Top 757 Quotes & Sayings by Oswald Chambers - Page 2

Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless in the first waking moment of the day you learn to fling the door wide back and let God in, you will work on a wrong level all day; but swing the door wide open and pray to your Father in secret, and every public thing will be stamped with the presence of God.

God gives us the vision, then he takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we will have patience.

All heaven is interested in the cross of Christ, all hell terribly afraid of it, while men are the only beings who more or less ignore its meaning.

God is the Great Engineer, creating circumstances to bring about moments in our lives of divine importance, leading us to divine appointments

The battle is lost or won in the secret places of the will before God, never first in the external world.

At times God puts us through the discipline of darkness to teach us to heed Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and we are put into the shadow of God's hand until we learn to hear Him...Watch where God puts you into darkness, and when you are there keep your mouth shut. Are you in the dark just now in your circumstances, or in your life with God? Then remain quiet...When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else when you get into the light.

Never focus your eyes on the obstacle or the difficulty. The obstacle will be a matter of total indifference to the river that will flow steadily through you if you will simply remember to stay focused on the Source.

I am called to live in such a perfect relationship with God that my life produces a yearning for God in the lives of others, not admiration for myself. Thoughts about myself hinder my usefulness to God. God’s purpose is not to perfect me to make me a trophy in His showcase; He is getting me to the place where He can use me. Let Him do what He wants.

The greatest competitor of devotion to Jesus is service to Him. It is never 'Do, do' with the Lord, but 'Be, be' and He will 'do' through you. The only way to keep true to God is by a steady persistent refusal to be interested in Christian work and to be interested alone in Jesus Christ.

The greatest test of Christianity is the wear and tear of daily life; it is like the shining of silver: the more it is rubbed the brighter it grows.

We are only what we are in the dark; all the rest is reputation.

Beware of anything that competes with your loyalty to Jesus Christ.

Don't plan without God. God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the plans we have made, when we have not taken Him into account.

There is only one relationship that matters, and that is your personal relationship to a personal Redeemer and Lord. Let everything else go, but maintain that at all cost, and God will fulfill His purpose through your life. (This includes meeting the needs of your heart.) One individual life may be of priceless value to God's purposes, and yours may be that life.

Are you learning to say things after listening to God, or are you saying things and trying to make God's word fit in?

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

Never take your obedience as the reason God blesses you; obedience is the outcome of being rightly related to God.

The Bible is not a book that you can open and say, 'Now, Lord, put some magic into my soul that will open up the meaning of this book.' There is only one way really to understand the Word, and that is through wrestling with the circumstances and happenings of life.

Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ. Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him.

We tend to use prayer as a last resort, but God wants it to be our first line of defense.

We must never put our dreams of success as God's purpose for us; His purpose may be exactly the opposite. His purpose is that I depend on HIM and in HIS power NOW. His end is the process. It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God....His purpose is for this minute, not for something in the future. We have nothing to do with the 'afterwards' of obedience. If we have a further end in view, we do not pay sufficient attention to the immediate present; if we realize that obedience is the end, then each moment as it comes is precious.

Obey God in the things he shows you, and instantly the next thing is opened up. God will never reveal more truth about himself until you have obeyed what you know already...this chapter brings out the delight of real friendship with God.

It is not true to say that God wants to teach us something in our trials. Through every cloud He brings our way, He wants us to unlearn something.

When Jesus Christ shed his blood on the cross, it was not the blood of a martyr; or the blood of one man for another; it was the life of God poured out to redeem the world.

The only way we can be of use to God is to let Him take us through the crooks and crannies of our own characters.

The heart of salvation is the Cross of Christ. The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. The Cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God.

The busyness of things obscures our concentration on God ... Never let a hurried lifestyle disturb the relationship of abiding in Him. This is an easy thing to allow, but we must guard against it.

It is not what a man does that is of final importance, but what he is in what he does. The atmosphere produced by a man, much more than his activities, has the lasting influence.

