Chambers Oswald Quotes & Sayings

The purpose of prayer is to reveal the presence of God equally present, all the time, in every condition. — Oswald Chambers

Obedience to the call of Christ nearly always costs everything to two people- the one who is called, and the one who loves that one. — Oswald Chambers

Never allow anything that divides or destroys the oneness of your life with Christ to remain in your life without facing it. — Oswald Chambers

You say, "But He has not answered." He has, He is so near to you that His silence is the answer. His silence is big with terrific meaning that you cannot understand yet, but presently you will. — 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

Our Lord insists on the social aspect of our lives: He shows very distinctly that we cannot further ourselves alone. — Oswald Chambers

To be 'in the will of God' is not a matter of intellectual discernment, but a state of heart. — Oswald Chambers

The entrance into the Kingdom is through the panging pains of repentance crashing into a man's respectable goodness; then the Holy Ghost, who produces these agonies begins the formation of the Son God in the life. — Oswald Chambers

Is the Son of God praying in me, or am I dictating to Him? ... Prayer is not simply getting things from God, that is a most initial form of prayer; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God. If the Son of God is formed in us by regeneration, He will press forward in front of our common sense and change our attitude to the things about which we pray. — Oswald Chambers

The Bible is not a book that you can open and say, 'Now, Lord, put some magic into my soul that will open up the meaning of this book.' There is only one way really to understand the Word, and that is through wrestling with the circumstances and happenings of life. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer is not logical, it is a mysterious moral working of the Holy Spirit. — Oswald Chambers

When you meet a man or woman who puts Jesus Christ first, knit that one to your soul. — Oswald Chambers

Our Lord never dictated to His Father, and we are not here to dictate to God; we are here to submit to His will so that He may work through us what He wants. When we realise this, He will make us broken bread and poured-out wine to feed and nourish others. — Oswald Chambers

Watch where Jesus went. The one dominant note in His life was to do His Father's will. His was not the way of wisdom or of success, but the way of faithfulness. — Oswald Chambers

Paul's secret joy was that God took him as a blatant rebel against Jesus Christ, and made him a captive - and that became his purpose. — Oswald Chambers

We have to keep letting go, and slowly and surely the great full life of God will invade us in every part, and men will take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus. — Oswald Chambers

No healthy Christian ever chooses suffering; he chooses God's will, as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not. — Oswald Chambers

Theology must work itself out in the most practical relationships. — Oswald Chambers

All Christians have the Spirit of Christ, but not all Christians have the mind of Christ. — Oswald Chambers

To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service. We have to be placed into God and brought into agreement with Him before we can be broken bread in His hands. Stay right with God and let Him do as He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children. — Oswald Chambers

Don't read to remember; read to realize. — Oswald Chambers

A time is coming when the whole round world will know that God reigns and that God is Love, when hell and heaven, life and death, sin and salvation, will be read and understood aright at last. — Oswald Chambers

God's will is hard only when it comes up against our stubbornness, then it is as cruel as a ploughshare and as devastating as an earthquake. — Oswald Chambers

If we understood what happens when we use the Word of God, we would use it oftener. — Oswald Chambers

If ever we are going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed; you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed. I wonder what kind of finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you, and you have been like a marble and escaped? — Oswald Chambers

It is impossible to get exhausted in work for God. We get exhausted because we try to do God's work in our own way. — Oswald Chambers

Sanctification means being made one with Jesus so that the disposition that ruled Him will rule us. It will cost everything that is not of God in us. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life of the saint. Beware of anything that stops the offering up of prayer. — Oswald Chambers

When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted friendship - when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us. — Oswald Chambers

Worship God in the difficult circumstances, and when He chooses, He will alter them in two seconds. — Oswald Chambers

The greatest test of Christianity is the wear and tear of daily life; it is like the shining of silver: the more it is rubbed the brighter it grows. — Oswald Chambers

To have a master and teacher is not the same thing as being mastered and taught. — Oswald Chambers

My unrestrained commitment of myself to God gives the Holy Spirit the opportunity to grant to me the holiness of Jesus Christ. — Oswald Chambers

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

Never allow the thought, 'I am of no use where I am.' You are certainly of no use where you're not. — Oswald Chambers

Jesus Christ has undertaken by His redemption to put in me a heart so pure that God can see nothing to censure. — Oswald Chambers

Some of us get played out in the first ten yards, because God compels us to go where we cannot see the way, and we say - "I will wait till I get nearer the big crisis." If we do not do the running steadily in the little ways, we shall do nothing in the crisis. — Oswald Chambers

Beware of harking back to what you once were when God wants you to be something you have never been. — Oswald Chambers

We talk as if living a sanctified life were the most uncertain and insecure thing we could do. Yet it is the most secure thing possible, because it has Almighty God in and behind it. The most dangerous and unsure thing is to try to live without God. — Oswald Chambers

