Quote from Forum Archives on September 20, 2000, 5:32 pm

Posted by: masinick <masinick@...>

Dear friends,

I think that having a deep admiration and love for someone or
something helps us to have a certain attitude about that thing.
When we have a deep admiration of a person, it affects the way we
treat them.

When we have a deep admiration and love for our Creator, it
affects our attitude, not only toward God, but toward one
another. So I think that when we look to Jesus, not only as our
first love, but as our model - for our attitudes, our responses,
and our actions, then we begin to take on His character.

Take a look at today's issue of My Utmost for His Highest.

Dear Lord, I desire to give You first place in everything I do
today. Please help me, because it is a continual struggle. I
need You just as much today as I need You, every moment of every
day. Thank You that I have the assurance of Your constant
Presence. Amen.

Brother Brian

September 20

The Divine Commandment of Life

"... be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect"
(Matthew 5:48).

Our Lord's exhortation to us in verses 38-48 is to be generous
in our behavior toward everyone. Beware of living according to
your natural affections in your spiritual life. Everyone has
natural affections -- some people we like and others we don't
like. Yet we must never let those likes and dislikes rule our
Christian life. "If we walk in the light as He is in the light,
we have fellowship with one another" (1 John 1:7), even those
toward whom we have no affection.

The example our Lord gave us here is not that of a good person,
or even of a good Christian, but of God Himself. "... be
perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." In other
words, simply show to the other person what God has shown to
you. And God will give you plenty of real life opportunities
to prove whether or not you are "perfect, just as your Father
in heaven is perfect." Being a disciple means deliberately
identifying yourself with God's interests in other people.
Jesus says, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one
another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have
love for one another" (John 13:34-35).

The true expression of Christian character is not in
good-doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has
transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics
in your life, not just good human characteristics. God's life
in us expresses itself as God's life, not as human life trying
to be godly. The secret of a Christian's life is that the
supernatural becomes natural in him as a result of the grace of
God, and the experience of this becomes evident in the
practical, everyday details of life, not in times of intimate
fellowship with God. And when we come in contact with things
that create confusion and a flurry of activity, we find to our
own amazement that we have the power to stay wonderfully poised
even in the center of it all.

Authorized By The Oswald Chambers Publications Association, Ltd.

1997 RBC Ministries--Grand Rapids, MI 49555-0001
www.gospelcom.net/rbc/utmost/devo/utmost.shtml

=====
--
Brian Masinick, "The Mas", mailto:masinick@yahoo.com
Home page: www.geocities.com/masinick/
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