The Unheeded Secret

By Michael Griego on October 20, 2023 • ( 0 )

How do we hold up in a world gone awry? Many hope, act and pray. While it may be clear as day, the real answer might be considered an unheeded secret. ◊

While the world and its people recoil and respond to geopolitical events that loom large before us, we continue with everyday lives that recoil and respond to events that occur in our own personal domain.

In a very real sense, real life is personal.

Perhaps one is not immediately impacted by the crisis in the Middle East, or in Ukraine, or major other events in their own city or country. One may be fortunate to be far-removed and out of harm’s way though they personally loathe the pain and suffering of others and struggle with an understanding of man’s inhumanity to man.

But life, particularly our life, goes on.

Either way, however, our perspective may be influenced by whatever religious background or spiritual heritage we bring to the mix. Be it Christian or Jewish or Muslim or any other faith, we have set our own sights on a world colored by personal bias, training, experience, expectations, and knowledge.

And while one’s own personal truth is vital and real, consider the possibility that it may not be true.

Before reacting to the stark harshness of that previous statement, consider the fact that all religions cannot all be true, though we may wish otherwise.

Of course, beyond the fundamental tenets, there are multiple schisms and divisions within each of these belief systems. And with all of them, even Christianity, there’s the risk of missing the unheeded secret.

The Unheeded Secret
Consider Christianity, the largest faith in the world with 2.8 billion adherents (Islam is second with 1.9 billion).¹ While there are wide chasms between sects and denominations of Christianity over various theological topics, there is a unifying foundational claim of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ atoning for the sins of mankind. Belief or faith in Jesus is what brings one eternal life.

But we Christians can easily go astray from that point.

Oswald Chambers in his famous devotional book, My Utmost For His Highest, points out a profound truth of an unheeded secret:

The great enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ today is the idea of practical work that has no basis in the New Testament but comes from the systems of the world. This work insists upon endless energy and activities, but no private life with God.²

First of all, for the entire world, the secret is not Jesus Christ. Jesus, rather, is the answer to Life that is unclaimed by those who have not pursued, explored, studied, and yielded to the Savior of the world, God’s final solution for all of mankind.

That being established, what Oswald Chambers is talking about here are activities and energy expended on good things, but not on a personal life with God.

He continues:

The emphasis is put on the wrong thing. Jesus said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation….For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21).

It is a hidden, obscure thing. An active Christian worker too often lives to be seen by others, while it is the innermost, personal area that reveals the power of a person’s life.

Chambers highlights the internal life that is possessed by the Spirit of God; that is, God’s Holy Spirit. And this inner personal life is not the overt sign of one’s mission or crusade or works of good deeds and outcomes, but rather one’s quiet personal walk with God.

The Spirit of this Religious Age: a Plague
Chambers goes so far as to call for the ridding of this plague. Our value in this present world, God’s kingdom on earth, is in our personal relationship with Jesus/God, not public usefulness to others.

Think about this:

We must get rid of the plague of the spirit of this religious age in which we live. In our Lord’s life there was none of the pressure and the rushing of tremendous activity that we regard so highly today, and a disciple is to be like His Master. The central point of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship with Him, not public usefulness to others.

Chambers goes on to say that the key is not what goes on around us, but that we are immersed, even “soaked” in the truths of God:

It is not the practical activities that are the strength of this Bible Training…its entire strength lies in the fact that here you are immersed in the truths of God to soak in them before Him.

He finishes with the point that God directs our lives and our circumstances and we do best to stay immersed in being a life transformed by the truths of God rather than the stress and strains of an uncertain world:

You have no idea of where or how God is going to engineer your future circumstances, and no knowledge of what stress and strain is going to be placed on you either at home or abroad. And if you waste your time in overactivity, instead of being immersed in the great fundamental truths of God’s redemption, then you will snap when the stress and strain do come.

Staying strongly rooted and grounded in God, i.e., abiding in Christ and walking with Him in obedience, is how to live in a chaotic and broken world regardless of any particular circumstance.

But if this time of soaking before God is being spent in getting rooted and grounded in Him, which may appear to be impractical, then you will remain true to Him whatever happens.

Heeding the Secret
In truth, the Kingdom of God is now and available to all who heed the secret and respond to Christ, our Redeemer, and the Truth of God’s Word. Ironically, this Truth can bring peace to the nations through the transformed hearts and minds of individuals who follow that Truth.

With that understanding, may we hope, act, and pray now under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit who moves purposely among the nations through His people, the Church.

Are you walking deep and personally with God?
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Jesus answered, “…the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” – John 18:37

¹Wikipedia, http://www.wikipedia.org, Christianity and Islam.

²My Utmost For His Highest, by Oswald Chambers, The Unheeded Secret, October 19, Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, p. 293.