Total Surrender.
” Are you prepared to let God take you into total oneness with Himself, paying no more attention to what you call the great things of life? Are you prepared to surrender totally and let go? The true test of abandonment or surrender is in refusing to say, “Well, what about this?” Beware of your own ideas and speculations.
The moment you allow yourself to think, “What about this?” you show that you have not surrendered and that you do not really trust God. But once you do surrender, you will no longer think about what God is going to do. Abandonment means to refuse yourself the luxury of asking any questions.
If you totally abandon yourself to God, He immediately says to you, “I will give your life to you as a prize…” Once you get to the point of total surrender to Him, you will be the most surprised and delighted person on earth. If you are not there, it is either because of disobedience in your life or your refusal to be simple enough. “
-Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
Be ready in season and out.
“Many of us suffer from the unbalanced tendency to “be ready” only “out of season.” The season does not refer to time; it refers to us. 2 Timothy 4:2 says, “Preach the Word! Be ready in season and out of season.” In other words, we should “be ready” whether we feel like it or not. If we do only what we feel inclined to do, some of us would never do anything. There are some people who are totally unemployable in the spiritual realm. They are spiritually feeble and weak, and they refuse to do anything unless they are supernaturally inspired. The proof that our relationship is right with God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not.
One of the worst traps a Christian worker can fall into is to become obsessed with his own exceptional moments of inspiration. When the Spirit of God gives you a time of inspiration and insight, you tend to say, “Now that I’ve experienced this moment, I will always be like this for God.” No, you will not, and God will make sure of that. Those times are entirely the gift of God. You cannot give them to yourself when you choose. If you make a god out of your best moments (and say you will only be at your best for God during those exceptional times), you will find that God will fade out of your life, never to return until you are obedient in the work He has placed closest to you, and until you have learned not to be obsessed with those exceptional moment He has given you. “
-Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
What are you truly seeking?
“If you have only come as far as asking God for things, you have never come to the point of understanding the least bit of what surrender really means. You have become a Christian based on your own terms. You protest, saying, “I asked God for the Holy Spirit, but He didn’t give me the rest and the peace I expected.” And instantly God puts His finger on the reason - you are not seeking the Lord at all; you are seeking something for yourself.
Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you…” (Matthew 7:7). Ask God for what you want and do not be concerned about asking for the wrong things, because as you draw ever closer to Him, you will cease asking for things altogether. “Your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. (Matthew 6:8). Then why should you ask? So that you may get to know Him more. “
-Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
The Warning Against Desiring Spiritual Success
“Worldliness is not the trap that most endangers us as Christian workers; nor is it sin. The trap we fall into is extravagantly desiring spiritual success; that is, success measured by, and patterned after, the form set by this religious age in which we now live. Never seek after anything other than the approval of God, and always be willing to go “outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Hebrews 13:13). In Luke 10:20, Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us do rejoice. We have a commercialized view - we count how many souls have been saved and sanctified, we thank God, and then we think everything is all right. Yet our work only begins where God’s grace has laid the foundation.
Our work is not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of God’s sovereign grace, and our work as His disciples is to disciple others’ lives until they are totally yielded to God. One life totally devoted to God is of more value to Him than one hundred lives which have been simply awakened by His Spirit. As workers for God, we must reproduce our own kind spiritually, and those lives will be God’s testimony to us as His workers. God brings us up to a standard of life through His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that same standard in others.
Unless the worker lives a life that “is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3), he is apt to become an irritating dictator to others, instead of an active, living disciple. Many of us are dictators, dictating our desires to individuals and to groups. But Jesus never dictates to us in that way. Whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He always prefaced His words with an “if”, never with the forceful or dogmatic statement - “You must.” Discipleship carries with it an option. ”
-Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
Do you worship the work?
Beware of any work for God that causes or allows you to avoid concentrating on Him. A great number of Christian workers worship their work. The only concern of Christian workers should be their concentration on God. This will mean that all the other boundaries of life, whether they are mental, moral, or spiritual limits, are completely free with the freedom God gives His child; that is, a worshiping child, not a wayward one.
-Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
Once our concentration is on God, all the limits of our life are free and under the control and mastery of God alone. There is no longer any responsibility on you for the work. The only responsibility you have is to stay in living constant touch with God, and to see that you allow nothing to hinder your cooperation with Him.
-Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
If we are not heedful of the way the Spirit of God works in us, we will become spiritual hypocrites.
We see where other folks are failing, and we turn our discernment into the gibe of criticism instead of into intercession on their behalf.
Of whom am I the most critical? How can I pray for that person honestly and unselfishly?
-Oswald Chambers, Prayer: A Holy Occupation
+This one really made me think about all the times that I have used discernment from God for judgement rather than intercession in prayer. It’s amazing how easy it is to let that happen and not even realize it, as we trade God’s discernment for our thoughts when we’re not focused on Him, allowing Satan to then take hold. This reminds me how important it is to always keep God as the focus in our minds so that when he gives us discernment of others, that we immediately know it is from Him, and not take it as our own thoughts.. And then to be wise in how we handle that discernment, by not just recognizing it, but by immediately using it for prayer to intercede for that person. If we don’t use this gift God gives us for prayer, what good would it be?
Which of my convictions have more to do with my own personal preferences than with God’s revelation?
We do not get insight by struggling, but by going to God in prayer.
-Oswald Chambers, Prayer: A Holy Occupation
