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December 11th
True Advent Waiting & Preparation
By Spiritual writer Oswald Chambers
It is the will of God that human beings should get into moral relationship with Him, and His covenants (and Sacraments) are for this purpose. "Why does God not save me?" He has saved me, but I have not entered into relationship with Him. "Why does God not do this or that?" He has done it, the point is-Will I step into covenant relationship? All the great blessings of God are finished and complete, but they are not mine until I enter into relationship with Him on the basis of His covenant.
Waiting for God, in a certain respect, is incarnate unbelief, it means that I have no faith in Him; I wait for Him to do something in me that I may trust in that, not in God in Himself. God will not do it, because that is not the basis of the God-and-man relationship. Man has to go out of himself in his covenant with God as God goes out of Himself in His covenant with man. It is a question of faith in God-the rarest thing; we often only have faith in our feelings and in the consolations we receive from Him. "I do not believe God unless He will give me something in my hand whereby I may know I have it, then I say-'Now I believe.'" There is no faith there. Jesus says, "Look unto Me, and be saved."
When I have really transacted business with God on His covenant and have let go entirely, there is no sense of merit, no human ingredient in it at all, but a complex overwhelming sense of being brought into union with God, and the whole thing is transfigured with peace and joy. In that place, one individual life may be of priceless value to God's purposes, and yours may be that life.
From My Utmost for His Highest, Barbour Publishing
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