Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

Do I Have “Will-Issues”? 

     You will find the supreme crisis in your life is “will-issues” all the time. Will I relinquish? Will I abandon? It is not that God won’t make us fit, it is that He cannot. God cannot make us fit to meet Him in the air unless we are willing to let Him. He cannot make us fit as the dwellings of His Son unless we are willing…. 

From Christian Disciplines

Think of how Jesus approached people in the gospels: Will you follow Me? Will you sell your possessions to become My disciple? Will you let Me heal you? Will you take up your cross and deny all else?

Too many times I have a tendency to answer, “Yes, but….” Instead of simply surrendering my “will-issues” to Christ, I want to call the shots, at least some of them. But Jesus says clearly:

• “If you want to be My disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be My disciple. And if you do not carry your own cross and follow Me, you cannot be My disciple.” (Luke 14:26-27, NLT)
• “So then, any of you who does not forsake (renounce, surrender claim to, give up, say good-bye to) all that he has cannot be My disciple.” (Luke 14:33, AMP)

Holy Spirit, help me to give up my will-issues!