Reading Oswald Chambers this morning. June 8, 2023.

In the book of John chapter 13 verse 17, Jesus had just washed the disciples feet and continued on to say that He had left them this example to follow, vs 16 says “truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. Jesus was modelling a pattern or example of loving humility. However, as I was reading Oswald Chambers devotional this morning I realized he was saying that if you know these things and do not do them, it is disobedience. Sometimes we become so comfortable in our daily spiritual living we become disobedient to those things we know we are supposed to do causing us to become spiritually stodgy. When this happens we cease to keep learning to be spiritually discerning.

Spiritual discernment requires we live close to the Lord, listening to what He is calling us to do in obedience to His plan and purpose. As we go, if we are not walking closely with Him, then we become complacent and spiritually deaf and blind. Yes, we say, we are Christian, we are bought and paid for by our Savior and Lord. Is it enough? The Lord wants us to live a life of joy and fulfillment in Him but when we don’t we are not able to hear or see what He is up to in our lives, and as Oswald Chambers puts it,

When you know you should do a thing, and do it, immediately you know more. Revise where you have become ‘stodgy’ spiritually, and you will find it goes back to a point where there was something you knew you should do, but you did not do it because there seemed no immediate call to, and now you have no perception, no discernment; at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-possessed. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to go on knowing.
The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you work up occasions to sacrifice yourself; ardor is mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfil your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1–2 . It is a great deal better to fulfil the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. “To obey is better than sacrifice.” Beware of harking back to what you were once when God wants you to be something you have never been. “If any man will do …, he shall know.…”

Chambers, O. (1986). My utmost for his highest: Selections for the year. Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering.