Celebrate Your Responsibility | 5 Choices For Women Who Win by Daisy Washburn Osborn

PART III

Celebrate Your Responsibility

AN OPPORTUNITY NOT hasted is ability wasted. Ability that is not used is talent that is abused.

Release your abilities by responding to people. Liberate your response to God’s ability in you.

People in need provide field in which to seed.

Only you can use your own ability. What you have is yours to do with as you choose.

Celebrate the world of need around you.

Activate the power you have within you.

Communicate the knowledge that has changed you.

Celebrate the wonderful fact that nothing is impossible for YOU AND GOD AS A TEAM.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CELEBRATE YOUR RESPONSIBILITY

YOU WILL BE on the winning team when you exercise your choice to distinguish and to celebrate your responsibility in this life.

WHAT YOU REALLY choose to celebrate, when you say “responsibility”, is your human RESPONSE to God’s ABILITY within you.

A Surprising Encounter

I was in Lubumbashi, Zaire preparing for our crusade there when I had an unusual experience that prompted me to respond to God’s ability in me and to learn the French language.

I was in town for several weeks organizing a mass crusade before my husband, T.L. Osborn, joined me. Each morning about ten o’clock I would take a break and go to a certain sidewalk cafe for a cup of coffee.

There was a businesswoman in town who frequented the cafe about the same time, so we became acquainted.

Rachel was an Italian Jewess, born in South Africa, who spoke seven languages fluently. I was amazed and I could not help but rationalize that she certainly was no smarter than I.

And I asked myself: “Then why is it that she speaks SEVEN languages, but I only speak English and Spanish?”.

After we had been meeting for a few days, she asked if I could purchase some clothing for her when I returned to the States. She showed me a catalog that was almost pornographic. I could not understand why she wanted me, a preacher of the Gospel, to buy scanty clothes for her.

I said,

“ Rachel, why do you want these clothes? What is your profession?”

She replied,

“ I am a prostitute.”

Well, of course, I was surprised, but thankful that I had sown the seeds of the gospel in her.

But something had happened inside of me.

I went back to my room that day. I got on my knees and I wept. I prayed that God would help me to win Rachel to Him.

Motivation to Learn French

I said to the Lord:

“ Jesus, Rachel speaks seven languages so that she can market her body in promiscuous and destructive relationships with men. I have a much more noble and more constructive motive for speaking languages. My reason is to communicate the gospel to the hurting and needy peoples of other nations.”

My attitude was: Rachel has applied herself. She has

achieved success in communicating to people, but for demoralizing purposes.

I shall apply myself. And I shall achieve success in communicating the life and the love of Jesus Christ to human persons for good, uplifting purposes.

If a prostitute can be motivated to be multilingual, a woman believer like me has a far greater and more uplifting motivation to be multilingual.

I decided right then and there — I made the noble CHOICE to celebrate my responsibility to communicate Jesus to my world. I DID SOMETHING ABOUT IT!

I was impressed to hire a professor and I began to study French. Learning to speak French seemed impossible to me at first. But the Lord said to me: “You apply yourself, then leave the miracle to me.”

So I applied myself to studying diligently and the Lord helped me in a miraculous way. I did my part with gusto, with delight, with happiness.

I celebrated my responsibility to communicate

Jesus to my world.

Now, both my husband and I preach and teach in three languages — English, Spanish — and French.

What we did was to respond to God’s ability within us.

God is the one who originally confused the

languages.Ge.11:6-7 He can unscramble them for us as we celebrate our responsibility to communicate the gospel to people.

There are three questions about celebrating our responsibility:

FIRST: What do I mean by it?

SECOND: When do we do it?

THIRD: How do we do it?

What Do I Mean?

FIRST: By celebrating your responsibility, I mean to choose the positive attitude of being glad that you are hooked up with God, that you are commissioned to go, with intelligence to know; to be glad that you are entrusted with talents to grow, and endowed with abilities to sow; that you are a creature of importance to show God’s goodness to your world.

