Quotes from Oswald Chambers

We are not here to develop a spiritual life of our own, or to enjoy a quiet spiritual retreat. We are here to have the full realization of Jesus Christ, for the purpose of building His body.

God grant that we may determine to work out through our bodies the life which Jesus Christ has put into us by His Spirit.

Too many disciples have faith in their faith, or in their joy in the Lord; and when a spiritual storm comes, they have neither faith nor joy. Only one thing can endure, and that is love for God. If such love is not there, we will not recognize the loving voice of God when He cries out to us that He is "our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble … be still, and know that I am God …" (Ps. 46:1, 10a).

The first thing God does is forcibly remove any insincerity, pride, and vanity from my life. And the Holy Spirit reveals to me that God loved me not because I was lovable, but because it was His nature to do so.

My goal is God Himself, not joy nor peace, Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God. Am I measuring my life by this standard or by something less?

It is not only God who punishes for sin, but sin establishes itself in the sinner and takes its toll.

We lose interest and give up when we have no vision, no encouragement, and no improvement, but only experience our everyday life with its trivial tasks.

True friendship is rare on earth. It means identifying with someone in thought, heart, and spirit. The whole experience of life is designed to enable us to enter into this closest relationship with Jesus Christ.

The Lord's questions always reveal the true me to myself.

Reflected peace is the proof that you are right with God because you are at liberty to turn your mind to Him.

To be a disciple means that we deliberately identify ourselves with God's interests in other people. "That ye love one another; as I have loved you. . . .

O Lord, for the power of Thy Spirit to adore Thee in fuller ways. Keep my spirit brightly infused by Thy Holy Spirit, O Lord, that thus energised, my Lord Jesus Christ and His perfections may be manifested in my mortal flesh.

The love of God pays no attention to my prejudices caused by my natural individuality.

Allow God to have complete liberty in your life when you speak. Before God's message can liberate other people, His liberation must first be real in you. Gather your material carefully, and then allow God to "set your words on fire" for His glory.

We are half mechanical [physical] and half mysterious [spiritual]; to live in either domain and ignore the other is to be fools or fanatics... We have to WORK OUT in the mechanical realm what God WORK IN in the mysterious realm.

O Lord, breathe on me till I am one with Thee in the temper of my mind and heart and disposition, unto Thee do I turn. How completely again I realise my lostness without Thee.

Our ordinary and reasonable service to God may actually compete against our total surrender to Him.

Once you have the right relationship with God through salvation and sanctification, remember that whatever your circumstances may be, you have been placed in them by God. And God uses the reaction of your life to your circumstances to fulfill His purpose, as long as you continue to "walk in the light as He is in the light" (1 John 1:7).

Whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two." Matthew 5:41     Our Lord's teaching can be summed up in this: the relationship that He demands for us is an impossible one unless He has done a supernatural work in us. Jesus Christ demands that His disciple does not allow even the slightest trace of resentment in his heart when faced with tyranny and injustice.

One of the most subtle burdens God ever put on us as saints is the burden of discernment concerning other souls. He reveals things in order that we may take the burden of the souls before Him and form the mind of Christ about them. It is not that we bring God into touch with our minds, but that we rouse ourselves until God is able to convey His mind to us about the one for whom we intercede.

I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one" (John 17:15). We are to be in the world but not of it—to be separated internally, not externally (see John 17:16).

Jealously guard your relationship with God. Jesus prayed "that they may be one just as We are one"—with nothing in between (John 17:22). Keep your whole life continually open to Jesus Christ. Don't pretend to be open with Him. Are you drawing your life from any source other than God Himself? If you are depending on something else as your source of freshness and strength, you will not realize when His power is gone.

One of the penalties of sin is our acceptance of it. It is not only God who punishes for sin, but sin establishes itself in the sinner and takes its toll.

O Lord, I have no inkling of Thy ways in external details, but I have the expectancy of Thy wonders soon to be. made visible. Lord, I look to Thee, how completely at rest I am, yet how free from seeing Thy way. Thou art God and I trust in Thee.