The Ministry Of The Unnoticed

August 21 Daily Devotional

The Ministry Of The Unnoticed Blessed are the poor in spirit.  Matthew 5:3 The New Testament notices things which from our standards do not seem to count. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” literally — Blessed are the paupers — an exceedingly commonplace thing! The preaching of to-day is apt to emphasize strength of will, beauty of character — the things that are easily noticed. The phrase we hear so often, “Decide for Christ,” is an emphasis on something Our Lord never trusted. He never asks us to decide for Him, but to yield to Him, a very different thing. At the basis of Jesus Christ’s Kingdom is the unaffected loveliness of the commonplace. The thing I am blessed in is my poverty. If I know I have no strength of will, no nobility of disposition, then Jesus says — Blessed are you, because it is through this poverty that I enter His Kingdom. I cannot enter His Kingdom as a good man or woman, I can only enter it as a complete pauper. The true character of the loveliness that tells for God is always unconscious. Conscious influence is priggish and un-Christian. If I say, “I wonder if I am of any use,” I instantly lose the bloom of the touch of the Lord. “He that believeth in me, out of him shall flow rivers of living water.” If I examine the outflow, I lose the touch of the Lord. Which are the people who have influenced us most? Not the ones who thought they did, but those who had not the remotest notion that they were influencing us. In the Christian life the implicit is never conscious, if it is conscious it ceases to have this unaffected loveliness which is the characteristic of the touch of Jesus. We always know when Jesus is at work because He produces in the commonplace something that is inspiring. From My Utmost for His Highest Classic Edition Bible in One Year: Psalms 107-109; 1 Corinthians 4

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS To live a life alone with God does not mean that we live it apart from everyone else. The connection between godly men and women and those associated with them is continually revealed in the Bible, e.g., 1 Timothy 4:10. from Not Knowing Whither, 867 L

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My Utmost for His Highest © 1992 by Oswald Chambers Publications Association, Ltd. Original edition © 1935 by Dodd, Mead & Company, Inc. Copyright renewed 1963 by Oswald Chambers Publications Association, Ltd. All rights reserved. United States publication rights are held by Discovery House, which is affiliated with Our Daily Bread Ministries. Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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