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Greetings fellow Steemians.
By Oswald Chambers, September 9 - 2017
Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church: Colossians 1:24
We take our own spiritual consecration and try to make it into a call of God, but when we get right with Him He brushes all this aside. Then He gives us a tremendous, riveting pain to fasten our attention on something that we never even dreamed could be His call for us. And for one radiant, flashing moment we see His purpose, and we say, “Here am I! Send me” (Isaiah 6:8).
This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. Yet God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us. We say, “If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way, then I wouldn’t object!” But when He uses someone we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, to crush us, then we object. Yet we must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom. If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed—you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.
I wonder what finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you? Have you been as hard as a marble and escaped? If you are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you anyway, the wine produced would have been remarkably bitter. To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service. We have to be placed into God and brought into agreement with Him before we can be broken bread in His hands. Stay right with God and let Him do as He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children.
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Be Blessed.
Hi @christian-trail Thanks for posting this. I love My Utmost For His Highest. Have been reading it for years. Great book. Upvoted and resteemed.
Me too @ophistryproof, many times a good devotional gives inspiration for discussion, and even our own studies.
Hope you are having a blessed weekend.
Thank you @livingwaters. It is my first weekend off in over a month and I am blessed to be making progress on a back log of chores. I hope you are having a blessed weekend as well.
Thank for the wonderful post @christian-trail. This is a thought-provoking challenge. Not an easy road to take at all.
Hi! I am a robot. I just upvoted you! I found similar content that readers might be interested in:
https://utmost.org/the-assigning-of-the-call/
The article was given full credit to the original author as always.
Oswald Chambers has made a huge impact on the world through his writings. Most of us will never attain to the same level of influence he had, but we do learn from him the value of writing and publishing what we write.
Yes, and like all great authors with excellent content, if the message is a blessing it's worth sharing. :)
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