Oswald Chambers

[mourningdove~]

What To Renounce

September 15, 2014

We have renounced the hidden things of shame . . . —2 Corinthians 4:2

Have you “renounced the hidden things of shame” in your life—the things that your sense of honor or pride will not allow to come into the light? You can easily hide them. Is there a thought in your heart about anyone that you would not like to be brought into the light? Then renounce it as soon as it comes to mind—renounce everything in its entirety until there is no hidden dishonesty or craftiness about you at all. Envy, jealousy, and strife don’t necessarily arise from your old nature of sin, but from the flesh which was used for these kinds of things in the past (see Romans 6:19 and 1 Peter 4:1-3). You must maintain continual watchfulness so that nothing arises in your life that would cause you shame.

“. . . not walking in craftiness. . .” (2 Corinthians 4:2). This means not resorting to something simply to make your own point. This is a terrible trap. You know that God will allow you to work in only one way—the way of truth. Then be careful never to catch people through the other way—the way of deceit. If you act deceitfully, God’s blight and ruin will be upon you. What may be craftiness for you, may not be for others—God has called you to a higher standard. Never dull your sense of being your utmost for His highest—your best for His glory. For you, doing certain things would mean craftiness coming into your life for a purpose other than what is the highest and best, and it would dull the motivation that God has given you. Many people have turned back because they are afraid to look at things from God’s perspective. The greatest spiritual crisis comes when a person has to move a little farther on in his faith than the beliefs he has already accepted.

~ Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest

 

[mourningdove~]

"Christianity is not consistency to conscience or to convictions; Christianity is being true to Jesus Christ."

~ Oswald Chambers, Biblical Ethics

 

[mourningdove~]

"Are you going on with Jesus? The way goes through Gethsemane, through the city gate, and on 'outside the camp' (Hebrews 13:13). The way is lonely and goes on until there is no longer even a trace of a footprint to follow--but only the voice saying, 'Follow Me.'"

--Oswald Chambers, from the My Utmost for His Highest Perpetual Calendar.

 

[mourningdove~]

"The popular view of a saint is an anemic young man with one foot in the grave, or an old woman, or an innocent, sweet young lady--anyone who has not enough original sin to be bad. The New Testament view of a saint is a more rugged type. You and I are a mixture of dust and Deity, and God takes that sordid human stuff and turns it into a saint by Regeneration. A saint does not mean a man who has not enough sin to be bad, but a man who has received from Jesus Christ a new heredity that turns him into another man."

--Oswald Chambers, in The Shadow of an Agony from The Quotable Oswald Chambers.

 

[mourningdove~]

"The true expression of Christian character is not in good-doing, but in God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit divine characteristics in your life, not just good human characteristics. The secret of a Christian's life is that the supernatural becomes natural in him as a result of the grace of God, and the experience of this becomes evident in the practical, everyday details of life."

--Oswald Chambers, from the My Utmost for His Highest Perpetual Calendar.

 

[mourningdove~]

"The Bible does not thrill; the Bible nourishes. Give time to the reading of the Bible and the recreating effect is as real as that of fresh air physically."

- Oswald Chambers, from Disciples Indeed

 

[geetrue]

re•sent•ment \ri-ˈzent-mənt\ noun
: a feeling of indignant displeasure or persistent ill will at something regarded as a wrong, insult, or injury

Oswald Chambers September 25th

The “go” of relationship

And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Matthew 5:41

The summing up of Our Lord’s teaching is that the relationship which He demands is an impossible one unless He has done a supernatural work in us. Jesus Christ demands that there be not the slightest trace of resentment even suppressed in the head of a disciple when he meets with tyranny and injustice.

No enthusiasm will ever stand the strain that Jesus Christ will put upon His worker, only one thing will, and that is a personal relationship to Himself which has gone through the mill of His spring-cleaning until there is only one purpose left—‘I am here for God to send me where He will.’ Every other thing may get fogged, but this relationship to Jesus Christ must never be.

The Sermon on the Mount is not an ideal, it is a statement of what will happen in me when Jesus Christ has altered my disposition and put in a disposition like His own. Jesus Christ is the only One Who can fulfill the Sermon on the Mount.

If we are to be disciples of Jesus, we must be made disciples supernaturally; as long as we have the dead-set purpose of being disciples we may be sure we are not. “I have chosen you.” That is the way the grace of God begins. It is a constraint we cannot get away from; we can disobey it, but we cannot generate it. The drawing is done by the supernatural grace of God, and we never can trace where His work begins.

Our Lord’s making of a disciple is supernatural. He does not build on any natural capacity at all. God does not ask us to do the things that are easy to us naturally; He only asks us to do the things we are perfectly fitted to do by His grace, and the cross will come along that line always.

 

[geetrue]

Oswald Chambers

September 29th

The consciousness of the call

For necessity is laid upon me: yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! 1 Cor. 9:16.

We are apt to forget the mystical, supernatural touch of God. If you can tell where you got the call of God and all about it, I question whether you have ever had a call. The call of God does not come like that, it is much more supernatural. The realization of it in a man’s life may come with a sudden thunder-clap or with a gradual dawning, but in whatever way it comes, it comes with the undercurrent of the supernatural, something that cannot be put into words, it is always accompanied with a glow.

