Meditation Chip Brogden

September 11
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"Commit your way unto the LORD; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass" (Psalms 37:5).
We want the Lord's Life, but we also want to retain a little something of our life. That will never work. This is why you have such ups and downs, simply because you still love your life, and only trust in His Life for the really difficult moments. In a bad situation you will throw yourself upon His Life and it will carry you on through, but in the normal everyday situations you live according to your own life. Instead, let us learn to trust in His Life for every moment of every day. If we will surrender everything His Life will reproduce in us more effectively, gradually transforming, renewing, invigorating, and sustaining us from the inside out.

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September 10
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it" (Matthew 10:39).
Each time you lose a part of your life, you will find His Life is right there to fill the void. Every single time. This is a spiritual truth, and there are no exceptions to the rule. Think of what it means. The more I give to Him, the more He gives to me. I trade in my life in exchange for His Life. Which would you rather have? Do you want your life, your failures, your mistakes, your frustrations, your sins? Or would you rather give that up in exchange for His Life? You can have either one you want, but you cannot have both.

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September 9
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"We have left all, and have followed You" (Mark 10:28).
Here is a golden truth: if He possesses all that YOU have, then you will possess all that HE has. Allow that truth to sink into your heart. Breathe it in and out. Let the Holy Spirit soak it into the pores of your soul and you will not be able to contain His joy and peace emanating from you. You will start giving things up that before you would have never let go. You will gladly relinquish everything.

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September 8
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Romans 8:11).
Some Christians think they have to have the right book or the right man of God or the right formula or the right church or the right this or that before they can be victorious. My friend, you already have all the resources you need to live a victorious Christian life. The same Life which rose Christ up from the dead dwells in you! If the Life can do THAT, what is your excuse? What more could you possibly need than the Life which you already possess?

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September 7
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus" (Acts 4:13).
When people are in your presence, what do they touch - a system of beliefs, a code of conduct, an ethical standard, or a Person? We may have an abundance of words and teachings, but all of them together are nothing but letters if they are not constantly pointing us to a Living Christ.

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September 6
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"And He turned Him unto His disciples, and said privately, 'Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see: for I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them'" (Luke 10:23,24).
The object of Christianity is not to give people a teaching or to lead them in a prayer, but to introduce them to a Man. I would rather have thirty seconds of seeing than thirty years of preaching. People can listen to me preach all their life and never understand a word, but if the Lord opens their eyes to SEE Who I am preaching about then they will understand everything.

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September 5
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein" (Luke 18:17).
Make no mistake, if it is the Kingdom you seek, the Kingdom you will find, but you must be changed in order to enter therein. If you seek power from God you will have to accept weakness in yourself. If you want to rule with Him you must suffer with Him. If you want His Life you must give up your life. You can have either one you want, but you cannot have both. There is no increase without decrease, and there is no decrease without increase.

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September 4
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30).
We must see that for every decrease of Self, Christ is increased. Even in our discussions we groan inwardly about having to die daily, having to give up our way and our will. We ought instead to be excited about Christ being increased, and how much He stands to gain in us and through us.
He MUST increase, but you MUST decrease. It is better to relinquish everything now, on a voluntary basis, and lose our lives in order to gain our real Life. It is more glorious to enter the Kingdom out of a desire to give Christ the preeminence than to enter kicking and screaming and crying because we love ourselves too much.

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September 3
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake" (Luke 5:5,6).
To you and me this may sound like a coincidence, or luck. Some might call it a miracle, and it is miraculous, but it is more than a miracle, it is a sign. A sign is a miracle which points to some truth. This is a miracle, but the miracle was not done just for the sake of Peter gaining an abundant supply of fish for his business. It was a sign given by Christ in order to reveal Himself to Peter. In Scriptural language, it is "revealing His glory." There is nothing glorious in the Son of Man, but in the Son of God we see glory.
Jesus merely said, "Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch of fish." Nevertheless, Peter perceived that Jesus was no ordinary man. For when he saw what happened, he fell down and sobbed, "Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinful man." The One he called Teacher he now calls Lord, and Peter is immediately made to see the contrast of himself, a sinful man, and Christ, the Holy One of God. Everyone else heard the teaching, but Peter saw the Person.

