Oswald Chambers
Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) was a Scottish minister and teacher whose teachings on the life of faith and abandonment to God have endured to this day.
This daily devotional is a collection of his teachings compiled by his wife into a daily devotional format. It's presented here in the original English. His wife's comments may be found in the Foreword below.
"I hope and pray that Oswald Chambers' teachings will help you grow in your walk with Christ. This Daily devotional Book was gifted to me during the time when i was going through a period of trials and tribulations. It helped me to develop a deep understanding about Intimacy with God and maintaining a persistent walk with Christ. I received my guidance to overcome my spiritual weaknesses and stepping out of the boat to follow Jesus, from this precious book. It is an asset to those who eagerly desire a relationship with God as a Father. My website felt incomplete without the spiritual teaching given by a man who knows the depths of Spirituality. Few men on earth have such deep ideas. I am sure you find find Oswald Chamber's Teaching an asset for your spiritual growth and nourishment." Zeeshan Siraj Din.
For more daily devotional readings from Oswald Chambers, can u please visit www.myutmost.org and www.oswaldchambers.co.uk to learn more about his life.
May 26th.
THINK AS JESUS TAUGHT
"Pray without ceasing." 1 Thessalonians 5:17
We think rightly or wrongly about prayer according to the conception we have in our minds of prayer. If we think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts, we think rightly. The blood flows ceaselessly, and breathing continues ceaselessly; we are not conscious of it, but it is always going on. We are not always conscious of Jesus keeping us in perfect joint with God, but if we are obeying Him, He always is. Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life. Beware of anything that stops ejaculatory prayer. "Pray without ceasing," keep the childlike habit of ejaculatory prayer in your heart to God all the time.
Jesus never mentioned unanswered prayer, He had the boundless certainty that prayer is always answered. Have we by the Spirit the unspeakable certainty that Jesus had about prayer, or do we think of the times when God does not seem to have answered prayer? "Every one that asketh receiveth." We say - "But . . . , but . . ." God answers prayer in the best way, not sometimes, but every time, although the immediate manifestation of the answer in the domain in which we want it may not always follow. Do we expect God to answer prayer?
The danger with us is that we want to water down the things that Jesus says and make them mean something in accordance with common sense; if it were only common sense, it was not worth while for Him to say it. The things Jesus says about prayer are supernatural revelations.
May 3rd.
VITAL INTERCESSION
"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit." Ephesians 6:18
As we go on in intercession we may find that our obedience to God is going to cost other people more than we thought. The danger then is to begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting to a totally different sphere in answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from identification with God's interest in others into sympathy with them, the vital connection with God has gone, we have put our sympathy, our consideration for them in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.
It is impossible to intercede vitally unless we are perfectly sure of God, and the greatest dissipator of our relationship to God is personal sympathy and personal prejudice. Identification is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with God, it is by sympathy, not by sin. It is not likely that sin will interfere with our relationship to God, but sympathy will, sympathy with ourselves or with others which makes us say - "I will not allow that thing to happen." Instantly we are out of vital connection with God.
Intercession leaves you neither time nor inclination to pray for your own "sad sweet self." The thought of yourself is not kept out, because it is not there to keep out; you are completely and entirely identified with God's interests in other lives.
Discernment is God's call to intercession, never to fault finding.
May 4th.
VICARIOUS INTERCESSION
"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." Hebrews 10:19
Beware of imagining that intercession means bringing our personal sympathies into the presence of God and demanding that He does what we ask. Our approach to God is due entirely to the vicarious identification of our Lord with sin. We have "boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus."
Spiritual stubbornness is the most effectual hindrance to intercession, because it is based on sympathy with that in ourselves and in others that we do not think needs atoning for. We have the notion that there are certain right and virtuous things in us which do not need to be based on the Atonement, and just in the domain of "stodge" that is produced by this idea we cannot intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God's interests in others, we get petulant with God; we are always ready with our own ideas, and intercession becomes the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means the radical alteration of all our sympathies. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God's interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.
Am I stubborn or substituted? Petted or perfect in my relationship to God? Sulky or spiritual? Determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?
Foreword:
These daily readings have been selected from various sources, chiefly from the lectures given at the Bible Training College, Clapham, during the years 1911-1915; then, from October 1915 to November 1917, from talks given night by night in the Y.M.C.A. Huts, Zeitoun, Egypt. In November 1917 my husband entered into God's presence. Since then many of the talks have been published in book form, and others from which these readings have been gathered will also be published in due course.
A large proportion of the readings have been chosen from the talks given during the Devotional Hour at the College - an hour which for many of the students marked an epoch in their life with God.
"Men return again and again to the few who have mastered the spiritual secret, whose life has been hid with Christ in God These are of the old time religion, hung to the nails of the Cross." (Robert Murray McCheyne.)
It is because it is felt that the author is one to whose teaching men will return, that this book has been prepared, and it is sent out with the prayer that day by day the messages may continue to bring the quickening life and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
40 Church Crescent,
Muswell Hill,
London, N.1O.
Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) was a Scottish minister and teacher whose teachings on the life of faith and abandonment to God have endured to this day.
This daily devotional is a collection of his teachings compiled by his wife into a daily devotional format. It's presented here in the original English. His wife's comments may be found in the Foreword below.
