Today's My Utmost for His Highest":
AUTHORITY AND INDEPENDENCE
"If ye love Me, ye will keep My commandments." John 14:15 (R.V.)
Our Lord never insists upon obedience; He tells us very emphatically what we ought to do, but He never takes means to make us do it. We have to obey Him out of a oneness of spirit. That is why whenever Our Lord talked about discipleship, He prefaced it with an IF - you do not need to unless you like. "If any man will be My disciple, let him deny himself," let him give up his right to himself to Me. Our Lord is not talking of eternal positions, but of being of value to Himself in this order of things, that is why He sounds so stern (cf. Luke 14:26). Never interpret these words apart from the One Who uttered them.
The Lord does not give me rules, He makes His standard very clear, and if my relationship to Him is that of love, I will do what He says without any hesitation. If I hesitate, it is because I love some one else in competition with Him, viz., myself. Jesus Christ will not help me to obey Him, I must obey Him; and when I do obey Him, I fulfill my spiritual destiny. My personal life may be crowded with small petty incidents, altogether unnoticeable and mean; but if I obey Jesus Christ in the haphazard circumstances, they become pinholes through which I see the face of God, and when I stand face to face with God I will discover that through my obedience thousands were blessed. When once God's Redemption comes to the point of obedience in a human soul, it always creates. If I obey Jesus Christ, the Redemption of God will rush through me to other lives, because behind the deed of obedience is the Reality of Almighty God.
1 comment:
The Reality of God!
I sometimes think that is what is lost in our churches today. People go through the motions and do churchy things but never really contemplate the reality of God. They sing, they pray, they listen to sermons; but never really sense that the creator of the universe is in the place. That the God who said, let there be light, has the power to make them the light.
Most of us waste our time seeking to find what that great thing is that God wants us to do. That great thing is to yield daily, to the awesome power of a real God. Not to do some great thing, but to be so close to Him, that He can do great things through us.
We are so helpless on our own but God is able.
Praise God from whom all blessings flow......a real God....OUR God.
Post a Comment