Oswald Chambers Quotes

God will turn the might have been into a wonderful culture for the future. ~ Oswald Chambers

Whenever the conviction of God's Spirit comes there is the softening of the whole nature to obey; but if the obedience is not instant there will come a metallic hardening and a corrupting of the guidance of God. ~ Oswald Chambers

God speaks in the language you know best - not through your ears, but through your circumstances. ~ Oswald Chambers

We must keep ourselves in touch, not with theories, but with people, and never get out of touch with human beings, if we are going to use the word of God skilfully amongst them. ~ Oswald Chambers

Jesus Christ reveals, not an embarrassed God, not a confused God, not a God who stands apart from the problems, but One who stands in the thick of the whole thing with man. ~ Oswald Chambers

Obey God in the things he shows you, and instantly the next thing is opened up. God will never reveal more truth about himself until you have obeyed what you know already ... this chapter brings out the delight of real friendship with God. ~ Oswald Chambers

There are not three levels of spiritual life--worship, waiting, and work...God's idea is that the three should go together as one. ~ Oswald Chambers

The strain of life is what builds our strength. If there is no strain, there will be no strength. ~ Oswald Chambers

God gives us the vision, then he takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we will have patience. ~ Oswald Chambers

The real test of the saint is not preaching the gospel, but washing disciples' feet, that is, doing the things that do not count in the actual estimate of men, but count everything in the estimate of God. Paul ~ Oswald Chambers

When a man is at his wits' end it is not a cowardly thing to pray, it is the only way he can get in touch with Reality. ~ Oswald Chambers

A sentimentalist is one who delights to have high and devout emotions stirred whilst reading in an arm-chair, or in a prayer meeting, but he never translates his emotions into action. Consequently a sentimentalist is usually callous, self-centred and selfish, because the emotions he likes to have stirred do not cost him anything. ~ Oswald Chambers

Self pity is of the devil, and if I wallow in it, I cannot be used by God for his purpose in the world. ~ Oswald Chambers

God is my Father, He loves me, I shall never think of anything He will forget. Why should I worry? ~ Oswald Chambers

Never ask another person's advice about anything God makes you decide before Him. If you ask advice, you will almost always side with Satan. " ... I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood ... " (Galatians 1:16). ~ Oswald Chambers

Every element of our own self-reliance must be put to death by the power of God. The moment we recognize our complete weakness and our dependence upon Him will be the very moment that the Spirit of God will exhibit His power. ~ Oswald Chambers

If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we remove God's riches from our lives and hinder others from entering into His provision. No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it removes God from the throne of our lives, replacing Him with our own self-interests. It causes us to open our mouths only to complain, and we simply become spiritual sponges - always absorbing, never giving, and never being satisfied. And there is nothing lovely or generous about our lives. ~ Oswald Chambers

If you are going through a time of discouragement, there is a time or great personal growth ahead. ~ Oswald Chambers

There is always one fact more in every man's case about which we know nothing. ~ Oswald Chambers

There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself. If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you - and His experiments always succeed. ~ Oswald Chambers

The well of your incompleteness runs deep, but make the effort to look away from yourself and to look toward Him. ~ Oswald Chambers

Never forget that our capacity and capability in spiritual matters is measured by, and based on, the promises of God. ~ Oswald Chambers

Prayer imparts the power to walk and not faint. ~ Oswald Chambers

God works this unspeakable mystery of entire sanctification in your life and mine. People try to seek the experience of entire sanctification in ways other than God's way; but the wonderful Spirit of God will remove confusion and enable us to see that the only means to obtain the experience of entire sanctification by faith is the grace of God. ~ Oswald Chambers

You may often have to watch Jesus Christ wreck a life before He saves it. ~ Oswald Chambers

Faith is the whole man rightly related to God by the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. ~ Oswald Chambers

Be relentless and hard on yourself if you are in the habit of talking about the experiences you have had. Faith based on experience is not faith; faith based on God's revealed truth is the only faith there is. ~ Oswald Chambers

