Are you willing to offer God everything?
Week 5 – Celebrating 100 Years of Oswald Chambers
VERSE: “I am already being poured out as a drink offering…” 2 Timothy 4:6
OSWALD: “Are you ready to be poured out as an offering? It is an act of your will, not your emotions. Tell God you are ready to be offered as a sacrifice for Him. Then accept the consequences as they come, without any complaints, in spite of what God may send your way…Tell God you are ready to be poured out as an offering, and God will prove Himself to be all you ever dreamed He would be.” (My Utmost for His Highest, February 6th – Updated)
Read the entire post:
TODAY’S GUEST: I’m excited to have my friend, Mary DeMuth sharing her “My Utmost” insights today. Mary is an author and speaker, but most of all, she’s a woman with a heart after God. I know you’ll enjoy her inspiring words!
{ Don’t miss the GIVEAWAYS – Plural! – at the end of this post! }
How It Spoke to Mary…
Back in college, a song reverberated through me. I’d hum it as I walked to class, and the refrain simply said: “I am available.”
It was my soul’s cry, the pounding of a heart sold out to foreign missions. At conferences, I would offer, then re-offer myself for service, praying ardently that the Lord would hear my prayers for significance in His kingdom.
While earning my undergraduate degree, I walked the pathway of what I’d prescribed in my mind a true Christian should look like. I wanted God to abide by my own definition of an offered life. Surely He meant me to serve Him overseas—where all the sacrifice lay.
Except that I didn’t end up on foreign soil.
Now as I look back, I realize my naivete at this narrow view of availability. It damaged me for years as I taught school after college, lamenting that I wasn’t really doing God’s work, that I’d given in to my culture’s idea of a middle class life. I constantly felt like I’d let the Almighty down. I lamented the past, believing that though I used to offer my all to Jesus, in this new situation, I had settled for less.
Thankfully, I eventually realized that God’s desire for my offering had nothing to do with my whereabouts per se, but where my heart was.
God wanted a surrendered heart, no matter my location. I could offer myself anywhere, any time—in the midst of a lesson plan, as I drove to the store, while I cooked dinner. As I studied classic books like The Practice of the Presence of God, I understood that the place wasn’t the point. A surrendered life could happen even in what I considered mundane.
Once I let that notion go, I began to see the beauty of God in the daily-ness of life. No longer prescribing to God what true devotion’s outcome had to look like, I found Him wildly creative in the ways that He grew me—ironically on U.S. soil.
God proved Himself available in my day, present in my bewilderment, near in my failures. - Mary DeMuth Click To TweetMore than a decade later, I found myself serving Him as a church planter in Southern France. The years I spent cultivating a surrendered closeness to Jesus in the United States became the bedrock of my sanity. While everything seemed to crumble around me on foreign soil, God held me close.
And He proved Himself to be more than I dreamed of—a faithful Father.
More about Mary DeMuth
Mary DeMuth is an international speaker and podcaster, and she’s the author of over thirty books, including the latest: Jesus Every Day: A Journey through the Bible in One Year (Harvest House Publishers 2017).
She loves to help people re-story their lives. She lives in Texas with her husband of 25 years and is the mom to three adult children. Find out more at MaryDeMuth.com.
Disclosure from Joanna: I make a small commission for purchases made through any affiliate links used in this post.
DON’T MISS THE GIVEAWAYS!!!
You have a chance to win one of two copies of Mary’s new book, Jesus Every Day: A Journey through the Bible in One Year by entering two different ways:
- COMMENT – leave a message below for your chance to WIN a copy of Mary’s new book
- SHARE – Go to this Facebook post and “SHARE”
We will randomly choose one winner from both categories – you have two chances to win!
Thank you, Mary, for your kind generosity and your beautiful post. May we all cultivate a surrendered heart.
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<<Read WEEK 4 – “Inviting God to Speak”
Read WEEK 6 – “Are You Willing to be Poured Out?” >>
I’d love to hear from you…What stood out most in your Bible and devotional reading this week?