"The best that I can hope is that this has just opened a window, and that as you look through it you are seeing one thing - how superior is Jesus Christ to all else!"
- T. Austin-Sparks
November 10
I urge you... to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. (Romans 12:1 NIV)
You have a life, and that life is a great trust, a great responsibility. It can stay in its own ambitions, its own interests, its own worldly concerns and considerations, it can stay by itself. Will you give your life to God, will you let it go to Him, will you put it on the altar and let the knife be taken that God may have it utterly? If you will, God will multiply your life, God will extend your life, God will make much more of it than ever it would have been if you had kept it in your own hands. Have you got something in your life that you are holding on to as a Christian; you are not letting that go to the Lord? You know what it is. I should miss it if I tried to catalog the things it might be. You know you have something where you are not letting go to the Lord. The Lord has put His finger on something, and you are holding on. You have an argument which you think is a very good argument. You have a reason you think perfectly good, so you are holding on. Deep down the truth is you are not prepared to let that go....
There are times when, in recognition that a certain course is the Lord’s way, we have to wait for the Lord’s time and see to it that our strength of will coming into alliance with some purpose of God is not jeopardizing the fruitfulness of that thing, and doing other people harm and making other people suffer. There are times when we have to come back to the Lord and say, "Lord, You have shown me that is Your way for me, but I can see that it is going to involve others in a great deal of suffering. I do want to be sure of Your time in this, and that I am not taking hold of it; it is not my strength of will to do Your will. I want to do this thing in self-sacrificing love, so that the least loss shall be suffered by others." We have seen people who are right as to their objective, right as to what the Lord wants, but the way in which they do it often spoils the whole thing. They take hold of Divine things, and while the thing is right, they are spoiling it by bringing their own strength of will into alliance with it. This applies in many ways. We must be circumcised in heart to do the will of God, ready to let go and let God determine the way to accomplish it. May the Lord interpret His Word and make it fruitful. I know it is challenging. It searches us all; we shall all come up against it. But oh, see what happened in heaven, and see that He desires that as it is in heaven, so it shall be on earth.
Daily Open Windows messages have been selected from the works of T. Austin-Sparks. In some cases they appear in abridged form. The introductory verse and its associated Bible version have been selected by the website editor and did not always appear within the original message. In keeping with T. Austin-Sparks' wishes that what was freely received should be freely given and not sold for profit, and that his messages be reproduced word for word, we ask if you choose to share these messages with others, to please respect his wishes and offer them freely - free of any changes, free of any charge (except necessary distribution costs) and with this statement included.