Oswald Chambers

A number of years ago, I read the most delightful biography about Oswald Chambers. It’s called Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God, by David McCasland. It was quite good as well as inspiring. I believe I’ve mentioned before, about two thousand times, that I love reading Christian biography.

Of course, as with most people, I first met Chambers through the devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. That devotional, like all of his books, was put together after his death from the notes his wife took (shorthand) from his many lectures, studies, sermons, etc. (She was quite a woman).

I own pretty close to all of Chambers’ books (due to the very kind and generous offerings of a widow who was giving away her departed husband’s library). I have treasured them.

Chambers only lived into his early 40s. As someone who will be 48 this year, I have been “forced” to compare my productivity with his. I’m not fairing well. But we moderns never seem to compare well with anyone who’s been dead for a hundred years or more (usually). At any rate, if you would like to learn more about Chambers’ extraordinary short life, you can check out the following links.

• My Utmost for His Highest (online version of his wonderful devotional.) You can click here for another good version of it.
• Wikipedia on Chambers. Seems to be an accurate summary of what I’ve read thus far.
• The Oswald Chambers Publications Association. (official site)
• Wheaton College’s Collection

Soli Deo Gloria,
Dale

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Is He Really Lord?

This Chambers Devotion is taken from Oswald Chambers: My Utmost for His Highest

. . . so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus. — Acts 20:24

Joy means the perfect fulfilment of that for which I was created and regenerated, not the successful doing of a thing. The joy Our Lord had lay in doing what the Father sent Him to do, and He says – “As My Father hath sent Me, even so am I sending you.” Have I received a ministry from the Lord? If so, I have to be loyal to it, to count my life precious only for the fulfilling of that ministry. Think of the satisfaction it will be to hear Jesus say – “Well done, good and faithful servant”; to know that you have done what He sent you to do. We have all to find our niche in life, and spiritually we find it when we receive our ministry from the Lord. In order to do this we must have companied with Jesus; we must know Him as more than a personal Saviour. “I will show him how great things he must suffer for My sake.”

“Lovest thou Me?” Then – “Feed My sheep.” There is no choice of service, only absolute loyalty to Our Lord’s commission; loyalty to what you discern when you are in closest contact with God. If you have received a ministry from the Lord Jesus, you will know that the need is never the call: the need is the opportunity. The call is loyalty to the ministry you received when you were in real touch with Him. This does not imply that there is a campaign of service marked out for you, but it does mean that you will have to ignore the demands for service along other lines.

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Following Hard After God

Some of the highlights from The Pursuit of God, by A.W. Tozer (Chapter 1: Following Hard After God)

Christian theology teaches the doctrine prevenient grace, which, briefly stated, means that before a man can seek God, God must have sought the man.

Before a sinful man can think a right thought of God, there must have been a work of enlightenment done within him.

We pursue God because, and only because, he has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit.

The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after him.

God is always previous.

[The following quote is with regard to the church of today... which was 1948 when Tozer wrote this. How much more true today] Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego. Christ may be “received” without creating any special love for him in the soul of the receiver. The man is “saved,” but he is not hungry nor thirsty after God.

We have almost forgotten that God is a person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can. …but full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter. It is only after a long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of both can be explored.

The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition. That is the heavenly birth without which we cannot see the kingdom of God. It is, however, not an end but an inception, for now begins the glorious pursuit, the heart’s happy exploration of the infinite riches of the Godhead.

To have found God and still to pursue him is the soul’s paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too easily satisfied religionists, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart.

Complacency is a deady foe of all spiritual growth.

[In his day... and in ours]… are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart.

When religion has said its last word, there is little that we need other than God himself. The evil habit of seeking God-and effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation.

Click here to read the prayer that goes with this chapter. It is truly beautiful.

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The Root of the Righteous

A man shall not be established by wickedness: but the root of the righteous shall not be moved. (Proverbs 12:3)

I love A.W. Tozer, my brother in the Fellowship of the Burning Heart… though he’s often hard to read because of how convicted I usually feel afterward. One of the best collections of his is entitled, The Root of the Righteous. It is well worth getting and reading… and then reading again. By the way, it was first published in 1955. (That fact will explain why he’s often called a modern-day prophet.)

Here are a few quotes from the first chapter, also entitled, The Root of the Righteous…

One marked difference between the faith of our fathers as conceived by the fathers and the same faith as understood and lived by their children is that the fathers were concerned with the root of the matter, while their present-day descendents seem concerned only with the fruit.

Our fathers looked well to the root of the tree and were willing to wait with patience for the fruit to appear.

[Impatient Christians today] imitate their fruit without accepting their theology or inconveniencing ourselves too greatly by adopting their all-or-nothing attitude toward religion.

The bough that breaks off from the tree in a storm may bloom briefly and give to the unthinking passerby the impression that it is a healthy and fruitful branch, but its tender blossoms will soon perish and the bough itself wither and die. There is no lasting life apart from the root.

Much that passes for Christianity today is the brief, bright effort of the severed branch to bring forth its fruit in its season. But the deep laws of life are against it. Preoccupation with appearances and a corresponding neglect of the out-of-sight root of true spiritual life are prophetic signs which go unheeded.

A church that is soundly rooted cannot be destroyed, but nothing can save a church whose root is dried up. No stimulation, no advertising campaigns, no gifts of money and no beautiful edifice can bring back life to the rootless tree.

In every generation the number of the righteous is small. Be sure you’re among them.

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Fellowship of the Burning Heart, Part 10

They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32)

William Law

Although the goodness of God and his rich mercies in Christ Jesus are sufficient assurance to us that he will be merciful to our unavoidable weaknesses, we have no reason to expect the same mercy toward those sins which we have not intended to avoid.

