Oswald Chambers

Showing 161 to 180 of 372 items.

Service Of Passionate Devotion
      'Lovest thou Me? ... Feed My sheep.' John 21:16 Jesus did not say - Make converts to your way of thinking, but look after My sheep, see that they get nourished in the knowledge of Me. We count as service what we do in the way of Christian work; Jesus Christ calls service what we are to Him, not what we do for Him. Discipleship is based on ...read

Shall I Rouse Myself Up To This?
      'Perfecting holiness in the fear of God.' 2 Corinthians 7:1 "Having therefore these promises." I claim the fulfilment of God's promises, and rightly, but that is only the human side; the Divine side is that through the promises I recognize God's claim on me. For instance, am I realizing that my body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, ...read

Shallow And Profound
      'Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.' 1 Corinthians 10:31 Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow concerns of life are not ordained of God; they are as much of God as the profound. It is not your devotion to God that makes you refuse to be shallow, but your wish to impress o ...read

Signs Of The New Birth
      'Ye must be born again.' John 3:7 The answer to the question "How can a man he born when he is old?" is - When he is old enough to die - to die right out to his "rag rights," to his virtues, to his religion, to everything, and to receive into himself the life which never was there before. The new life manifests itself in conscious r ...read

Something More About His Ways
      He comes where He commands us to leave. "When Jesus had made an end of commanding his disciples, he departed thence to teach and to preach in their cities." ' Matthew 11:1 If when God said "Go," you stayed because you were so concerned about your people at home, you robbed them of the teaching and preaching of Jesus Christ Himse ...read

Springs Of Benignity
      'The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water.' John 4:14 The picture Our Lord gives is not that of a channel but a fountain. "Be being filled," and the sweetness of vital relationship to Jesus will flow out of the saint as lavishly as it is imparted to him. If you find your life is not flowing out as it should, you ...read

Still Human!
      'Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.' 1 Corinthians 10:31 The great marvel of the Incarnation slips into ordinary childhood's life; the great marvel of the Transfiguration vanishes in the devil-possessed valley; the glory of the Resurrection descends into a breakfast on the sea-shore. This is not an anti-climax, but a great r ...read

Sublime Intimacy
      Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?" ' John 11:40 Every time you venture out in the life of faith, you will find something in your common-sense circumstances that flatly contradicts your faith. Common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense; they stand in the relation of ...read

Substitution
      'He hath made Him to be sin for us ... that we might be made the righteousness of God...' 2 Corinthians 5:21 The modern view of the death of Jesus is that He died for our sins out of sympathy. The New Testament view is that He bore our sin not by sympathy, but by identification. He was made to be sin. Our sins are removed because of the dea ...read

Take The Initiative
      'Add to your faith virtue...' 2 Peter 1:5 "Add" means there is something we have to do. We are in danger of forgetting that we cannot do what God does, and that God will not do what we can do. We cannot save ourselves nor sanctify ourselves, God does that; but God will not give us good habits, He will not give us character, He will not ...read

The Abandonment Of God
      'God so loved the world that He gave...' John 3:16 Salvation is not merely deliverance from sin, nor the experience of personal holiness; the salvation of God is deliverance out of self entirely into union with Himself. My experimental knowledge of salvation will be along the line of deliverance from sin and of personal holiness; but salv ...read

The Absoluteness Of Jesus Christ
      'He shall glorify Me.' John 16:14 The pietistic movements of to-day have none of the rugged reality of the New Testament about them; there is nothing about them that needs the Death of Jesus Christ; all that is required is a pious atmosphere, and prayer and devotion. This type of experience is not supernatural nor miraculous, it did not ...read

The Account with Persecution
      But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. (Matthew 5:39, etc) These verses reveal the humiliation of being a Christian. Naturally, if a man does not hit back, it is because he is a coward; but spiritually if a man does not hit back, it is a manifestation of the Son ...read

The Account With Persecution
      But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." ' Matthew 5:39 These verses reveal the humiliation of being a Christian. Naturally, if a man does not hit back, it is because he is a coward; but spiritually if a man does not hit back, it is a manifestation of ...read

The Account With Purity
      'Out of the heart proceed ...' Matthew 15:18-20 We begin by trusting our ignorance and calling it innocence, by trusting our innocence and calling it purity; and when we hear these rugged statements of Our Lord's, we shrink and say - But I never felt any of those awful things in my heart. We resent what Jesus Christ reveals. Either Jesus ...read

The Afterwards Of The Life Of Power
      'Whither I go, thou canst not follow Me now; but thou shalt follow Me afterwards.' John 13:36 "And when He had spoken this, He saith unto him, Follow Me." Three years before, Jesus had said - "Follow Me," and Peter had followed easily, the fascination of Jesus was upon him, he did not need the Holy Spirit to help him to do it. Then ...read

The Authority Of Reality
      'Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.' James 4:8 It is essential to give people a chance of acting on the truth of God. The responsibility must be left with the individual, you cannot act for him, it must be his own deliberate act, but the evangelical message ought always to lead a man to act. The paralysis of refusing to act ...read

The Baffling Call Of God
      'And all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished ... And they understood none of these things.' Luke 18:31,34 God called Jesus Christ to what seemed unmitigated disaster. Jesus Christ called His disciples to see Him put to death; He led every one of them to the place where their hearts were ...read

The Bent Of Regeneration
      'When it pleased God . . to reveal His Son in me.' Galatians 1:15,16 If Jesus Christ is to regenerate me, what is the problem He is up against? I have a heredity I had no say in; I am not holy, nor likely to be; and if all Jesus Christ can do is to tell me I must he holy, His teaching plants despair. But if Jesus Christ is a Regenerator ...read