My Utmost for His Highest for Thursday, 28 September 2017 "The 'Go' Of Unconditional Identification" by Oswald Chambers
    
One thing thou lackest:…come, take up the cross, and follow Me. (MARK 10:21)
The rich young ruler had the master passion to be perfect. When he saw Jesus Christ, he wanted to be like Him. Our Lord never puts personal holiness to the fore when He calls a disciple; He puts absolute annihilation of my right to myself and identification with Himself — a relationship with Himself in which there is no other relationship. Luke 14:26 has nothing to do with salvation or sanctification, but with unconditional identification with Jesus Christ. Very few of us know the absolute “go” of abandonment to Jesus.
“Then Jesus beholding him loved him.” The look of Jesus will mean a heart broken for ever from allegiance to any other person or thing. Has Jesus ever looked at you? The look of Jesus transforms and transfixes. Where you are “soft” with God is where the Lord has looked at you. If you are hard and vindictive, insistent on your own way, certain that the other person is more likely to be in the wrong than you are, it is an indication that there are whole tracts of your nature that have never been transformed by His gaze.
“One thing thou lackest…” The only “good thing” from Jesus Christ’s point of view is union with Himself and nothing in between.
“Sell whatsoever thou hast…” I must reduce myself until I am a mere conscious man, I must fundamentally renounce possessions of all kinds, not to save my soul (only one thing saves a man — absolute reliance upon Jesus Christ), but in order to follow Jesus. “Come, and follow Me.” And the road is the way He went.. From My Utmost for His Highest Classic Edition
Bible in One Year: Isaiah 5-6; Ephesians 1
Isaiah 5:1 I want to sing a song for someone I love,
a song about my loved one and his vineyard.
My loved one had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
2 He dug up its stones and cleared them away,
planted it with the choicest vines,
built a watchtower in the middle of it,
and carved out in its rock a winepress.
He expected it to produce good grapes,
but it produced only sour, wild grapes.
3 Now, citizens of Yerushalayim and people of Y’hudah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more could I have done for my vineyard
that I haven’t already done in it?
So why, when I expected good grapes,
did it produce sour, wild grapes?
5 Now come, I will tell you
what I will do to my vineyard:
I will remove its hedge,
and [its grapes] will be eaten up;
I will break through its fence,
and [its vines] will be trampled down.
6 I will let it go to waste:
it will be neither pruned nor hoed,
but overgrown with briars and thorns.
I will also order the clouds
not to let rain fall on it.
7 Now the vineyard of Adonai-Tzva’ot
is the house of Isra’el,
and the men of Y’hudah
are the plant he delighted in.
So he expected justice,
but look — bloodshed! —
and righteousness, but listen —
cries of distress!
8 Woe to those who add house to house
and join field to field,
until there’s no room for anyone else,
and you live in splendor alone on your land.
9 Adonai-Tzva’ot said in my ears,
“Many houses will be brought to ruin,
large, magnificent ones left empty;
10 for a ten-acre vineyard will produce
only five gallons of wine,
and seed from five bushels of grain
will yield but half a bushel.”
11 Woe to those who get up early
to pursue intoxicating liquor;
who stay up late at night,
until wine inflames them.
12 They have lutes and lyres, drums and flutes,
and wine at their parties;
but they pay no attention to how Adonai works
and never look at what his hands have made.
13 For such lack of knowledge
my people go into exile;
this is also why their respected men starve
and their masses are parched from thirst.
14 Therefore Sh’ol has enlarged itself
and opened its limitless jaws —
and down go their nobles and masses,
along with their noise and revels.
15 The masses are lowered, the nobles are humbled —
proud looks will be brought down.
16 But Adonai-Tzva’ot is exalted through justice,
God the Holy One is consecrated through righteousness.
17 Then lambs will be able to feed
as if they were in their own pasture,
and those wandering through will eat
from the ruined fields of the overfed.
18 Woe to those who begin by pulling
at transgression with a thread,
but end by dragging sin along
as if with a cart rope.
19 They say, “We want God to speed up his work,
to hurry it along, so we can see it!
We want the Holy One of Isra’el’s plan
to come true right now, so we can be sure of it!”
20 Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who change darkness into light
and light into darkness,
who change bitter into sweet
and sweet into bitter!
21 Woe to those seeing themselves as wise,
esteeming themselves as clever.
22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine,
men whose power goes to mixing strong drinks,
23 who acquit the guilty for bribes
but deny justice to the righteous!
24 Therefore, as fire licks up the stubble,
and the chaff is consumed in the flame;
so their root will rot,
and their flowers scatter like dust;
because they have rejected the Torah
of Adonai-Tzva’ot,
they have despised the word
of the Holy One of Isra’el.
25 This is why Adonai’s anger blazed up against his people,
why he stretched out his hand against them and struck them
[so hard that] the hills shook,
and corpses lay like trash in the streets.
