Category: Oswald Chambers

Posted on

Who is a Sincere Person?

One in Whom There is No Guile

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Matt. 5:8

A sincere person’s life is transparent before God and people. Their inward thoughts, intentions, and motives are pure. Sincere people are people whose actions and attitudes are unmixed, thereby lacking any devious or manipulative qualities (John 1:47). Deceitfulness and hypocrisy are inconceivable as real options in their Christian lives. Sincere people refuse to wear masks and act differently in front of people by projecting an image or playing a part. Habitual lying is inconceivable to a sincere person: they will suffer hurt before they would lie to cover their tracks (Psa. 24:4). Jesus honors sincere people, he declares that they will have a beatific vision of God (Matt. 5:8).

When we hear Jesus say, “Blessed are the pure in heart,” our answer, if we are awake is, “My God, how am I going to be pure in heart? If ever I am to be blameless down to the deepest recesses of my intentions, You must do something mighty in me.” That is exactly what Jesus Christ came to do. He did not come to tell us to be holy, but to make us holy, undeserving of censure in the sight of God.

Oswald Chambers, Biblical Ethics (Hants UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1997), 22.

Posted on

Coppin’ an Attitude?

What’s Your Mental Disposition? Christ or Self?

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

Phil 2:5 NLT

Our attitude is a mental disposition, or frame of mind, that affects our thoughts and behavior. A good attitude is an inward disposition of thankfulness indwelt by Christ: a thankful attitude sees the world through God’s eyes, good yet fallen. As we respond to our circumstances from God’s perspective, we make right responses. These Holy Spirit inspired responses produce right behavior enabling us to perform righteous deeds. These deeds exalt Christ and produce righteous praise to our Heavenly Father.

In other words, enjoying Christ creates a good attitude and that attitude produces holiness to the praise and glory of God. Scripture calls us to have the same mental disposition of Christ who laid aside all heavenly splendor for the goal of laying down his life for us. His attitude was one of unselfish delight in his Father’s will.

The one attitude of the life is Jesus Christ first, second, and third, and nothing apart from Him. The thing that hinders God’s work is not sin, but other claims which are right, but which at a certain point of their rightness conflict with the claims of Jesus Christ. If the conflict should come, remember it is to be Jesus first (see Luke 14:26).

Oswald Chambers, Approved Unto God (Hants UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1946), 33.

Posted on

Panics

Fear Is Not a Fruit of the Holy Spirit

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.

Josh. 1:9

Fear is an overwhelming anxiety and worry that immobilizes our spirits into believing that our circumstances are bigger than God’s provision.  Giving into fear is failing to consider that God is adequate for our needs and can overcome our difficulties. Fearful feelings is not the same thing as the sin of unbelief. One may feel extremely fearful, yet choose to stand on God’s promises, rather than sink into the pit of despair.

It is the most natural thing in the world to be scared, and the clearest evidence that God’s grace is at work in our hearts is when we do not get into panics.

Oswald Chambers, The Shadow of an Agony (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1934), 55.

Posted on

The Constant Conscious Presence of God

God’s Presence

For in him we live and move and exist.

Acts 17:28 NLT

The constant conscious presence of the Lord creates a healthy fear of God. The fear of God is a silent wonder, a radical amazement, and an affectionate awe of a God who became incarnate in human flesh, died in our place, and rose again. This fear is not a fear of punishment, but the dread of hurting or breaking God’s heart by disappointing his plans for us. The fear of the Lord is an awareness that God is present always and that we are conscious of the fact that he is watching us (Prov. 1:7, Psa. 33:18).

The fear of the Lord begins with the revelation that God is all-knowing, God is all-powerful, and God is everywhere present. He knows all that we do. Nothing misses his vision. He is powerful and he can affect anything and everything that we do. God is everywhere. He is always involved in our lives. God never sleeps, he is never caught off-guard, and never surprised by our words, choices, and actions. When we recognize that God is constantly present, we become conscious of his power, grace, and love.

Godliness is God-consciousness, an all-pervasive sense of God’s presence. It will mean that never do we think, or speak, or act, without the undergirding sense of God’s presence, of his judgement, of our relation to him and his relation to us, of our responsibility to him and dependence upon him.

John Murray, The Collected Writings of John Murray (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1976–1982), 1:183.

HT: Miscellanies

The remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God you fear everything else. “Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord.”

Oswald Chambers, Run Today’s Race : A Word from Oswald Chambers for Every Day of the Year, electronic ed. (London: Oswald Chambers Publications Association, 1968).

