God called to him….And he
said, "Here I am." —Exodus 3:4
“Readiness for God means that
we are prepared to do the smallest thing or the largest thing— it makes no
difference. It means we have no choice in what we want to do, but that whatever
God’s plans may be, we are there and ready. Whenever any duty presents itself,
we hear God’s voice as our Lord heard His Father’s voice, and we are ready for
it with the total readiness of our love for Him. Jesus Christ expects to do
with us just as His Father did with Him. […] A ready person never needs to get
ready— he is ready. Think of the time we waste trying to get ready once God has
called! The burning bush is a symbol of everything that surrounds the person
who is ready, and it is on fire with the presence of God Himself.” CHAMBERS
Are you familiar with the
term “ready, willing, and able”? We must
not only be ready to hear from God, we must be willing to do what He says. We are able to do it only if we are willing
to exercise the faith that God’s call requires.
We can do nothing God asks of us apart from the power of God. He is a supernatural God who calls us to the
supernatural. He calls us to live our
lives outside of the natural … independent of the natural world and dependent
upon Him. In our Bible class at church
we are studying the book of Romans. This
last Sunday we were reading in chapter 13.
Romans 13:8 “Owe no one
anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the
law.” We are familiar with the two
greatest commandments in Matthew
22:37-39, love God and love others.
But in Romans 13 Paul puts those commandments in the context of an
obligation. We are to carry the burden
of love like we would a great debt that we owed. Imagine that you lost your job and you are going
to lose the place where you live if you don’t pay the rent. You are already a month late. The landlord is calling you. You feel the weight of that financial obligation. In the same way, we should feel the weight of
our obligation to love others. Instead
we often treat God’s command to love like it’s an option. (I am resisting an elaboration on how we
should express that love for sake of the length of this devotion .. it would be
more like a book.) Suffice it to say,
that we are to love others in the manner that the Word of God shows us and when
the Spirit prompts us. So, I suppose in
terms of loving others, I should reorder the words in that phrase to “able, willing
and ready”. My question to you,
Christian is, are you? You will have an opportunity to prove it today. ELGIN
Charley Elgin
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