Individuality

December 11 Daily Devotional

Individuality If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself.  Matthew 16:24 Individuality is the husk of the personal life. Individuality is all elbows, it separates and isolates. It is the characteristic of the child and rightly so; but if we mistake individuality for the personal life, we will remain isolated. The shell of individuality is God’s created natural covering for the protection of the personal life; but individuality must go in order that the personal life may come out and be brought into fellowship with God. Individuality counterfeits personality as lust counterfeits love. God designed human nature for Himself; individuality debases human nature for itself. The characteristics of individuality are independence and self-assertiveness. It is the continual assertion of individuality that hinders our spiritual life more than anything else. If you say — “I cannot believe,” it is because individuality never can believe. Personality cannot help believing. Watch yourself when the Spirit of God is at work. He pushes you to the margins of your individuality, and you have either to say — “I shan’t,” or to surrender, to break the husk of individuality and let the personal life emerge. The Holy Spirit narrows it down every time to one thing (cf. Matthew 5:23-24). The thing in you that will not be reconciled to your brother is your individuality. God wants to bring you into union with Himself, but unless you are willing to give up your right to yourself He cannot. “Let him deny himself” — deny his independent right to himself, then the real life has a chance to grow. From My Utmost for His Highest Classic Edition Bible in One Year: Hosea 5-8; Revelation 2

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS The life of Abraham is an illustration of two things: of unreserved surrender to God, and of God’s complete possession of a child of His for His own highest end. from Not Knowing Whither, 901 R

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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