"I hope and pray that Oswald Chambers' teachings will help you grow in your walk with Christ. This Daily devotional Book was gifted to me during the time when i was going through a period of trials and tribulations. It helped me to develop a deep understanding about Intimacy with God and maintaining a persistent walk with Christ. I received my guidance to overcome my spiritual weaknesses and stepping out of the boat to follow Jesus, from this precious book. It is an asset to those who eagerly desire a relationship with God as a Father. My website felt incomplete without the spiritual teaching given by a man who knows the depths of Spirituality. Few men on earth have such deep ideas. I am sure you find find Oswald Chamber's Teaching an asset for your spiritual growth and nourishment." Zeeshan Siraj Din.
For more daily devotional readings from Oswald Chambers, can u please visit www.myutmost.org and www.oswaldchambers.co.uk to learn more about his life.
May 26th.
THINK AS JESUS TAUGHT
"Pray without ceasing." 1 Thessalonians 5:17
We think rightly or wrongly about prayer according to the conception we have in our minds of prayer. If we think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts, we think rightly. The blood flows ceaselessly, and breathing continues ceaselessly; we are not conscious of it, but it is always going on. We are not always conscious of Jesus keeping us in perfect joint with God, but if we are obeying Him, He always is. Prayer is not an exercise, it is the life. Beware of anything that stops ejaculatory prayer. "Pray without ceasing," keep the childlike habit of ejaculatory prayer in your heart to God all the time.
Jesus never mentioned unanswered prayer, He had the boundless certainty that prayer is always answered. Have we by the Spirit the unspeakable certainty that Jesus had about prayer, or do we think of the times when God does not seem to have answered prayer? "Every one that asketh receiveth." We say - "But . . . , but . . ." God answers prayer in the best way, not sometimes, but every time, although the immediate manifestation of the answer in the domain in which we want it may not always follow. Do we expect God to answer prayer?
The danger with us is that we want to water down the things that Jesus says and make them mean something in accordance with common sense; if it were only common sense, it was not worth while for Him to say it. The things Jesus says about prayer are supernatural revelations.
May 3rd.
VITAL INTERCESSION
"Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit." Ephesians 6:18
As we go on in intercession we may find that our obedience to God is going to cost other people more than we thought. The danger then is to begin to intercede in sympathy with those whom God was gradually lifting to a totally different sphere in answer to our prayers. Whenever we step back from identification with God's interest in others into sympathy with them, the vital connection with God has gone, we have put our sympathy, our consideration for them in the way, and this is a deliberate rebuke to God.
It is impossible to intercede vitally unless we are perfectly sure of God, and the greatest dissipator of our relationship to God is personal sympathy and personal prejudice. Identification is the key to intercession, and whenever we stop being identified with God, it is by sympathy, not by sin. It is not likely that sin will interfere with our relationship to God, but sympathy will, sympathy with ourselves or with others which makes us say - "I will not allow that thing to happen." Instantly we are out of vital connection with God.
Intercession leaves you neither time nor inclination to pray for your own "sad sweet self." The thought of yourself is not kept out, because it is not there to keep out; you are completely and entirely identified with God's interests in other lives.
Discernment is God's call to intercession, never to fault finding.
May 4th.
VICARIOUS INTERCESSION
"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." Hebrews 10:19
Beware of imagining that intercession means bringing our personal sympathies into the presence of God and demanding that He does what we ask. Our approach to God is due entirely to the vicarious identification of our Lord with sin. We have "boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus."
Spiritual stubbornness is the most effectual hindrance to intercession, because it is based on sympathy with that in ourselves and in others that we do not think needs atoning for. We have the notion that there are certain right and virtuous things in us which do not need to be based on the Atonement, and just in the domain of "stodge" that is produced by this idea we cannot intercede. We do not identify ourselves with God's interests in others, we get petulant with God; we are always ready with our own ideas, and intercession becomes the glorification of our own natural sympathies. We have to realize that the identification of Jesus with sin means the radical alteration of all our sympathies. Vicarious intercession means that we deliberately substitute God's interests in others for our natural sympathy with them.
Am I stubborn or substituted? Petted or perfect in my relationship to God? Sulky or spiritual? Determined to have my own way or determined to be identified with Him?
Foreword:
These daily readings have been selected from various sources, chiefly from the lectures given at the Bible Training College, Clapham, during the years 1911-1915; then, from October 1915 to November 1917, from talks given night by night in the Y.M.C.A. Huts, Zeitoun, Egypt. In November 1917 my husband entered into God's presence. Since then many of the talks have been published in book form, and others from which these readings have been gathered will also be published in due course.
A large proportion of the readings have been chosen from the talks given during the Devotional Hour at the College - an hour which for many of the students marked an epoch in their life with God.
"Men return again and again to the few who have mastered the spiritual secret, whose life has been hid with Christ in God These are of the old time religion, hung to the nails of the Cross." (Robert Murray McCheyne.)
It is because it is felt that the author is one to whose teaching men will return, that this book has been prepared, and it is sent out with the prayer that day by day the messages may continue to bring the quickening life and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
40 Church Crescent,
Muswell Hill,
London, N.1O.
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