Elizabeth Elliot Devotions

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Discerning the Will of God
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet



The primary condition for learning what God wants of us is putting ourselves wholly at his disposal. It is just here that we are often blocked. We hold certain reservations about how far we are willing to go, what we will or will not do, how much God can have of us or of what we treasure. Then we pray for guidance. It will not work. We must begin by laying it all down--ourselves, our treasures, our destiny. Then we are in a position to think with renewed minds and act with a transformed nature. The withholding of any part of ourselves is the same as saying, "Thy will be done up to a point, mine from there on."

Paul gives four important steps to discerning the will of God:

1. "Offer your very selves to Him,"

2. "Adapt yourselves no longer to the pattern of this present world."

3. "Let your minds be remade."

4. "Your whole nature transformed."

"Then you will be able to discern the will of God" (Rom 12:1,2 NEB).

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Wait Quietly
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


Few of us enjoy having to wait for something we want. It is human nature to desire instant gratification, and it is divine nature to do many things very, very slowly. Growth is always imperceptible. But the farmer exercises long patience in waiting for his crop. He has done his work and is assured of the result, hence he waits quietly. He is at rest because the outcome (barring disastrous "acts of God") is certain. If we could simply remember that this is true of everything--that God's purposes are slowly being worked out for his glory and our good--we would, like the farmer, keep faith and wait quietly.

Lord, take from us all fretting and hurrying and teach us to rest our hearts in the "ultimate certainty" (Jas 5:7 JBP).

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The Way Appointed
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


One aspect of the mystery of God's sovereign will is how the calculated evil of men is not only permitted, but actually becomes a necessary part of the divine plan. We are tempted to think of the wrongs done to us as hindrances, frustrations, interruptions. "What has this got to do with the will of God?" we ask, irritated and, we suppose, justifiably impatient with human interference. But the truth is that both our time and our way are in God's hands--they are "appointed." Surely it is so for all his sons as it was for the Son of Man. When He was on the verge of being "handed over for crucifixion," and betrayed by one of his own disciples, He said, "My appointed time is near....One who has dipped his hand into this bowl with me will betray me. The Son of Man is going the way appointed for him" (Mt 26:18, 24 NEB).

Out of the deepest depths of human evil the good God brought salvation--the very salvation of man whose sinfulness killed the Son He sent.

Nothing can reach us, from any source in earth or hell, no matter how evil, which God cannot turn to his own redemptive purpose. Let us be glad that the way is not a game of chance, a mere roll of dice which determines our fortune or calamity--it is a way appointed, and it is appointed for God's eternal glory and our final good.

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Courage to Love
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


God's love holds us to the highest. This was the kind of love Amy Carmichael of India prayed for and taught to the children on Dohnavur--this love, the kind wherewith God loved us. "Hold one another to the highest," she told them. God's purpose was to lift us out of ourselves, out of the miry clay, and set our feet on a rock. We are not saviors, but we can help others toward faith. This means not only loving them while they're still in the mire, but loving them out of it. We must love them as they are and love them enough to draw them higher.

Someone has said that the best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. This demonstration far outshines all the homilies he can preach at them. By daily example he holds them to the highest. Jesus said, "For their sakes I sanctify myself" (Jn 17:19 AV). His holy obedience to the Father saved us. Our holy obedience to the Father makes a difference to those we love.

Lord, give me the courage to love as You loved me.

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Gentle as a Nurse
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


A good nurse does not pamper her charge, but seeks his best interest with fortitude, consistency, and love. Paul's love for the new Christians at Thessalonica was like that. It was no sentimental feeling. He writes of having brought them the Word:

    * In the power of the Holy Spirit, and with strong conviction. (1 Thes 1:5)
    * Frankly and fearlessly, by the help of our God. A hard struggle it was. (1 Thes 2:2)
    * We do not curry favor with men. Our words have never been flattering words...or a cloak for greed. (1 Thes 2:4,5)
    * We have never sought honor from men, from you or anyone else....We were as gentle with you as a nurse caring fondly for her children. (1 Thes 2:6,7)

Here is the pattern for all who would do God's work with souls: faithful giving of the Word, a heart true and pure in seeking God's glory, gentleness, self-giving, and plain hard work.

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This Love Among You
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


"As I have loved you, so you are to love one another. If there is this love among you, then all will know that you are my disciples" (Jn 13:34,35 NEB).

