Pressing On To The Higher Calling Of Our Lord

My Utmost For His Highest

For God so loved the world that He gave… —John 3:16

{CHAMBERS} “Salvation does not mean merely deliverance from sin or the experience of personal holiness. The salvation which comes from God means being completely delivered from myself, and being placed into perfect union with Him. […]  If we are truly surrendered, we will never be aware of our own efforts to remain surrendered. Our entire life will be consumed with the One to whom we surrender. […] In our surrender, we must give ourselves to God in the same way He gave Himself for us— totally, unconditionally, and without reservation. The consequences and circumstances resulting from our surrender will never even enter our mind, because our life will be totally consumed with Him.”

{ELGIN} (Romans 8:29-30) “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.”  It is difficult to understand the true significance of Jesus, the Son, offering Himself as a sacrifice for us, but He did.  And the consequences are eternal. He was and is the example to us for what it means to live in obedience to the will of the Father.  In the desert and in the garden He showed us how we must face the issues of this life … with the Word and by submission to the will of the Father.  If you ever wondered how you are supposed to be a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1), look to Jesus.  Are you thinking, I am no Jesus, I would agree, but God is conforming you into His image.  Don’t look at your life in terms of what you personally can do to be like Jesus.  Consider what God has done, is doing, and will do to make you like Him.

And then, (Philippians 3:13-15) “Brothers and sisters, … do not consider [yourselves] yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing … do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, … press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called [you] heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.”