Anyone who is
familiar with my post should know today’s Oswald Chambers is thrilling to me
simply because in my world, surrender is the name of the game.
But, what I
would like you to pay attention to is all the doctrines that Oswald talked
about in this one page. There is so much of the Christian life summarized in
one tiny page. There is the surrendered life, the eradication of sin, the
oneness with Christ, the claim to self and the view of the true self vis a vis
God which is when we discover we are nothing but a worm in His presence. We
also have part of the walk in the Spirit that is somewhere in there too. Then,
after all that we find that regeneration is ours in the end.
The idea here
is not to read it and just fall in love with the beauty of the contents because
it’s well said or just because we admire his knowledge but, to seriously
consider asking God to impart this life to your soul too. We have to be careful
of repeating things out of sentimentality such as a verse like Galatians 2:20. Until
God imparts it in our lives all we have is indeed sentimentality which will not
take us anywhere. This is why Paul was worrying so much about the Galatians and
he felt the pain of childbirth for them, until Christ nature is formed in them.
Paul was exhorting them to go forward; he worried about their progress because
he knew they were missing out on something. (Galatians 4:19-20)
I know from
experience there is at least three years of intense and focus work to get there
with God. And this is from living a total surrendered life while you are kept
under His thumb with a life that you no longer recognized. I would not be able
to tell you how long it takes if God decides to do this work in chunks in your
own life, or perhaps if you surrender on a case by case basis. But what I can
assure you, without this process we have a passage in the Scriptures that says
many are called but few are chosen” care to guess which group you belong to in
that verse?
About a month
ago I encountered a so called Christian blogger on the internet who had such a
long post about Oswald Chambers. While he went on about how he respect his
group of friends who loves Oswald’s writings. He went on about how he also
likes O C’s writings and possesses actually two of the same devotion books. In
the end he concluded that all of his writings were basically wishful thinking,
forced salvation and someone trying to force mysticism etc. He also said
something like he could not understand why someone with common sense would
believe in all that nonsense. (But don’t worry he respects his friends’ views
LOL)
This blogger
went on to explain how he has been raised in a Christian home for thirty years
(by the time he wrote his ridiculous and confusing post he was much older) and
share his beliefs. Personally I feel if I were in his shoes, I would not brag about being raised in a
Christian home because it does not say much about your parents Christianity if
this is what they taught you. Secondly, his beliefs can be summed up this way:
let go and let God, do not lift a finger. Then on top of it all he managed to
confuse those followers of him because of the comments I read, some were asking
if they can still believe they have received salvation without going through those
processes Oswald Chambers kept referring to in his devotion book? And these
questions were coming from very educated young men like him. But what none of
them understood is that the whole devotion book is dedicated to explaining
Salvation. He was sharing with us how when salvation touches us we find the
power to press on beyond our common sense. If after thirty years of
Christianity you cannot see this basic fact in his devotion book, then you are
in trouble.
Today’s
devotion of surrender should be considered very closely because you do not want
to be this type of Christian like this blogger after thirty years has no
spiritual discernment, no idea what salvation means according to God’s version
of it and he is not willing to give up pretense, sin and deceit. Lashing out of
Oswald’s writings will do you no good. He lived his life in the light of God
and now he is with Him. Are you sure you can say you are even living in the
light of God?
The “surrender”
devotion we read today is nothing but, salvation working in your life reviving
your dead bones. It is Salvation working in your soul. It is what you claimed
to have received that is at work in you, building you up, preparing you,
sanctifying you, transforming you etc. It is exactly the continuation of the
good work in you by the One who started it. It is His grace at work. It is the
foundation of the work of personal holiness. We do not surrender like Oswald suggested today because we want to receive
salvation, but we do surrender because we have received salvation. We surrender
because the salvation we have received has allowed us to see who we are in Him
and how much more we need Him.
So, if you feel
like lashing out to OC because of what he has written, you are just like an
unbeliever finding the gospel offensive. Since you are already in the Word, but
in Satan’s claws, may I suggest you get on your knees and start begging God to
touch your dull conscience and callous heart? Beside, Paul and Christ are not asking you anything they have not done.
HERE IS OSWALD POST JUST IN CASE YOU HAVE NOT READ IT
To become one with Jesus Christ, a person must be willing not only to give up sin, but also to surrender his whole way of looking at things. Being born again by the Spirit of God means that we must first be willing to let go before we can grasp something else. The first thing we must surrender is all of our pretense or deceit. What our Lord wants us to present to Him is not our goodness, honesty, or our efforts to do better, but real solid sin. Actually, that is all He can take from us. And what He gives us in exchange for our sin is real solid righteousness. But we must surrender all pretense that we are anything, and give up all our claims of even being worthy of God’s consideration.
Once we have done that, the Spirit of God will show us what we need to surrender next. Along each step of this process, we will have to give up our claims to our rights to ourselves. Are we willing to surrender our grasp on all that we possess, our desires, and everything else in our lives? Are we ready to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?
We will suffer a sharp painful disillusionment before we fully surrender. When people really see themselves as the Lord sees them, it is not the terribly offensive sins of the flesh that shock them, but the awful nature of the pride of their own hearts opposing Jesus Christ. When they see themselves in the light of the Lord, the shame, horror, and desperate conviction hit home for them.
If you are faced with the question of whether or not to surrender, make a determination to go on through the crisis, surrendering all that you have and all that you are to Him. And God will then equip you to do all that He requires of you
Courtesy of: http://utmost.org/