It is by no haphazard chance that in every age men have risen early to pray. The first thing that marks decline in spiritual life is our relationship to the early morning. — Oswald Chambers

When we lose sight of God we become hard and dogmatic. We hurl our own petitions at God's throne and dictate to Him as to what we wish Him to do. We do not worship God, nor do we seek to form the mind of Christ. If we are hard towards God, we will become hard towards other people. — Oswald Chambers

Looking back over my own life I here declare without apology that it is the study of God's Word, year after year, close communion with Christ, and great books that have nourished my soul in wondrous ways. Such authors as Fenelon, Henry Drummond, F. B. Meyer, G. Campbell Morgan, Martyn Lloyd Jones, A. W. Tozer, Hannah Whitehall Smith Oswald Chambers, Andrew Murray and John Stott have each, with their own special insights, enriched my life beyond measure. — W. Phillip Keller

Never let the sense of failure corrupt your new action. — Oswald Chambers

All God's revelations are sealed to us until they are opened to us by obedience. You will never get them open by philosophy or thinking. Immediately you obey, a flash of light comes. Let God's truth work in you by soaking in it, not by worrying into it. Obey God in the thing He is at present showing you, and instantly the next thing is opened up. We read tomes on the work of the Holy Spirit when ... five minutes of drastic obedience would make things clear as a sunbeam. We say, "I suppose I shall understand these things some day." You can understand them now: it is not study that does it, but obedience. The tiniest fragment of obedience, and heaven opens up and the profoundest truths of God are yours straight away. God will never reveal more truth about Himself till you obey what you know already. Beware of being wise and prudent. — Oswald Chambers

The secret of the missionary is ... I am His, and He is carrying out His work through me. — Oswald Chambers

The great paralysis of our heart is unbelief. — 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

If we have never had the experience of taking our commonplace religious shoes off our commonplace religious feet, and getting rid of all the undue familiarity with which we approach God, it is questionable whether we have ever stood in his presence. — Oswald Chambers

We are in danger of forgetting that we cannot do what God does, and that God will not do what we can do. — Oswald Chambers

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

Never make a principle out of your experience. Allow God to be as creative with others as He is with you. — Oswald Chambers

God cannot reveal anything to us if we have not His spirit. — Oswald Chambers

Jesus Christ's life was an absolute failure from every standpoint but God's. But what seemed failure from man's standpoint was a tremendous triumph from God's, because God's purpose is never man's purpose. — Oswald Chambers

The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. — Oswald Chambers

Consecration would soon be changed into sanctification if we would only concentrate on what God wants. — Oswald Chambers

You cannot have a moral holiday and remain moral, nor can you have a spiritual holiday and remain spiritual. God wants you to be entirely his, and this means that you have to watch to keep yourself fit. It takes a tremendous amount of time. Some of us expect to "clear the numberless ascensions"* in about two minutes. — Oswald Chambers

All heaven is interested in the cross of Christ, all hell terribly afraid of it, while men are the only beings who more or less ignore its meaning. — Oswald Chambers

God made His own Son to be sin that He might make the sinner a saint. — 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

There is nothing to be valued more highly than to have people praying for us; God links up His power in answer to their prayers. — Oswald Chambers

God's mark of approval, whenever you obey Him, is peace. He sends an immeasurable, deep peace; not a natural peace, "as the world gives," but the peace of Jesus. Whenever peace does not come, wait until it does, or seek to find out why it is not coming. If you are acting on your own impulse, or out of a sense of the heroic, to be seen by others, the peace of Jesus will not exhibit itself. — Oswald Chambers

If God sees that my spiritual life will be furthered by giving the things for which I ask, then He will give them, but that is not the end of prayer. The end of prayer is that I come to know God Himself. — Oswald Chambers

A life of faith is not a life of one glorious mountaintop experience after another, like soaring on eagles' wings, but is a life of day-in and day-out consistency; a life of walking without fainting (see Isaiah 40:31). — Oswald Chambers

Jesus Christ became Incarnate for one purpose, to make a way back to God that man might stand before Him as He was created to do, the friend and lover of God Himself. — Oswald Chambers

Repentance always brings a person to the point of saying, "I have sinned." The surest sign that God is at work in his life is when he says that and means it. Anything less is simply sorrow for having made foolish mistakes-a reflex action caused by self-disgust. — Oswald Chambers

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

Have you ever sought God with your whole heart, or have you simply given Him a feeble cry after some emotionally painful experience? — Oswald Chambers

Are you seeking great things for yourself, instead of seeking to be a great person? God wants you to be in a much closer relationship with Himself than simply receiving His gifts - He wants you to get to know Him. Even some large thing we want is only incidental; it comes and it goes. But God never gives us anything incidental. There is nothing easier than getting into the right relationship with God, unless it is not God you seek, but only what He can give you. — Oswald Chambers

