Obedience or Independence

[Jim Watt]

*"TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE" MINISTRIES*

*Jim & Marie Watt*

*PO Box **25116 – Federal Way** **WA** **98093-2116***

*Tel: 253.874.4265 – Email: jmbetter at gmail.com *

*Web: www.2rbetter.org – **November 2, 2007***

* *

*"OBEDIENCE OR **INDEPENDENCE**?" -- Oswald Chambers*

* *

*"If you love Me, keep My commandments" (John **14:15**). – "My Utmost for
His Highest."*

* *

Our Lord never insists on our obedience. He stresses very definitely what we
*ought* to do, but He never *forces* us to do it. We have to obey Him out of
a oneness of spirit with Him. That is why whenever our Lord talked about
discipleship, He prefaced it with an "if," meaning, "You do not need to do
this unless you desire to do so." "*If *anyone desires to come after Me, let
him deny himself …" (Luke 9:23). In other words, "To be My disciple, let him
give up his right to himself to Me." The Lord is not talking about our
eternal position, but about our being of value to Him in this life here and
now. That is why He sounds so stern (see Luke 14:26). Never try to make
sense from these words by separating them from the One who spoke them.



The Lord does not give me rules, but He makes His standard very clear. If my
relationship to Him is that of love, I will do what He says without
hesitation. If I hesitate, it is because I love someone I have placed in
competition with Him, namely, myself. Jesus Christ will not force me to obey
Him, but I must. And as soon as I obey Him, I fulfill my spiritual destiny.
My personal life may be crowded with small, petty happenings, altogether
insignificant. But if I obey Jesus Christ in the seemingly random
circumstances of life, they become pinholes through which I see the face of
God. Then, when I stand face to face with God, I will discover that through
my obedience thousands were blessed. When God's redemption brings a human
soul to the point of obedience, it always produces. If I obey Jesus Christ,
the redemption of God will flow through me to the lives of others, because
behind the deed of obedience is the reality of Almighty God.





*A BONDSERVANT OF JESUS – Oswald Chambers*

* *

*"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ
lives in me …" (Galatians **2:20**).*

* *

These words mean the breaking and collapse of my independence brought about
by my own hands, and the surrendering of my life to the supremacy of the
Lord Jesus. No one can do this for me, I must do it myself. God may bring me
up to this point three hundred and sixty-five times a year, but He cannot
push me through it. It means breaking the hard outer layer of my individual
independence from God, and the liberating of my individual independence from
God, and the liberating of myself and my nature into oneness with Him; not
following my own ideas, but choosing absolute loyalty to Jesus. Once I am at
that point, there is no possibility of misunderstanding. Very few of us know
anything about loyalty to Christ or understand what He meant when He said,
"… for My sake" (Matthew 5:11). That is what makes a strong saint.



Has that breaking of my independence come? All the rest is religious fraud.
The one point to decide is – will I give up? Will I surrender to Jesus
Christ, placing no conditions whatsoever as to how the brokenness will come?
I must be broken from my own understanding of myself. When I reach that
point, immediately the reality of the supernatural identification with Jesus
Christ takes place. And the witness of the Spirit of God is unmistakable –
"I have been crucified with

Christ …"



The passion of Christianity comes from deliberately signing away my own
rights and becoming a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I will
not begin to be a saint.



One student a year who hears God's call would be sufficient for God to have
called the Bible Training College into existence. This college has no value
as an organization, not even academically. Its sole value for existence is
for God to help Himself to lives. Will we allow Him to help Himself to us,
or are we more concerned with our own ideas of what we are going to be?





*NOTE: *Chambers "web of time" was 1874 to 1917. 3 of his 50 or so books
were published before his death – the other 47 posthumously through his
wife, including "My Utmost for His Highest."



He was principal of the "Bible Training College" for missionaries from
1911-1915, from where these two readings were written. London was the scene
of this College, and from here he went as YMCA Chaplain to British Forces in
Egypt.



Again – there needs no comment on these two readings. J.W.







*TO SUBSCRIBE – Please Email: jmbetter-subscribe at skagitattic.no-ip.org*

* *

*TO UNSUBSCRIBE – Please email: jmbetter-unsubscribe at skagitattic.no-ip.org*

* *

*FOR ARCHIVE ARTICLES – Web:**
http://skagitattic.no-ip.org/pipermail/jmbetter/ *
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://2rbetter.org/pipermail/mailing/attachments/20071104/040fa5fa/attachment.htm>