When I’m reading an Oswald Chambers book, I could practically highlight every line! Even when I restrain myself, I still find so much good material. I’ve already shared some quotes from Not Knowing Where, but I wanted to share a few more with you.
“In seeking the best we soon find that our enemy is our good things, not our bad. The things that keep us back from God’s best are not sin and imperfection, but the things that are right and good and noble from the natural standpoint.”
“Fanaticism is sticking true to my interpretation of my destiny instead of waiting for God to make it clear.”
“God will never have more power than He has now; if He could have, He would cease to be God.”
“Whenever God gives a vision to a saint, he puts the saint, as it were, in the shadow of His hand, and the saint’s duty is to be still and listen. Genesis 16 is an illustration of the danger of listening to good advice when it is dark instead of waiting for God to send the light (cf. Galatians 1:15-16). When God gives a vision and darkness follows, wait; God will bring you into accordance with the vision He has given if you will wait His time.”
“All God’s commands are enablings. Therefore it is a crime to be weak in His strength.”
“God never hastens and He never tarries. He works His plans out in His own way, and we either lie like clogs on His hands or we assist Him by being as clay in the hands of the Potter.”
“Faith is not a bargain with God—I will trust You if you give me money, but not if You don’t. We have to trust in God whether He sends us money or not, whether He gives us health or not. We must have faith in God, not in His gifts.”
“The relation is to be that of a child; fling yourself clean over on to God and wash your hands of the consequences, and John 14:27―‘My peace I give unto you’―becomes true at once. The profound realization of God makes you too unspeakably peaceful to be capable of any self-interest.”
“Faith is not the means whereby we take God to ourselves for our select coterie; faith is the gift of God whereby He expresses His purposes through us.”
“Beware of insulting God by being a pious prude instead of a pure person.”
“It is the attitude of a spiritual prig to go about with a countenance that is a rebuke to others because you have the idea that they are shallower than you.”
“Friendship with God is faith in action in relation to God and to our fellow men.”
“The most amazing evidence of a man’s nature being changed is the way in which he sees God, to say ‘God led me here’; ‘God spoke to me’; is an everyday occurrence to him.”
“It is not that we prepare a palace for God, but that He comes into our mortal flesh and we do our ordinary work, in an ordinary setting, amongst ordinary people, as for Him.”
You can read my review of Not Knowing Where by clicking here.
You can read other quotes from this book by clicking here.
Hopefully none of my pastor friends ever do this!
Craig T. Owens 