Showing posts with label christian devotional books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label christian devotional books. Show all posts
Monday, August 28, 2023
Thursday, October 15, 2020
More from Oswald Chambers
The Key to the Missionary’s Message
By Oswald Chambers
The key to the missionary’s message is the propitiation of Christ Jesus— His sacrifice for us that completely satisfied the wrath of God. Look at any other aspect of Christ’s work, whether it is healing, saving, or sanctifying, and you will see that there is nothing limitless about those. But— “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”— that is limitless (John 1:29). The missionary’s message is the limitless importance of Jesus Christ as the propitiation for our sins, and a missionary is someone who is immersed in the truth of that revelation.
The real key to the missionary’s message is the “remissionary” aspect of Christ’s life, not His kindness, His goodness, or even His revealing of the fatherhood of God to us. “…repentance and remission of sins should be preached…to all nations…” (Luke 24:47). The greatest message of limitless importance is that “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins….” The missionary’s message is not nationalistic, favoring nations or individuals; it is “for the whole world.” When the Holy Spirit comes into me, He does not consider my partialities or preferences; He simply brings me into oneness with the Lord Jesus.
A missionary is someone who is bound by marriage to the stated mission and purpose of his Lord and Master. He is not to proclaim his own point of view, but is only to proclaim “the Lamb of God.” It is easier to belong to a faction that simply tells what Jesus Christ has done for me, and easier to become a devotee of divine healing, or of a special type of sanctification, or of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But Paul did not say, “Woe is me if I do not preach what Christ has done for me,” but, “…woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Corinthians 9:16). And this is the gospel— “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
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Wisdom From Oswald Chambers
We are all based on a conception of importance, either our own importance, or the importance of someone else; Jesus tells us to go and teach based on the revelation of His importance. “All power is given unto Me.… Go ye therefore ….” So Send I You, 1325 R
Monday, June 8, 2020
More from My Utmost for His highest by Oswald Chambers
What’s Next To Do?
By Oswald Chambers
Be determined to know more than others.
If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will
have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea. Put
everything in your life afloat upon God, going out to sea on the great
swelling tide of His purpose, and your eyes will be opened. If you
believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time in the calm waters
just inside the harbor, full of joy, but always tied to the dock. You
have to get out past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin
to know things for yourself— begin to have spiritual discernment.
When you know that you should do something and you do it, immediately you know more. Examine where you have become sluggish, where you began losing interest spiritually, and you will find that it goes back to a point where you did not do something you knew you should do. You did not do it because there seemed to be no immediate call to do it. But now you have no insight or discernment, and at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-controlled. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to continue learning and knowing more.
The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you create your own opportunities to sacrifice yourself, and your zeal and enthusiasm are mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is much better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than it is to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice…” (1 Samuel 15:22). Beware of paying attention or going back to what you once were, when God wants you to be something that you have never been. “If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know…” (John 7:17).
When you know that you should do something and you do it, immediately you know more. Examine where you have become sluggish, where you began losing interest spiritually, and you will find that it goes back to a point where you did not do something you knew you should do. You did not do it because there seemed to be no immediate call to do it. But now you have no insight or discernment, and at a time of crisis you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-controlled. It is a dangerous thing to refuse to continue learning and knowing more.
The counterfeit of obedience is a state of mind in which you create your own opportunities to sacrifice yourself, and your zeal and enthusiasm are mistaken for discernment. It is easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, which is stated in Romans 12:1-2. It is much better to fulfill the purpose of God in your life by discerning His will than it is to perform great acts of self-sacrifice. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice…” (1 Samuel 15:22). Beware of paying attention or going back to what you once were, when God wants you to be something that you have never been. “If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know…” (John 7:17).
Wednesday, July 17, 2019
More from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers
The Miracle of Belief
By Oswald Chambers
Paul was a scholar and an orator of the highest degree; he was not
speaking here out of a deep sense of humility, but was saying that when
he preached the gospel, he would veil the power of God if he impressed
people with the excellency of his speech. Belief in Jesus is a miracle
produced only by the effectiveness of redemption, not by impressive
speech, nor by wooing and persuading, but only by the sheer unaided
power of God. The creative power of redemption comes through the
preaching of the gospel, but never because of the personality of the
preacher.
