My Utmost For His Highest. Sept 3
He would not drink it, but poured it out to the Lord. 2 Samuel 23:16
What has been like “water from the well of Bethlehem” to you recently— love, friendship, or maybe some spiritual blessing (2 Samuel 23:16)? Have you taken whatever it may be, even at the risk of damaging your own soul, simply to satisfy yourself? If you have, then you cannot pour it out “to the Lord.” You can never set apart for God something that you desire for yourself to achieve your own satisfaction. If you try to satisfy yourself with a blessing from God, it will corrupt you. You must sacrifice it, pouring it out to God— something that your common sense (and our culture) says is an absurd waste!
How can I pour out “to the Lord” natural love and spiritual blessings? There is only one way— I must make a determination in my mind to do so. There are certain things other people do that could never be received by someone who does not know God, because it is humanly impossible to repay them. As soon as I realize that something is too wonderful for me, that I am not worthy to receive it, and that it is not meant for a human being at all, I must pour it out “to the Lord.” Then these very things that have come to me, even within sight of the Celestial City, will be poured out as “rivers of living water” all around me (John 7:38). And until I pour these things out to God, they actually endanger those I love, as well as myself, because they will be turned into lust. Yes, we can be lustful in things that are not sordid and vile. Even love must be transformed by being poured out “to the Lord.”
BOTTOM LINE:
If you have become bitter and even outright sour from too much self-indulged sitting and soaking, perhaps it is because when God gave you a blessing you hoarded it? Yet if you had poured it out to Him, you would have been the sweetest person on earth. If you are always keeping blessings to yourself and never learning to pour out anything “to the Lord,” other people will never have their vision of God expanded through you. Perhaps scenario three is not so much about our rights, but rather about our responsibilities to others!
Further Reflection on WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else. “Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord,” from The Highest Good—The Pilgrim’s Song Book, 537