Fretting rises from our determination to have our own way. Our Lord never worried and was never anxious, because His purpose was never to accomplish His own plans but to fulfill God's plans. Fretting is wickedness for a child of God. — Oswald Chambers

The Atonement of Jesus has to work out in practical, unobtrusive ways in my life. Every time I obey, absolute Deity is on my side, so that the grace of God and natural obedience coincide. Obedience means that I have banked everything on the Atonement, and my obedience is met immediately by the delight of the supernatural grace of God. — Oswald Chambers

It is not only wrong to worry, it is unbelief; worrying means we do not believe that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything but those details that worry us. — Oswald Chambers

If you are faced with the question of whether or not to surrender, make a determination to go on through the crisis, surrendering all that you have and all that you are to Him. And God will then equip you to do all that He requires of you. — Oswald Chambers

Beware of anything that competes with your loyalty to Jesus Christ ... — Oswald Chambers

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 ... — Oswald Chambers

It is possible to know all about doctrine and yet not know Jesus. The soul is in danger when knowledge of doctrine outsteps intimate touch with Jesus ... Have I a personal history with Jesus Christ? The one sign of discipleship is intimate connection with Him, a knowledge of Jesus Christ nothing can shake. — Oswald Chambers

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

True earnestness is found in obeying God, not in the inclination to serve Him that is born of undisciplined human nature. It is inconceivable, but true nevertheless, that saints are not bringing every project into captivity, but are doing work for God at the instigation of their own human nature which has not been spiritualised by determined discipline. — Oswald Chambers

Anything that belittles or obliterates the holiness of God by a false view of the love of God, is untrue to the revelation of God given by Jesus Christ. — Oswald Chambers

Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished. — Oswald Chambers

When a man gets to despair he knows that all his thinking will never get him out. He will only get out by the sheer creative effort of God. Consequently he is in the right attitude to receive from God that which he cannot gain for himself. — Oswald Chambers

Conceit makes the way God deals with me personally the binding standard for others. — Oswald Chambers

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

If anything is a mystery to you and it is coming in between you and God, never look for the explanation in your intellect, look for it in your disposition, it is that which is wrong. — Oswald Chambers

say that "prayer changes things" is not as close to the truth as saying, "Prayer changes me and then I change things." God has established things so that prayer, on the basis of redemption, changes the way a person looks at things. Prayer is not a matter of changing things externally, but one of working miracles in a person's inner nature. — Oswald Chambers

The peace that Jesus gives is never engineered by circumstances on the outside. — 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

Wait for God's timing and He will do it without any heartache or disappointment. When it is a question of the providential will of God, wait for God to move. Peter did not wait for God. He predicted in his own mind where the test would come, and it came where he did not expect it. "I will lay down my life for Your sake." Peter's statement was honest but ignorant. — Oswald Chambers

The remarkable thing about God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else. — Oswald Chambers

We actually slander and dishonor God by our very eagerness to serve Him without knowing Him. — Oswald Chambers

Can a sinner be turned into a saint? Can a twisted life be made right? There is only one appropriate answer - "O Lord God, You know" (37:3). Never forge ahead with your religious common sense and say, "Oh, yes, with just a little more Bible reading, devotional time, and prayer, I see how it can be done. — Oswald Chambers

The honour of Jesus Christ is at stake in your bodily life. Are you remaining loyal to the Son of God in the things which beset His life in you? Do you continue to go with Jesus? The way lies through Gethsemane, through the city gate, outside the camp; the way lies alone, and the way lies until there is no trace of a footstep left, only the voice, 'Follow Me.' — Oswald Chambers

To believe is to commit. In the area of intellectual learning I commit myself mentally, and reject anything not related to that belief. In the realm of personal belief I commit myself morally to my convictions and refuse to compromise. But in intimate personal belief I commit myself spiritually to Jesus Christ and make a determination to be dominated by Him alone. — Oswald Chambers

We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties. — Oswald Chambers

We have no right to decide where we should be placed, or to have preconceived ideas as to what God is preparing us to do. God engineers everything; and wherever He places us, our one supreme goal should be to pour out our lives in wholehearted devotion to Him in that particular work. "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might ... " (Ecclesiastes 9:10). — Oswald Chambers

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

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. — Oswald Chambers

When you pray, things remain the same, but you begin to be different. The same thing when a man falls in love, his circumstances and conditions remain the same, but he has a sovereign preference in his heart for another person which transfigures everything! — Oswald Chambers

Never water down the Word of God, but preach it in its undiluted sternness. There must be unflinching faithfulness to the Word of God, but when you come to personal dealings with others, remember who you are - you are not some special being created in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace. — Oswald Chambers

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

The reason some of us are such poor specimens of Christianity is because we have no Almighty Christ. We have Christian attributes and experiences, but there is no abandonment to Jesus Christ. — Oswald Chambers