DIVINE REGION OF RELIGION - Oswald Chambers

Our Lord demands that our disposition be right with Him in our ordinary natural life lived to men; in Ch. VI. He deals with the domain of our life lived to God before men. The main idea in the region of religion is Your eye on God, not on men.

(a) Philanthropy, vv. 1-4.

It was inculcated, as it were, into the very blood of the Jew to look after the stranger (see Deut. XV. 7-8, Lev. XIX. 9-10), and in Our Lord s day the Pharisees made a tremendous show of giving, they gave from the play-acting motive, that they might have ” glory of men.” They would put their money in the boxes in the women s court of the Temple with a great clang which sounded like a trumpet. Jesus says Now don t give in that way, their motive is to be seen of men, to be known as generous givers, and ” Verily I say unto you, They have their reward,” i.e., that is all there is to it. Briefly summed up, these verses mean Have no other motive in giving than to please God. In modern philan thropy the motives we are ” egged on ” with are It will do them good, they need the help, they deserve it. Jesus never brings out that aspect in His teaching; He allows no other motive in giving than to please God. In Ch. V. He says Give because I tell you to, and here He teaches us not to have mixed motives. It is very penetrating to ask ourselves this question What was my motive in doing that kind act ? We will be astounded at how rarely the Holy Spirit gets a chance to fit our motives on to be right with God, we mix the motive with a hundred and one other considerations. Jesus makes it steadily simple one motive only, your eye on God ; if you are My disciple, you will never give with any other motive than to please God. The characteristic of Jesus in a disciple goes much deeper down than doing good things, it is that he is good in motive because he has been made good by the super natural grace of God.

Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth,” i.e., do good until it is an unconscious habit of the life, and you don t know you are doing it, you will be covered with confusion when Jesus Christ detects it. Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered, and fed Thee? . . . Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren ye have done it unto Me. * That is Our Lord’s magna nimous interpretation of kind acts that people have never allowed themselves to think anything of. Get into the habit of such a relationship to God that you do good without knowing you do it, then you will no longer trust your own impulse, or your own judgment, you will trust only the inspiration of the Spirit of God. The mainspring of your motives will be the Father s heart, not your own, the Father s understanding, not your own. Once get rightly related to God, and He will use you as a channel through which His disposition will flow.

(b) Prayer, w. 5-15.

Prayer, says Jesus, is to be looked at in the same way as philanthropy your eye on God not on men. Watch your motive before God, have no other motive in prayer than to know Him. The statements of Jesus about prayer which are so familiar to us are revolutionary. Call a halt one moment and ask yourself Why do I pray? What is my motive? Is it because I have a personal secret relationship to God that no one knows but myself?

The Pharisees had to pray so many times a day and they took care that they happened to be in the midst of the city when the hour for prayer came, and then in an ostentatious manner they would give themselves to prayer. Jesus says Be not as the hypocrites are, their motive is to be known as praying men, and verily they have their reward. Our Lord did not say it was wrong to pray in the corners of the streets, but He did say it was wrong to have the motive to be seen of men. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret,” i.e., get a place to pray where no one imagines that is what you are doing, shut the door and talk to God in secret. It is impossible to conduct the life of a disciple without definite times of secret prayer. You will find that the place to enter in is in your business, as you walk along the streets, in the ordinary ways of life, when no one dreams you are praying, and the reward comes openly, a revival here, a blessing there. The Scotch have a proverb ” Aye keep a bit tie to yersel,” and as you go on with God you learn more and more to maintain this secret relationship with God in prayer.

When we pray we give God a chance in the unconscious realm of the lives we pray for. When we get into the secret place, it is the Holy Ghost s passion for souls that is at work, not our passion, and He can work through us as He likes. Sects produce a passion for souls, the Holy Spirit produces a passion for Christ. The great dominating passion in the New Testament is for our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus also taught the disciples the prayer of patience. If you are right with God and God delays the manifested answer to your prayer, don t misjudge Him, don t think of Him as an unkind friend or an unnatural father or an unjust judge, but keep at it, your prayer will certainly be answered for ” everyone that asks receives.” ” Men ought always to pray and not to faint,” i.e., cave in. Your heavenly Father will explain it all one day, He cannot just now because He is developing your character.

Jesus goes to the very root of all prayer ” Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him.” Common sense says Then why ask Him? Prayer is not getting things from God, that is a most initial stage \; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God, I tell Him what I know He knows in order that I may get to know it as He does. Pray because you have got a Father, says Jesus, not because it quietens you, and give Him time to answer. If the life of Jesus is formed in me by regeneration and I am drawing my breath in the fear of the Lord, the Son of God will press forward in front of my common sense and will change my attitude to things. Most of us make the blunder of depending on our own earnestness and not on God at all, it is confidence in Him that tells. (1 John V. 14). All my fuss and earnestness, all my gifts of prayer, are not of the slightest use to Jesus, He pays no attention to them. If I have a gift of prayer, may God wither it up until I learn how to get my prayers inspired by God the Holy Ghost. Do I rely on God or on my own earnestness when I pray? God is never impressed by my earnestness, I am not heard because I am in earnest, but only on the ground of Redemption, I have ” boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus ” and no other way.

Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of.” Remember, says Jesus, your Father is keenly and divinely interested in you, and prayer becomes the ” blather” of a child to his father. Our Lord took nothing and no one seriously but His Father (we are inclined to take everything and everyone else seriously saving God), and He teaches us to be children before men but in earnest before our Father in heaven. Notice the essential simplicity of Our Lord s teaching all through right towards God, right towards God.

(c) Penance, vv. 16-18.

Penance is to put myself into a strait jacket for the sake of disciplining my spiritual character. Physical sloth will upset spiritual devotion quicker than anything. If the devil cannot get at us by enticing to sin, he will get at us by sleeping sickness spiritually Now you cannot possibly get up in the morning to pray, you are working hard all day and you cannot give that time to prayer, God does not expect it of you. Jesus says God does expect it of you. Penance means doing a hardship to my body for the sake of developing my spiritual life. Put your life through discipline but don’t say a word about it, ” appear not unto men to fast.” Jeremy Taylor said that men hang out the sign of the devil to prove there is an angel inside, i.e., they wear sad countenances and look tremendously severe to prove they are holy men. Jesus taught His disciples to be hypocrites ” wash your face,” i.e. never allow anyone to imagine you are putting yourself through discipline. If ever I can tell to others the discipline I put myself through in order to further my life with God, from that moment the discipline becomes useless. Our Lord counsels us to have a relationship between ourselves and God that our dearest friend on earth never guesses. When you fast, fast to your father in secret not before men, don’t make cheap martyrs of yourselves, and never ask for pity.

When you are going through a time of discipline, pretend you are not going through it, ” appear not unto men to fast.” The Holy Spirit will apply it to each one of us, there are lines of discipline, lines of limitation, physical and mental and spiritual, when the Spirit says you must not allow yourself this and that. The ostensible fasts on the outside are of no use, it is the fasting on the inside that counts. Fasting from food may be difficult for some, but it is child s play compared to the fasting for the development of God s purpose in your life. Fasting means concentration. Five minutes heeding of what Jesus says and solid concentration on it, and there would be transactions with God that would end in sanctification.

Be not as the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men to fast. May God destroy forever the grief that saps the mind, and the luxury of misery and morbid introspection that men indulge in in order to develop holiness, and may we bear the shining faces that belong to the sons of God. ” They looked unto Him and were radiant,”