Summer Reading Suggestion: My Utmost For His Highest
There is no particular reason why I might read more during the summer than at any other time of the year. I have never wanted to take a book to the beach. I'd much rather enjoy people watching, eating, and conversation.
Still, there are some books deserving of a second or third look from adult readers. For me, one of those is My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers. It's considered a "classic", but that doesn't mean it's difficult or tiresome reading. This daily devotional can be read during the course of a year, or finished within a few weeks of reading. Take your pick; if you give yourself over to what Chambers writes, your life will be changed.
Here's an excerpt, from the reading for December 28:
(copyright Oswald Chambers Publications Association, Ltd.)
"Except ye be converted, and become as little children..." Matthew 18:3
These words of Our Lord are true of our initial conversion, but we have to be continually converted all the days of our lives, continually to turn to God as children. If we trust our wits instead of God, we produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. Immediately our bodies are brought into new conditions by the providence of God; we have to see that our natural life obeys the dictates of the Spirit of God...
The hindrance in our spiritual life is that we will not be continually converted; there are wadges of obstinacy where our pride spits at the throne of God and says -- "I won't". We deify independence and willfulness and call them by the wrong name. What God looks on as obstinate weakness, we call strength. There are whole tracts of our lives which have not yet been brought into subjection, and it can only be done by this continuous conversion. Slowly but surely we can claim the whole territory for the Spirit of God.
Still, there are some books deserving of a second or third look from adult readers. For me, one of those is My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers. It's considered a "classic", but that doesn't mean it's difficult or tiresome reading. This daily devotional can be read during the course of a year, or finished within a few weeks of reading. Take your pick; if you give yourself over to what Chambers writes, your life will be changed.
Here's an excerpt, from the reading for December 28:
(copyright Oswald Chambers Publications Association, Ltd.)
"Except ye be converted, and become as little children..." Matthew 18:3
These words of Our Lord are true of our initial conversion, but we have to be continually converted all the days of our lives, continually to turn to God as children. If we trust our wits instead of God, we produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. Immediately our bodies are brought into new conditions by the providence of God; we have to see that our natural life obeys the dictates of the Spirit of God...
The hindrance in our spiritual life is that we will not be continually converted; there are wadges of obstinacy where our pride spits at the throne of God and says -- "I won't". We deify independence and willfulness and call them by the wrong name. What God looks on as obstinate weakness, we call strength. There are whole tracts of our lives which have not yet been brought into subjection, and it can only be done by this continuous conversion. Slowly but surely we can claim the whole territory for the Spirit of God.
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