Real and effective fasting by a preacher is not fasting from food, but fasting from eloquence, from impressive diction, and from everything else that might hinder the gospel of God being presented. The preacher is there as the representative of God— “…as though God were pleading through us…” (2 Corinthians 5:20). He is there to present the gospel of God. If it is only because of my preaching that people desire to be better, they will never get close to Jesus Christ. Anything that flatters me in my preaching of the gospel will result in making me a traitor to Jesus, and I prevent the creative power of His redemption from doing its work.
“And I, if I am lifted up…, will draw all peoples to Myself” (John 12:32).
Real and effective fasting by a preacher is not fasting from food, but fasting from eloquence, from impressive diction, and from everything else that might hinder the gospel of God being presented. The preacher is there as the representative of God— “…as though God were pleading through us…” (2 Corinthians 5:20). He is there to present the gospel of God. If it is only because of my preaching that people desire to be better, they will never get close to Jesus Christ. Anything that flatters me in my preaching of the gospel will result in making me a traitor to Jesus, and I prevent the creative power of His redemption from doing its work.
“And I, if I am lifted up…, will draw all peoples to Myself” (John 12:32).
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
More from Oswald Chambers from My Utmost for His Highest
Faith— Not Emotion
By Oswald Chambers
For a while, we are fully aware of God’s concern for us. But then,
when God begins to use us in His work, we begin to take on a pitiful
look and talk only of our trials and difficulties. And all the while God
is trying to make us do our work as hidden people who are not in the
spotlight. None of us would be hidden spiritually if we could help it.
Can we do our work when it seems that God has sealed up heaven? Some of
us always want to be brightly illuminated saints with golden halos and
with the continual glow of inspiration, and to have other saints of God
dealing with us all the time. A self-assured saint is of no value to
God. He is abnormal, unfit for daily life, and completely unlike God. We
are here, not as immature angels, but as men and women, to do the work
of this world. And we are to do it with an infinitely greater power to
withstand the struggle because we have been born from above.
If we continually try to bring back those exceptional moments of inspiration, it is a sign that it is not God we want. We are becoming obsessed with the moments when God did come and speak with us, and we are insisting that He do it again. But what God wants us to do is to “walk by faith.” How many of us have set ourselves aside as if to say, “I cannot do anything else until God appears to me”? He will never do it. We will have to get up on our own, without any inspiration and without any sudden touch from God. Then comes our surprise and we find ourselves exclaiming, “Why, He was there all the time, and I never knew it!” Never live for those exceptional moments— they are surprises. God will give us His touches of inspiration only when He sees that we are not in danger of being led away by them. We must never consider our moments of inspiration as the standard way of life— our work is our standard.
If we continually try to bring back those exceptional moments of inspiration, it is a sign that it is not God we want. We are becoming obsessed with the moments when God did come and speak with us, and we are insisting that He do it again. But what God wants us to do is to “walk by faith.” How many of us have set ourselves aside as if to say, “I cannot do anything else until God appears to me”? He will never do it. We will have to get up on our own, without any inspiration and without any sudden touch from God. Then comes our surprise and we find ourselves exclaiming, “Why, He was there all the time, and I never knew it!” Never live for those exceptional moments— they are surprises. God will give us His touches of inspiration only when He sees that we are not in danger of being led away by them. We must never consider our moments of inspiration as the standard way of life— our work is our standard.
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Wisdom From Oswald Chambers
Re-state to yourself what you believe,
then do away with as much of it as possible, and get back to the
bedrock of the Cross of Christ. My Utmost for His Highest, November 25, 848 R
Thursday, December 6, 2018
"I set My rainbow in the cloud" from My Utmost for His Highest
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“My Rainbow in the Cloud”
By Oswald Chambers
It is the will of God that human beings should get into a
right-standing relationship with Him, and His covenants are designed for
this purpose. Why doesn’t God save me? He has accomplished and provided
for my salvation, but I have not yet entered into a relationship with
Him. Why doesn’t God do everything we ask? He has done it. The point is—
will I step into that covenant relationship? All the great blessings of
God are finished and complete, but they are not mine until I enter into
a relationship with Him on the basis of His covenant.
