ARE YOU READY TO BE OFFERED?

I have been contemplating as of late my position in life...even more so, after returning from Haiti. My personal temptation is not as much to increase in power or make a lot of money, but rather that I do exactly the thing it is that I want to do. I believe it's alright to work to be in a particular position that you desire, but maybe God has other plans. He has an eternal view. He may want us to be unnoticed, maybe ridiculed, or perhaps even persecuted. It pleased God to bruise His own Son. Why then would He not do the same to you and I? If God did not bruise His Son, then where would we be? We can not see into the future, but if God so chose to bruise us what eternal changes would this bring? How does this help those around us and generations to come? It may even please our Father to not show us any reasons for the path we trod. Would this not take a deeper more committed faith? What about our Haiti brothers and sisters that may struggle their whole life only to die in the same condition? The second we die, these questions will no longer matter...for then we will see Christ. All things will be revealed in God's timing. He is the Story Writer and each person has their part to play, even though they may not agree. Why would an ant question the destruction of a piece of land? He only sees what is happening in his little world. The destruction may be to build a beautiful building, but the ant would never understand or care. We are the building of God. He may choose to tear us down, but is it not to build up a beautiful building? All things work together for good to those who love God right? Maybe our problem is our idea of beauty and our temporal earthly mindset. Like the ant, many times we only see what's around us. Many times the struggle is because we think we must understand something before we can except it. The Christian life is not of sight and it is not of blindness, but it is of faith. We see God! This is not a blind faith! For though we may stumble, though we may not see clearly, we are held and guided along by the hand of God. Lay aside our doubts. Lay aside our demands. Lay on the altar. Are we ready to be offered? After contemplating these thoughts, I "happened" to read the following quote from Oswald Chambers....


ARE YOU READY TO BE OFFERED?

Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all.

Are you willing to be offered for the work of the faithful - to pour out your life blood as a libation on the sacrifice of the faith of others? Or do you say - "I am not going to be offered up just yet, I do not want God to choose my work. I want to choose the scenery of my own sacrifice; I want to have the right kind of people watching and saying, 'Well done.'

It is one thing to go on the lonely way with dignified heroism, but quite another thing if the line mapped out for you by God means being a door-mat under other people's feet. Suppose God wants to teach you to say, "I know how to be abased" - are you ready to be offered up like that? Are you ready to be not so much as a drop in a bucket - to be so hopelessly insignificant that you are never thought of again in connection with the life you served? Are you willing to spend and be spent; not seeking to be ministered unto, but to minister? Some saints cannot do menial work and remain saints because it is beneath their dignity.

Philippians 2:17