Quotes from Oswald Chambers

Beware of "the cares of this world . . ." (Mark 4:19). They are the very things that produce the wrong attitudes in our soul. It is incredible what enormous power there is in simple things to distract our attention away from God. Refuse to be swamped by "the cares of this world.

Genuine total surrender is a personal sovereign preference for Jesus Christ Himself.

Faith in active opposition to common sense is mistaken enthusiasm and narrow-mindedness, and common sense in opposition to faith demonstrates a mistaken reliance on reason as the basis for truth. The life of faith brings the two of these into the proper relationship.

If you yourself do not cut the lines that tie you to the dock, God will have to use a storm to sever them and to send you out to sea.

Do not look for God to come in a particular way, but do look for Him.

O Lord, when I awake I am still with Thee. Quicken my mortal body with Thy mighty resurrection life; rouse me with a gracious flooding of Thy Divine life for this day.

Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life.

Every time I judge, I condemn myself (see Romans 2:17—24). Stop having a measuring stick for other people. There is always at least one more fact, which we know nothing about, in every person's situation. The first thing God does is to give us a thorough spiritual cleaning. After that, there is no possibility of pride remaining in us. I have never met a person I could despair of, or lose all hope for, after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God.

Lord, so much activity, so many things, so numberless the people, and yet Thou remainest! Bless today with largeness of heart and beauty of character for Thy glory. O Lord, unto Thee do I look up. Enlighten me, cause me to be radiant with Thy countenance. I praise Thee for Thy grace and for seeing a little of Thy marvellous doings; enable me more and more to manifest the life hid with Christ in God.

When a moral person is confronted with contempt, immorality, disloyalty, or dishonesty, he is so repulsed by the offense that he turns away and in despair closes his heart to the offender. But the miracle of the redemptive reality of God is that the worst and the vilest offender can never exhaust the depths of His love.

Paul states here that the call of God is to preach the gospel. But remember what Paul means by "the gospel," namely, the reality of redemption in our Lord Jesus Christ. We are inclined to make sanctification the goal of our preaching. Paul refers to personal experiences only by way of illustration, never as the end of the matter. We are not commissioned to preach salvation or sanctification—we are commissioned to lift up Jesus Christ (see John 12:32).

Lord, through the dimness, come with dawning and drawing light. Breathe on me till I am in a pure radiant frame of body and mind for Thy work and for Thy glory this day.