This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
The People God Can Do Nothing With
We say, “It seems out of all proportion that God should choose me—I am of no value”; the reason He chooses us is that we are not of any value. It is folly to think that because a man has natural ability, he must make a good Christian. People with the best natural equipment may make the worst disciples because they will “boss” themselves. It is not a question of our equipment, but of our poverty; not what we bring with us, but what He puts in us; not our natural virtues, our strength of character, our knowledge, our experience; all of that is of no avail in this matter; the only thing that is of avail is that we are taken up into the big compelling of God (1 Corinthians 1:26-28). His comradeship is made out of men who know their poverty. God can do nothing with the men who think they will be of use to Him.
From The Place Of Help
God cannot impart wisdom to a know-it-all, but He can impart it to someone hungry to learn.
God cannot use someone who believes the world revolves around them, but He can use someone who believes the world revolves around Him.
Greater are the friends beside us. —Anonymous, quoted by Oswald Chambers in Not Knowing Where
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, Who for the joy set before Him endured the Cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.Consider Him Who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. —Hebrews 12:1-3
This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
Experience Or Expression?
It is not sufficient to have an experience. If all I can do is to preach and recount the experiences God has given me, it is dangerously inefficient. … Experience must be worked out into expression; the expression is a strong family likeness to Jesus, and its mark is found in the secular life, not in the sequestered life. …
A witness is not one who is entranced by Jesus, by the revelation He gives, by what He has done; but one who has received the energy Jesus Himself had, and is become a witness that pleases Him, wherever he is placed, whatever he is doing, whether he is known or unknown. …
The spiritual life can never be lived in religious meetings, it can only be lived on sordid earth, where Jesus lived, amongst the things that makes human life what it is.
From The Place Of Help
It’s not what I’ve experienced from Jesus, but how I am expressing that experience in my daily life. People don’t need me to be a storyteller of my experiences, but a living expression of the change that has taken place in me because of that experience with Christ!
All of the stories of my spiritual experiences can be undone in a single moment of un-Christlike living. But when I live a life energized by the power of Jesus in me, the story of His life-changing power is told without words.
Do I want to merely experience God’s life-changing power, or do I want to be a living expression of His life-changing power?
You probably hear Christians say quite frequently, “You should read your Bible.” But one thing you may not hear as often is why you should read your Bible. There are probably many more reasons, but here are four reasons why I believe reading your Bible should be a daily part of your life.
(1) To help spot errors.
When the devil tempted Jesus, it is noteworthy that Jesus didn’t try to use logic, or persuasion, or even willpower. Every temptation was blocked by Jesus saying, “It is written” as He quoted Scripture.
In the second temptation, the devil tried the same tactic. He, too, quoted a couple of verses from the Psalms, but he took them out of their context. So notice Christ’s reply, “It is also written” (Matthew 4:7). The best way to spot error is to know the full counsel of God’s Word. This tactic the devil tried with Jesus wasn’t something new, but it was something he used on the very first humans: “Did God really say…” (Genesis 3:1), and he will try it again on you!
(2) To clarify your emotions.
Most of us allow our emotions to control our actions. Or sometimes we wrestle with, “My heart says one thing, but my head says something else!” In this tug-of-war, we allow our emotions to determine our beliefs, and then our beliefs determine our actions. This is not only dangerous, but it is contrary to what the Bible teaches.
The healthy way to respond is by fully knowing what we believe, and then acting according to our beliefs. Our proper emotional response will then follow those actions.
Look at the example of Jesus in John 2:13-16. He was ticked off at how people were misusing His Father’s house, and He did some serious house cleaning! Just reading those four verses, you may get the idea that Christ’s emotions carried Him away. But check out verse 17, in which we see He was acting in accordance to His beliefs, which were fully grounded in Scripture.
(3) To know prophesy.
All of the Scriptures point to Jesus, so all of the Scriptures are illuminated by Christ (Luke 24:27, 45). If you want to know what is happening in our world, turn to the pages of Scripture and see how Jesus is revealed. This will help you put even current events into perspective.
(4) To give sound answers.
When people need help, I want to be able to give them real answers. Not my opinion, but truth that they can apply. The Apostle Peter told us to always be prepared to give people an answer that is based on our knowledge of Jesus (1 Peter 3:15).
“Beware of saying, ‘I haven’t time to read the Bible, or to pray’; say rather, ‘I haven’t disciplined myself to do these things.’” —Oswald Chambers
Can I challenge you to do something I challenged my whole church to do … Make a commitment to read the Bible every day for the next seven days. See what happens as God meets with you, and reveals Himself and His wisdom to you, every day.
This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
The Honor Of A Saint
It is up to us to live the life of a saint in order to show our gratitude to God for His amazing salvation, a salvation which cost us nothing but which cost God everything. In this passage [Galatians 2:20] Paul describes how this point of honor was reached in his life—“I have been crucified with Christ…and that life which I now live in the flesh….” The word “now” is very annoying, if only Paul had said “hereafter”—“This is the kind of life I am going to live after I am dead and in heaven; down here I am compassed about with infirmities and am a miserable sinner.” But he did not, he said “now,” “that life which I now live in the flesh…” i.e., the life men could see, “… I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God.” …
When the Spirit of God is in us He gives us intuitive discernment, we know exactly what He wants; then the point is, are we going through identification with our Lord in order that that intuitive light may become the discipline of our lives? It is this practical aspect that has been ignored. We have not sufficiently emphasized the fact that we have to live as saints, and that in our lives the honor at stake is not our personal honor, but the honor of Jesus Christ.