Waiting for God to act is fleshly unbelief. It means that I have no faith in Him. I wait for Him to do something in me so I may trust in that. But God won’t do it, because that is not the basis of the God-and-man relationship. Man must go beyond the physical body and feelings in his covenant with God, just as God goes beyond Himself in reaching out with His covenant to man. It is a question of faith in God— a very rare thing. We only have faith in our feelings. I don’t believe God until He puts something tangible in my hand, so that I know I have it. Then I say, “Now I believe.” There is no faith exhibited in that. God says, “Look to Me, and be saved…” (Isaiah 45:22).
When I have really transacted business with God on the basis of His covenant, letting everything else go, there is no sense of personal achievement— no human ingredient in it at all. Instead, there is a complete overwhelming sense of being brought into union with God, and my life is transformed and radiates peace and joy.
Waiting for God to act is fleshly unbelief. It means that I have no faith in Him. I wait for Him to do something in me so I may trust in that. But God won’t do it, because that is not the basis of the God-and-man relationship. Man must go beyond the physical body and feelings in his covenant with God, just as God goes beyond Himself in reaching out with His covenant to man. It is a question of faith in God— a very rare thing. We only have faith in our feelings. I don’t believe God until He puts something tangible in my hand, so that I know I have it. Then I say, “Now I believe.” There is no faith exhibited in that. God says, “Look to Me, and be saved…” (Isaiah 45:22).
When I have really transacted business with God on the basis of His covenant, letting everything else go, there is no sense of personal achievement— no human ingredient in it at all. Instead, there is a complete overwhelming sense of being brought into union with God, and my life is transformed and radiates peace and joy.
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Wisdom From Oswald Chambers
Faith never knows where it is being led, but it loves and knows the One Who is leading. My Utmost for His Highest, March 19, 761 L
Bible in a Year: Daniel 3-4; 1 John 5
Monday, November 12, 2018
"The Changed Life". from todays My Utmost for His Highest
The Changed Life
By Oswald Chambers
What understanding do you have of the salvation of your soul? The
work of salvation means that in your real life things are dramatically
changed. You no longer look at things in the same way. Your desires are
new and the old things have lost their power to attract you. One of the
tests for determining if the work of salvation in your life is genuine
is— has God changed the things that really matter to you? If you still
yearn for the old things, it is absurd to talk about being born from
above— you are deceiving yourself. If you are born again, the Spirit of
God makes the change very evident in your real life and thought. And when a crisis comes, you are the most
amazed person on earth at the wonderful difference there is in you.
There is no possibility of imagining that you did it. It is this complete and amazing change that is the very evidence that you are saved.
What difference has my salvation and sanctification made? For instance, can I stand in the light of 1 Corinthians 13 , or do I squirm and evade the issue? True salvation, worked out in me by the Holy Spirit, frees me completely. And as long as I “walk in the light as He is in the light” (1 John 1:7), God sees nothing to rebuke because His life is working itself into every detailed part of my being, not on the conscious level, but even deeper than my consciousness.
What difference has my salvation and sanctification made? For instance, can I stand in the light of 1 Corinthians 13 , or do I squirm and evade the issue? True salvation, worked out in me by the Holy Spirit, frees me completely. And as long as I “walk in the light as He is in the light” (1 John 1:7), God sees nothing to rebuke because His life is working itself into every detailed part of my being, not on the conscious level, but even deeper than my consciousness.
Thursday, October 4, 2018
Today's Oswald Chambers Devotion from My Utmost for His Highest
The Vision and The Reality
By Oswald Chambers
Thank God for being able to see all that you have not yet been.
You have had the vision, but you are not yet to the reality of it by any
means. It is when we are in the valley, where we prove whether we will
be the choice ones, that most of us turn back. We are not quite prepared
for the bumps and bruises that must come if we are going to be turned
into the shape of the vision. We have seen what we are not, and what God
wants us to be, but are we willing to be battered into the shape of the
vision to be used by God? The beatings will always come in the most
common, everyday ways and through common, everyday people.
There are times when we do know what God’s purpose is; whether we will let the vision be turned into actual character depends on us, not on God. If we prefer to relax on the mountaintop and live in the memory of the vision, then we will be of no real use in the ordinary things of which human life is made. We have to learn to live in reliance upon what we saw in the vision, not simply live in ecstatic delight and conscious reflection upon God. This means living the realities of our lives in the light of the vision until the truth of the vision is actually realized in us. Every bit of our training is in that direction. Learn to thank God for making His demands known.
