The Dispute

 "Come unto Me." Matthew 11:28....."If you want to know how real you are, test yourself by these words - 'Come unto Me.' In every degree in which you are not real, you will dispute rather than come, you will quibble rather than come, you will go through sorrow rather than come, you will do anything rather than come....'just as I am.' " Oswald Chambers

Matthew 11:28 is one of the most, if not the most quoted Scriptures. We love the invite from the heart of Jesus. "Come unto Me all you who labor and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." We want to take Him up on that invitation. We want relief, help, strength, rest. Preachers and workers across the church have used that verse to encourage the lost and broken to come to Him. Likewise, much of the professing church has heard this invite at the end of a sermon centered on this text. What gets left out is the full meaning of His invitation. He bids us come not on our terms, but His.

Few were more direct in their presentation of Biblical truth than Oswald Chambers. His words above pierce all of our illusions about what Jesus Christ is actually saying and inviting us to. We want to come for what He gives, we "dispute" with Him over what He demands. He demands all of us, every part of us, in our coming to Him. We're eager for rest and relief, we're beyond reluctant to surrender everything in our hearts and lives to Him in our coming. I believe it was Chambers who said that when Christ bids us come to Him, He bids us to come and die. When we come to Christ we also come to His cross. All that we are, all that we have, all that we want, is nailed to that cross, and it is no longer ours, but His. Our flesh will always fight such a transaction, but Jesus Christ will not relent on it.

We have so much we wish to dispute with Him on. Our desires, our dreams, our attitudes, our anger, unforgiveness, bitterness, our secret sins. The list of items is almost endless, and we feel that to surrender them to Him will kill us, and that's the point. It will kill us, and the result is that we will find in Him true resurrection life.

In three plus decades of pastoring I have listened to countless voices saying how they desperately wanted victory, deliverance, freedom.....abundant life. Yet so few of them would find it. The reason is simple and tragic. In all of it there was in them, some area(s) where they chose to dispute with Him rather than wholly come to Him. And so they went on in their captivity because they would not become captive to Him....and be free. How like them are we?

Where is the "dispute" in your life? Chambers says, "You will never get further until you are willing to do that one thing." To come, with nothing held back from Him, in order that you might receive all that He wishes to pour out upon you. He is before each of us right now, calling us to come to Him. What will we do? Dispute, quibble, or simply surrender....and come?

Blessings,

Pastor O