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"Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are
subject to you . . ." - Luke 10:20
Worldliness is not the trap that most endangers us as Christian workers; nor is
it sin. The trap we fall into is extravagantly desiring spiritual success; that
is, success measured by, and patterned after, the form set by this religious age
in which we now live. Never seek after anything other than the approval of God,
and always be willing to go “outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (Hebrews
13:13 ). In Luke 10:20 , Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful
service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us do rejoice.
We have a commercialized view— we count how many souls have been saved and
sanctified, we thank God, and then we think everything is all right. Yet our
work only begins where God’s grace has laid the foundation. Our work is not to
save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of
God’s sovereign grace, and our work as His disciples is to disciple others’
lives until they are totally yielded to God. One life totally devoted to God is
of more value to Him than one hundred lives which have been simply awakened by
His Spirit. As workers for God, we must reproduce our own kind spiritually, and
those lives will be God’s testimony to us as His workers. God brings us up to a
standard of life through His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that
same standard in others.
Unless the worker lives a life that “is hidden with Christ in God” ( Colossians
3:3 ), he is apt to become an irritating dictator to others, instead of an
active, living disciple. Many of us are dictators, dictating our desires to
individuals and to groups. But Jesus never dictates to us in that way. Whenever
our Lord talked about discipleship, He always prefaced His words with an “if,”
never with the forceful or dogmatic statement— “You must.” Discipleship carries
with it an option.
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Daily Devotional with Oswald Chambers Archives
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