Posted on

Don’t Believe Everything You Think

Transformation of the Mind

And so, dear brothers, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Rom. 12:1-2 NLT

My Paraphrase of Romans 12:1-2:

Based on the fact that God has done so much for us in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, we should give ourselves wholly to God. By giving ourselves wholly to God, we worship. Our worship blesses God’s heart and our heart devotion replaces Temple ritual. We are to stop thinking like the world does assuming that God does not care about our needs or supernaturally acts in our personal lives. The world believes that only what can be seen is reality. The spirit of the world is embodied in the love of money, hunger for unbridled sex, and thirst for power. Don’t believe the way the world does, but change the way you think. As you change the way you think, you will mature and take on Christ’s character. As you grow up in Christ, you will know God’s heart and then you will be able to do exactly what God wants.

Commentary:

Romans 12:1-2 exhorts us not to entertain evil thoughts or allow our minds to become passive. The Apostle Paul reminds us that our reasoning processes are fallen and that they must be guarded. If our thoughts are not filtered by Holy Spirit discernment, Satan will use our minds to delude us and misled us into error. This error is not just about doctrine, but also concerns our everyday choices and life decisions. In other words, don’t believe everything you think, but allow the Word of God and the Spirit of God to transform all your thought processes.

Never submit to the tyrannous idea that you cannot look after your mind; you can. If a man lets his garden alone it very soon ceases to be a garden; and if a saint lets his mind alone it will soon become a rubbish heap for Satan to make use of. Read the terrible things the New Testament says will grow in the mind of a saint if he does not look after it. We have to rouse ourselves up to think, to bring “every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (rv). Never pray about evil thoughts, it will fix them in the mind.

Oswald Chambers, The Moral Foundation of Life : A Series of Talks on the Ethical Principles of the Christian Life (Hants UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1996, c1966).

Posted on

Catching Men and Women

Drawing Hearts to Jesus

One of them was Lydia from Thyatira, a merchant of expensive purple cloth, who worshiped God. As she listened to us, the Lord opened her heart, and she accepted what Paul was saying.

Acts 16:14 NLT

It is our responsibility to tell the story of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection with the forgiveness found therein: it is the Holy Spirit’s responsibility to change and transform a heart. We are not called to count notches in our belts, but we are obligated to share our most precious treasure. The difficulty is learning the most effective way to share the unchanging message of the gospel in a constantly changing world. This message is “good news” for Jesus Christ came to pay the dept of sin, break the chains of sin’s bondage, and empower us to overcome sin’s grip.

In order to catch men for the Lord Jesus Christ, you must love Jesus Christ absolutely, beyond all others. You must have a consuming passion of love, then He will flow through you in a passion of love and yearning and draw men to Himself.

Oswald Chambers, Workmen of God : The Cure for Souls (Hants UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1996, c1937).

Posted on

Grace: Embodied in a Person

Grace Is Not a Thing, But Jesus Christ Himself

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.

2 Cor. 9:8

Sanctifying grace is Jesus being the desire, ability, and power in us to respond to every life situation according to the will of God. Jesus is our desire for he works in us a hunger for holiness. Jesus is our ability for he enables us to make godly decisions and choices. Jesus is our power for he strengthens us to overcome the world, the flesh, sin, death, and the devil. Grace is the person, Jesus, living his life in and through us empowering us to live a righteous and holy life (2 Cor. 9:8, 2 Cor. 12:1-10, Titus 2:11-14).

The sanctification of the Bible never fixes you on the fact that you are delivered from sin: it fixes you on the One who is Sanctification. Sanctification is not something Jesus Christ gives me, it is Himself in me.

Oswald Chambers, God’s Workmanship (Hants, UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1996), 48.


Posted on

Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat: Worship As Warfare

Praise to Our Lord and Creator

After consulting the people, the king [Jehoshaphat] appointed singers to walk ahead of the army, singing to the Lord and praising him for his holy splendor. This is what they sang: “Give thanks to the Lord; his faithful love endures forever!”

2 Chron 20:21 NLT

King Jehoshaphat faced a great dilemma: three people groups from the other side of the Dead Sea have decided to target Jerusalem for capture. Jehoshaphat could call upon his troops, but he knows that they would be greatly outnumbered. Beyond all human logic Jehoshaphat rejects foreign alliances and the mobilization of the army. Instead, he calls on the tribe of Judah to pray, fast, and believe God.

Before all the people, Jehoshaphat prays and recalls God’s sovereign purposes, his covenant promises, and their current situation. As if on cue, a prophet declares God’s Word: “The battles is not yours, but God’s.” The command: “Do not fight, but worship. I will win your battle for you.” In short, worship me and I will win your warfare. The Lord calls Judah to trust by a faith that stands firm, stable, and firmly established in God. Judah believes God that he will bring the promised victory.

Indeed, God causes the three foreign armies to ambush themselves. Israel’s spoils are so numerous, it takes three days to gather all the stuff. God did not call Judah to win the battle, he called Judah to be available. God does not call us to be adequate, he has called us to be available instruments of his glory. God never calls us to something we can do, God only calls us to ministry that he can do in and through us.

