Oswald Quotes & Sayings

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

OSWALD: Is it very late, mother?
MRS. ALVING: It is early morning. [She looks out through the conservatory.] The day is dawning over the mountains. And the weather is clearing, Oswald. In a little while you shall see the sun.
OSWALD: I'm glad of that. Oh, I may still have much to rejoice in and live for-- — Henrik Ibsen

The three representative men of the Bible, the natural, the carnal, and the spiritual - Which are you? Are you living in Egypt, the world and home of the natural man, or in the wilderness, the abode of the carnal? ... Are you already through the wilderness, and dwelling in Canaan, the land of the spiritual? — Oswald J. Smith

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

William McKinley Oswald was my high school football coach. He was a great coach and had a profound influence on my life. But I think he could have learned his method of motivating players from an army drill sergeant. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

Very curious, at the age of about 13 years, Oswald began to study Marxism and he kept on in his writing, affirming that he was a Marxist. Probably he did want to show himself as a great, supreme Marxist. — John Sherman Cooper

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 JFK assassination itself has been dissected to pieces by obsessed
researchers like me. Suffice to say that a few days of intense study of the
available record will convince any honest person, beyond any reasonable
doubt, that Lee Harvey Oswald was not responsible for the crime. The coverup
was so clear and obvious in nature, and so shabbily constructed, that the
conclusion is inescapable that the conspirators who killed him wanted the
kind of controversy that soon exploded, shortly after the first wave of private
citizens began to look at the data. — Donald Jeffries

He was one of those supercilious striplings who give you the impression that you went to the wrong school and that your clothes don't fit.
"This is Oswald," said Bingo.
"What," I replied cordially, "could be sweeter? How are you?"
"Oh, all right," said the kid.
"Nice place, this."
"Oh, all right," said the kid.
"Having a good time fishing?"
"Oh, all right," said the kid.
Young Bingo led me off to commune apart.
"Doesn't jolly old Oswald's incessant flow of prattle make your head ache sometimes?" I asked.
Bingo sighed. — P.G. Wodehouse

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

Not much ever really comes of commissions, really. The last one that really came up with something truly concrete was the Warren Commission, and for all its good work, most Americans persist in believing that Oswald was working in tandem with the CIA, FBI, Lyndon Johnson, and the John Birch Society. — Christopher Buckley

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

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

God does not have to come and tell me what I must do for Him; He brings me into a relationship with Himself where I hear His call and understand what He wants me to do, and I do it out of sheer love to Him ... When people say they have had a call to foreign service, or to any particular sphere of work, they mean that their relationship to God has enabled them to realize what they can do for God. — Oswald J. Smith

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

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

You are caught in the current of unceasing change. Your life is a ripple in it. Every moment of your conscious life links the infinite past with the infinite future. Take part in both and you will not find the present empty. — Oswald Spengler

Effective spiritual leadership does not come as a result of theological training or seminary degree, as important as education is. Jesus told His disciples, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you" (John 15:16). The sovereign selection of God gives great confidence to Christian workers. We can truly say, "I am here neither by selection of an individual nor election of a group but by the almighty appointment of God. — J. Oswald Sanders

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

We do not support the man. We do not support the individual. We support the idea of independent revolution in the Western Hemisphere, free from American intervention — Lee Harvey Oswald

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

The great paralysis of our heart is unbelief. — Oswald Chambers

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

If you bend a branch until it's horizontal, the sap will slow to a stopping point: a comma or colon, made of leaves grown into one another and over one another and hardened. Out of this pause comes a flower, which unfolds itself in spirals, as if the leaf form, unable to keep to its line, had begun to pivot. — Alice Oswald

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

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

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

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

For the Staffel: attack on principle in groups of four or six. When the fight breaks up into a series of single combats, take care that several do not go for one opponent. — Oswald Boelcke

Sacrifice is the ecstasy of giving the best we have to the One we love most. — J. Oswald Sanders

One day the last portrait of Rembrandt and the last bar of Mozart will have ceased to be - though possibly a colored canvas and a sheet of notes will remain - because the last eye and the last ear accessible to their message will have gone. — Oswald Spengler

To be a Christian for ten year and to be no more like Jesus then than at the time of conversion, is a tragedy. — Oswald J. Smith

The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious. — Oswald Spengler

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

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

I try not to invent; I try simply to translate the weird language of the natural world. And I'm not into absolute ownership of things. — Alice Oswald

Various stars. Various kings.
Various sunsets, signs, cursory insights.
Many minute attentions, many knowledgeable watchers,
Much cold, much overbearing darkness.

Various long midwinter Glooms.
Various Solitary and Terrible Stars.
Many Frosty Nights, many previously Unseen Sky-flowers.
Many people setting out (some of them kings) all clutching at stars.

...

Various people coming home (some of them kings). Various headlights.
Two or three children standing or sitting on the low wall.
Various winds, the Sea Wind, the sound-laden Winds of Evening
Blowing the stars toward them, bringing snow. — Alice Oswald

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

...the leader must 1) avoid getting swamped in detail; 2) not be petty; 3) not be pompous; 4) know how to select people to fit the task; 5) trust others to do a job without the leader's meddling; 6) be capable of clear decisions; 7) inspire confidence. — J. Oswald Sanders

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

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

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

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

These two qualities of leadership [Integrity and Sincerity] were part of God's law's for the Israelites (Deuteronomy 18:13). God wants His people to show a transparent character, open and innocent of guile.
A prominent businessman once replied to a question: "If I had to name the one most important quality of a top manager, I would say personal integrity." Surely the spiritual leader must be sincere in promise, faithful in discharge of duty, upright in finances, loyal in service, and honest in speech. — J. Oswald Sanders

Leaders who want to show sensitivity should listen often and long and talk short and seldom. Many so-called leaders are too busy to listen. True leaders know that time spent listening is well invested. — J. Oswald Sanders

If God wills the evangelization of the world, and you refuse to support missions, then you are opposed
to the will of God. — Oswald J. Smith

enough. Still, the swirls which could be defined appeared to match the ones taken from Oswald's left hand tonight. The photos were reversed, and the eyes of the men scanned them again. It wasn't the best of evidence, but both appeared to be made from the same hand. — Jim Bishop

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

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

Britains still commemorate the Battle of Cable Street in London. There are still pop songs in Britain that reference Sir Oswald Mosley and his black shirts. — Rachel Maddow

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

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

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

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

When God lays a burden on our hearts and thus keeps us praying, He obviously intends to grant the answer. — J. Oswald Sanders

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

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

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

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

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

I believe in the soul ... the small of a woman's back, the hanging curveball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve, and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days. — Kevin Costner

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

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

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

Faith enables the believing soul to treat the future as present and the invisible as seen. — J. Oswald Sanders

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

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

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

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

I will be glad to discuss this proposition with my attorney, and that after I talk with one, we could either discuss it with him or discuss it with my attorney, if the attorney thinks it is a wise thing to do, but at the present time I have nothing more to say to you. — Lee Harvey Oswald

Serving and suffering are paired in the teaching and life of our Lord. One does not come without the other. And what servant is greater than The Lord? — J. Oswald Sanders

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

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

The work I did on 'Killing Kennedy' was very meticulous and, in some ways, actually tedious. It was hard work because there is so much known about John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald. To try to distill that into a clear narrative that's interesting and tells two great stories was a real challenge. — Kelly Masterson

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

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

Good deeds may not lead to heaven ... still do deeds that make you feel like you are in there already. — Palle Oswald

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

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

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