Oswald Chambers Daily Devotional 17 March 2026 (My Utmost for His Highest) Message
Read My Utmost for His Highest 17 March 2026 (Oswald Chambers Daily Devotional) Tuesday Inspirational Message.
TOPIC: The Ruling Passion
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We make it our goal to please him. — 2 Corinthians 5:9
Staying focused on the goal Paul sets in 2 Corinthians 5:9 is difficult work. It means holding ourselves, year in and year out, to the highest ideal: not the ideal of winning souls or establishing churches or ushering in revivals but the ideal of pleasing Jesus Christ. Failure in spiritual work isn’t caused by a lack of spiritual experience; it’s caused by a lack of effort to maintain the highest ideal.
At least once a week, take stock before God and see if you are keeping your life up to the standard he has set. The standard must be your ruling passion, your master ambition. Paul is like a musician who cares nothing about the approval of his audience—so long as he catches the look of approval from his master.
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Follow a lesser ambition to its natural conclusion, and you will see why it is so necessary to live facing the Lord. Any ambition that is separated from the highest goal, even by the tiniest degree, may end in our disqualification. “Therefore,” Paul says, “I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:26–27). Paul was constantly watching himself, constantly keeping himself in line, lest he lose sight of the ideal.
I have to learn to relate everything to the master ambition, maintaining it at all times. My worth to God in public is what I am in private. Is my master ambition to please him and be acceptable to him, or is it something less, no matter how noble?
BIBLE IN A YEAR: Deuteronomy 30-31; Mark 15:1-25
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
To live a life alone with God does not mean that we live it apart from everyone else. The connection between godly men and women and those associated with them is continually revealed in the Bible, e.g., 1 Timothy 4:10.
Not Knowing Whither, 867 L
