We often start the Christian journey with big dreams about what we will do for God. Oswald Chambers gently redirects our eyes. The aim is not usefulness or numbers. The aim is to go with Jesus wherever He leads. He set His face toward Jerusalem, the place where the Father’s will reached its pinnacle on the cross. If we want companionship with Him, we walk with Him in that same steady obedience, step by step, trusting His life within us.

We are not inching our way toward acceptance. We were reborn into it. Today’s Abide Above reading lifts our eyes to where new life started and still stands secure, in Jesus, seated with Him in the heavenly places. Miles Stanford reminds us that our worship and our walk do not begin on earth and try to climb up. They begin in Him above, then flow down into ordinary days.

Jesus spoke of patches and garments to show the difference between imitation and new life. A patch of unshrunk cloth on an old coat will tug and tear. In the same way, trying to copy the earthly deeds of Jesus while staying in our old self only widens the gap. The good news is better than a patch. Through the cross and the resurrection, Jesus Himself is the new garment, complete and fitted to clothe us in His righteousness.

Jones presses a gentle but needed point. Virtue stacked on virtue without surrender still leaves the self in charge, and the self cannot save the self. God does what we cannot do. He brings us into His Son. The center is forgiveness, received and enjoyed, which opens the door to reconciliation and a new domain of light.

Paul says God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. E. Stanley Jones would smile here, because his heartbeat was simple union with Jesus that settles the soul. The peace of God is not earned by the elite. It is not measured out in levels. It is given in a Person. When the Father gives His Son, He gives peace with Himself, not as a forecast, but as a finished reality that we now enjoy in Him.

Nehemiah did not stand at a distance with commentary and strategies. He went into the presence of God, took the condition of his people into his own heart, and prayed as one who belonged to them. T. Austin-Sparks invites us to notice that difference. Many can rally around a cause, organize it, and publicize it. Fewer will carry a burden that the Lord Himself places within, a weight that draws us into hidden intercession before we ever step into visible action.

Paul tells us there are really only two ways to move through a day. We either run on the old self’s logic or we walk in step with the Spirit. Ray Stedman points to Romans 8:5 and says the hinge is our mindset. What quietly occupies the center of our attention will shape every choice that follows. That is not a call to withdraw from ordinary life. It is an invitation to bring a new point of view into the ordinary, the Spirit’s point of view, right in the middle of budgets, errands, deadlines, and conversations.

The heart of today’s reading rests on a beautiful contrast. God is enthroned above the nations, His glory stretches beyond the heavens, yet He willingly leans down to notice those sitting in the dust. Bob Hoekstra highlights this wonder with a pastor’s tenderness. The One who dwells on high does not overlook the humble and the contrite. He draws near, He revives, He raises, and He heals.

So much of life looks unfinished from where we stand. We face bills, doctor visits, strained relationships, and headlines that rattle the heart. From the ground level it can seem like chaos has the last word. Hebrews 2 says something different. All things have been placed under the feet of the Son, yet at present we do not see everything subject to Him. This is the tension we live in every day. We do not see it all, but we do see Jesus, crowned with glory and honor.

When I sit with Oswald Chambers on this entry, I hear a simple, steady invitation. Jesus brings us out of small, self-directed stories and places us inside the Father’s great purpose in Him. We are not the center. He is. In Christ, the Father has a people for His name, a family called to reflect His heart to the world. That lifts a real weight. I do not have to invent a purpose. I get to receive the one God has already given in Jesus.

Many of us first learned to think of Jesus as near us and for us, which is gloriously true. But I wish to press further, testifying to Christ in us as our very life. Union with Christ is a present, operative reality: not merely “Christ for me” as an external Savior’s work on my behalf, but Christ in me as my life (Gal 2:20; Col 1:27). The Christian life is not chiefly God lending strength to an independent self; it is Jesus Himself, by the Holy Spirit, living in and through a still-responsible, still-distinct person. That recognition changed my posture from “Lord, please help me” to “Lord, I trust You to live Your life in me and through me in this moment.”

Humility is not self shaming. It is not pretending to be small so people will think well of us. Humility is the restful posture of a son or daughter who knows the Father’s heart. Miles Stanford reminds us that God gives grace to the humble, and that the servant who rests in the Father’s presence carries a quiet strength that does not need to prove anything. Thank you, Miles, for pointing us back to the gentle way of Jesus.

The picture today is simple. Religious pressure says, try harder, fast more, act solemn, earn your way to God. Jesus answers with a smile. The Bridegroom is here. His presence turns the room from a waiting hall into a wedding feast. That is not a call to reckless living. It is an invitation to real life in Him, shared at His table, where grace sets the tone and joy becomes the normal air of the room.

Hebrews says we see Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because He suffered death by the grace of God for everyone. Today’s page in His Victorious Indwelling lifts that truth out of the familiar and sets it right in our hands. C. C. Crowston reminds us that no river of animal blood ever removed a single stain of sin. Only the blood of Jesus reaches that deep and that far. It does not mask the stain. It removes it at the root.

Faith and love are not rivals, they are partners. When we trust Jesus, heaven plants a new capacity within us to love people we once overlooked, avoided, or opposed. E. Stanley Jones points us to Colossians 1:4, where the church’s faith in Jesus and love for all the saints are mentioned together. Separate them and both wither. Keep them together and life happens.

We hurry through so many mornings. A quick word about schedules and safety, a request for the day to go smoothly, then off we run. Today’s reading from T. Austin-Sparks gently lifts our chin. If we have been raised with Jesus, prayer is not just about life going well on earth. Prayer begins from where we truly are in Him, with hearts set on things above, where Jesus is.

The heart of today’s reading is Romans 8:3-4. God did what the Law could never do. The Law can measure, diagnose, and demand, but it cannot impart life. Ray Stedman points us to this good news with a pastor’s clarity. The Father sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. In His body, sin was condemned. Now the righteous requirement of the Law is fulfilled in us who walk according to the Spirit.

The God who spans eternity is not distant. He is holy, lifted high, and beyond the reach of time, yet He delights to settle down with the humble. That is the heart of today’s reading, and it is stunning. The One who fills heaven sets His affection on contrite hearts, not polished resumes. He meets us, not where we impress, but where we are honest and yielded.

Gideon’s story reminds me that God delights to work through small numbers and thin strength. Judges 8:4 paints the scene with simple honesty, exhausted yet still in pursuit. A. B. Simpson thanks God for that kind of faith, a faith that does not collapse into passivity, and also refuses the pride of self powered striving.

God formed us for Himself. In Jesus, He restores what sin tried to derail, which is that we would live in His joy and display His light in the world. Oswald Chambers points us to this big-hearted purpose. We are not defined by private projects or narrow loyalties. We are drawn into God’s great love for people and invited to live from the life of Jesus within us.