Prompted By Oswald Chambers’s My Utmost For His Highest, Adapted & Modified by mle
…add to your faith virtue… —2 Peter 1:5
DEFINITIONS:
Add means that we have to do something.
Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. Heb. 11:1
Virtue means manly spirit, bravery, courage, moral goodness or excellence.
We are in danger of forgetting that we cannot do what God does, and that God will not do what we can do. We cannot save nor sanctify ourselves— God does that. Nor will God give us good habits or character, and He certainly will not force us to walk correctly before Him. We have to do all that ourselves. God only operates invitationally; as we must too, with all those persons in our sphere of influence whom do not yet walk in His guiding presence. For first, we must “work out” our “own salvation” which God has worked in us by loving invitations (Philippians 2:12). To Add implies that we must get into the habit of actually doing things, such as completing assigned tasks, and during the initial stages of our walking the Kingdom Road, that can be really difficult. To take the initiative is to make a beginning— to instruct yourself in the way you must go.
Beware of the tendency to ask the way when you know it perfectly well. Take the initiative— stop hesitating— take the first step. Be determined to act immediately in faith on what God says to you when He speaks, and never reconsider or change your initial decisions. If you hesitate when God tells you to do something, you are being careless, spurning the grace in which you’re now standing. Take the initiative yourself, make a decision of your will right now, and make it impossible to go back. Burn your bridges behind you, saying, “I will write that letter;” “I will make that visit,” or “I will write up and present that volunteer proposal to area nursing homes I was given two years ago. Make it irrevocable.
In order to transition into new modes of service for Him as we mature spiritually, we must get into the habit of carefully listening to God from everything he places about us, perhaps in our devotional times or Bible study, or from our mentors or even, our mentees, or unusual circumstances that force us out of our comfort zones, hopefully that we then habitually first turn to Him for His wisdom, finding out what He says and promptly being obedient by heeding it. So, if and when those times of transitional crisis threaten us, we will instinctively turn to God, and we will know and be assured that His habits of spiritual survival and thriving under pressure have been formed in us.
BOTTOM LINE:
Yes indeed, we have to take the initiative practically where we now are, not merely theoretically where we have not yet been.
Wisdom From Oswald:
The Christian Church should not be a secret society of specialists, but rather, a public manifestation of believers in Jesus. Sincerity implies that our appearance and our reality are exactly the same.
NEXT UP:
Again, possibly the script of a unique Mother’s Day sermon May 12 delivered here in Wayne Co.