Oswald Chambers, My Uttermost for His Highest, Self Awareness

Self-Awareness

Come to Me . . . —Matthew 11:28

Matthew 11:28-30 The Voice (VOICE)

28 Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Put My yoke upon your shoulders—it might appear heavy at first, but it is perfectly fitted to your curves. Learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. When you are yoked to Me, your weary souls will find rest. 30 For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.

God intends for us to live a well-rounded life in Christ Jesus, but there are times when that life is attacked from the outside. Then we tend to fall back into self-examination, a habit that we thought was gone. Self-awareness is the first thing that will upset the completeness of our life in God, and self-awareness continually produces a sense of struggling and turmoil in our lives. Self-awareness is not sin, and it can be produced by nervous emotions or by suddenly being dropped into a totally new set of circumstances.

Yet it is never God’s will that we should be anything less than absolutely complete in Him. Anything that disturbs our rest in Him must be rectified at once, and it is not rectified by being ignored but only by coming to Jesus Christ. If we will come to Him, asking Him to produce Christ-awareness in us, He will always do it, until we fully learn to abide in Him.

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"The revelation of God's will has been brought down to us in words. The Bible is not a book containing communications from God; it is God's revelation of Himself, in the interests of grace; God's giving of Himself in the limitation of words. The Bible is not a faery romance to beguile us for a while from the sordid realities of life; it is the Divine complement of the laws of Nature, of Conscience and of Humanity; it introduces us to a new universe of revelation facts not known to unregenerate common sense. The only Exegete of these facts is the Holy Spirit, and in the degree of our reception, recognition, and reliance on the Holy Spirit will be our understanding." --Oswald Chambers, in God's Workmanship from The Quotable Oswald Chambers.

Theology test your worship songs, Christianity Magazine

What happens when you put the lyrics of some of our best-known worship songs under the theological microscope?

We’ve all stood in a Sunday morning service, bleary-eyed from a late night, and submissively warbled our way through an entire worship set without engaging our brains. We could have been singing anything.

And we’ve all sung lyrics to worship songs we didn’t fully understand. A favourite at my own church is the hymn ‘I Will Sing the Wondrous Story’, which includes the repeated line, ‘Sing it with the saints in glory, Gathered by the crystal sea’. Despite the fact that I don’t know what this refers to – and it sounds strangely like the title of an episode of Dr Who – I gamely sing it every time.

Many of us have sung things we don’t actually believe. Matt Redman’s magnum opus ‘Blessed Be Your Name’ contains the questionable line ‘You give and take away’, which seems to suggest that God actively causes, rather than allows, suffering. But is this really the nature of the biblical God? The trouble is, it’s such a good song.

LYRICS COUNT

In a Church culture in which personal engagement with the Bible is sometimes patchy, worship songs and hymns become a primary source of theology for some. For others it is the most dynamic tool in terms of connecting with God. We pick up memorable bits of scripture (often a bit mangled to fit the verse structure), and larger principles about God through the lyrics of our Sunday anthems. So the accuracy of their theology really matters.

The other reason we should carefully consider our song lyrics is a missional one. If a non-Christian, with no prior knowledge of the faith or its traditions, walks into your church, what might (s)he make of singing ‘These are the days of Elijah’? It gets worse at Christmas. Every year we force nominal believers to sing ‘Christian children all must be, mild, obedient, good as he’, thus reminding them why they only come to church once a year.

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Cameron accuses Salmond of being 'desperate' after claims independence will protect the NHS from privatisation Daily Mail.

  The Prime Minister said health is already devolved to Holyrood

  Mr Salmond said NHS cuts in England would be replicated in Scotland

  Scottish Government's spending on private contractors has risen by 25%

David Cameron has accused the First Minister of ‘desperate’ tactics over his claim that separation will protect the NHS from privatisation.

The Prime Minister stressed health is devolved to Holyrood and controversial changes at Westminster cannot be imposed on Scots.

Alex Salmond, who went green bowling in Arbroath with Scotland's Commonwealth medallists today, has argued that NHS budget cuts south of the border would be replicated in Scotland – despite the fact Holyrood has received an extra £1.3billion from Westminster over five years.

He has persisted with the argument despite claims of hypocrisy after it emerged the Scottish Government’s own spending on private contractors rose by almost a quarter last year to more than £80million.

Mr Cameron said: ‘Health is a devolved issue. So the only person who could, if they wanted to, introduce more private provision into the NHS in Scotland is Alex Salmond.

‘I think this is a desperate man recognising the argument is going away from him making a pretty desperate argument.

‘Actually because of the protection on NHS spending that the UK Government has given that we would not cut NHS spending while we have had to make difficult decisions elsewhere - that has actually made sure under the Barnett formula that money is available for Scotland as well.‘So I think that argument does not stack up at all.’

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