A Week Lacking Oswald Chambers
A week lacking My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers is synonomous for a string of gloomy days. My copy of this magnificent book was left at our church, an hour and a half from my home, and awaited my return today. As I sit in my brother's office, listening to him and the members of the "worship team" practice for Sunday, I am attempting to read the last four days of brillance from Mr. Chambers.
September 22nd-
"To have a master and to be mastered is not the same thing. To have a master means that there is one who knows me better than I know myself, one who is closer than a friend, one who fathoms the remotest abyss of my heart and satisfies it, son who has brought me into the secure sense that he has met and solved every perplexity and problem of my mind."
To be mastered involves a certain amount of conquering between two opponents. The weaker of the two, more than likely, will be the one who is forced into submission. The one who is mastered will probably not look upon the "master" with favor. Thinking spiritually about mastery, when I view my relationship with God as Him overtaking me, I struggle all the more with obedience. Yet, God is Master, not because He has conquered me into submission, but because He knows all. He is my Master whether I recognize Him as such or not. He sees the depths of my heart and loves me the same. He has all knowledge and can solve all of my finite problems. Why would I not want Him as Master?
"He wants us in the relationship in which He is easily Master without our conscious knowledge of it, all we know is that we are His to obey."
This is the highest form of obedience and one that I strive for every day- to obey without knowing it because I am His child and want to please Him in all I do. Why do I not live this way when I want to? Is it beacuse I do not know what I should do? No, for I know the good I ought to do and do not do it, therefore sinning. The reason, so many times, that I do not obey is because I lack belief in the promises of God. If I believed God as I should there would be no hesitance in my obedience. His promises proclaim Him to be trustworthy. His promises show His faithfulness from age to age. It is only my self-centered foolishness that hinders me. Praise Him for His mercy and grace.
September 23rd-
"We start with Christ and we end with Him- "until we all attain to the stature of the manhood of Christ Jesus," not to our idea of what the Christian life should be. The aim of the missionary is to do God's will, not to be useful, not to win the heathen; he is useful and he does win the heathen, but that is not his aim. His aim is to do the will of His Lord."
What is my aim? Do I focus my energy on being the Christian that the Christian society demands from me? Or do I pour my life into doing the will of God? Those are hard questions to answer, not because of the questions themselves, but because they are so close it is hard to seperate which is which. There is a point where I can focus on being the "best Christian ever" and lose sight of doing God's will. Yet, when I pursue the will of God, the other will automatically happen.
September 22nd-
"To have a master and to be mastered is not the same thing. To have a master means that there is one who knows me better than I know myself, one who is closer than a friend, one who fathoms the remotest abyss of my heart and satisfies it, son who has brought me into the secure sense that he has met and solved every perplexity and problem of my mind."
To be mastered involves a certain amount of conquering between two opponents. The weaker of the two, more than likely, will be the one who is forced into submission. The one who is mastered will probably not look upon the "master" with favor. Thinking spiritually about mastery, when I view my relationship with God as Him overtaking me, I struggle all the more with obedience. Yet, God is Master, not because He has conquered me into submission, but because He knows all. He is my Master whether I recognize Him as such or not. He sees the depths of my heart and loves me the same. He has all knowledge and can solve all of my finite problems. Why would I not want Him as Master?
"He wants us in the relationship in which He is easily Master without our conscious knowledge of it, all we know is that we are His to obey."
This is the highest form of obedience and one that I strive for every day- to obey without knowing it because I am His child and want to please Him in all I do. Why do I not live this way when I want to? Is it beacuse I do not know what I should do? No, for I know the good I ought to do and do not do it, therefore sinning. The reason, so many times, that I do not obey is because I lack belief in the promises of God. If I believed God as I should there would be no hesitance in my obedience. His promises proclaim Him to be trustworthy. His promises show His faithfulness from age to age. It is only my self-centered foolishness that hinders me. Praise Him for His mercy and grace.
September 23rd-
"We start with Christ and we end with Him- "until we all attain to the stature of the manhood of Christ Jesus," not to our idea of what the Christian life should be. The aim of the missionary is to do God's will, not to be useful, not to win the heathen; he is useful and he does win the heathen, but that is not his aim. His aim is to do the will of His Lord."
What is my aim? Do I focus my energy on being the Christian that the Christian society demands from me? Or do I pour my life into doing the will of God? Those are hard questions to answer, not because of the questions themselves, but because they are so close it is hard to seperate which is which. There is a point where I can focus on being the "best Christian ever" and lose sight of doing God's will. Yet, when I pursue the will of God, the other will automatically happen.
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