From Our Place Of Help
One question comes to my mind when I read this: Is Jesus Christ being honored by the way I live now?
This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
At Home With Jesus
Beware of the people who tell you life is simple. Life is such a mass of complications that no man is safe apart from God. Coming to Jesus does not simplify life, it simplifies my relationship to God. …
God’s idea is that individual Christians should become identified with His purpose for the world. When Christianity becomes over-organized and denominational it is incapable of fulfilling our Lord’s commission; it doesn’t “feed His sheep,” it can’t (see John 21:15-17). …
If my religion is not based on a personal history with Jesus it becomes something I suffer from, not a joyous thing, but something that keeps me from doing what I want to do.
From Disciples Indeed
Jesus came to give us life to the full. He didn’t come to help simplify life or organize our religion. The key word for our relationship with Jesus is personal. He wantsyou, not your religious ideas or religious activities.
Jesus died for you. Jesus lives for you. And Jesus wants to live in and through you. Jesus replied, “All who love Me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and We will come and make Our home with each of them” (John 14:23).
I have shared several strategies about prayer throughout this series (you can read them here, here, here, and here). One danger in putting these steps into practice in our life is what I would call one-and-done. We do it once and think we’ve done all we need to do.
Scientists tell us at a minimum it takes 21 days in a row to make a habit. Jesus went even farther than that in talking about prayer in Matthew 7:7. When we look at the three aspects of the verbs ask, seek, and knock in this verse, it would be better stated like this—
You need to keep on asking, and keep on seeking, and keep on knocking. This is not good advice or a helpful suggestion, but it is vital for your spiritual life. So after you have asked, sought, and knocked, then do it again, and again, and AGAIN.
Matthew Henry said it this way: “Here is a precept in three words to the same purport, Ask, Seek, Knock; that is, in one word, ‘Pray; pray often; pray with sincerity and seriousness; pray, and pray again; make conscience of prayer, and be constant in it; make a business of prayer, and be earnest in it.’”
In the English language the dictionary has a word for this: importunity. This means being urgent and persistent, sometimes annoyingly so!
I believe importunity requires these four characteristics:
Trust. Remember Jesus taught us to begin our prayer with, “Our Father.” We have to come to Him again and again and again trusting that He loves us, that He alone is the Source of our help, and that He wants to help us. We also have to trust that our Father wants to give us the very best (Matthew 6:8, 7:7-11).
Perseverance. I love the story of the persistent widow in Luke 18:1-5. This determined lady kept coming back again and again. Henry Ward Beecher said, “The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is, that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won’t.”
Creativity. One of my favorite New Testament stories is about a mother who is not only as persistent as the widow in Luke 18, but she is creative in her prayer as well (Mark 7:24-30). This lady bantered with Jesus in a way that I believe caused Christ to throw back His head and laugh! This is not bargaining with God, as Oswald Chambers wrote, “Repetition in intercessory importunity is not bargaining, but the joyous insistence of prayer.”
Action. Paul was looking for an open door to preach the Gospel, but he didn’t sit still while he waited for God to say “yes” (Acts 16:6-10).
Keep these in mind as you make importunity a key part of your prayer life. And check out the full video of my message on importunity in prayer.
This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
The Feast Is Just Beyond The Fight
The feast is just beyond the fight; when you have been through the fight, there is the wondrous joy and triumph of the feast. We learn to thank God for the trial of our faith because it works patience. The thing that is precious in the sight of God is faith that has been tried. Tried faith is spendable; it is so much wealth stored up in heaven, and the more we go through the trial of our faith, the wealthier we become in the heavenly regions. …
We are so impatient—“I thought God’s purpose was to make me full of happiness and joy.” It is, but it is happiness and joy from God’s standpoint, not from ours. God always ignores the present perfection for the ultimate perfection. …
God gives us a new revelation of His kindness in the valley of the shadow.
From The Place Of Help
The Apostle James said essentially the same thing when he wrote—
Consider it nothing but joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you fall into various trials. Be assured that the testing of your faith through experience produces endurance leading to spiritual maturity, and inner peace. And let endurance have its perfect result and do a thorough work, so that you may be perfect and completely developed in your faith, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)
If you’re in a fight, stay in the fight. God has a great reward for you!
This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
The Long Trail
When we are busy with our own outlook on life, it seems as if God were indifferent. Our human patience, as well as our impatience, gets to the point of saying—‘Why does not God do things?’ Redemption is complete; we believe that Our Lord has all power in heaven and on earth, then why is it such a long while before things happen? Why is God so long in making actual His answers to our prayers? When in such a state of mind we are capable of becoming bitter against God unless we are led into the inner secret of Our Lord’s own attitude. …
Each of the temptations presented to Our Lord by satan had this as its center: ‘You will get the Kingship of men and the Saviorhood of the world if you will take a “shortcut”—put man’s needs first, and he will crown You King; do something extraordinarily wonderful, indicative of Your power, and man will crown You King; compromise with evil, and You will get the Kingship of men.’ Jesus could have brought the whole thing about suddenly (cf. John 6:15); but He did not. He withstood satan and took the stupendously long way. …
It takes a long time to realize what Jesus is after, and the person you need most patience with is yourself. God takes deliberate time with us, He does not hurry, because we can only appreciate His point of view by a long discipline.
From The Place Of Help
Do you trust that God knows what He’s doing? He has something great in mind for your life, something that will bring Him glory. That is the reason He created you(see Ephesians 2:10).
Hang in there … something good will come of this long trail (see Romans 5:3-5).
This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.
Craig T. Owens 