Today’s Devotional: Crushed into Submission to God’s Purpose
The following devotional from My Utmost for His Highest explores what it means to be wholly devoted to God. Oswald Chambers writes that we must be submissive to God’s purpose if we ever want to be the “holy example” that He wants us to be:
We are not saved only to be instruments for God, but to be His sons and daughters. He does not turn us into spiritual agents but into spiritual messengers, and the message must be a part of us. The Son of God was His own message— “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” ( John 6:63 ). As His disciples, our lives must be a holy example of the reality of our message. Even the natural heart of the unsaved will serve if called upon to do so, but it takes a heart broken by conviction of sin, baptized by the Holy Spirit, and crushed into submission to God’s purpose to make a person’s life a holy example of God’s message.
There is a difference between giving a testimony and preaching. A preacher is someone who has received the call of God and is determined to use all his energy to proclaim God’s truth. God takes us beyond our own aspirations and ideas for our lives, and molds and shapes us for His purpose, just as He worked in the disciples’ lives after Pentecost. The purpose of Pentecost was not to teach the disciples something, but to make them the incarnation of what they preached so that they would literally become God’s message in the flesh. “. . . you shall be witnesses to Me . . .” ( Acts 1:8 ).
Read the entire devotional at RBC.org.
How has God molded you for His purposes?
i’ll be reading this devotional from now on. thank you so much!
It is only by testimonies of God’s faithfulness today that He is seen and known as the Living God yesterday – TODAY and tomorrow. God is the same miracle provider today as He was 2000, 3000 years ago and since the beginning of time. Testimonies of God’s current day blessings reach far more than the best delivered sermons from pulpits on Sunday mornings.
Hello !
I agree completely with you, but to go to the Church every sunday to hear God’s word is also so important.
A giant step toward getting Jesus’ message on our hearts is to memorize a gospel. That will enable us to share His own message in word and prayer, physically and spiritually and unify us with all other Christian believers.
With the Christian unity from learning a gospel, we could fellowship with anyone regardless of denomination. Remember Jesus Christ through His Gospels first then Revelation which are the 5 books containing most of Jesus’ recorded words, making the New Pentateuch.
Learning Jesus’ words would impact our life a lot, making us pay more attention to Jesus and living His kind of life. The more we learn His whole gospel the more His kind of church would be expressed.
Following Jesus’ example with his 12 disciples as our church life would enable small churches where 12 are taught intensely in Spirit and Word for 3 years then be sent in answer to praying for the Lord of the Harvest to send workers into the Harvest for half a year to preach and start their own church of 12. Multiplying 12 by 12 every 3.5 years would enable the world to be covered in 10 cycles or 35 years! So start learning Jesus’ words now.
We must always remember the core purpose for Jesus’ life and the gospel he preached. Jesus said he came to testify to the truth of the Kingdom of God and he preached a message of unconditional love to all. If we are to reach a lost and hurting world we must first do as Christ did, and get down in the dirt with the lowest, the lost, the broken of our society and give them a physical (Matthew 25) example of HOPE!! Our only message should be the message of the LOVE of the Father and the unity of ALL people through personal unity with God. (John 17:20-23)
The best preachers are those who don’t use words but teach by example.
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
14How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” Romans 10:13-15
We must Love As He Loves; In Thought, Word and Action. One without the other two is a lie…
If THE LORD has been a blessing to you in all his help, help someone else.
In my readings, I once came across the adage — in some reference with the law — that the case could be: “The messenger is the message.” I used to take it this way — The Lord Jesus Himself is the Message! And who, what is Jesus? One messenger who, the Gospel says, died for you while yet you’re a sinner, and only because of the love of the Father. To be your Saviour. Following him, each saved one has to be in some way “a letter of God”, and a love letter. In some small way not just a messenger but “the message”. And, I’d suppose God’s purpose is Jesus’ love should get through to our neighbours through us, through the Church.