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September 2
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it" (I Corinthians 12:26).
We have emphasized the Church for so long that we have lost sight of the individual disciples of which the Church consists. If one member lacks, the entire Body goes lacking. It is not so much a problem with the Church failing to apprehend its fullness as it is the individual disciples of the Lord failing to count the cost, suffer all as loss, and progress down the narrow way towards Christ as All in All.
As the disciples go, so goes the Church. If Christ does not have the preeminence in the Church, it is because He does not have the preeminence in us as disciples.

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September 1
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it" (Matthew 7:14, NKJV).
We cannot walk the narrow path until we have entered the narrow gate. But we cannot assume that because we have entered the narrow gate we are now finished. Most people lay stress on the gate, and their goal is to get people just far enough through the gate that they can claim salvation.
That is where most of the Church sits today, just inside the narrow gate, rejoicing in a future salvation, a future heaven, a future return of Christ, and a future reward. But the narrow gate is only the beginning. The narrow gate only opens the door to the narrow way. It is the narrow way which leads to Life, and few find it. Fewer still walk to the end of it.

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August 31
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

And [Jesus] entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden" (Mark 7:24b).
I don't know how you first came to the Lord. It may have been a very solemn and peaceful event. It may have been a quiet, personal thing. A lot of preachers will say, "With every head bowed and every eye closed, if you want to give your heart to Jesus, quickly slip your hand up and put it right back down. Praise God, I see your hand! Yes! Yes! Way in the back, I see your hand. Anyone else? Let's all pray this prayer out loud together." It may have happened to you like that, and if it did, I am not demeaning or minimizing that at all.
Here is my point: you might have invited Jesus in through the back door of your house while everyone had their eyes closed, and He certainly accepted your invitation to come in. But dear brother, dear sister! He cannot be hidden! He must increase! He is increasing, He is expanding, He is enlarging Himself and stretching you, pushing you, making you more and more uncomfortable. What do I mean? I mean that His Kingdom has established itself within you, and the borders of that Kingdom are ever increasing. He cannot be hidden!

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August 30
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30).
We must see that everything God has done, everything God is doing, and everything God will do is for the purpose of INCREASING Jesus and DECREASING everything that is not of Him.
This principle is so powerful that it makes no difference if you agree with it, understand it, believe it, or like it. He MUST increase; therefore, He WILL increase and HE IS increasing. At the same time, I MUST decrease, therefore I WILL decrease, and I AM decreasing. This is a spiritual law, and it is working as we speak. For the Christian who is seeking first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness this is wonderful news. For selfish, carnal Christians it is a frightening thing, this talk of losing your life and taking up your Cross and denying yourself. That is why you hear so much about spiritual power and so little about spiritual brokenness.

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August 29
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"These who have turned the world upside down have come here too" (Acts 17:6).
If God can find a man or a woman who will give Him the preeminence and will give Him the freedom to increase then there is no limit to what God can do through that yielded vessel. And if He can find a handful of people like that then He will use them to turn the world upside down. It has happened once before and I am positive that it can happen again.
The Father is seeking those who will worship Him in Spirit and in TRUTH. Has He found what He is looking for in you? Will you be the one? Will you be the chosen?

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August 28
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"If you knew the gift of God, and Who I am, you would have asked Me for a drink, and I would have given you Living Water" (John 4:10).
We must know the Gift of God. The one who knows will not only be satisfied, but will have abundance of Life springing up from within. If we are mainly interested in being filled for ourselves then we will have little to offer anyone else. Yet when we know the Gift of God the Life will overflow. "You anoint my head with oil, and my cup overflows" (Psalms 23:5b).
Are you an overflowing Christian, with all of God you can hold, and much leftover? Sadly, this does not describe many of us. To drink is a beginning, but God's goal is an overflow. How we need clear revelation into the Son! How we need to see just how precious and worthy He is!

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August 27
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"Of His fullness have we all received, blessing upon blessing" (John 1:16).
Just how full is "full"? How many people does "all" include? We have to believe that full means complete, and all includes each one of us. "Of His fullness we have all received." No one, no matter how "anointed" they may appear, has more fullness than anyone else. And if we have received it already then there is nothing for us to do to get it.
If I have already entered into a room and sat down in a chair then there is no need for me to try to get into the room anymore. I am there already. We entered into Christ when He entered into us: we do not have to enter into Him over and over again, we are merely abiding in Him.

