MY UTMOST FOR HIS HIGHEST 24 JUNE 2024 BY OSWALD CHAMBERS
Read My Utmost for His Highest 24 June 2024 (Oswald Chambers Devotional) Monday Inspirational Message.
TOPIC: Reconciling Yourself to the Fact of Sin
But this is your hour—when darkness reigns. — Luke 22:53
Not being reconciled to the fact that sin exists is what produces all the disasters in life. We talk about the nobility of human nature, but something in human nature laughs in the face of our ideals. If we refuse to accept that there is wickedness and self-seeking in human beings, something downright spiteful and wrong, we’ll compromise with sin and say there’s no use battling against it when it shows up in our lives.
Have you made allowance for the hour “when darkness reigns” in you? Or do you have a conception of yourself that leaves out sin? In your friendships and physical relationships, are you caught off guard by sinful impulses, or do you reconcile yourself in advance to the reality of sin? If you do, you’ll recognize danger the instant it appears; you’ll know ahead of time what engaging in sinful behavior would mean. Recognizing that sin exists doesn’t destroy human relationships; it establishes a mutual regard founded on the fact that the basis of life is tragic.
Always beware of an estimate of human nature that doesn’t take the existence of sin into account. Jesus Christ never trusted human nature, yet he was never cynical, never suspicious. He trusted absolutely in what God could do.
The pure person, not the innocent person, is the safeguarded person. Innocence is the quality of the child. You are never safe with an innocent man or woman; God demands that we be pure and virtuous. It is a blameworthy thing not to be reconciled to the fact of sin.
Further Reading: Job 1-2; Acts 7:22-43
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
There is nothing, naturally speaking, that makes us lose heart quicker than decay—the decay of bodily beauty, of natural life, of friendship, of associations, all these things make a man lose heart; but Paul says when we are trusting in Jesus Christ these things do not find us discouraged, light comes through them.
The Place of Help
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