At any moment there may break the sudden consciousness of this incalculable, supernatural, surprising call that has taken hold of your life—“I have chosen you.” The call of God has nothing to do with salvation and sanctification. It is not because you are sanctified that you are therefore called to preach the gospel; the call to preach the gospel is infinitely different. Paul describes it as a necessity laid upon him.

If you have been obliterating the great supernatural call of God in your life, take a review of your circumstances and see where God has not been first, but your ideas of service, or your temperamental abilities. Paul said—“Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!” He had realized the call of God, and there was no competitor for his strength.

If a man or woman is called of God, it does not matter how untoward circumstances are, every force that has been at work will tell for God’s purpose in the end.

If you agree with God’s purpose He will bring not only your conscious life, but all the deeper regions of your life which you cannot get at, into harmony.

 

[mourningdove~]

October 10, 2014


How Will I Know?

Jesus answered and said, ’I thank You, Father . . . that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes’ —Matthew 11:25

We do not grow into a spiritual relationship step by step— we either have a relationship or we do not. God does not continue to cleanse us more and more from sin— “But if we walk in the light,” we are cleansed “from all sin” (1 John 1:7). It is a matter of obedience, and once we obey, the relationship is instantly perfected. But if we turn away from obedience for even one second, darkness and death are immediately at work again.

All of God’s revealed truths are sealed until they are opened to us through obedience. You will never open them through philosophy or thinking. But once you obey, a flash of light comes immediately. Let God’s truth work into you by immersing yourself in it, not by worrying into it. The only way you can get to know the truth of God is to stop trying to find out and by being born again. If you obey God in the first thing He shows you, then He instantly opens up the next truth to you. You could read volumes on the work of the Holy Spirit, when five minutes of total, uncompromising obedience would make things as clear as sunlight. Don’t say, “I suppose I will understand these things someday!” You can understand them now.

And it is not study that brings understanding to you, but obedience. Even the smallest bit of obedience opens heaven, and the deepest truths of God immediately become yours. Yet God will never reveal more truth about Himself to you, until you have obeyed what you know already. Beware of becoming one of the “wise and prudent.” “If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know . . .” (John 7:17).

~ Oswald Chambers

 

[geetrue]

October 21st

Direction by impulse

Building up yourselves on your most holy faith. Jude 20.

There was nothing either of the nature of impulse or of coldbloodedness about Our Lord, but only a calm strength that never got into panic. Most of us develop our Christianity along the line of our temperament, not along the line of God. Impulse is a trait in natural life, but Our Lord always ignores it, because it hinders the development of the life of a disciple.

Watch how the Spirit of God checks impulse, His checks bring a rush of self-conscious foolishness which makes us instantly want to vindicate ourselves. Impulse is all right in a child, but it is disastrous in a man or woman; an impulsive man is always a petted man. Impulse has to be trained into intuition by discipline.

Discipleship is built entirely on the supernatural grace of God. Walking on the water is easy to impulsive pluck, but walking on dry land as a disciple of Jesus Christ is a different thing.

Peter walked on the water to go to Jesus, but he followed Him afar off on the land. We do not need the grace of God to stand crises, human nature and pride are sufficient, we can face the strain magnificently; but it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours in every day as a saint, to go through drudgery as a disciple, to live an ordinary, unobserved, ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus.

It is inbred in us that we have to do exceptional things for God; but we have not.

We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people, and this is not learned in five minutes.

 

[geetrue]

October 27th Oswald Chambers

The method of missions

Go ye therefore and teach (disciple) all nations. Matthew 28:19.

Jesus Christ did not say—‘Go and save souls’ (the salvation of souls is the supernatural work of God), but—“Go and teach,” i.e., disciple, “all nations,” and you cannot make disciples unless you are a disciple yourself. When the disciples came back from their first mission, they were filled with joy because the devils were subject to them, and Jesus said—‘Don’t rejoice in successful service; the great secret of joy is that you are rightly related to Me.’ The great essential of the missionary is that he remains true to the call of God, and realizes that his one purpose is to disciple men and women to Jesus. There is a passion for souls that does not spring from God, but from the desire to make converts to our point of view.

The challenge to the missionary does not come on the line that people are difficult to get saved, that backsliders are difficult to reclaim, that there is a ‘wadge’ of callous indifference; but along the line of his own personal relationship to Jesus Christ. “Believe ye that I am able to do this?” Our Lord puts that question steadily, it faces us in every individual case we meet.

The one great challenge is—Do I know my risen Lord? Do I know the power of His indwelling Spirit? Am I wise enough in God’s sight, and foolish enough according to the world, to bank on what Jesus Christ has said; or am I abandoning the great supernatural position, which is the only call for a missionary, viz., boundless confidence in Christ Jesus?

If I take up any other method, I depart altogether from the method laid down by Our Lord—“All power is given unto Me …, therefore go ye.”