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August 26
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth" (John 17:17).
I am frequently asked how do we partake of this fullness? How do we walk in it? What practical application exists for living according to this Truth? We see what God says, but we also see our situation. We see Jesus, but we also see ourselves. God says we are complete in Him, but we say we are incomplete. God says we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ, but we say we still need this or that. What is the problem here? Is it not a glaring discrepancy between what God says and what we say? Whose word is more reliable?

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August 25
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"The Father gives you the True Bread from Heaven... I am the Bread of Life" (John 6:32b, 35a).
The people were asking for Jesus to give them bread, but failed to recognize that He Himself is the Bread of Life. They worked and toiled for something which would perish, but were not willing to receive the True Bread that would not perish. Again, the significance of the Lord Jesus is not that He can give us bread, but that He is the Bread.

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Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"It is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me" (Galatians 2:20ff).
This is the difference between a living Christianity and a dead religion. Most of us are still trying to attain something and have not yet realized that we have already obtained it. We wear ourselves out in order to be Christ-like. We are hoping that through much effort we will one day reach some standard to which we can finally say we are living like Jesus. But this is not God's way. It is not a changed life that God seeks from you, but an exchanged life - that is, your life is to be given up in exchange for His life. That is the exchanged Life: my life for His Life.

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August 23
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"It is of God that you are in Christ Jesus, Whom God has made to us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (I Corinthians 1:30).
This is a very rich verse. We have already seen how the Lord Jesus is given to be our Life. Upon that basis we can lay claim to everything else. Here we see that to those of us who are in Christ, He is made to be our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. It does not say that He gives these things to us, but that He is these things in us.

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August 22
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteous-ness: for they shall be filled" (Matthew 5:6).
Those who hunger and thirst after Righteousness (Christ) are filled continually. Those who hunger and thirst after anything else must be constantly looking for their next fill-up. We repeat a thousand times, the question of abundance or lack in spiritual Life relates to how we see the Son. If we clearly see the Son then we see all that God has, and all that God is. In Him is fullness. To leave where we are and seek out some man or woman or ministry at the ends of the earth in order to be filled or blessed is a serious tragedy. How much time I have wasted in that pursuit, before knowing Christ as All in All! Broken cisterns cannot hold water for long.

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August 21
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"If you knew the gift of God, and Who I am, you would have asked Me for a drink, and I would have given you Living Water... Jesus stood and shouted 'If anyone is thirsty, come to Me and have your thirst quenched! Anyone who believes in Me, as the Scriptures have said, will have rivers of Living Water flowing from within'" (John 4:10; 7:37b, 38).
As some pursue "rivers" and "watering holes" how refreshing it is to know that Christ is the Living Water. How can we know the difference between Christ and what is proclaimed as the manifest power or presence of God? It is quite simple: the one who drinks from a "meeting" must continually drink to stay full, but the one who knows Christ as Living Water has their thirst quenched altogether.

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August 20
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height" (Ephesians 3:17,18).
There is a difference between salvation and a Savior; between deliverance and a Deliverer; between healing and a Healer; between redemption and a Redeemer. The first is a "thing", the second is a Person. This may sound self-evident and elementary, but before God the difference is vast, and in actual experience the difference is incalculable.
If we are not clear on the matter of His Son we will find the Christian life very difficult, if not impossible, to live. I have the "thing" because I have Him; having Him, I do not need to search for the "thing" anymore. What do you have? An experience? A word? A doctrine? A belief? Or a Man? This is the difference between a living Christianity and a dead religion.

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August 19
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life" (I John 5:12).
Would it shock you to learn that God has not given us a thing called eternal life? The Apostle John made this quite clear in his inspired writings, saying first of all, in the oft quoted John 3:16, that the Son is that which was given, and eternal life is simply the reward for those who receive the Son.
It becomes even more apparent in I John 5:12. Yes we are given Eternal Life, true, but the Life is not floating out in space somewhere waiting to fall on those who ask. Eternal Life has nothing to do with everlasting existence. Eternal Life is a Person; the Life is the Son; hence, we need only ask if we have received Jesus and we shall know whether we have Eternal Life. The Life is bound up in the Son, as is every one of Gods precious gifts. Having the Son, we therefore have all the Son has. Eternal Life is simply an alias for Christ.

