The Missionary’s Goal - Oswald Chambers

“Behold, we go up to Jerusalem.” Luke 18:31.

“In the natural life our ambitions alter as we develop; in the Christian life the goal is given at the beginning: Our Lord Himself. We start with Christ and we end with Him—’until we all attain to the stature of the manhood of Christ Jesus,’ not to our idea of what the Christian life should be.

The aim of the missionary is to do God’s will, not to be useful, not to win the heathen; he is useful and he does win the heathen, but that is not his aim. His aim is to do the will of his Lord.

In Our Lord’s life Jerusalem was the place where He reached the climax of His Father’s will upon the Cross, and unless we go with Jesus there, we shall have no companionship with Him.

Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! 1 Corinthians 9:16

Beware of stopping your ears to the call of God. … Paul is referring to the pangs produced in him by the constraint to preach the Gospel. …

There is nothing easier than getting saved because it is God’s sovereign work—’Come unto Me and I will save you.’ Our Lord never lays down the conditions of discipleship as the conditions of salvation. …

Discipleship has an option with it-“IF any man . . .”

Paul’s words have to do with being made a servant of Jesus Christ, and our permission is never asked as to what we will do or where we will go. God makes us broken bread and poured-out wine to please Himself. To be ‘separated unto the gospel’ means to hear the call of God; and when a man begins to overhear that call, then begins agony that is worthy of the name.

Every ambition is nipped in the bud, every desire of life quenched, every outlook completely extinguished and blotted out, saving one thing only— ‘separated unto the gospel.’ Woe be to the soul who tries to put his foot in any other direction when once that call has come to him…. And beware of competitors when God does grip you.

But God forbid that I should glory….” Gal. 6:14

…get back to the bedrock of the Cross of Christ. In external history the Cross is an infinitesimal thing; from the Bible point of view, it is of more importance than all the empires of the world…. It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.’ ‘We preach Christ crucified.”