This is the dynamic and the positive attitude of a winner in life.

My husband, T.L. Osborn, wrote a poem that expresses what I mean when I say, celebrate your responsibility.

God chose you

So He knows you.

He goes with you

And He glows in you.

He shows that you

Are “pro” and new,

And so, He says

“Bravo!” to you.

That is what I mean when I say that to be a winner, you celebrate your responsibility — you applaud, you recognize, you welcome and you release your God-given power to respond to His ability at work in you.

You are glad and you rejoice over the fact that you are honored as God’s representative among people.

You go at life with enthusiasm because you are a winner and you know it. You are on God’s team. You are valuable. You cannot lose.

You believe Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.1Jn.4:4

You are thankful that God always causes you to triumph.2Co.2:14

You rejoice because you know that in all things you are more than a conqueror through Christ who loves you.Ro.8:37

You celebrate the fact that you and God can do anything.

You RESPOND to God’s ABILITY in you.

You liberate your RESPONSE to His ABILITY.

That answers the first question: What do I mean by celebrating our responsibility?

When Do We Respond?

THE SECOND QUESTION IS: When do we respond to this ability in us?

And my answer is: We respond at every opportunity that confronts us.

I often say:

“An opportunity not hasted

Is ability that is wasted.”

“And ability that is unused

Is talent that is abused.”

You are the only one who can use your ability. That may be awesome to consider but it provides wonderful security for you because, what you have is yours to do with as you choose.

Choose to utilize God’s ability

That’s within you;

And respond to every opportunity

That surrounds you.

People are your greatest opportunity, and whenever you

encounter people in need, you have found a field to seed.

So when do you celebrate your responsibility?

Every time you meet a human person in need.

The classic principle for winning in life is still:

FIND A NEED AND MEET IT.

FIND A HURT AND HEAL IT.

How Do We Do It?

Now we can discuss THE THIRD QUESTION: How do we celebrate our responsibility?

We do it by our power of choice.

Instead of looking at the world in need around you and of complaining about human misery and suffering, you choose to practice the awareness of your mission in life.

You are here as God’s partner to meet needs, to give solutions where there are problems, to give strength where there is weakness, to bring joy and happiness where there is grief and sorrow.

St. Francis of Assisi prayed:

Lord, make me an instrument of peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, let me sow pardon;

Where there is doubt, let me sow faith;

Where there is despair, let me sow hope;

Where there is darkness, let me sow light;

Where there is sadness, let me sow joy.

Worship or Service

It seems to me that the most alluring seduction in religion is to be engrossed in worship instead of being involved in service.

It becomes a Celebration of Responsibility to discover:

That Christ thinks through my mind now.

That Christ loves through my heart now.

That Christ helps through my hands now.

That Christ listens through my ears now.

That Christ speaks through my voice now.

When I RESPOND to Christ’s ABILITY in me to make people happier and my world better, I experience the celebration of a WINNER.

The Jesus Principle of Happiness

True happiness for yourself comes in seeking to give true happiness to others. It is the principle of sowing and reaping.

Everyone desires happiness.

Why is it that so many who earnestly seek happiness actually create for themselves a hell on earth?

If you seek happiness for yourself and ignore the needs of people all around you, you find only misery, exasperation, irritation and dissatisfaction.

The Jesus-principle of happiness is reaching out to lift and to help someone else, to look for others who have burdens and to share them, to observe the problems of people and to solve them, to perceive the hurts of human persons and to heal them.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.Mt.5:7 That is the secret of celebrating your responsibility: That is the way you create heaven on earth instead of hell on earth.

Mother Teresa said: “We all long for heaven, where God is. But we have it in our power to be in heaven with God right now … by loving the unlovely as He does, by helping the helpless as He does, by giving to those in need as He does, by serving the lonely as He serves, by rescuing the perishing as He rescues. This is my Christ. This is the way I live.”

