THE BOUNTY OF THE DESTITUTE

“We have also to realize that we cannot earn or win anything from God; we must either receive it as a gift or do without it. The greatest blessing spiritually is the knowledge that we are destitute; until we get there Our Lord is powerless.”

—Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (Nov. 28)

My future has been playing out in my head lately. Since I started taking my PR and online media classes, I’ve been more exposed to what my future career is going to look like.
I have to tell you, I’m so excited.

I am so blessed to have a major that I enjoy. When I’m sitting in my public relations lectures and learning about what my responsibilities could be as a PR specialist, I can’t help but think how fun my job will be and how stinkin’ good I’ll be at it. I picked the perfect major! Every aspect of PR appeals to me– building relationships, public speaking, event planning, strategic marketing and being the face of a company. I can’t complain one bit.

At the same time, I don’t want to do PR just for the sake of doing it. I want to do it to promote the things that are of utmost importance. What is most important? Jesus said the most important thing is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and then to “love your neighbor as yourself.” The way to do both of these things is to share the gospel with others. Allowing my ‘neighbors,’ my fellow humans, to experience a relationship with our creator God and have new, abundant life in Him is the best thing I can do for them and for my God. I’ve read that the glory of God is man fully alive. That’s what Jesus’ good news does for us: it makes us fully alive.

With that said, I want to do public relations at a non-profit whose principal objective is to spread the love of Christ with the world. Lots of non-profits do good work; I know first hand. As a cancer patient in high school, I got to experience the power of receiveing a wish from the Make-A-Wish Foundation and support from the Wellness Community of Arizona. Non-profits do amazing things for people. But if I could dedicate my life and energy to one thing, it would be to lead others to the man who loves them enough to die for them.

Oswald Chambers said, “We have deliberately to determine to be interested only in that in which God is intersted.”

I deliberately determine that.

Beware of the “cares of this world,” because they are the things that produce a wrong temper of soul. It is extraordinary what an enormous power there is in simple things to distract our attention from God. Refuse to be swamped with the cares of this life.

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Another thing that distracts us is the lust of vindication. St. Augustine prayed — “O Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself.” That temper of mind destroys the soul’s faith in God. “I must explain myself; I must get people to understand.” Our Lord never explained anything; He left mistakes to correct themselves.

+ Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

When we discern that other people are not growing spiritually and allow that discernment to turn to criticism, we block our fellowship with God. God never gives us discernment so that we may criticize, but that we may intercede.

My Utmost for His Highest – Oswald Chambers

Read this this morning and just needed to share this struggle of mine in hopes to encourage you and others to intercede.

Oooooh I have so many thoughts to put down. I’m procrastinating of course.

First off I want to talk about how God is working in my life. Thats the whole point of this blog. I have been reading My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. It’s a devotional book and I have been reading a little bit each day. A page a day. Todays was especially cool. (P.S is it weird to use the term cool when describing Spirtual things?)

Anyway, the book generally has a verse, and then he expounds on it, or relates it to a particular topic. Todays verse was 1 Corinthians 10:31 “So, whatever you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the Glory of God.”

That my friends is the very definition of worship, and also, a great measuring stick for how we are living our lives and how much Sin is affecting our lives. In the book, the author (do I call him Oswald? or Mr. Chambers?) talks how everything in life is ordained by God. Eating, drinking walking, talking, all that stuff is Biblical. And it is because the Son of God himself, Jesus Christ did these very things in his earthly ministry. Jesus was eating and drinking with people ALL of the time. Today’s little devotional also warns of being Shallow. In this sense he is concerned with Christians who are so worried about how they look and their ministry that they don’t concern themselves with Life.

Sometimes as Christians (and I know I do) that we get caught up so much in “Not Sinning” that we do not live our lives in worshipful matter, that we don’t just LIVE. Derek Webb, in one of his songs, says, very truthfully, that Christ died not only to give us Life but to show us how to live it.

2 last thoughts. Worship is such a difficult thing to describe and put into applicable use in our life. I think 1 Cor. 10:31 is a wonderful and true statement of what worship is. Granted I am taking it out of the entire context of the Chapter (aka, I’m just reading this verse, not the rest of the chapter or book for that matter), but the wonderful thing about Scripture is that you can look at one verse, or several BOOKS of the Bible at once and receive Spiritual Truth.

Thought Number 2 is about devotionals. You here all the time about Quiet Times (or t least you do if your involved in the Christian Culture), and yet, very rarely, we understand what that means. Is it just reading scripture? How do we do it? Do we go a Book at a time? Or do we go by devotionals (books written by other people) and just kinda go off what they have learned? I think for Young Christians (and I myself, is a young Christian) one of the hardest things to do is to grasp and actually do Quiet Times.

So anyway, food for thought. Check my Twitter for my more random thoughts. Check my Facebook for Info about me. Woooord.

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” – Isaiah 40:28-31

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To unpack this entire excerpt would take a great deal of time. The image of the Lord being the “everlasting God, [and] the Creator of the ends of the earth” is an awesome and reassuring picture. But, in the context of this message, this image is only a precursor to future knowledge and hope.

