A Bond Slave of Jesus
I have read the same devotional book for the better part of twelve years. It is a collection of sermon excerpts by the late Oswald Chambers, founder of The Bible Training College. The book is entitled My Utmost for His Highest. I have never tired of it’s truth, and I find inspiration in it’s pages, whether I want to or not. Next to the Bible, it is the book I most often refer to in my quest for a deeper relationship with God. Following is an excerpt from today’s lesson.
A Bond-Slave Of Jesus
“I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.”
Galatians 2:20
These words mean the breaking of my independence with my own band and surrendering to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus. No one can do this for me, I must do it myself. God may bring me up to the point three hundred and sixty-five times a year, but He cannot put me through it. It means breaking the husk of my individual in dependence of God, and the emancipating of my personality into oneness with Himself, not for my own ideas, but for absolute loyalty to Jesus. There is no possibility of dispute when once I am there. Very few of us know anything about loyalty to Christ - “For My sake.” It is that which makes the iron saint.
Has that break come? All the rest is pious fraud. The one point to decide is - Will I give up, will I surrender to Jesus Christ, and make no conditions whatever as to how the break comes? I must be broken from my self-realization, and immediately that point is reached, the reality of the supernatural identification takes place at once, and the witness of the Spirit of God is unmistakable - “I have been crucified with Christ.”
The passion of Christianity is that I deliberately sign away my own rights and become a bond-slave of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I do not begin to be a saint.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
Are you a passionate participant, or a casual pretender?