The prayer of the feeblest saint who lives in the Spirit and keeps right with God is a terror to Satan. The very powers of darkness are paralyzed by prayer; no spiritualistic seance can succeed in the presence of a humble praying saint. No wonder Satan tries to keep our minds fussy in active work till we cannot think in prayer. ~ Oswald Chambers

Solitude with God repairs the damage done by the fret and noise and clamour of the world. ~ Oswald Chambers

Remember that there is a passion for souls that does not come from God, but from our desire to make converts to our point of view. ~ Oswald Chambers

When we say "Thy will be done," do we say it with a sigh? If so, we have never realized that the character of God is holy love; nothing can ever happen outside His purposeful will. ~ Oswald Chambers

God does not hear us because we pray earnestly - He hears us solely on the basis of redemption. God is never impressed by our earnestness. ~ Oswald Chambers

The best measure of a spiritual life is not its ecstasies but its obedience. ~ Oswald Chambers

Once the call of God comes to you, start going and never stop. ~ Oswald Chambers

I am called to live in perfect relation to God so that my life produces a longing after God in other lives, not admiration for myself. Thoughts about myself hinder my usefulness to God. God is not after perfecting me to be a specimen in His show-room; He is getting me to the place where He can use me. Let Him do what He likes. ~ 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, into character. We shall find that the spheres God brings us into are not meant to teach us something but to make us something. ~ Oswald Chambers

In our mental outlook we have to reconcile ourselves to the fact of sin as the only explanation as to why Jesus Christ came, and the explanation of the grief and sorrow in life. ~ Oswald Chambers

The Bible talks plentifully about joy, but it nowhere talks about a 'happy Christian.' Happiness depends on what happens; joy does not. Remember, Jesus Christ had joy, and He prayed 'that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.' ~ Oswald Chambers

If you do not cut the moorings, God will have to break them by a storm and send you out. ~ Oswald Chambers

Prayer is the practice of drawing on the grace of God. Don't say, "I will endure this until I can get away and pray." Pray now - draw on the grace of God in your moment of need. Prayer is the most normal and useful thing; it is not simply a reflex action of your devotion to God. We are very slow to learn to draw on God's grace through prayer. ~ Oswald Chambers

Prayer is the exercise of drawing on the grace of God. ~ Oswald Chambers

How many people have you made homesick for God? ~ Oswald Chambers

The peace of God is not the peace of stoicism or passivity. It is the most intense activity. ~ Oswald Chambers

You may often see Jesus Christ wreck a life before He saves it. (Cf. Matthew 10:34) ~ Oswald Chambers

When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message. ~ Oswald Chambers

It is perilously possible to make our conceptions of God like molten lead poured into a specially designed mould, and when it is cold and hard we fling it at the heads of the religious people who don't agree with us. ~ Oswald Chambers

We can never be like lillies in the garden unless we have spent time as bulbs in the dark, totally ignored. ~ Oswald Chambers

The Sermon on the Mount is not some unattainable goal; it is a statement of what will happen in me when Jesus Christ has changed my nature by putting His own nature in me. Jesus Christ is the only One who can fulfill the Sermon on the Mount. ~ Oswald Chambers

It is impossible to conduct your life as a disciple without definite times of secret prayer ~ Oswald Chambers

I have learnt that I am me, that I can do the things that, as one might put it, me can do, but I cannot do the things that me would like to do. ~ Oswald Chambers

Spiritual character is only made by standing loyal to God's character, no matter what distress the trial of faith brings. The distress and agony the prophets experienced was the agony of believing God when everything that was happening contradicted what they proclaimed Him to be; there was nothing to prove that God was just and true, but everything to prove the opposite. ~ Oswald Chambers

In the midst of the awesomeness, a touch comes, and you know it is the right hand of Jesus Christ. You know it is not the hand of restraint, correction, nor chastisement, but the right hand of the Everlasting Father. Whenever His hand is laid upon you, it gives inexpressible peace and comfort, and the sense that "underneath are the everlasting arms," (Deuteronomy 33:27) full of support, provision, comfort and strength. ~ Oswald Chambers

