Friday, June 13, 2014

Guard Against The Subtle Shift Of Devotion

My Utmost For His Highest
 
‘We have the idea that we can dedicate our gifts to God. However, you cannot dedicate what is not yours. There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself (see Romans 12:1). If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you— and His experiments always succeed. […] In the life of a saint there is this amazing Well, which is a continual Source of original life. The Spirit of God is a Well of water springing up perpetually fresh. A saint realizes that it is God who engineers his circumstances; consequently there are no complaints, only unrestrained surrender to Jesus. Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is with you. If you abandon everything to Jesus, and come when He says, “Come,” then He will continue to say, “Come,” through you. You will go out into the world reproducing the echo of Christ’s “Come.” That is the result in every soul who has abandoned all and come to Jesus.’ CHAMBERS
 
When we left the secular to follow after God, we left behind all that would hinder is on the journey that God had laid before us.  Since then, many people have marveled at what we have “given up”.  The truth of the matter is that none of it was really ours.  Everything is God’s.  That is why we are called stewards.  Stewards take care of what is owned by another. What we did was decide to fully trust God and not the things of this world.  We must always be on guard against the subtle shift of devotion that will lead us far from God.  We stop trusting God, the Maker of heaven and earth, and start trusting what God has made for our security and well-being.  Big mistake.  What Martie and I did was visible to people, leaving our jobs and selling our possessions.  But what people did not see was what first had to happen in our hearts.  They saw our faith by our works … but the faith springs from within, resulting in action or works. We ask people not to marvel at we have done but marvel at the God who called us, who shaped us, and who provided for us.  This is our encouragement to you.
 
Hebrews 12:1-2 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”
 
You can do it with God’s help!
 
Bondye Beni Ou (God Bless You)

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