Even after all this, his anger remains,
his upraised hand still threatens.
26 He will give a signal to faraway nations,
he will whistle for them to come
from the ends of the earth;
and here they come, so fast! —
27 none of them tired or stumbling,
none of them sleeping or drowsy,
none with a loose belt,
none with a broken sandal-strap.
28 Their arrows are sharp,
all their bows are strung,
their horses’ hoofs are like flint,
and their [chariot] wheels like a whirlwind.
29 They will roar like lions —
yes, roaring like young lions,
they growl and seize the prey
and carry it off, with no one to rescue.
30 On that day they will growl at them,
like the sea when it growls —
and when one looks toward land,
one sees darkness closing in;
the light is dissipated
in the obscuring overcast.
6:1 In the year of King ‘Uziyahu’s death I saw Adonai sitting on a high, lofty throne! The hem of his robe filled the temple. 2 S’rafim stood over him, each with six wings — two for covering his face, two for covering his feet and two for flying. 3 They were crying out to each other,
“More holy than the holiest holiness
is Adonai-Tzva’ot!
The whole earth is filled
with his glory!”
4 The doorposts shook at the sound of their shouting, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 Then I said,
“Woe to me! I [too] am doomed! —
because I, a man with unclean lips,
living among a people with unclean lips,
have seen with my own eyes
the King, Adonai-Tzva’ot!”
6 One of the s’rafim flew to me with a glowing coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 He touched my mouth with it and said,
“Here! This has touched your lips.
Your iniquity is gone,
your sin is atoned for.”
8 Then I heard the voice of Adonai saying,
“Whom should I send?
Who will go for us?”
I answered, “I’m here, send me!” 9 He said, “Go and tell this people:
‘Yes, you hear, but you don’t understand.
You certainly see, but you don’t get the point!’
10 “Make the heart of this people [sluggish with] fat,
stop up their ears, and shut their eyes.
Otherwise, seeing with their eyes,
and hearing with their ears,
then understanding with their hearts,
they might repent and be healed!”
11 I asked, “Adonai, how long?” and he answered,
“Until cities become uninhabited ruins,
houses without human presence,
the land utterly wasted;
12 until Adonai drives the people far away,
and the land is one vast desolation.
13 If even a tenth [of the people] remain,
it will again be devoured.
“But like a pistachio tree or an oak,
whose trunk remains alive
after its leaves fall off,
the holy seed will be its trunk.”
Ephesians 1:1 From: Sha’ul, by God’s will an emissary of the Messiah Yeshua
To: God’s people living in Ephesus, that is, those who are trusting in the Messiah Yeshua:
2 Grace to you and shalom from God our Father and the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.
3 Praised be Adonai, Father of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, who in the Messiah has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heaven. 4 In the Messiah he chose us in love before the creation of the universe to be holy and without defect in his presence. 5 He determined in advance that through Yeshua the Messiah we would be his sons — in keeping with his pleasure and purpose — 6 so that we would bring him praise commensurate with the glory of the grace he gave us through the Beloved One.
7 In union with him, through the shedding of his blood, we are set free — our sins are forgiven; this accords with the wealth of the grace 8 he has lavished on us. In all his wisdom and insight 9 he has made known to us his secret plan, which by his own will he designed beforehand in connection with the Messiah 10 and will put into effect when the time is ripe — his plan to place everything in heaven and on earth under the Messiah’s headship.
11 Also in union with him we were given an inheritance, we who were picked in advance according to the purpose of the One who effects everything in keeping with the decision of his will, 12 so that we who earlier had put our hope in the Messiah would bring him praise commensurate with his glory.
13 Furthermore, you who heard the message of the truth, the Good News offering you deliverance, and put your trust in the Messiah were sealed by him with the promised Ruach HaKodesh, 14 who guarantees our inheritance until we come into possession of it and thus bring him praise commensurate with his glory.
15 For this reason, ever since I heard about your trust in the Lord Yeshua and your love for all God’s people, 16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you. In my prayers I keep asking 17 the God of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah, the glorious Father, to give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you will have full knowledge of him. 18 I pray that he will give light to the eyes of your hearts, so that you will understand the hope to which he has called you, what rich glories there are in the inheritance he has promised his people, 19 and how surpassingly great is his power working in us who trust him. It works with the same mighty strength he used 20 when he worked in the Messiah to raise him from the dead and seat him at his right hand in heaven, 21 far above every ruler, authority, power, dominion or any other name that can be named either in the ‘olam hazeh or in the ‘olam haba. 22 Also, he has put all things under his feet[Ephesians 1:22 Psalm 8:7(6)] and made him head over everything for the Messianic Community, 23 which is his body, the full expression of him who fills all creation.
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WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS
When we no longer seek God for His blessings, we have time to seek Him for Himself. (The Moral Foundations of Life, 728 L)
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