Oswald Chambers Daily Devotional – Utmost for His Highest 23 May 2024 Topic: Careful Infidelity

Careful Infidelity

BY OSWALD CHAMBERS

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.— Matthew 6:25

Jesus speaks of commonsense carefulness in a disciple as infidelity—a
failure to have faith in him. If we’ve received the Spirit of God, he
will press us on certain points, asking us to examine our commonsense
decisions and plans. “Where is God in this relationship?” the Spirit will
ask. “Where is God in this carefully mapped-out vacation? In these new
books?” God always presses a point until we learn to put him first in our
thoughts. Whenever we put something else first, the result is confusion.

“Do not worry . . .” Refusing to worry means refusing to put pres-
sure on ourselves about the future. Not only is it wrong to worry but
it’s also a lack of faith. Worry implies that we don’t believe God can
look after the practical details of our lives.

Have you ever noticed what Jesus said would choke the word of
God in us? The devil? No, the cares of the world—“the little foxes that
ruin the vineyards” (Song of Songs 2:15). It is always the little wor-
ries that threaten to derail us. Yet worry becomes impossible once we
accept Jesus Christ’s revelation that God is our Father and that we can
never think of anything he will forget. People who trust Jesus Christ
in a definite, practical way are freer than anyone else to do their work
in the world. Free from fretting and worry, they are able to go about
their days with absolute certainty because the responsibility for their
lives rests not with them but with God.

Infidelity to God begins when we say, “I will not trust where I can-
not see.” The only cure is obedience to the Spirit and abandonment
to Jesus Christ. “Abandon to me” is the great message of Jesus to his
disciples.

1 Chronicles 19-21; John 8:1-27

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

It is perilously possible to make our conceptions of God like molten lead poured into a specially designed mould, and when it is cold and hard we fling it at the heads of the religious people who don’t agree with us

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