I really enjoy reading the daily devotional, "My Utmost For His Highest", by Oswald Chambers. There are times when is can be a little more difficult to understand because it was written in the late 19th or early 20th century. The language is a little different than today's English, which requires a more careful study and not just a light skimming! But THAT is REAL Bible study! I really like today's posting:
I am already being poured out as a drink offering. — 2 Timothy 4:6
"I am ready to be offered." It is a transaction of will, not of sentiment. Tell God you are ready to be offered; then let the consequences be what they may, there is no strand of complaint now, no matter what God chooses. God puts you through the crisis in private, no one person can help an other. Externally the life may be the same; the difference is in will. Go through the crisis in will, then when it comes externally there will be no thought of the cost. If you do not transact in will with God along this line, you will end in awakening sympathy for yourself.
"Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar." The altar means fire – burning and purification and insulation for one purpose only, the destruction of every affinity that God has not started and of every attachment that is not an attachment in God. You do not destroy it, God does; you bind the sacrifice to the horns of the altar; and see that you do not give way to self-pity when the fire begins. After this way of fire, there is nothing that oppresses or depresses. When the crisis arises, you realize that things cannot touch you as they used to do. What is your way of fire?
Tell God you are ready to be offered, and God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be.
This isn't speaking of suffering and persecution, but of setting aside our own will for HIS higher purpose! It takes a "dying" to self, or the flesh nature, to really fulfill what God has called each of us to do. I really like that it says THIS above: no one person can help an other. No one can do it for us! WE have to make that commitment to do HIS will whether anyone else does it o not! I KNOW this from experience! When I felt the Lord was leading me to start praying each morning AT The Spoken Word Church, FOR The Spoken Word Church, I waited to see how many others He was speaking to! It ended up that I was the ONLY one! Have you ever been in that position where you KNEW what you were supposed to do, but felt inadequate to do it on your own? After about a week of this "waffling" I heard the Lord say, "But I told YOU to do this! What I tell others is NOT your business!" I received His correction and began to go every morning to the church at 6am to pray for an hour. It was not even a week and HE had others join me in this. THEY came because HE called them to come, not to please me! How do I know that God is, was and will always be "in it"? Because we have been continually praying from 6-7am every single day since May of 1985! When GOD is in it, it will NOT fail! AMEN!
So what has the One, True, God of the Bible been urging YOU to begin to do? Don't ask Him who else will be there to help you. If He is calling YOU, then He will be your source of supply, your strength and your great reward! DO IT! There will not be one moment of regret when you decide to do things God's way! He is FAITHFUL! AMEN! Here is that beautiful song of commitment again: "Oceans - Where Feet May Fail" by Hillsong United. Make it YOURS!
Shalom in Him!
