Day 7 - Sabbath (Saturday) | Daily Devotions | My Utmost for His Highest |

 August 17th

Are you discouraged in devotion?

Yet lackest thou one thing; sell all that thou hast … and come, follow Me. Luke 18:22.

"And when he heard this …" Have you ever heard the Master say a hard word? If you have not, I question whether you have heard Him say anything. Jesus Christ says a great deal that we listen to but do not hear; when we do hear, His words are harsh.

Jesus did not seem solicitous that this man should do what He told him; he made no attempt to keep him with Him. He said, 'Sell all you have, and come, follow Me.' Our Lord never pleaded, He never cajoled, He never entrapped; He simply spoke the sternest words mortal ears ever listened to and then left it alone.

Have I ever heard Jesus say a hard word? Has He said something personally to me to which I have deliberately listened? It is not something I can expound or say this and that about, but something I have heard Him say to me. This man understood what Jesus said, heard it, and sized up what it meant, and it broke his heart. He did not go away defiant, sorrowful, and thoroughly discouraged. He had come to Jesus full of the fire of earnest desire, and the word of Jesus simply froze him; instead of producing an enthusiastic devotion, it made a heart-breaking discouragement. And Jesus did not go after him; he let him go. Our Lord knows perfectly that once His word is heard, it will bear fruit sooner or later. The terrible thing is that some of us prevent it from bearing fruit in life. What will we say when we decide to be devoted to Him on that particular point? One thing is sure, He will never cast anything up at us.

 Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year (Grand Rapids, MI: Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering, 1986).