The Real Thing

Malcolm Muggeridge, the renowned British news analyst went to Calcutta to see the beautiful love-ministry of Mother Teresa.

Talking with her, Dr. Muggeridge said that he was amazed by the happiness of the sisters who made up her team and he asked her, “Is it genuine? Or is it a put-on?”

Mother Teresa replied: “No, my friend, it is not a put-on. You see, nothing makes a person so happy as to really reach out in mercy to someone who is hurting, and to help them in some way.”

The best prescription for happiness and for a life of joy is to imitate the Jesus-way: Do to others as you would have them do to you.Lu.6:31

Reaching out to others has its recompense built into its deed. The harvest is in the seed. The act of love prophesies its own benediction. The future reward is part and parcel of the present act.

Faith combined with actions of good for others is the way Christ comes alive in you.

The missionary doctor in the African bush who was asked why he was willing to perform surgery in places where he could hope for no monetary recompense answered: “It makes me feel so good inside knowing that my hands, for a few hours, have been the hands of Jesus Christ healing the sick.” His surgical procedures are celebrations for him.

How do you and I celebrate our responsibilities?

Instead of complaining about problems, we recognize that without them there would be no need for solutions, no need to

probe, to think, to learn, or to discover.

Instead of lamenting human misery, we take action that relieves the suffering. We contemplate the gladness and the delight that fills human lives when remedies are discovered.

We realize that without the night, there would be no morning; that springtime follows the cold winter; that clouds enhance the rainbow.

Release the Power Within You

So that is how you celebrate your responsibility. You release — you liberate your God-given talents, your gifts, your power of choice to reach out to serve, to bless, to heal and to lift your world.

You see yourself as God’s representative to people.

You comprehend that living is giving.

Elbert Hubbard said, “Down in their hearts, wise persons know this truth: The only way to help yourself is to help others.”

George Bernard Shaw said: “A thinking person is one who puts more into life than they take out.”

Mother Teresa said:

“ If sometimes poor people have had to die of starvation, it is not because God didn’t care for them, but because you and I didn’t give, were not instruments of love in the hands of God, to give them that bread, to give

them that clothing, because we did not recognize Him, when once more Christ came in distressing disguise — in the hungry person, in the lonely person, in the homeless child, and seeking for shelter.

“ Christ has identified Himself with the hungry, the sick, the naked, the homeless; hunger, not only for bread, but for love, for care, to be somebody to someone; nakedness, not of clothing only, but nakedness of that compassion that very few give to the unknown; homelessness, not only just for a shelter made of stone, but that homelessness that comes from having no one to call your own.

“ Today Christ is in the people who are unwanted, unemployed, uncared for, hungry, naked and homeless. It is you and I as Christians who must find them, and help them … Thoughtfulness is the beginning of great sanctity. Jesus went about doing good.

“ A Christian is a tabernacle of the living God. He created me, He chose me, He came to dwell in me, because He wanted me … It is but natural that you spend the rest of your life radiating Christ’s love.”

Knowing that Christ dwells in you with His unlimited power and His unconditional love at work through you, is a celebration in itself. Releasing Him within you to help people around you is the way you applaud responsibility and transform it into ecstasy.

You perceive that you are a people-person, a messenger, an example, a walking, living embodiment of Jesus in the flesh, touching and helping people.

General William Booth of the Salvation Army said, “Before you can change society, you must change people — individually. No matter how many degrees you may have, at the bottom of it all is people contacting people, one at a time, and effecting a change for the better in their lives.”

In response to all he has done for us, let us outdo each

other in being helpful and kind to each other and in doing
good.He.10:24 LB

Life is a sacred trust.

It’s not what we have,

but how we use it.

It’s not what we take,

but what we give.

It’s not how we pray,

but how we live.

Touch People — Touch Christ

You remember the words of Christ which will be pronounced on that day when all people stand before the Lord.