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August 18
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3).
All we have and all that we are as Christians is based upon our union with Christ. Apart from Him, we have nothing, and we are nothing. But in Him we are blessed with every spiritual blessing. Think upon the ramifications of that. If this is true then we have very little to ask God for, and very much to praise God about.

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August 17
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking" (Matthew 6:7).
Our pseudo-Christian culture is profane. I speak not of the profanity of foul language, but the profanity of treating divine things with a casual, apathetic, flippant attitude. We profane holy things by making them common, ordinary, usual, mundane, and routine.
Interestingly enough, only those who know the Holy are in danger of becoming too familiar with it. Unbelievers, those who are not yet acquainted with the Holy, cannot profane what they do not understand.

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August 16
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:20).
We know we must leave sin because we can appreciate how horrible it is. We do not so quickly leave "our righteousness" because we think somehow it has been "purified". Mark well however that God does not fix the old man, but destroys it. He does not tell us to clean up our life, but to lay down our life. It is not enough to forsake the wrong: we must allow Him to crucify the right. That is, we must learn to hate our thoughts that we may have His mind. We must give up our "spiritual" desires in order to have Christ as All.

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August 15
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"Whom seek ye?" (John 18:4).
In other words, who are you looking for? This particular crowd was pressing in to have Him arrested and put to death. The day before the crowds were pressing in to proclaim "Hosanna!", and before that they were pressing in to make Him their king by force (John 6:15). At other times the people pressed Him to hear the Word of God. Still other times the people pressed Him to be healed of their diseases.
Have you ever noticed that everyone wants something, that there are more takers in this world than givers? Pressing Him, pushing Him, forever wanting more and never satisfied. Very few know how to sit at His feet just to hear His Word. Very few are willing to pour out the best ointment on Him, and when they do, they are severely criticized for such a "waste". Very few are content just "to be with Him" (Mark 3:14).
Instead, this one wants a loaf of bread, this one wants a healing, this one wants a teaching, this one wants a sign, this one wants an answer to a question, this one wants proof of His divinity, this one wants something to accuse Him with. Does anyone seek Him for His sake? Does anyone press upon Him, not for what He can give, but for Who He is? Does anyone seek Him out, not to get some need met, but so they "may know Him" (Philippians 3:10)?

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August 14
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10).
Those who hunger and thirst after Righteousness - Christ - will be filled. Thus, the one who is filled is never hungry or thirsty. So on the one hand I want to know the Lord and my desire for Him increases day by day; but it is not the desperate search of a hungry or thirsty man who is fainting and wasting away. I am full of Him because He fills me. There is my "Life, and Life more abundantly." My Life is not in what He gives me, but in Who He is.
The ones who do not know this are the ones who have to run all over the world looking for a spiritual experience, the next move of God, or a more powerful "anointing". They are the ones who simply MUST be inside a church building once or twice a week, and if they miss one service they immediately become depressed or backslidden. How is this possible? Because they have been taught that Life is church attendance, or power, or anointing, or feeling God move upon them in a tangible way. But if this were so then they would not need to be constantly filled and refilled.

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August 13
Today's Message from Chip Brogden

"Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts"(James 4:2,3).
How much of our praying, interceding, asking, knocking, seeking, searching, and hoping is done with a view towards getting God to do what WE want Him to do? I am afraid that we take this approach with God: we carefully analyze the situation, determine what we want to see come to pass, look up the appropriate Bible verses, go to God and tell Him exactly what we want to happen and by when, and then become anxious if He fails to answer us according to our own thought.
Brothers and sisters, this is not the way we should approach the Lord. Many are the instances in which mere humans tried to instruct the Lord Jesus, rebuked Him, found fault with His way of doing and saying things, questioned His methods, and argued with Him. Let us not fall into the same trap. For the Lord knows His business, and does not need to be instructed by us. Instead, we must follow His instruction and allow Him to become our only Desire. Then our praying and asking amiss will cease.

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