The love of Jesus for his disciples was unsentimental. As a man, He fully entered into their experience of being men, with all the feelings that entails, yet his love for them was not a feeling. It was decisive, both as attitude and act. He honored their dignity as men by treating them with trust, speaking honestly and straightforwardly, never "tiptoeing" to spare their weaker feelings, never dissimulating. At times He hurt them in order to save them. There was no care for Himself in that kind of love. He had the courage to face their anger and misunderstanding.

"If there is this love among you..." what a difference it will make in the world!

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No Other Choice
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


No Christian ever gets beyond the power of temptation as long as he lives in "this mortal coil." Jesus was not beyond it--who are we that we should become more spiritual than Jesus? If we say that we have been delivered forever from sin, we are deceiving ourselves. We are never in a more vulnerable spot than when someone sins against us. All the "old Adam" in us rises up to retaliate. Perhaps we control the urge to punch the person or even to retort with the withering words that spring to mind. But then we wake up in the night and think about all the ways we could put this individual in his place--polite ways, we tell ourselves, Christian ways, but put him in his place we certainly will. The still small voice asks: Is that Christlike?

"The love of Christ leaves us no choice....His purpose in dying for all was that men, while still in life, should cease to live for themselves" (2 Cor 5:14,15 NEB).

No other choice but love. Cease to live for yourself. Live for Christ. Don't bother singing, "Oh, how I love Jesus" as long as you are plotting retaliation. You don't really have that choice, not if you're a Christian.

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Love of the World
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


John tells us in his first letter that anyone who loves the world is a stranger to the Father's love. We are not to set our hearts on the world or anything in it. These words have been interpreted in many strange ways by different varieties of Christians, and I have puzzled much over them. The word used in the original is cosmos, which means the whole created order. Is there nothing here that I am allowed to love? What about the thundering, flashing sea that I see from my window? What about the rose on my desk, or even this house where I live with its warmth and pleasantness, the cup of tea in mid-afternoon, the books on my shelves? They are not going to last forever. If I love them, am I then a stranger to my heavenly Father's love?

It has helped me to think of John's words in this manner: To love the world in the wrong way is to love it without knowing the Father's love. It is when a man knows Him and receives everything from his hand that the world is redeemed for him, no longer a snare and in opposition to the love of God. We must love the world only through and because of the Father, not instead of. Our ultimate concern must be God Himself. He is eternal. His gifts are not always so.

Lord, may no gift of yours ever take your place in my heart. Help me to hold them lightly in an open palm, that the supreme object of my desire may always be You and You alone. Purify my heart--I want to love You purely.

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My Own Fault
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


Someone who is suffering as a result of his own foolishness or failure may read these words. These griefs are hard indeed to bear, for we feel we might easily have avoided them. We have no one to blame but ourselves, and there isn't much consolation there. Sometimes we imagine that we must bear this kind of trouble alone, but that is a mistake. The Lamb of God, slain for us, has borne all of our griefs and carried all of our sorrows, no matter what their origin. All grief and sorrow is the result of sin somewhere along the line, but Christ received them willingly. It is nothing but pride that keeps me from asking Him to help me to bear the troubles which are my own fault.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, take away mine.
I take Him at His word indeed,
Christ died for sinners--this I read--
And in my heart I find a need
Of Him to be my Savior.
(Dora Greenwell)

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The Hope of Holiness
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


The "openness" that is often praised among Christians as a sign of true humility may sometimes be an oblique effort to prove that there is no such thing as a saint after all, and that those who believe that it is possible in the twentieth century to live a holy life are only deceiving themselves. When we enjoy listening to some Christian confess his weaknesses and failures, we may be eager only to convince ourselves that we are not so bad after all. We sit on the edge of our chairs waiting to grasp at an excuse for continuing to do what we have made up our minds long ago to do anyway. The Lord is ready to forgive sin at any moment and to make strong servants out of the worst of us. But we must believe it; we must come to Him in faith for forgiveness and deliverance and then go out to do the work He has given us to do.

"Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity" (1 Cor 13:6 AV). Let us be willing to call iniquity what is really iniquity, rather than to call it weakness, temperament, failure, hangups, or to fall back on the tired excuse, "It's just the way I am."

Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a right spirit within me. (Ps 51:10 AV)

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Do You Want an Answer?
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


This is the question we need to ask ourselves when we are seeking "solutions" to our problems. Often we want only an audience. We want the chance to air grievances, to present our excuses, to make an explanation for our behavior, rather than a cure. More often than not the clearest and most direct answer can be found in the Word, but it must be sought honestly.

"The way of the Lord gives refuge to the honest man, but dismays those who do evil" (Prv. 10:29 NEB).

We can approach God's word with a will to obey whatever it says to us about our present situation, or we can avoid it and say to anyone who would try to point us to it, "Don't throw the Book at me." The latter is an evasion, which supports our suspicion that our problems are, in fact, insoluble. The honest (i.e., humble) heart will indeed find the Lord's way to be a refuge.

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Give Way to Truth
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet

Through a disagreement with my husband Lars yesterday I suddenly recognized an instrument used powerfully by the enemy to drive a wedge between two people who love each other (and there is nothing which fills the enemy with such glee as destroying unity). It is reason. I had good reasons for my argument and so did he. Reason comes very close to being an idol to me at times, and I am tempted to make sacrifices on its altar.

"Be faithful to Reason!" whispers the Destroyer. "Do not let go!"

"Be faithful to Me," Christ says, "give up your reasons, give way to Truth."

Reason is one of God's great gifts. We have intelligence and the faculty of reason, to be employed in the service of God and other people. Faithfulness to Christ (who is Truth) does not negate reason, but purifies it, raises it to a higher level.

"Pure" reason, logical argument, stood between my husband and me, as it stood between Job and his friends, and Jesus and the Pharisees.

"Knowledge gives self-importance--it is love that makes the building grow. A man may imagine that he understands something, but still not understand anything in the way he ought to!" (1 Cor 8:1,2 JB).

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You Can't Keep Both Eyes
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


A young man was delivered from a life of self-destruction in the form of drug abuse. He turned from his old ways, but of course was pursued by the enemy and tempted back. It was clear to him that he could not afford to be lenient with himself in allowing the least indulgence in the old habit. One day he said to his pastor, "Don't ever allow me to use the word 'struggle.' Every time I use it I am excusing disobedience, I am really preferring to 'struggle' rather than to quit."

Jesus made this necessity sharply clear when He said, "If it is your eye that is your undoing, tear it out and fling it away; it is better to enter into life with one eye than to keep both eyes and be thrown into the fires of hell" (Mt 5:29).

To struggle--that is, to allow a "little bit" of sin, to be cautious with ourselves, tolerant of a certain amount of plain disobedience, is to try to keep both eyes.

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The Fruit of Forgiveness
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet


Every day I am forgiven for many sins of many kinds, and although on the one hand forgiveness seems such an impossible thing (but grace is greater than all my sin), on the other hand I receive it often without wonder and nearly always without offering any "fruit."

When the Lord punished Israel, Isaiah wrote: "Only then can the fruit of his forgiveness be shown: they must smash their stone altars into pounded chalk" (Is 27:9 JBP).

When I acknowledge a specific sin, it is a good thing to do something specific to demonstrate my determination to forsake it. Smash an altar, sacrifice an hour of sleep or a meal (if the sin has been, e.g., failure to do what I want to do "because I haven't time"), write a note of apology to one sinned against, make restitution in some way for a wrong. To arise and obey in such a particular act is an appropriate sign of the genuineness of my repentance--the fruit of forgiveness.

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No Further Than Natural Things
By Elisabeth Elliot
Taken From: A Lamp For My Feet

"Well, it's perfectly natural for you to feel that way," I was telling myself when I was upset with the way someone had treated me. "It's a normal reaction."

It was a normal reaction for a carnal mind. It was not normal for a spiritual one. The carnal attitude deals with things on one level only--this world's. It "sees no further than natural things" (Rom 8:5 JBP).

Is there a telescope that will bring into focus things I would not see with merely "natural" vision? There is.

"The spiritual attitude reaches out after the things of the spirit." It is a different means of perceiving. It will enable me to see what I could not have seen with the naked--that is, the carnal--eye.

It works. When I looked at that person who had offended me through the "spiritual eye," I saw in him one of God's instruments to teach me, instead of one of the devil's to torment me. I saw something more. I saw a person God loves, and whom He wants to love through me.

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