Monday, April 18, 2016

God Made You Able, But Are You Willing and Ready

My Utmost For His Highest
 
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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