Go on Knowing

  “ Jesus answered them and said, ‘My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent me. If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him.” (John 7:16-18)

     In the last post I talked a little about Oswald Chambers and the impact his short life has had upon thousands and maybe millions of Christians worldwide due to the books that were published after he had gone home to his Father in heaven. In 1998 someone gave me a copy of “The Utmost Devotional Bible” and it has been the Bible that I have endeavored to read every day since. I have not always been successful but I have read through it many times and not only have I benefited from the truth of the Word of God, but I have been challenged by the short commentaries on particular Scriptures give by Mr. Chambers.

     Just as I would have a hard time saying a certain Scripture was my favorite, I would not want to say that one of Mr. Chambers’ quotes was my favorite. But I will say that the one that spoke to my heart the first time I heard it and has spoken to me again and again is the one I will share with you today.

    “If you believe in Jesus, you will not spend all your time in the smooth waters just inside the harbor, full of exhilaration and delight, but always moored; you will have to go out through the harbor bar into the great deeps of God and begin to know for yourself, begin to get spiritual discernment. If you do not cut the moorings, God will have break them with a storm and send you out. Why not unloosen and launch all on God and go out on the great swelling tide of His purpose?

    ‘If anyone wills to do His will , he shall know…’ When you know you should do a thing and you do it, you will know more. If you revise where you are stodgy spiritually, you will find it goes back to the point where there was one thing you knew you should do, but you did not do it because there seemed no immediate call to, and now you have no perception, no discernment. Instead of being spiritually self-possessed at the time of crisis, you are spiritually distracted. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to go on knowing.” (Reading 142, “Utmost Devotional Bible, Oswald Chambers)

   What are you doing that the Lord has called you to do? What are you not doing that He has called you to do? Seek His face. Ask Him to open the eyes of your heart that you can be obedient to all that He has called you to do, not just some of it. He wants our complete and utter submission to His will and abandonment for the tasks He had prepared for each of us before the foundation of the world.

Pray

1.     Lord open my eyes and make my feet quick to be obedient to your commandments and direction for my life. 

2.     Help me to see the people whom I have wronged or hurt and to seek their forgiveness. If there is any unforgiveness in my heart show me and help me to repent and to forgive.

2.     Help me to be extravagant in giving of myself, and my resources, which you have given to me for the advancement of Your Kingdom.