Oswald Chambers
Bible teacher, British army chaplain,
and author of devotional My Utmost for His Highest
I see now that God was taking me by the
light of the Holy Spirit and His Word through every ramification of my
being. The last three months of those
years things reached a climax, I was getting desperate. I knew no one who had what I wanted; in fact,
I did not know what I did want. But I
knew that if what I had was all the Christianity there was, the thing was a
fraud.
Then Luke 11:13 got hold of me: “If ye
then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more
shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?”
But how could I, bad motived as I was,
possibly ask for the gift of the Holy Spirit?
Then it was borne in upon me that I had to claim the gift from God on
the authority of Jesus Christ and testify to having done so. But the thought came – if you claim the gift
of the Holy Spirit on the word of Jesus Christ and testify to it, God will make
known to those who know you best how bad you are in heart. And I was not willing to be a fool for
Christ’s sake.
But those of you who know the
experience, know very well how God brings one to the point of utter despair,
and I got to the place where I did not care whether everyone knew how bad I
was, I cared for nothing on earth, saving to get out of my present condition.
Two days later I was asked to speak at
a meeting, and forty souls came out to the front. Did I praise God? No, I was terrified and left them to the
workers, and went to Mr. MacGregor and told him what happened. He said, “Don’t you remember claiming the
Holy Spirit as a gift of the word of Jesus, and that He said ‘You shall receive
power’? This the power from on high.”
And like a flash, something happened
inside me, and I saw that I had been wanting power in my own hand, so to speak, that I might say – Look
what I have by putting my all on the altar.
Glory to God, the last aching abyss of the
human heart is filled to overflowing with the love of God. Love is the beginning, love is the middle,
and love is the end. After He comes
in, all you see is Jesus only, Jesus ever.
When you know what God has done for you, the power and the tyranny of
sin is gone and the radiant, unspeakable emancipation of the indwelling Christ
has come.
Holiness is not an attainment at all, it is the gift of God.
He makes holy, He sanctifies, He does it all. All I have to do is to come as a spiritual
pauper, not ashamed to beg, to let go of my right to myself and to act on
Romans 12:1-2. It is never “Do, do, and
you’ll be with the Lord,” but “Be, be, and I will do through you.” It is a case of hands up and letting go,
and then entire reliance on Him.
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I must be broken from my own understanding of myself. When I reach that point, immediately the
reality of the supernatural identification with Jesus Christ takes
place. And the witness of the Spirit
of God is unmistakable – “I have been crucified with Christ” (Galatians
2:20). [from
My Utmost for His Highest November 3rd] |