By the supernatural miracle of God's grace I stand justified, not because I am sorry for my sin, not because I have repented, but because of what Jesus has done. ~ Oswald Chambers

Never choose to be a worker, but once God has placed His call upon you, woe be to you if you "turn aside . . . to the right or the left . . ." (Deuteronomy 28:14). He will do with you what He never did before His call came to you, and He will do with you what He is not doing with other people. Let Him have His way. ~ Oswald Chambers

The reason we see hypocrisy and fraud and unreality in others is because they are all in our own hearts. The great characteristic of a saint is humility-Yes, all those things and other evils would have been manifested in me but for the grace of God, therefore I have no right to judge. ~ Oswald Chambers

Let circumstances take you where they will, but keep drawing on the grace of God in whatever condition you may find yourself. ~ Oswald Chambers

Faith is the inborn capacity to see God behind everything. ~ Oswald Chambers

A child of the light confesses instantly and stands bared before God; a child of the darkness says, 'Oh, I can explain that away. ~ Oswald Chambers

We take such liberties with our circumstances, we do not believe God engineers them, although we say we do; we treat the things that happen as if they were engineered by men. To be faithful in every circumstance means that we have only one loyalty, and that is to our Lord. Suddenly God breaks up a particular set of circumstances, ~ Oswald Chambers

Never be afraid when God brings back your past. Let your memory have its way with you. It is a minister of God bringing its rebuke and sorrow to you. ~ Oswald Chambers

...never act on the impulse of that feeling. If you do, you will cause difficult situations to arise which will take years to untangle. Wait for God's timing and He will do it without any heartache or disappointment. ~ Oswald Chambers

When prayer seems to be unanswered, beware of trying to place the blame on someone else. That is always a trap of Satan. When you seem to have no answer, there is always a reason - God uses these times to give you deep personal instruction, and it is not for anyone else but you. ~ Oswald Chambers

A heartless Christian must be a terrible grief to our Lord. ~ Oswald Chambers

Holiness, not happiness, is the chief end of man. ~ Oswald Chambers

God never estimates what we give from impulse. We are given credit for what we determine in our hearts to give; for the giving that is governed by a fixed determination. The Spirit of God revolutionises our philanthropic instincts. Much of our philanthropy is simply the impulse to save ourselves an uncomfortable feeling. The Spirit of God alters all that. As saints our attitude towards giving is that we give for Jesus Christ's sake, and from no other motive. ~ Oswald Chambers

The moral miracle of Redemption is that God can put into me a new disposition whereby I can live a totally new life. ~ Oswald Chambers

Some prayers are followed by silence (from God) because they are wrong, others because they are bigger than one can understand. It will be a wonderful moment for some of us when we stand before God and find that the prayers we clamored for in early days and imagined were never answered, have been answered in the most amazing way, and that God's silence has been the sign of the answer. ~ Oswald Chambers

We tend to set up success in Christian work as our purpose, but our purpose should be to display the glory of God in human life, to live a life "hidden with Christ in God" in our everyday human conditions. ~ Oswald Chambers

The Cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God. ~ Oswald Chambers

The one thing that remains is looking in the face of God for ourselves. ~ Oswald Chambers

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

The danger we have is that we want to water down what Jesus said to make it mean something that aligns with our common sense. ~ Oswald Chambers

Do you realize that after eminent success in God's work, there is more need for prayer than when we are at the foothills of a struggle for survival? The moments of victory and success are more dangerous than moments of darkness and depression. ~ Oswald Chambers

Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him. ~ Oswald Chambers

Every God-given vision will become real if we will only have patience. ~ Oswald Chambers

The expression of Christian character is not good doing, but God-likeness. If the Spirit of God has transformed you within, you will exhibit Divine characteristics in your life, not good human characteristics . God's life in us expresses itself as God's life, not as human life trying to be godly. ~ Oswald Chambers

Never look for right in the other man, but never cease to be right yourself. We are always looking for justice; the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is - Never look for justice, but never cease to give ~ Oswald Chambers