You remember that He will say to you, I was hungry and you fed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was thirsty and you gave me to drink, I was sick and in prison and you visited me.

You will answer: Lord, when — how did I do that?

He will reply: When you did it to PEOPLE, you were doing it to ME!

You comprehend that your life’s purpose is PEOPLE. And you understand that God is at work in you, reaching people through your hands, through your love, through your life.

That is how you celebrate your responsibility. You choose to respond to God’s ability inside you, to minister to the people of your world all around you.

You do it because you have FAITH in Jesus who is at work in YOU.

A remarkable inscription marks a certain tomb in Saint Paul’s Cathedral at London. It reads:

“ Sacred to the memory of _, who at all times and everywhere gave strength to the weak, substance to the poor, sympathy to the suffering, all as devotion to God.”

The highest possible worship of God is our service to human persons.

Jesus said: If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed you shall say to this mountain move from here and it will move. Nothing shall be impossible to you.Mt.17:20

The Bible says, With God in you nothing shall be impossible.Lu.1:37 Be sure that you add the “in you”.

We do not sit back and wait for God to do all of the work. He has put His ability in you and in me. He has given you and me the power of His Holy Spirit to do the job.

You Can Do Anything

Celebrate the world of need

That surrounds you,

By activating the Holy Spirit

That is within you,

To communicate the Jesus

Who saves you.

With the Holy Spirit of God in you, you can do anything, and THAT is what you celebrate.

Ordinary people celebrate their achievements.

But the winners celebrate their responsibilities.

My husband says:

“ GOD IS SPIRIT! WE ARE HIS FLESH!”

We are God’s expressions on this earth now. We are His body — His hands, His feet, His voice.

Celebrate the wonderful fact that nothing is impossible for you and God as a team.

You can choose to WIN with God by choosing to ACT in His name. Whether you choose to be a clerk (who waits for a customer) or a salesperson (who goes out and finds a customer) is up to you. You can choose to ring doorbells instead of church bells; to reach and to bless people in proximity instead of by proxy; to win by person instead of by purse.

Celebrate the fact that you are a WINNER in Christ by releasing Him for ACTION in YOU.

Jesus said to both women and men:

I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you.Lu.10:19
Celebrate that fact.

Remember, God’s power is given to use in serving human persons.

The Living Bible says:

I can do everything that God asks me to do, with the help of Christ who gives me the strength and the power.Ph.4:13LB
Celebrate that fact.

Nine Winning Principles

Celebrate the nine most valuable guiding principles in the responsibilities of WINNING:

1. Practice the art of doing for others what you want them to do for you.
2. Recognize and value the unique person that you are.
3. Accept responsibility for the fact that your life is and will always be what YOU yourself make of it through your innate powers of choice, of decision and of action.
4. Absorb the principle that failure is never final, so if you do not succeed the first time, keep on trying.
5. Realize that whatever is worth your doing is worth

doing the very best that you can.

6. Understand that true happiness is having hope, experiencing love and doing things for the betterment of people.
7. Assimilate the irreversible law that you are, and you become the tangible reality of the sum and substance of your own thoughts.
8. Grasp the winning criterion that what you learn, discover, prove and know becomes the only power that you yourself can utilize in this world.
9. Actualize the power within you by being calm and confident, accepting your own uniqueness, by knowing your distinct purpose, by being sure that your goals are right and good for God, for people and for yourself; and by going forward with Him as your source, without intimidation, inferiority or hesitation.

The Winner’s Celebration

When you assimilate these nine guiding principles, you can look the responsibilities of life in the face and celebrate, because you are on God’s WINNING TEAM.

NOW THAT WE have talked about Choice No. 1, Individualize Yourself, and Choice No. 2, Celebrate Your Responsibility, we are ready for the third dynamic choice which you have the freedom to make — the third positive option for transforming you into a winner in life.