 

[mourningdove~]

I love today's reading, and especially this part:

Go ye therefore and teach (disciple) all nations. Matthew 28:19.

Jesus Christ did not say—‘Go and save souls’ (the salvation of souls is the supernatural work of God), but—“Go and teach,” i.e., disciple, “all nations,” and you cannot make disciples unless you are a disciple yourself.

 

[geetrue]

Yes, Oswald Chambers and Dake's Anointed Reference Bible KJV really turn me on. They point me in the right direction ...

Sadly I have not made any disciples in my 29 year walk with the Lord ... Just hand out tracts, but yet I am a disciple.

Just to finish what Oswald said ... Jesus said not only to make disciples, but even added how to do this. St Matthew 28:19-20 KJV

"baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."
Amen.

 

[geetrue]

I like this saying, "faith is not common sense"

October 30th Oswald Chambers

Faith

Without faith it is impossible to please Him. Hebrews 11:6.

Faith in antagonism to common sense is fanaticism, and common sense in antagonism to faith is rationalism. The life of faith brings the two into a right relation. Common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense; they stand in the relation of the natural and the spiritual; of impulse and inspiration. Nothing Jesus Christ ever said is common sense, it is revelation sense, and it reaches the shores where common sense fails.

Faith must be tried before the reality of faith is actual. “We know that all things work together for good,” then no matter what happens, the alchemy of God’s providence transfigures the ideal faith into actual reality.

Faith always works on the personal line, the whole purpose of God being to see that the ideal faith is made real in His children. For every detail of the commonsense life, there is a revelation fact of God whereby we can prove in practical experience what we believe God to be.

Faith is a tremendously active principle which always puts Jesus Christ first—‘Lord, Thou hast said so and so’ (e.g., Matthew 6:33), ‘it looks mad, but I am going to venture on Thy word.’ To turn head faith into a personal possession is a fight always, not sometimes.

God brings us into circumstances in order to educate our faith, because the nature of faith is to make its object real. Until we know Jesus, God is a mere abstraction, we cannot have faith in Him; but immediately we hear Jesus say—“He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,” we have something that is real, and faith is boundless. Faith is the whole man rightly related to God by the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

 

[mourningdove~]

Faith must be tried before the reality of faith is actual. “We know that all things work together for good,” then no matter what happens, the alchemy of God’s providence transfigures the ideal faith into actual reality.

Faith Must Be Tried - Oswald Chambers (Christian devotional) - YouTube

 

[mourningdove~]

"Christianity is not consistency to conscience or to convictions; Christianity is being true to Jesus Christ."

~ Oswald Chambers

 

[geetrue]

"Are we resting in our experience of the Truth, or in the Truth?

The part has its source in the Perfect.
The experiences of salvation and sanctification spring from the perfect Source,

and it is this that gives the devil his chance to come as an
angel of light and make us seek experiences instead of Christ".

Oswald Chambers

Talks on Spiritual Philosophy

 

[mourningdove~]

"God's way is always the way of 'the long road home'. We never realize at the time what God is putting us through -- we go through it more or less without understanding. Then suddenly we come to a place of enlightenment and realize: 'God has strengthened me and I didn't even know it!'"

~ Oswald Chambers, from the My Utmost for His Highest Perpetual Calendar.

 

[geetrue]

Keep the notion of the mind of God behind all things strong and growing.
Nothing happens in any particular unless God’s will is behind it, therefore
you can rest in perfect confidence in Him.

Prayer is not only asking, but an attitude of mind which produces the atmosphere in which asking is perfectly natural.

“Ask, and it shall be given you.”

Oswald Chambers

 

[geetrue]

The end quote was an eye opener, "Your intercessions can never be mine, and my intercessions can never be yours, but the Holy Ghost makes intercession in our particular lives"

November 7th Oswald Chambers

The undetected sacredness of circumstances

All things work together for good to them that love God. Romans 8:28.

The circumstances of a saint’s life are ordained of God. In the life of a saint there is no such thing as chance. God by His providence brings you into circumstances that you cannot understand at all, but the Spirit of God understands. God is bringing you into places and among people and into conditions in order that the intercession of the Spirit in you may take a particular line. Never put your hand in front of the circumstances and say—‘I am going to be my own providence here; I must watch this, and guard that.’

All your circumstances are in the hand of God, therefore never think it strange concerning the circumstances you are in.

Your part in intercessory prayer is not to enter into the agony of intercession, but to utilize the commonsense circumstances God puts you in, and the commonsense people He puts you amongst by His providence, to bring them before God’s throne and give the Spirit in you a chance to intercede for them: In this way God is going to sweep the whole world with His saints.

Am I making the Holy Spirit’s work difficult by being indefinite, or by trying to do His work for Him? I must do the human side of intercession, and the human side is the circumstances I am in and the people I am in contact with. I have to keep my conscious life as a shrine of the Holy Ghost, then as I bring the different ones before God, the Holy Spirit makes intercession for them.

Your intercessions can never be mine, and my intercessions can never be yours, but the Holy Ghost makes intercession in our particular lives, without which intercession someone will be impoverished.