To be a disciple is to be a devoted love-slave of the Lord Jesus.
-Oswald Chambers
But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.
- Hebrews 10:39
The detached life is the result of an intensely narrow moral purity, not of a narrow mind. The mental view of Jesus Christ was as big as God’s view, consequently He went anywhere—to marriage feasts, into the social life of His time, because His morality was absolutely pure; and that is what God wants of us… …Then God can put us where He likes, in the foreign field or anywhere, and we will never be entangled—placed there, but detached. Whenever we make our personal convictions the standard for a society or a class, we take them the first step away from Christ, and that will happen every time the light we are walking in is not the light of God.
-Oswald Chambers
Where have you been placed - are you detached there?
Where is their God? (Joel 2:17)
He is among them…
Where are they?
They are among each other?
Where should they be?
They should be among others…
The grace you had yesterday will not do for to-day. Grace is the overflowing favour of God; you can always reckon it is there to draw upon.
-Oswald Chambers
What makes authentic disciples is not visions, ecstasies, biblical mastery of chapter and verse, or spectacular success in the ministry, but a capacity for faithfulness. Buffeted by the fickle winds of failure, battered by their own unruly emotions, and bruised by rejection and ridicule, authentic disciples may have stumbled and frequently fallen, endured lapses and relapses, gotten handcuffed to the fleshpots and wandered into a far country. Yet, they kept coming back to Jesus.
After life has lined their faces a little, many followers of Jesus come into a coherent sense of themselves for the first time. When they modestly claim, “I am still a ragamuffin, but I’m different” they are right. Where sin abounded, grace has more abounded.
-Brennen Manning
They don’t see Him, not because they are blind, but because we are not illuminating.
Did you ever notice how God lets you go down when you trust good people? The best of men and women are but the best of men and women, the only good is God, and Jesus Christ always brings the soul face to face with God, and that is the one great thought we have to be soaked with. The spirit of covetousness is a flood, and when the Apostle Paul talked about the Spirit, his idea is of a flood, “Be [being] filled with the Spirit, “ invaded by the personal passionate Lover of God until we realize there is only one Good, and we have no time or inclination for any other kind of goodness. “In all the world there is none but Thee, my God, there is none but Thee” Are we there?
We will put the saints on the throne, not God. There is only one unshakeable goodness, and that is God. It takes time to get there because we will cling to things and to people. Those of us who ought to be princes and princesses with God cling to the shows of God’s goodness instead of God Himself. The only influence that is to tell in a servant of God is God. Let people think what they like about you, but be careful that the last thought they get is God. When we have gone from them, there must be no beauty or fascination in us that makes them long for us, the only remembrance left must be, “That woman was true to God”; “That man was true to God”
- Oswald Chambers
Discernment of God’s truth and development in spiritual character go together…
In the Sermon on the Mount Our Lord emphasizes the principle that continuous instruction turns hearers into disciples (see Matthew 7:24). Irregular listeners are turned into lop-sided fanatics. Many to-day are not following Jesus Christ, they have one glowing bit of light about salvation or sanctification or healing and they say, “follow me, I am right” Jesus says, “Lift Me up.” We have to learn to sit at the feet of Jesus in our disposition. The one thing needful is continuous instruction in His word. Listen to the words Jesus spoke, and let the Holy Spirit instruct you. Be at it steadily. Don’t be a hearer only, but become a disciple. Experience is never your guide; experience is the doorway for you to know the Author of the experience. Get at the knowledge of God for yourself, be a continuous learner, and the truth will open on the right hand and on the left until you find there is not a problem in human life that Jesus Christ cannot deal with.
-Oswald Chambers
Hebrews 4:2 For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.
Are you a continuous learner? Do you combine what you hear at Jesus’ feet with faith?
It takes a long time to get us out of imagining that unless people see as we do they must be wrong.
- Oswald Chambers
“Thou art Simon, thou shalt be called Cephas.” God writes the new name on those places only in our lives where He has erased the pride and self-sufficiency and self-interest. Some of us have the new name in spots only, like spiritual measles. In sections we look all right. When we have our best spiritual mood on, you would think we were very high-toned saints; but don’t look at us when we are not in that mood. The disciple is one who has the new name written all over him; self-interest and pride and self-sufficiency have been completely erased.
-Oswald Chambers
Where is your new name written -
are you polka-doted,
or
are you completely covered?
Every element of a true saint never says, “I can’t” because it never occurs to him that he can! Self-reliance must be slain by the power of God… …The questions that matter in life are remarkably few, and they are all answered by the words— “Come unto Me.” Not—‘Do this, or don’t do that’; but —“Come unto Me.” The attitude of coming is that the will resolutely lets go of everything and deliberately commits all to Him.
-Oswald Chambers
He is the answer to every question we ask. Do I really care for nothing except Him?
Nowadays the great passion is the passion for souls, but you never find that passion mentioned in the New Testament, it is the passion for Christ that the New Testament mentions. – Oswald Chambers
Psalm 119:58
I have sought your face with all my heart;
be gracious to me according to your promise.
59 I have considered my ways
and have turned my steps to your statutes.
60 I will hasten and not delay
to obey your commands.
61 Though the wicked bind me with ropes,
I will not forget your law.
62 At midnight I rise to give you thanks
for your righteous laws.
63 I am a friend to all who fear you,
to all who follow your precepts.
64 The earth is filled with your love, O Lord;
teach me your decrees.
You can never give another person that which you have found, but you can make him homesick for what you have. Oswald Chambers…
Do you have such a close relationship with Jesus Christ that is causes Homesickness in others? Do you long for Christ so intensely that is eclipses all other desires in your heart? Do you seek His face with all your heart? If Christ Followers began engaging in this kind of relationship with Christ it would overwhelm those that do not know Him and would turn their hearts. May we be a people focusing more and more on Christ!