Like Israel of old when we worship, we enter afresh into the victory of the Cross. Worship makes us available to God’s purposes. Worship acknowledges God’s greatness and exposes our neediness. Worship wins the warfare.

Worship takes place when we acknowledge that we are not the Creator, we bow our wills, and adore the eternal Lord. In worship, we recognize the infinite beauty of God, his unsurpassing love, and his omnipotent power as the God of the universe. In true worship, we submit our lives to his will, embrace his all-encompassing love, and trust his great goodness.

Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness, the nourishment of the mind with His truth, the purifying of the imagination of His beauty, the opening of the heart to His love, the surrender of the will to His purpose.

William Temple

Worship is the love offering of our keen sense of the worth-ship of God. True worship springs from the same source as the missionary himself. To worship God truly is to become a missionary, because our worship is a testimony to Him. It is presenting back to God the best He has given to us, publicly not privately. Every act of worship is a public testimony, and is at once the most personally sacred and the most public act that God demands of His faithful ones.

Oswald Chambers, So Send I You: The Secret of the Burning Heart, electronic ed. (Hants UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1930), 149.

Worship is giving the best we have unreservedly to God. 

Oswald Chambers, If Thou Wilt Be Perfect: Talks on Spiritual Philosophy (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1941), 79.

A basic outline of my sermon,“Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat,” is available in Google documents.

Posted on

Are You Dead Yet?

Victory of the Heart

Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me.

Luke 9:23 NLT

Dying to self is not strictly the idea of giving up possessions: it is giving up the right to myself. My ways, my wants, and my demands are yielded to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Want a full, deep, intimate experience of Jesus? Give up the right to yourself and hand your heart and will over to Jesus and there find “joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8).

Naturally, a man regards his right to himself as the finest thing he has, yet it is the last bridge that prevents Jesus Christ having His way in a life.

The approaches to Jesus are innumerable; the result of coming to Him can be only one—the dethroning of my right to myself, or I stop short somewhere.

Jesus Christ is always unyielding to my claim to my right to myself.

The one essential element in all our Lord’s teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest.

Oswald Chambers, Disciples Indeed (London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1955), 35.

When you are forgotten or neglected or purposely set at naught and you don’t sting and hurt with the insult or the oversight but your heart is happy, being counted worthy to suffer for Christ – THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart, or even defend yourself, but take it all in patient, loving silence—THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When you are content with any food, any raiment, any climate, any society, any solitude, any interruption by the will of God–THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder, any irregularity, any impuctuality or any annoyance–THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation or to record your own good works, or to itch after commendation, when you can truly love to be unknown–THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When you stand face to face with waste, folly, extravagant spiritual insensibility—and endure it as Jesus endured it– THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When you can see your brother prosper and have his needs met and can honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy, nor question God while your own needs are far greater and you are in desperate circumstances—THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself and can humbly submit inwardly as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart—THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

When like Paul-you can throw all your suffering on Jesus, thus converting it into a means of knowing  His overcoming grace; and can say from a surrendered heart, “most gladly,” therefore, do “I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake”(2 Cor. 12:7-11)–THAT IS DYING TO SELF.

Are you DEAD yet?

In these last days, the Spirit would bring us to the cross. “That I may know Him…being made conformable unto His death” (Phil 3:10).

Anonymous, Bethany Publishing House Tract

Posted on

Daily Drudgery

Abiding in God in the Monotony

As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father?

Hebrews 12:7 NLT

Drudgery is our ordinary, mundane, prosaic, day-to-day existence. Learning to live a supernatural life of abiding in Christ in the midst of the daily grind is a mark of spiritual maturity. The daily grind is an enemy to our spiritual lives only when we allow it to prevent us from experiencing God’s presence in the mundane routines and activities of life. We must understand that the ordinary, sometimes boring, activities of everyday living are a form of spiritual training used by our Heavenly Father to draw us into the presence of Christ.

As we look in faith, God can be found and experienced in the dishwashing, the lawn mowing, the vacuuming, and the driving commute. We must not forget that God’s presence is available to us in the boring, mundane, ordinary, routine tasks of life (John 15:1-5). As Brother Lawrence advised, God’s presence can be practiced, cultivated, and enjoyed in the daily tasks of cooking, cleaning, shopping, and work. “The time of business,” said he, “does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clutter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess GOD in as great tranquillity as if I were upon my knees at the Blessed Sacrament” [Practicing the Presence of God].

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.

Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House Publishers, 1989), October 21.

We cannot escape from our daily routine, because it will go with us wherever we go . . . . God must be sought and found in the things of our world. By regarding our daily duties as something performed for the honour and glory of God, we can convert what was hitherto soul-killing monotony, to a living worship of God in all our actions. Everyday life must become itself our prayer.

Karl Rahner, “God of My Daily Routine,” in Encounters with Silence (Chicago, IL: St. Augustines Press, 1999).