You may say that all people fall short of the perfection of the gospel and, therefore, you are content with your failings. But this is not the point. The question is not, Can gospel perfection be fully attained? but, Have you come as near it as a sincere intention and careful diligence can carry you? If you have made as much progress in the Christian life as you can, then you may justly hope that your imperfections will not be laid to your charge. But if your defects are the result of your negligence and lack of sincere intention, then you leaven yourself without excuse.

If my religion is only a formal compliance with those modes of worship which are in fashion where I live; if it costs me no pain or trouble; if it puts me under no rules and restraints; if I have no careful thoughts and sober reflections about it – is it not foolish to think that I am striving to enter in at the strait gate? How can it be said that I am working out my salvation with fear and trembling?

[I included the quotes above by Law with some reservation. I don't think he's suggesting that our works... or even our intentions... can save us. What I did like about his comments, and why I chose to include them, is his emphasis against an antinomian attitude of... "I'm saved by grace, therefore, I don't have to pursue holiness." That's the interpretation of his words that I'm sticking with for the purpose of including them here.]

Leonard Ravenhill

By our attitude to prayer we tell God that what was begun in the Spirit we can finish in the flesh. What church ever asks its candidating ministers what time they spend in prayer? Yet ministers who do not spend two hours a day in prayer are not worth a dime a dozen, degrees or no degrees.

But who now “earnestly contends for the faith once delivered to the saints?” Preachers who should be fishing for men are now too often fishing for compliments from men. Preachers used to sow a seed; now they string together intellectual pearls.

The LORD waits to be gracious to you… Blessed are those who wait for him. (Isaiah 30:18)

Andrew Murray

[God] longs and delights to bless. He has inconceivably glorious purposes concerning every one of this children, by the power of his Holy Spirit, to reveal in them his love and power.

And, each time you come to wait upon him, or seek to maintain in daily life the holy habit of waiting, you may look up and see him ready to meet you. He will be waiting so that he may be gracious unto you.

Yes, it is blessed when a waiting soul and a waiting God meet each other. Let waiting be our work, as it is his. And if his waiting is nothing but goodness and graciousness, let ours be nothing but a rejoicing in that goodness, and a confident expectancy of that grace.

A Prayer for Purity of Heart and Strength of Purpose

Almighty and everlasting God, in whom we live and move and have our being, who hast created us for thyself, so that our hearts are restless until they find rest in thee: Grant unto us such purity of heart and strength of purpose, that no selfish passion may hinder us from knowing thy will, and no weakness from doing it. In thy light may we see life clearly, and in thy service find perfect freedom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (The Methodist Book of Worship for Church and Home, 1965)

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FIRE

Year of Grace 1654

From about half past ten at night to about half an hour after midnight,

FIRE

“God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6),
not of philosophers and scholars.

Certitude, heartfelt joy, peace.

God of Jesus Christ.

God of Jesus Christ.

“My God and Your God” (John 20:17).

“Your God shall be my God” (Ruth 1:16).

The world forgotten, everything except God.

He can only be found by the ways that have been taught in the Gospels.

Greatness of the human soul.

“O righteous Father, the world has not known You, but I have known You” (John 17:25).

Joy, Joy, Joy, tears of joy.

I have separated myself from him.

“They have forsaken me, the spring of living water” (Jeremiah 2:13)

“My God, will you leave me?” (cf. Matthew 2746).

Let me not be cut off from him forever!

“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ.

I am separated from him; for I have shunned him, denied him, crucified him.

May I never be separated from him.

He can only be kept by the ways taught in the gospel.

Complete and sweet renunciation.

Total submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.

Everlasting joy in return for one day’s striving upon earth.

“I will not neglect your word” (Psalm 119:16) Amen.

by Blaise Pascal – Discovered on a piece of parchment on which Pascal recorded the decisive experience of 1654 when he was converted. This testimony was found sewn into his clothing after his death. It appears that he carried it with him at all times. (Os Guinness)

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Fellowship of the Burning Heart, Part 9

They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32)

by A.W. Tozer

As for myself, I have learned to talk back to [the devil] on this score.

I say, “Yes, Devil, sin is terrible – but I remind you that I got it from you! And I remind you, Devil, that everything good – forgiveness and cleansing and blessing – everything that is good I have freely received from Jesus Christ!”

Brethren, we have been declared “Not guilty!” by the highest court in all the universe. It is good to know that on the basis of grace as taught in the Word of God, when God forgives a man, he trusts him as though he had never sinned.

by John Bunyan

God is the only desirable good; nothing without him is worthy of our hearts. Right thoughts of God are able to ravish the heart; how much more happy is the man that has interest in God. God alone is able by himself to put the soul into a more blessed, comfortable, and happy condition than can the whole world; yes, and more than if all the created happiness of all the angels of heaven did dwell in one man’s bosom.

by Oswald Chambers

We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, it may be so in the initial stages; but we do not earn anything by faith, faith brings us into right relationship with God and gives God his opportunity.

God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of sentimental enjoyment of his blessings.

Your earlier life of faith was narrow and intense, settled around a little sun-spot of experience that as much of sense as of faith in it, full of light and sweetness; then God withdrew his conscious blessings in order to teach you to walk by faith. You are worth far more to him now than you were in your days of conscious delight and thrilling testimony.

…Faith in the Bible is faith in God against everything that contradicts him – I will remain true to God’s character whatever he may do. “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him” (Job 13:15) - this is the most sublime utterance of faith in the whole of the Bible.

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