The greatest need we have is not to do things, but to believe things. ~ Oswald Chambers

Consecration is the act of continually separating myself from everything except that which God has appointed me to do. It is not a one-time experience but an ongoing process. Am I continually separating myself and looking to God every day of my life? ~ Oswald Chambers

Temptation is a suggested short cut to the realization of the highest at which I aim - not towards what I understand as evil, but towards what I understand as good. ~ Oswald Chambers

The call of God is a call according to the nature of God; where we go in obedience to that call depends entirely on the providential circumstances which God engineers, and is not of any moment. The danger is to fit the call of God into the idea of our own discernment and say, "God called me there." If we say so and stick to it, then it is good-bye to the development of the life of God in us. ~ Oswald Chambers

The battle is not against sin or difficulties or circumstances, but against being so absorbed in work that we are not ready to face Jesus Christ at every turn. ~ Oswald Chambers

Intercession means raising ourselves up to the point of getting the mind of Christ regarding the person for whom we are praying. ~ Oswald Chambers

A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master" (Matthew 10:24). In other words, the same things that happened to our Lord will happen to us on our way to our "Jerusalem." There will be works of God exhibited through us, people will get blessed, and one or two will show gratitude while the rest will show total ingratitude, but nothing must divert us from going "up to [our] Jerusalem. ~ Oswald Chambers

It is a great thing to see physical courage, and greater still to see moral courage, but the greatest to see of all is spiritual courage; oh, to see a person who will stand true to the integrity of Jesus Christ no matter what he or she goes through! ~ Oswald Chambers

If we are going to live as disciples of Jesus, we have to remember that all noble things are difficult. The Christian life is gloriously difficult, but the difficulty of it does not make us faint and cave in, it rouses us up to overcome. ~ Oswald Chambers

A practical help in keeping your personal purity unblemished in your relations with other people is to begin to see them as God does. Say to yourself, That man or that woman is perfect in Christ Jesus! That friend or that relative is perfect in Christ Jesus! ~ Oswald Chambers

Joy comes from seeing the complete fulfillment of the specific purpose for which I was created and born again, not from successfully doing something of my own choosing. ~ Oswald Chambers

God regenerates us and puts us in contact with all his divine resources, but he cannot make us walk according to his will. ~ Oswald Chambers

If we indulge in inordinate affection, anger, anxiety, God holds us responsible; but He also insists that we have to be passionately filled with the right emotions. ~ Oswald Chambers

There is no joy in the soul that has forgotten what God prizes. ~ Oswald Chambers

The way to grow strong in Christ is to become weak in yourself. ~ Oswald Chambers

Holiness is the remaking of our inward and hidden desires and affections, when the Holy Spirit of God dwells in our mortal bodies. ~ Oswald Chambers

We do not pray at all until we are at our wits' end. ~ Oswald Chambers

No one can make himself pure by obeying laws. Jesus Christ does not give us rules and regulations - He gives us His teachings which are truths that can only be interpreted by His nature which He places within us. The great wonder of Jesus Christ's salvation is that He changes our heredity. He does not change human nature - He changes its source, and thereby its motives as well. ~ Oswald Chambers

We look upon the enemy of our souls as a conquered foe, so he is, but only to God, not to us. ~ Oswald Chambers

Have I a personal history with Jesus Christ? The one sign of discipleship is intimate connection with Him, a knowledge of Jesus Christ which nothing can shake. ~ Oswald Chambers

There are times when you cannot understand why you cannot do what you want to do. When God brings the blank space, see that you do not fill it in, but wait. The blank space may come in order to teach you what sanctification means; or it may come after sanctification to teach you what service means. Never run before God's guidance. If there is the slightest doubt, then He is not guiding. Whenever there is doubt - don't. ~ Oswald Chambers

Be persistent with your disturbance until you get face to face with the Lord himself. Don't deify common sense. ~ Oswald Chambers

God does not further our spiritual life in spite of our circumstances, but in and by our circumstances. ~ Oswald Chambers