

              The vision is not a castle in the air, but a vision of what God wants you to be. Let Him put you on His wheel and whirl you as He likes, and as sure as God is God and you are you, you will turn out exactly in accordance with the vision. Don’t lose heart in the process. If you have ever had the vision of God, you may try as you like to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never let you.” (pg. 388 for July 6)

               Are you relying on yourself in any particular in this new proposition which God has put before you?.. Are you sufficiently right with God to expect Him to Manifest His wonderful life in you?

 

              We say—‘If I really could believe!’ the point is—If I really will believe. No wonder Jesus Christ lays such emphasis on the sin of unbelief. ‘And He did not many might works there because of their unbelief.’ If we really believed that God meant what He said—what should we be like! Dare I really let God be to me all that He says He will be?” (July 9   pg.394)

             “You have to walk in the light of the vision that has been given to you and not compare yourself with others or judge them, that is between them and God. When you find that a point of view in which you have been delighting clashes with the heavenly vision and you debate, certain things will begin to develop in you—a sense of property and a sense of personal right, things of which Jesus Christ made nothing. He was always against these things as being the root of everything alien to Himself.

               If there is one standard in the New Testament revealed by the light of God and you do not come up to it, and do not feel inclined to come up to it, that is the beginning of backsliding because it means your conscience does not answer to the truth. You can never be the same after the unveiling of a truth. That moment marks you for going on as a more true disciple of Jesus Christ or for going back as a deserter.”   Dec. 29   pg. 750

              “When God gives a vision and darkness follow, wait. God will make you in accordance with the vision He has given if you will wait His time. Never try and help God fulfil His word…Have I any confidence in the flesh? Or have I got beyond all confidence in myself and in men and women of God; in books and prayers and ecstasies; and is my confidence placed now in God Himself, not in His blessings. ‘I am the Almighty God’ – El-Shaddai, the Father-Mother god. The one thing for which we are all being disciplined is to know that God is real. As soon as God becomes real, other people become shadows. nothing that other saints do or say can ever perturb the one who is built on God.”  (Jan. 19  pg 38)

”Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.”  Acts 16: 10 NKJV

jowildflowers@gmail.com  jean-oathout.blogspot.com  Tomorrow’s post: The Me That You See is NOT What will be  by Hope Flinchbaugh