The purpose of this site is two-fold. It is here to help me keep myself accountable and make me think rather than just become a passive reader of my daily devotions. But it is also here to help others understand some of the teachings of Oswald Chambers.
Come with me this year and join in understanding My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers
My thoughts
It's kinda unnerving, isn't it? To think that we can't and shouldn't pursue redemption. That we have to leave our fate in the hands of one who we have never seen. The passage in Acts mentioned above is reproduced here in whole:
12Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.
NOBODY else. That includes ourselves. We cannot be granted redemption because we ask. It must be a reception rather than a request. I think of a homeless person on the street. My mother and I were in Denver for a ballet competition and a man was sitting right by where we parked our car. He looked at us but didn't ask for money or even for food. Therefore, my mother went up and gave him enough money to get himself food for a couple of days at least. He didn't have to ask. In fact, it's because he DIDN'T ask that the money was given.
This is the same principle that Chambers is talking about. Only this time, it's a gift of much more consequence. Here's an example that comes to mind. In order for a homeless person to gain access to a shelter or some other form of help, it is often required that they shower and clean up before partaking of the food and other things available to them. Now, in order to get fully clean soap must be used. Speaking spiritually, that soap is Jesus Christ. We can try to get clean without Him...but it won't work. All we can do is accept that he is necessary to the cleansing process and apply that 'soap' to ourselves. In applying, I mean to say that we need to understand that He and His teachings are directly applicable to ourselves.
No amount of begging, pleading, or just plain asking will get you anywhere. There is nothing that comes out of US asking for redemption or forgiveness. The only person that can request that is the person who sacrificed himself for us. That is Jesus Christ. Hebrews 7:25 is reproduced below:
25Therefore he is able to save completely[a] those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.
This verse is talking about Jesus and his PURPOSE being to be there to intercede for us. He is there to be the bridge between us, the sinners, and God, the perfect. So what Chambers is saying is that our asking and pleading and begging is worth nothing coming from us. We cannot ignore the cross. All we can do is recognize our sin and then accept the gift of forgiveness that God gives us.
Only then, when we simply recognize and accept can we be truly forgiven.
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