Oswald Chambers

Showing 221 to 240 of 372 items.

The Graciousness Of Uncertainty
      'It doth not yet appear what we shall be.' 1 John 3:2 Naturally, we are inclined to be so mathematical and calculating that we look upon uncertainty as a bad thing. We imagine that we have to reach some end, but that is not the nature of spiritual life. The nature of spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty, consequently ...read

The Great Life
      'Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: . . Let not your heart be troubled.' John 14:27 Whenever a thing becomes difficult in personal experience, we are in danger of blaming God, but it is we who are in the wrong, not God, there is some perversity somewhere that we will not let go. Immediately we do, everything becomes as cl ...read

The Great Probing
      'Ye cannot serve the Lord.' Joshua 24:19 Have you the slightest reliance on anything other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural virtue, any set of circumstances? Are you relying on yourself in any particular in this new proposition which God has put before you? That is what the probing means. It is quite true to ...read

The Habit Of A Good Conscience
      'A conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men.' Acts 24:16 God's commands are given to the life of His Son in us, consequently to the human nature in which His Son has been formed, His commands are difficult, but immediately we obey they become divinely easy. Conscience is that faculty in me which attaches itself to the ...read

The Habit Of Enjoying The Disagreeable
      'That life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.' 2 Corinthians 4:10 We have to form habits to express what God's grace has done in us. It is not a question of being saved from hell, but of being saved in order to manifest the life of the Son of God in our mortal flesh, and it is the disagreeable things which make u ...read

The Habit Of Rising To The Occasion
      'That ye may know what is the hope of His calling ...' Ephesians 1:18 Remember what you are saved for - that the Son of God might be manifested in your mortal flesh. Bend the whole energy of your powers to realize your election as a child of God; rise to the occasion every time. You cannot do anything for your salvation, but you must ...read

The Habit Of Wealth
      'Partakers of the divine nature.' 2 Peter 1:4 We are made partakers of the Divine nature through the promises; then we have to "manipulate" the Divine nature in our human nature by habits, and the first habit to form is the habit of realizing the provision God has made. "Oh, I can't afford it," we say - one of the worst lies is tuc ...read

The Hidden Life
      'Your life is hid with Christ in God.' Colossians 3:3 The Spirit of God witnesses to the simple almighty security of the life hid with Christ in God and this is continually brought out in the Epistles. We talk as if it were the most precarious thing to live the sanctified life; it is the most secure thing, because it has Almighty God in ...read

The Impartial Power Of God
      'For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.' Hebrews 10:1 We trample the blood of the Son of God under foot if we think we are forgiven because we are sorry for our sins. The only explanation of the forgiveness of God and of the unfathomable depth of His forgetting is the Death of Jesus Christ. Our repentan ...read

The Inevitable Penalty
      Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou have paid the uttermost farthing. (Matthew 5:26) There is no heaven with a little corner of hell in it. God is determined to make you pure and holy and right; He will not allow you to escape for one moment from the scrutiny of the Holy Spirit. He urged you to come to judgm ...read

The Inevitable Penalty
      'Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou have paid the uttermost farthing.' Matthew 5:26 There is no heaven with a little corner of hell in it. God is determined to make you pure and holy and right; He will not allow you to escape for one moment from the scrutiny of the Holy Spirit. He urged you to come ...read

The Initiative Against Depression
      'Arise and eat.' 1 Kings 19:5 The angel did not give Elijah a vision, or explain the Scriptures to him, or do anything remarkable; he told Elijah to do the most ordinary thing, viz., to get up and eat. If we were never depressed we should not be alive; it is the nature of a crystal never to be depressed. A human being is capable of depr ...read

The Initiative Against Despair
      'Rise, let us be going.' Matthew 26:46 The disciples went to sleep when they should have kept awake, and when they realized what they had done it produced despair. The sense of the irreparable is apt to make us despair, and we say - "It is all up now, it is no use trying any more." If we imagine that this kind of despair is exceptiona ...read

The Initiative Against Dreaming
      'Arise, let us go hence.' John 14:31 Dreaming about a thing in order to do it properly is right; but dreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong. After Our Lord had said those wonderful things to His disciples, we might have expected that He would tell them to go away and meditate over them all; but Our Lord never allowed "mo ...read

The Initiative Against Drudgery
      'Arise, shine.' Isaiah 60:1 We have to take the first step as though there were no God. It is no use to wait for God to help us, He will not; but immediately we arise we find He is there. Whenever God inspires, the initiative is a moral one. We must do the thing and not lie like a log. If we will arise and shine, drudgery becomes divine ...read

The Key To Missionary Devotion
      'For His name's sake they went forth.' 3 John 1:7 Our Lord has told us how love to Him is to manifest itself. "Lovest thou Me?" "Feed My sheep" - identify yourself with My interests in other people, not, identify Me with your interests in other people. 1 Corinthians 8:4-8 gives the character of this love, it is the love of God expr ...read

The Key To The Master's Orders
      'Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest.' Matthew 9:38 The key to the missionary problem is in the hand of God, and that key is prayer not work, that is, not work as the word is popularly understood to-day because that may mean the evasion of concentration on God. The key to the mis ...read

The Key To The Missionary
      'All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations.' Matthew 28:18-20 The basis of missionary appeals is the authority of Jesus Christ, not the needs of the heathen. We are apt to look upon Our Lord as One Who assists us in our enterprises for God. Our Lord puts Himself as the absolute sovereign s ...read

The Key To The Missionary Message
      'And He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.' 1 John 2:2 The key to the missionary message is the propitiation of Christ Jesus. Take any phase of Christ's work - the healing phase, the saving and sanctifying phase; there is nothing limitless about those. "The Lamb of God wh ...read