The logic of this passage is undeniable. God does not faint. God does not grow weary. God is beyond all circumstances and human understanding. Compared to even a young man, who eventually grows tired and faints, God has infinitely more endurance. Why then do we attempt to accomplish the tasks God gives us on our own? Do we not know that we have not the power to accomplish them in our own strength? Have we not heard that God is omnipotent and wishes to rush down to our aid?

It is because of one simple word that many Christians attempt to go about their lives alone. For many believers, “wait” is a four-letter word. We tell ourselves, “I would do the will of God if he would only come and show me now what to do.” Or we tell God in our prayers, “Lord save me from this trial soon.” Behind these honest statments and earnest pleas is an impatience that does not come from God. God would have us believe in his timing and wait for his reply. If we would understand our own weakness and compare it with God’s infinite strength, we would not hesitate to be a part of “they who wait.”

Beloved friend, do not ask God for revelation, for “if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” (Romans 8:25). Do not ask God for strength, for “the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.” (1 Corinthians 1:25) And do not ask God for speed, for “the Lord is good to those who wait for him.” (Lamentations 3:25). Rather, ask God for faith, for “whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” (Matthew 21:22) Ask God for endurance, for “endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” (Romans 5:4) And ask God for patience, for “to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.” (Romans 2:7)

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“Waiting is not sitting with folded hands doing nothing, but it is learning to do what we are told.”

- Oswald Chambers

“It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God – but we do not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people – and this is not learned in five minutes.”     Oswald Chambers

Discipleship is a process. It’s moment by moment. It’s the ordinary things that produce the character necessary to support the Great Moments. The exceptional things I may have the privilege of doing for God are only in proportion to the character built in the ordinary things. This is the stuff that qualifies you for the doing of exceptional things for God.

Living only for the exceptional moments in life will leave you with an emptiness most of the time. You will live in nostalgia, vicariously living through a few moments of your past or miss life all together being driven to achieve one moment of elusive greatness.

Discipleship is about character built through relationship. To be a disciple is to live so deeply and intimately with Jesus in every ordinary moment so when the time comes for me to do something exceptional, I will by nature be ready and not falter – even if my greatest moment is the cross.

How are you doing in the ordinary moments?

What ordinary thing hae you done lately?

Chambers, Oswald

When we loose sight of God we become hard and dogmatic. – My Utmost for His Highest (NY: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1963), 90.

(24 July 1874, Aberdeen, Scotland – 15 Novomber 1917, Cairo, Egypt)

Married Gertrude “Biddy” Hobbs, 1910 {Biddy died 1966}

Today my devotional My Utmost For His Highest reads,

“Most of us live on the borders of consciousness – consciously serving, consciously devoted to God. All this is immature, it is not the real life yet. The mature stage is the life of a child which is never conscious; we become so abandoned to God that the consciousness of being used never enters in. When we are consciously being used as broken bread and poured-out wine, there is another stage to be reached, where all consciousness of ourselves and of what God is doing through us is eliminated. A saint is never consciously a saint; a saint is consciously dependent on God.”

Lately things like this and other things gleaned from studying just screams to me that American Christianity has done what the redeemed life was meant to be a travesty!

Read Matthew 10 and that picture is not what we think of when it comes to mission work or ministry for Christ. What do we think he meant when he said deny yourself take up your cross and follow him? Sit in our comfortable churches plan our little events and come up with clever schemes to get people to come to church? No no no!!!!

It’s all wrong!!! We’ve got it all wrong… We need to turn this cruiseline around and go get our fishing boats. Churches need to stop being fancy people entertainmnent carriers and go back to being boats filled with fishers of men.

Chambers, Oswald

Imagination is the greatest gift God has given us and it ought to be devoted entirely to Him. – My Utmost for His Highest (NY: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1963), 42.

(24 July 1874, Aberdeen, Scotland – 15 Novomber 1917, Cairo, Egypt)

Married Gertrude “Biddy” Hobbs, 1910 {Biddy died 1966}

He said, ’Take now your son . . .’ —Genesis 22:2

God’s command is, “Take now,” not later. It is incredible how we debate! We know something is right, but we try to find excuses for not doing it immediately. If we are to climb to the height God reveals, it can never be done later— it must be done now. And the sacrifice must be worked through our will before we actually perform it. Abraham did not choose what the sacrifice would be. Always guard against self-chosen service for God. Self-sacrifice may be a disease that impairs your service. If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; or even if He has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him. If the providential will of God means a hard and difficult time for you, go through it. But never decide the place of your own martyrdom, as if to say, “I will only go to there, but no farther.” God chose the test for Abraham, and Abraham neither delayed nor protested, but steadily obeyed.

From: MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST by Oswald Chambers.

A brief quote worth pondering . . .

The greatest competitor of devotion to Jesus is service to him.

 

(This is today’s entry in My Utmost for His Highest: Updated Edition. Emphasis mine.)

Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

These words mean the breaking and collapse of my independence brought about by my own hands, and the surrendering of my life to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus. No one can do this for me, I must do it myself. God may bring me up to this point three hundred and sixty-five times a year, but He cannot push me through it. It means breaking the hard outer layer of my individual independence from God, and the liberating of myself and my nature into oneness with Him; not following my own ideas, but choosing absolute loyalty to Jesus. Once I am at that point, there is no possibility of misunderstanding. Very few of us know anything about loyalty to Christ or understanding what He meant when He said, “…for My sake” (Matthew 5:11). That is what makes a strong saint.

Has that breaking of my independence come? All the rest is religious fraud. The one point to decide is– will I give up? Will I surrender to Jesus Christ, placing no conditions whatsoever as to how the brokenness will come? I must be broken from my own understanding of myself. When I reach that point, immediately the reality of the supernatural identification with Jesus Christ takes place. And the witness of the Spirit of God is unmistakable– “I have been crucified with Christ…”

The passion of Christianity comes from deliberately signing away my own rights and becoming a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I will not begin to be  a saint.

One student a year who hears God’s call would be sufficient for God to have called the Bible Training College into existence. This college has no value as an organization, not even academically. Its sole value for existence is for God to help Himself to lives. Will we allow Him to help Himself to us, or are we more concerned with our own ideas of what we are going to be?

The Master said, “Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it—it’s the main course, and won’t be taken from her.”  Luke 10:41-42  The Message

Jesus always wants us to come closer.  Oswald Chambers says, “All of life’s problems can be solved with these three words, ‘Come to Me’…”.    It’s the one essential thing in life.  Mary knew it, & she didn’t let the cares of this life distract her from it.

Has that breaking of my independence come? All the rest is religious fraud. The one point to decide is— will I give up? Will I surrender to Jesus Christ, placing no conditions whatsoever as to how the brokenness will come? I must be broken from my own understanding of myself. When I reach that point, immediately the reality of the supernatural identification with Jesus Christ takes place. And the witness of the Spirit of God is unmistakable— “I have been crucified with Christ . . . .”     Oswald Chambers:  My Utmost for His Highest

Chambers, Oswald

…sanctification…an intense narrowing of all our interests on earth and an immense broadening of all our interests in God – My Utmost for His Highest (NY: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1963), 39.

(24 July 1874, Aberdeen, Scotland – 15 Novomber 1917, Cairo,Egypt)                                    

Married Gertrude Hobbs, 1910,

“He hath made Him to be sin for us . . . that we might be made the righteousness of God. . .” 2 Corinthians 5:.21

“The modern view of the death of Jesus is that He died for our sins out of sympathy. The New Testament view is that He bore our sin not by sympathy, but by identification. He was made to be sin. Our sins are removed because of the death of Jesus, and the explanation of His death is His obedience to His Father, not His sympathy with us. We are acceptable with God not because we have obeyed, or because we have promised to give up things, but because of the death of Christ, and in no other way. We say that Jesus Christ came to reveal the Fatherhood of God, the loving-kindness of God; the New Testament says He came to bear away the sin of the world. The revelation of His Father is to those to whom He has been introduced as Saviour. Jesus Christ never spoke of Himself to the world as one Who revealed the Father, but as a stumbling block (see John 15:22- 24). John 14:9 was spoken to His disciples.

That Christ died for me, therefore I go scot free, is never taught in the New Testament. What is taught in the New Testament is that “He died for all” (not – He died my death), and that by identification with His death I can be freed from sin, and have imparted to me His very righteousness. The substitution taught in the New Testament is twofold: “He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” It is not Christ for me unless I am determined to have Christ formed in me.”

by Oswald Chambers

“Jesus Christ did not say – Go and save souls (the salvation of souls is the supernatural work of God), but – “Go and teach,” i.e., disciple, “all nations,” and you cannot make disciples unless you are a disciple yourself. When the disciples came back from their first mission they were filled with joy because the devils were subject to them, and Jesus said – Don’t rejoice in successful service; the great secret of joy is that you are rightly related to Me. The great essential of the missionary is that he remains true to the call of God, and realizes that his one purpose is to disciple men and women to Jesus. There is a passion for souls that does not spring from God, but from the desire to make converts to our point of view.” – from My Utmost for His Highest 10.27.09 

It is so easy in the Christian life to tie our joy to our  own perceived sense of success or failure.  When things go well, when we sense God has used us, we tend to be joyful.  Certainly it is good to be thankful that God is using our lives, but we must always remember that God is more concerned about our heart being rightly related to Him than our service to Him.  Once again God has used the words of man long in heaven to encourage and challenge me in my own walk with Christ.

Check out these amazing devotionals by Oswald and Gertrude Chambers, from My Utmost for His Highest.

What is a Missionary?  and The Method of Missions

Here’s a teaser… they’re both well worth reading!

The missionary’s great essential is remaining true to the call of God, and realizing that his one and only purpose is to disciple men and women to Jesus.

Learn more about Oswald here.