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 GOD FIRST Oswald Chambers

"Jesus did not commit Himself unto them . . . for He knew what was in man." John 2:24-25

"Put trust in God first. The Lord Jesus trusted no man; yet He was never suspicious, never bitter, never in despair about any man, because He put God first in trust; He trusted absolutely in what God's grace could do for any man. 

If I put my trust in human beings first, I will end in despairing of everyone; I will become bitter, because I have insisted on man being what no man ever can be - absolutely right. Never trust anything but the grace of God in yourself or in anyone else." 

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Jesus made clear the commandment that we were to seek the Kingdom of God as the only thing to which we were to devote ourselves. That is what "Seek first the Kingdom," means. When we seek His rule in our lives, over every aspect of our lives, we can trust that He will bring order and motivation to every aspect of our daily living, as we follow Him. That includes our work, avocation as well as vocation, all relationships with others as well as with ourselves.

It is not more "knowledge" that will make us secure and at rest. That is what the serpent promised Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Satan even intimated that if they had more knowledge, that of good and evil, we wouldn't need God. He lied insinuating that God was holding out on mankind, the Promethean lie. 

Insight and revelation about the essence of life, personality, and what it really means to be human come from God and nowhere else. His Word is truly alive and active and can pierce deeply to differentiate between what is soulish and what is spiritual. God is the One who was going to cause Adam and Eve to grow into their full potential as they lived out their relationship with God, who was very Life within them. They chose to believe a lie and spiritually, essentially died, separated from the Life of God.

Satan has always tried to offer human beings alternatives which promise wisdom, insight of how to live, but always fall infinitely short of what is promised by demons. Things like Astrology and its intellectualized twin, the Enneagram, both are based in demonic delusion and overlayed with what seems obvious about human nature in all its dimension and it all its brokenness. But of you look deeply at any religions offering other than the Gospel, you'll find demonic systems like Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and the like offering very religious means by which human beings can try and save, redeem, restore and heal itself by working hard. That is an impossibility since what is broken and spiritually dead has no ability to make itself alive again or fix itself.

God alone can save. He alone can heal the human life as deeply as it needs to be healed. He alone can make the dead to live again with a brand-new heart, a new spirit, and a Life that is eternal. It is there, where, by the Holy Spirit, we are made able to daily live into the wholeness, renewal, restoration and the fullness of the salvation Jesus Christ alone has made the heritage of all who will believe Him and all He has done. God alone makes the way into the fullness of life called salvation. Nothing else can. 

Our trust is either in God alone or we can choose to live in various degrees of deception, shadow and the certain inevitability of being eternally cut off from all that we were meant to live in before the fall in Eden.

Choose wisely.

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