Hidden With Christ

Oswald Chambers in his widely-read devotional My Utmost for His Highest gives us a short exposition on Colossians 3:3 – For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. As you reflect on this excerpt, may you enjoy deep, lasting peace found only in Christ:-

“The Spirit of God witnesses to the simple, almighty security of the life that is hidden with Christ in God. This is continually brought out in the Epistles. We talk as if living the sanctified life were the most precarious thing, when actually it’s the most secure thing. The sanctified life has God in and behind it. Trying to live without God is what is precarious. If we’re born again, it is the easiest thing to live in right relationship to God and the most difficult thing to go wrong. All we have to do is heed his warnings and walk in the light (1 John 1:7).

When we think of being delivered from sin, of being filled with the Spirit and walking in the light, we picture the peak of a great mountain, very high and wonderful—a peak so removed from everyday life that we think, “I could never live up there!” But when, by God’s grace, we do get up there, we find that it isn’t a peak at all but a great plateau with ample room to live and grow: “You provide a broad path for my feet, so that my ankles do not give way” (Psalm 18:36).

When you really do see Jesus, I defy you to doubt him. When he appears to you and says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1), I defy you to trouble your mind. It’s a moral impossibility to doubt when he is there. Every time you get into personal contact with Jesus, his words are real.

“My peace I give you” (v. 27). It’s a peace all over—from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, an irrepressible confidence. “Your life is now hidden with Christ in God,” and the unshakable peace of Jesus Christ is imparted to you.”

Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) was a prominent early twentieth century Scottish Protestant Christian minister and teacher. He was born in Scotland and died in Egypt while serving as chaplain to Allied troops in Egypt during World War I. Chambers has a teaching and preaching ministry that took him as far as the United States and Japan but he is best known as the author of the widely read devotional My Utmost for His Highest, a book that was compiled by his wife after his death from her verbatim shorthand notes of his talks.