Get to the end of yourself where you can do nothing, but where He does everything.

You can never argue anyone into the Kingdom of Heaven, you cannot argue anyone anywhere. The only result of arguing is to prove to your own mind that you are right and the other fellow wrong. You cannot argue for truth; but immediately Incarnate Truth is presented, a want awakens in the soul which only God can meet.

If I obey Jesus Christ, the redemption of God will flow through me to the lives of others, because behind the deed of obedience is the reality of Almighty God.

If you want to be of use to God, maintain the proper relationship with Jesus Christ by staying focused on Him & He will make use of you every minute you live- yet you will be unaware, on the conscious level of your life, that you are being used of Him.

Am I getting nobler, better, more helpful, more humble, as I get older? Am I exhibiting the life that men take knowledge of as having been with Jesus, or am I getting more self-assertive, more deliberately determined to have my own way? It is a great thing to tell yourself the truth.

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.

The way to grow strong in Christ is to become weak in yourself.

There is no need to get to a place of prayer; pray wherever you are.

We have the idea that God is going to do some exceptional thing- that He is preparing and equipping us for some extraordinary work in the future. But as we grow in His grace we find that God is glorifying Himself here and now, at this very moment. If we have God’s assurance behind us, the most amazing strength becomes ours, and we learn to sing, glorifying Him even in the ordinary days and ways of life.

If my ruling disposition is self-interest, I perceive that everything that happens to me is always for or against my self-interest; if, on the other hand, my ruling disposition is obedience to God, I perceive Him to be at work for my perfecting in everything that happens to me.

You must learn to wrestle against the things that hinder your communication with God.

Worship is giving God the best that He has given you.

Obedience to the call of Christ nearly always costs everything to two people- the one who is called, and the one who loves that one.

Self pity is of the devil, and if I wallow in it, I cannot be used by God for his purpose in the world.

We are so busy telling God where we would like to go. We wait with the idea of some great opportunity, something sensational, and when it comes we are quick to cry, 'Here am I.' Readiness for God means that we are ready to do the tiniest little thing or the great big thing, it makes no difference.

If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain but what He pours through us that really counts. God’s purpose is not simply to make us beautiful, plump grapes, but to make us grapes so that He may squeeze the sweetness out of us.

It is easy to say we believe in God as long as we remain in the little world we choose to live in; but get out into the great world of facts, the noisy world where people are absolutely indifferent to you, where your message is nothing more than a crazy tale belonging to a bygone age, can you believe God there?

Faith is not intelligent understanding, faith is deliberate commitment to a Person where I see no way.

We are not sent to do battle for God, but to be used by God in His battles.

God is not saving the world; it is done. Our business is to get men and women to realize it.

When you meet a man or woman who puts Jesus Christ first, knit that one to your soul.

Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him.

The proof that our relationship is right with God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not.

The real attitude of sin in the heart towards God is that of being without God; it is pride, the worship of myself, that is the great atheistic fact in human life.

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?

We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. Immediately we abandon to God, and do the duty that lies nearest, and He packs our life with surprises all the time.... Leave the whole thing to Him, it is gloriously uncertain how He will come in, but He will come.

God does not exist to answer our prayers, but by our prayers we come to discern the mind of God.

Patience has the meaning of testing-a thing drawn out and tested, drawn out to the last strand in a strain without breaking, and ending in sheer joy. The strain on a violin string when stretched to the uttermost gives it its strength; and the stronger the strain, the finer is the sound of our life for God, and He never strains more than we are able to bear.

It is a joy to Jesus when a person takes time to walk more intimately with Him. The bearing of fruit is always shown in scripture to be a visible result of an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.

When we preach the love of God there is a danger of forgetting that the Bible reveals not first the love of God but the intense, blazing holiness of God, with His love at the center of that holiness.

Perseverance is more than endurance. It is endurance combined with absolute assurance and certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen.

Remember Whose you are and Whom you serve.