New Hope Grows Moment By Moment

Inspirations from Holy Scripture
Through the words of Oswald Chambers

I thought with some of what we are all experiencing the following is good instruction from our Lord and Savior. This "blog" comes from "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers and is entitled: The Inspiration of Spiritual Initiative.

The Inspiration of Spiritual Initiative

"Arise from the dead..." (Ephesians 5:14)

February 20, 2021

"Arise from the dead...." (Ephesians 5:14) Not all initiative, the willingness to take the first step, is inspired by God. Someone may say to you, "Get up and get going! Take your reluctance by the throat and throw it overboard-just do what needs to be done!" That is what we mean by ordinary human initiative. But when the Spirit of God comes to us and says, in effect, "Get up and get going," suddenly we find that the initiative is inspired.

We all have many dreams and aspirations when we are young, but sooner or later we realize we have no power to accomplish them. We cannot do the things we long to do, so our tendency is to think of our dreams as aspirations as dead. But God comes and says to us, "Arise from the dead..." When God sends His inspiration, it comes to us with such miraculous power that we are able to "arise from the dead" and do the impossible. The remarkable thing about spiritual initiative is that the life and power comes AFTER we "get up and get going." God does not give us overcoming life--He gives us life AS WE OVERCOME. When the inspiration of God comes, and He says, "Arise from the dead...," we have to get OURSELVES up; God will not lift us up. Our Lord said to the man with the withered hand, "Stretch out your hand" (Matthew 12:13). As soon as the man did so, his hand was healed. But he had to take the initiative. If we will take the initiative to overcome, we will find that we have the inspiration of God, because He immediately give us the power of life.

Take the Initiative Against Depression

""Arise and Eat...." (1 Kings 19:5)

March 03, 2021

The angel in this passage did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable. He simply to Elijah to do a very ordinary thing, that is, to get up and eat. If we were never depressed, we would not be alive---only material things don’t suffer depression. If human beings were not capable of depression, we would have no capacity for happiness and exaltation. There are things in life that are designed to depress us; for example, things that are associated with death. Whenever you examine yourself, always take into account your capacity for depression.

When the Spirit of God comes to us, He does not give us glorious visions, but He tells us to do the most ordinary things imaginable. Depression tends to turn us away from the everyday things of God’s creation. But whenever God steps in, His inspiration is to do the most natural, simple things---things we would never have imagined God was in, but as we do them, we find Him there. The inspiration that comes to us in this way is an initiative against depression. But we must take the first step and do it in the inspiration of God. If, however, we do something simple to overcome our depression we will only deepen it. But when the Spirit of God leads us instinctively to do something, the movement we do it is--the depression is gone. As soon as we arise and obey, we enter a higher plane of life.

Take the Initiative Against Despair

""Rise, let us be going...." (Matthew 26:46)

March 13, 2021

In the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples went to sleep when they should have stayed awake, and once they realized what they had done it produced despair. The sense of having done something irreversible tends to make us despair. We say, "Well, it's all over and ruined now; what's the point in trying anymore." If we think this kind of despair is an exception, we are mistaken. It is a very ordinary human experience. Whenever we realize we have not taken advantage of a magnificent opportunity, we are apt to sink into despair. But Jesus comes and lovingly says to us, in essence, "Sleep on Now. That opportunity is lost forever and you can't change that. But get up, and let's go on to the next thing." In other words, let the past sleep, but let it sleep in the sweet embrace of Christ, and let us go on into the invincible future with Him.

There will be experiences like this in each of our lives. We will have times of despair caused by real events in our lives, and we will be unable to lift ourselves out of them. The disciples, in the instance, had done a downright unthinkable thing--- they had gone to sleep instead of watching with Jesus. But our Lord came to them taking the spiritual initiative against their despair and said, in effect, "Get up, and do the next thing." If we are inspired by God, what is the next thing? It is to trust Him absolutely and to pray on the basis of His redemption.

Never let the sense of past failure defeat your next step.