January 31st
Do you see your calling?
Separated unto the Gospel. Romans 1:1.
Our calling is not primarily to be holy men and women but to be proclaimers of the Gospel of God. The one all-important thing is that the Gospel of God should be realized as the abiding Reality. Reality is not human goodness, holiness, heaven, or hell, but Redemption, and the need to perceive this is the most vital need of the Christian worker today. As workers, we have to get used to the revelation that Redemption is the only Reality. Personal holiness is an effect, not a cause, and if we place our faith in human goodness in the development of Redemption, we shall go under when the test comes.
Paul did not say he separated himself, but—“when it pleased God who separated me.….” Paul had not a hypersensitive interest in his own character. As long as our eyes are upon our own personal whiteness, we shall never get near the Reality of Redemption. Workers break down because their desire is for their own whiteness and not God. ‘Don’t ask me to come into contact with the rugged reality of Redemption on behalf of the filth of human life as it is; what I want is anything God can do for me to make me more desirable in my own eyes.’ To talk in that way is a sign that the Reality of the Gospel of God has not begun to touch me; there is no reckless abandon to God. God cannot deliver me while my interest is merely in my own character. Paul is unconscious of himself; he is recklessly abandoned, separated by God for one purpose—to proclaim the Gospel of God (cf. Rom. 9:3).
Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year. Grand Rapids, MI: Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering, 1986. Print.
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