Decided to read Oswald today, it seems to me that there is a re-accruing theme, and I need to take notice. As I think back over the last three and a half weeks, I have tried to focus on the Lord, but my focus has been elsewhere. I have said it before … going through the motions …. Punching my ticket. You know what I mean. I prayed for 10 minutes and I read for 10 minutes and then I can say I did my quiet time. Have you been there? That always seems to happen when you don't have any vision and no enthusiasm. This is something I have definitely been lacking in. I wake up in the morning and sometimes wonder when I say "yes" do I really mean it? My prayer…. "Ask God to keep the eyes of your spirit open to the Risen Christ, and it will be impossible for drudgery to damp you." 2 Corinthians 6:3-4 (NLT)3 We live in such a way that no one will stumble because of us, and no one will find fault with our ministry. 4 In everything we do, we show that we are true ministers of God. We patiently endure troubles and hardships and calamities of every kind.
It takes Almighty grace to take the next step when there is no vision and no spectator - the next step in devotion, the next step in your study, in your reading, in your kitchen; the next step in your duty, when there is no vision from God, no enthusiasm and no spectator. It takes far more of the grace of God, far more conscious drawing upon God to take that step, than it does to preach the Gospel.
Every Christian has to partake of what was the essence of the Incarnation; he must bring the thing down into flesh and blood actualities and work it out through the finger tips. We flag when there is no vision, no uplift, but just the common round, the trivial task. The thing that tells in the long run for God and for men is the steady persevering work in the unseen, and the only way to keep the life uncrushed is to live looking to God. Ask God to keep the eyes of your spirit open to the Risen Christ, and it will be impossible for drudgery to damp you. Continually get away from pettiness and paltriness of mind and thought out into the thirteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel. Oswald Chambers
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