Lent Devotional – Day 30

OSWALD CHAMBERS: SEEMINGLY RANDOM CIRCUMSTANCES

“If you love me, keep my commandments.” John 14:15. 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 ’ … ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.’ Luke 9:23…

“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 something 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 the 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.”

Don’t wait for a special call to the mission field or a divine sign from heaven to put to practice what you are learning. Obey in the “seemingly random circumstances” of life. This activity creates “the pinholes” through which we see “the face of God.” That reminds me of the famous statement near the end of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables: “To love another person is to see the face of God!”

God, help me obey without hesitation and love others not as a rule, but as a response to the love I have received from you.

Gary G. Hoag

To read more from Lent Companion by Gary G. Hoag, please visit https://www.gtp.org/resources/ebooks/lent-companion