The vocation of the natural life

Chambers, Oswald: My Utmost for His Highest : Selections for the Year. Grand Rapids, MI : Discovery House Publishers, 1993, c1935, S. January 17

But when it pleased God . . . to reveal His son in me . . . Gal. 1:15-16.

The call of God is not a call to any particular service; my interpretation of it may be, because contact with the nature of God has made me realize what I would like to do for Him. The call of God is essentially expressive of His nature; service is the outcome of what is fitted to my nature. The vocation of the natural life is stated by the apostle Paul—“When it pleased God to reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him” (i.e., sacramentally express Him) “among the Gentiles.”

Service is the overflow of superabounding devotion; but, profoundly speaking, there is no call to that, it is my own little actual bit, and is the echo of my identification with the nature of God. Service is the natural part of my life. God gets me into a relationship with Himself whereby I understand His call, then I do things out of sheer love for Him on my own account. To serve God is the deliberate love-gift of a nature that has heard the call of God. Service is expressive of that which is fitted to my nature: God’s call is expressive of His nature; consequently when I receive His nature and hear His call, the voice of the Divine nature sounds in both and the two work together. The Son of God reveals Himself in me, and I serve Him in the ordinary ways of life out of devotion to Him.

Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter.

HOLY men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.--That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.

Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet.--He that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he speaketh true, that ye may believe.

We have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.--That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

REV. 1. 19. 2 Pe. 1. 21.--1Jo. 1. 3. Lu. 24. 39, 40.--John 19. 35. 2 Pe. 1. 16.--1 Co. 2. 5.

My soul cleaveth to the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word.

If ye . . . be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For . . . your life is hid with Christ in God.--Our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working by which he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

      The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.--Brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live according to the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.--Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.

PSA. 119. 25. Col. 3. 1-3.--Phi. 3. 20, 21. Ga. 5. 17.--Ro. 8. 12, 13.--1 Pe. 2. 11.

Called of God

FROM: Chambers, Oswald: My Utmost for His Highest : Selections for the Year. Grand Rapids, MI : Discovery House Publishers, 1993, c1935, S. January 14

Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. Isaiah 6:8.

God did not address the call to Isaiah; Isaiah overheard God saying—“Who will go for us?” The call of God is not for the special few, it is for everyone. Whether or not I hear God’s call depends upon the state of my ears; and what I hear depends upon my disposition. “Many are called but few are chosen,” that is, few prove themselves the chosen ones. The chosen ones are those who have come into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ whereby their disposition has been altered and their ears unstopped, and they hear the still small voice questioning all the time—“Who will go for us?” It is not a question of God singling out a man and saying, ‘Now, you go.’ God did not lay a strong compulsion on Isaiah; Isaiah was in the presence of God and he overheard the call, and realized that there was nothing else for him but to say, in conscious freedom—“Here am I; send me.”

Get out of your mind the idea of expecting God to come with compulsions and pleadings. When Our Lord called His disciples there was no irresistible compulsion from outside. The quiet, passionate insistence of His “Follow Me” was spoken to men with every power wide awake. If we let the Spirit of God bring us face to face with God, we too will hear something akin to what Isaiah heard, the still small voice of God; and in perfect freedom will say —“Here am I; send me.”

Have you ever been alone with God?

When He was alone, the twelve . . . asked of Him . . . Mark 4:10.

His Solitude with us. When God gets us alone by affliction, heartbreak, or temptation, by disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted affection, by a broken friendship, or by a new friendship—when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are dumbfounded and cannot ask one question, then He begins to expound. Watch Jesus Christ’s training of the twelve. It was the disciples, not the crowd outside, who were perplexed. They constantly asked Him questions, and He constantly expounded things to them; but they only understood after they had received the Holy Spirit (see John 14:26).

If you are going on with God, the only thing that is clear to you, and the only thing God intends to be clear, is the way He deals with your own soul. Your brother’s sorrows and perplexities are an absolute confusion to you. We imagine we understand where the other person is, until God gives us a dose of the plague of our own hearts. There are whole tracts of stubbornness and ignorance to be revealed by the Holy Spirit in each one of us, and it can only be done when Jesus gets us alone. Are we alone with Him now, or are we taken up with little fussy notions, fussy comradeships in God’s service, fussy ideas about our bodies? Jesus can expound nothing until we get through all the noisy questions of the head and are alone with Him.

from Chambers, Oswald: My Utmost for His Highest : Selections for the Year. Grand Rapids, MI : Discovery House Publishers, 1993, c1935, S. January 13

The only wise God our Saviour.

CHRIST Jesus, who from God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.--Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?

We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory.--The mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church, the manifold wisdom of God.

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.--The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.

I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

HRIST loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.--Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.

The peace of God . . . passeth all understanding.--Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body.

Our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work.--Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 THES. 5. 23. Ep. 5. 25, 27.--Col. 1. 28. Phi. 4. 7. Col. 3. 15. 2 Th. 2. 16, 17.-- 1 Co. 1. 8.