Oswald Chambers Quotes

It must be God first, God second, and God third

If we pray only because we want answers, we will become irritated and angry with God. We receive an answer every time we pray, but it does not always come in the way we expect, and our spiritual irritation shows our refusal to identify ourselves truly with our Lord in prayer. We are not here to prove that God answers prayer, but to be living trophies of God’s grace.

Are you debating whether you should take a step of faith in Jesus, or whether you should wait until you can clearly see how to do what He has asked? Simply obey Him with unrestrained joy. When He tells you something and you begin to debate, it is because you have a misunderstanding of what honors Him and what doesn't. Are you faithful to Jesus, or faithful to your ideas about Him?

As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, forgetful delight, nor with the quickness of impulsive thoughtlessness . But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us.

The majority of us do not enthrone God, we enthrone common sense. We make our decisions and then ask the real God to bless our God's decision.

Refusing to be disillusioned is the cause of much of the suffering of human life. And this is how that suffering happens-if we love someone, but do not love God, we demand total perfection and righteousness from that person, and when we do not get it, we become cruel and vindictive; yet we are demanding of a human being which he or she cannot possibly give.

We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life - those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength.

Let the attitude of your life be a continual willingness to "go out" in dependence upon God, and your life will have a sacred and inexpressible charm about it that is very satisfying to Jesus. You must learn to "go out" through your convictions, creeds, or experiences until you come to the point in your faith where there is nothing between yourself and God.

Faith never knows where it is being led, it knows and loves the One Who is leading. Faith is not resignation to a power we do not know; faith is committal to One Whose character we do know because it has been revealed to us in Jesus Christ.

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

Faith is the inborn capacity to see God behind everything.

God does not expect us to imitate Jesus Christ; He expects us to allow the life of Jesus to be manifested in our moral flesh.

We must build our faith not on fading lights but on the Light that never fails.

We think of prayer as a preparation for work, or a calm after having done work, whereas prayer is the essential work.

There have been prophets and students who handle the Bible like a child's box of bricks; they explain to us the design and structure and purpose; but as time goes on things do not work out in their way at all. They have mistaken the scaffolding for the structure, while all the time God is working out His purpose with a great and undeterred patience.

Make the determination to abide in Jesus wherever you are now or wherever you may be placed in the future.

We say, sorrow, disaster, calamity. God says, chastening and it sounds sweet to him though it is a discord to our ears. Don't faint when you are rebuked, and don't despise the chastening of the Lord. In your patience possess your souls.

Adam was created to be the friend and companion of God, he was to have dominion over all the life in the air and earth and sea, but one thing he was not to have dominion over, and that was himself.

Faith, as the Bible teaches it, is faith in God coming against everything that contradicts Him- a faith that says, “I will remain true to God’s character whatever He may do.” The highest and the greatest expression of faith in the whole Bible is- “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).

Take care lest you play the hypocrite by spending all your time trying to get others right before you worship God yourself.

Have you ever realized that you can give things to God that are of value to Him? Or are you just sitting around daydreaming about the greatness of His redemption, while neglecting all the things you could be doing for Him? I'm not referring to works which could be regarded as divine and miraculous, but ordinary, simple human things - things which would be evidence to God that you are totally surrendered to Him.

The life of faith is not a life of mounting up with wings, but a life of walking and not fainting.

Our circumstances are the means God uses to exhibit just how wonderfully perfect and extraordinarily pure His Son is.

No matter who or what we are, God restores us to right standing with Himself only by means of the death of Jesus Christ.

Before God can use a man greatly he must wound him deeply.

When someone thinks that to develop a holy life he must always be alone with God, he is no longer of any use to others.

Am I always in contact with Reality, or do I only pray when things have gone wrong, when there is a disturbance in the moments of my life?

A private relationship of worshiping God is the greatest essential element of spiritual fitness.

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.

The battle is lost or won in the secret places of the will before God, never first in the external world.

When you fear God you fear nothing else!

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.

If your faith is in experiences, anything that happens is likely to upset that faith.

in the will of God" is not a matter of intellectual discernment, but a state of heart... It's motto is --" My Father can do what he likes with me, He may bless me to death, or give me a bitter cup; I delight to do His will.

God does not exist to answer our prayers, but by our prayers we come to discern the mind of God.

Jesus Christ out-socialists the socialists. He says that in His Kingdom he that is greatest shall be the servant of all. 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.

We shall find that the spheres God brings us into are not meant to teach us something but to make us something.

The aim of the missionary is to do God's will, not to be useful, not to win the heathan; he is useful and does win the heathen, but that is not his aim. His aim is to do the will of his Lord.

There is no greater threat to our devotion to Christ than our service for Christ.

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.

We always know when Jesus is at work because He produces in the commonplace something that is inspiring.

God did not direct His call to Isaiah— Isaiah overheard God saying, ". . . who will go for Us?" The call of God is not just for a select few but for everyone. Whether I hear God’s call or not depends on the condition of my ears, and exactly what I hear depends upon my spiritual attitude.

'I have chosen you!' Keep that note of greatness in your creed. It is not that you have got God but that He has got you.

There is only one way by which I can get right with God, and that is through the death of Jesus Christ. I must get rid of the underlying idea that I can ever be right with God because of my obedience. Who of us could ever obey God to absolute perfection!

I have to learn that the aim in life is God's, not mine. God is using me from His great personal standpoint, and all He asks of me is that I trust Him, and never say — Lord, this gives me such heart-ache.

Service is the overflow which pours from a life filled with love and devotion. But strictly speaking, there is no call to that. Service is what I bring to the relationship and is the reflection of my identification with the nature of God.

The Spirit is the first power we practically experience, but the last power we come to understand.

We preach to men as if they were conscious they were dying sinners, they are not; they are having a good time.