"The Service of Passionate Devotion"

Oswald Chambers' classic, My Utmost for His Highest, is part of my daily devotions every year. Today's lesson resonates with me each year, and the notes and underlines on the page are evidence of that.

The following excerpts from this selection titled, "The Service of Passionate Devotion," reminds us of what God truly desires from us.

"Jesus Christ calls service to be what we are to Him, not what we do for Him. Discipleship is based solely on devotion to Jesus Christ, not on following after a particular belief or doctrine."

"Today we have substituted doctrinal belief for personal belief and that is why so many people are devoted to causes and so few are devoted to Jesus Christ. People don't really want to be devoted to Jesus, but only to the cause He started. Jesus Christ is deeply offensive to the educated minds of today, to those who only want Him to be their Friend, and who are unwilling to accept Him in any other way. Our Lord's primary obedience was to the will of His Father, not to the needs of people--the saving of people was the natural outcome of His obedience to the Father. If I am devoted solely to the cause of humanity, I will soon be exhausted and come to the point where my love will waver and stumble. But if I love Jesus Christ personally and passionately, I can serve humanity, even though people may treat me like a "doormat." The secret of a disciple's life is devotion to Jesus Christ and the characteristic of that life is its seeming insignificance and its meekness. Yes, it is like a grain of wheat that "falls into the ground and dies"--it will spring up and change the entire landscape (John 12:24).

My penciled-in summation at the bottom of the page was this: "It's all about loving Jesus!"