Creation Tidbits: Am I
a Rooster?
by David Green
It is sometimes amazing how we overlook so much of God's provisions for us. Each day I awake and look out at the beauty of God's creation that surrounds us here at Buffalo Ridge. I truly love the opportunity to be a part of this ministry and know that the ranch setting allows God to speak to our guests. However, in the day to day operations I have the tendency to miss so much of God's blessings.
Recently we had a guest visiting who brought to my attention a new way of looking at just this issue. I was busy feeding the chickens one morning and stopped to chat with this guest momentarily. He was gazing at the chickens with an intensity and concentration that surprised me. During our conversation, I asked him what was so interesting about the chickens. My expectations were that he simply had never been around chickens and was marveling at their actions. To my surprise this guest had a much deeper inspiration developing. He stated that he was watching the rooster pridefully preen himself, and strut among his harem of hens. So often, he stated, we as Christians are exactly like that rooster in our prideful ambitions. He then asked for private meditation to continue in building this thought for future teaching. I gladly completed our conversation and continued with the chores.
As I thought about this conversation over the past month, I have recognized the truth in this guest's observation. How often do we miss God's blessings because we are strutting and pridefully preening ourselves to supposedly be a better Christian? God has been working through this rooster (shown below) and through Oswald Chambers, book, My Utmost for His Highest to reveal this concept, which I would like to share. The following passages are devotions from Chambers’ book.
“Co-Crucifixion: Am I prepared to let the Spirit of
God search me until I know what the disposition of sin is – the thing
that lusts against the Spirit of God in me? Then if so, will I agree with
God's verdict on that disposition of sin – that it should be identified
with the death of Jesus? I cannot reckon myself ‘dead indeed unto sin’ unless
I have been through this radical issue of will before God. Have I entered
into the glorious privilege of being crucified with Christ until all that
is left is the life of Christ in my flesh and blood?”
“Co-Resurrection: When once I decide that my ‘old man’ (i.e.
the heredity of sin) should be identified with the death of Jesus, then the
Holy Spirit invades me. He takes charge of everything, my part is to walk in
the light and to obey all that He reveals. When I have made the moral decision
about sin, it is easy to reckon actually that I am dead unto sin, because I
find the life of Jesus there all the time. Just as there is only one stamp
of humanity, so there is only one stamp of holiness, the holiness of Jesus,
and it is His holiness that is gifted to me.”
“Co-Eternal Life: ‘Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost’ – not power as a gift from the Holy Ghost; the power is the Holy Ghost, not something which he imparts. The life that was in Jesus is made ours by means of His Cross when once we make the decision to be identified with Him. If it is difficult to get right with God, it is because we will not decide definitely about sin. Immediately we do decide, the full life of God comes in. Jesus came to give us endless supplies of life: ‘that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.’”
As Lauri and I read these devotionals between Good Friday and Easter, God seemed to say, "Are you doing this?" I recently had the opportunity to participate in a Living Lord's Supper. This re-creation of the Last Supper contained insight into what each disciple might have been thinking based on Scriptural references. It was the lines of Judas that really hit me – how vain we as God's followers can become. It raised the question that all of us should consider: Are we seeking God's will, or simply or own through a veneer of Christianity? It was eight days after Easter and the day before my 45th birthday that God spoke through another devotion to finalize this point. Below is the passage that really made me stop and think. As you read this passage from Chambers’ book, I pray that you are truly following God's will and not following the rooster's prideful existence, whose being will someday be cast into the graveyard.
“Beware of the thing of which you say – ‘Oh, that does not matter much.’ The fact that it does not matter much to you may mean that it matters a very great deal to God. Nothing is a light matter with a child of God. How much longer are some of us going to keep God trying to teach us one thing? He never loses patience. You say - ‘I know I am right with God’; but still the ‘high places’ remain, there is something over which you have not obeyed. Are you protesting that your heart is right with God, and yet there is something in your life about which He has caused you to doubt? Whenever there is doubt, quit immediately, no matter what it is. Nothing is a mere detail. …. God wants you to be entirely His, and this means that you have to keep yourself fit.”
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