Our little “I am” always sulks and pouts when God says do. Let your little “I am” be shriveled up in God’s wrath and indignation— “I AM WHO I AM…has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14). He must dominate. Isn’t it piercing to realize that God not only knows where we live, but also knows the gutters into which we crawl! He will hunt us down as fast as a flash of lightning. No human being knows human beings as God does.
There are times when we do know what God’s purpose is; whether we will let the vision be turned into actual character depends on us, not on God. If we prefer to relax on the mountaintop and live in the memory of the vision, then we will be of no real use in the ordinary things of which human life is made. We have to learn to live in reliance upon what we saw in the vision, not simply live in ecstatic delight and conscious reflection upon God. This means living the realities of our lives in the light of the vision until the truth of the vision is actually realized in us. Every bit of our training is in that direction. Learn to thank God for making His demands known.
Our little “I am” always sulks and pouts when God says do. Let your little “I am” be shriveled up in God’s wrath and indignation— “I AM WHO I AM…has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14). He must dominate. Isn’t it piercing to realize that God not only knows where we live, but also knows the gutters into which we crawl! He will hunt us down as fast as a flash of lightning. No human being knows human beings as God does.
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Wisdom From Oswald Chambers
We are apt to think that everything
that happens to us is to be turned into useful teaching; it is to be
turned into something better than teaching, viz. into character. We
shall find that the spheres God brings us into are not meant to teach us
something but to make us something. The Love of God—The Ministry of the Unnoticed, 664 L
Bible in a Year: Isaiah 20-22; Ephesians 6
Friday, August 31, 2018
More from Oswald Chambers
I encourage any Christian who does not follow "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers to do so.
“My Joy…Your Joy”
By Oswald Chambers
What was the joy that Jesus had? Joy should not be confused with
happiness. In fact, it is an insult to Jesus Christ to use the word happiness
in connection with Him. The joy of Jesus was His absolute
self-surrender and self-sacrifice to His Father— the joy of doing that
which the Father sent Him to do— “…who for the joy that was set before
Him endured the cross…” (Hebrews 12:2). “I delight to do Your will, O my God…” (Psalm 40:8).
Jesus prayed that our joy might continue fulfilling itself until it
becomes the same joy as His. Have I allowed Jesus Christ to introduce
His joy to me?
Living a full and overflowing life does not rest in bodily health, in circumstances, nor even in seeing God’s work succeed, but in the perfect understanding of God, and in the same fellowship and oneness with Him that Jesus Himself enjoyed. But the first thing that will hinder this joy is the subtle irritability caused by giving too much thought to our circumstances. Jesus said, “…the cares of this world,…choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful” (Mark 4:19). And before we even realize what has happened, we are caught up in our cares. All that God has done for us is merely the threshold— He wants us to come to the place where we will be His witnesses and proclaim who Jesus is.
Have the right relationship with God, finding your joy there, and out of you “will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). Be a fountain through which Jesus can pour His “living water.” Stop being hypocritical and proud, aware only of yourself, and live “your life…hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). A person who has the right relationship with God lives a life as natural as breathing wherever he goes. The lives that have been the greatest blessing to you are the lives of those people who themselves were unaware of having been a blessing.
Living a full and overflowing life does not rest in bodily health, in circumstances, nor even in seeing God’s work succeed, but in the perfect understanding of God, and in the same fellowship and oneness with Him that Jesus Himself enjoyed. But the first thing that will hinder this joy is the subtle irritability caused by giving too much thought to our circumstances. Jesus said, “…the cares of this world,…choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful” (Mark 4:19). And before we even realize what has happened, we are caught up in our cares. All that God has done for us is merely the threshold— He wants us to come to the place where we will be His witnesses and proclaim who Jesus is.
Have the right relationship with God, finding your joy there, and out of you “will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). Be a fountain through which Jesus can pour His “living water.” Stop being hypocritical and proud, aware only of yourself, and live “your life…hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). A person who has the right relationship with God lives a life as natural as breathing wherever he goes. The lives that have been the greatest blessing to you are the lives of those people who themselves were unaware of having been a blessing.
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Wisdom From Oswald Chambers
Defenders of the faith are inclined to
be bitter until they learn to walk in the light of the Lord. When you
have learned to walk in the light of the Lord, bitterness and
contention are impossible. Biblical Psychology, 199 R
Bible in a Year: Psalms 132-134; 1 Corinthians 11:17-34
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