MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST 15 JUNE 2024 BY OSWALD CHAMBERS
Read My Utmost for His Highest 15 June 2024 (Oswald Chambers Devotional) Saturday Inspirational Message.
TOPIC: The Test of Character
Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge. — 2 Peter 1:5
You have inherited the divine nature, says Peter (2 Peter 1:4). Now focus your attention and form habits. Be diligent. Concentrate. No one is born with character, either naturally or supernaturally. We have to make character. Nor are we born with habits. We have to form habits based on the new life God has put into us. We aren’t meant to be shiny, illuminated versions of humanity, floating above everyone else.
We’re meant to lead common, ordinary lives that exhibit the marvel of the grace of God. Our willingness to work at whatever task God gives us is how we add to our faith. We must work diligently, no matter how lowly or insignificant the task appears in the eyes of the world.
Drudgery is the great test of character. The most significant obstacle to our spiritual development is that we look for big, important things to do, and will not do the thing that lies close at hand because we think it’s beneath us.
“Jesus . . . began to wash his disciples’ feet” (John 13:3, 5). There are times when there is no illumination in our lives, no thrill or excitement, just the daily routine with its ordinary tasks. Routine is God’s way of saving us between times of inspiration. Don’t expect God to give you thrills. Learn to live in the domain of drudgery by his power.
“Make every effort . . .” We say we don’t expect God to carry us to heaven on flowery beds of ease, but we act as though we do! The tiniest detail in which we obey has the omnipotent power of the grace of God behind it. If we do our duty, not for duty’s sake but because we believe God is engineering our circumstances, the whole superb grace of God is ours through the atonement the very moment we obey.
Further Reading: Nehemiah 1-3; Acts 2:1-21
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
The great word of Jesus to His disciples is Abandon. When God has brought us into the relationship of disciples, we have to venture on His word; trust entirely to Him and watch that when He brings us to the venture, we take it. – Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
Oswald Chambers was an early-twentieth-century Scottish Baptist evangelist and teacher who was aligned with the Holiness Movement. He is best known for the daily devotional My Utmost for His Highest