Run Today's Race

Oswald Chambers firmly believed in the concept of “seed thoughts”—brief, pithy sayings designed to arrest attention and stimulate thinking. The entry for December 9 perhaps best expresses his conviction on how to affect a person’s mind and behavior:Our Lord was never impatient. He simply planted seed thoughts in the disciples’ minds and surrounded them with the atmosphere of His own life. We get impatient and take men by the scruff of the neck and say: “You must believe this and that.” You cannot make a man see moral truth by persuading his intellect. “When He, the Spirit of truth is come, He shall guide you into all truth.“ (rv) At the Bible Training College, London, and at the Zeitoun YMCA Camp in Egypt, Chambers always posted a daily thought on a centrally located notice board. The daily words ranged from a spiritual challenge to humor. After a deluge that left the Zeitoun camp flooded, the board outside Oswald’s study hut read: “Closed during submarine manoeuvres!” The day before, the board had proclaimed: “Beware! there is a religious talk here each evening!”While Mrs. Chambers was still in Egypt after her husband’s death, she published the first Seed Thoughts Calendar, containing a brief thought from Oswald’s teachings for each day of the year. The small, thin book fit easily into the breast pocket of a soldier’s uniform. Other versions of the Seed Thoughts Calendar followed through the years.

God will never begin to teach me His will in other matters until I do what I know. Theoretic knowledge becomes our condemnation—“If ye know these things blessed are ye if ye do them” (rv).

A man can never be the same again, I don’t care who he is, after having heard Jesus Christ preached. He may say he pays no attention to it; he may appear to have forgotten all about it, but he is never quite the same, and at any moment truths may spring up into his consciousness that will destroy all his peace and happiness.

Am I going to live a sequestered life on the mount and never come down into the demon-possessed valley, never prove that what I saw on the mount is sufficient to enable me to face what I find in the valley?Chambers, Oswald, Run Today’s Race, (United Kingdom: Marshall Morgan & Scott) c1968.

It is one of the most flattering things to go and rescue the degraded, one of the social passions of mankind, but it is not the most Christian. It is quite another thing to proclaim to men who are among the best, that they have to give up their right to themselves to Jesus Christ.Chambers, Oswald, Run Today’s Race, (United Kingdom: Marshall Morgan & Scott) c1968.

Ron, I had to laugh when I read this. (laugh at myself) I can see this is so true. Though I feel called by the Lord to bring a message of surrender (giving up our rights to self), I have been trying also to get myself lost in the work of the "degraded"- though I know it is needed also. It would be much easier to stay in this latter work instead of the first. It actually scares me a bit to think I may have to carry through with the first. :-o In His love, Chanin

It would be much easier to stay in this latter work instead of the first. It actually scares me a bit to think I may have to carry through with the first.Hi ChaninIn an era when so many use the scripture like a blunt weapon Oswald Chambers had that disturbing authenticity which the 'speakings of God' always convey sharper than any two-edged swording, piercing...

The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalms 27:1)

Have you never met the person whose religious life is so exact that you are terrified to come near him? Never have an exercise of religion which blots God clean out.Chambers, Oswald, Run Today’s Race, (United Kingdom: Marshall Morgan & Scott) c1968.

To understand the tiniest bit of truth about God is to love it with all our heart and soul and mind; all that lies dark and obscure just now, is one day going to be as clear, as radiantly and joyously clear, as the bit we have seen.

What an unspeakable thrill and joy it will be to hear the Father say to you and I, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into your reward!" Praise you Lord God in the highest. Blessed be Your Holy Name.

Experiences of what God has done for me are only stepping-stones; the one great note is—I trust in the Lord Jesus, God’s providence can do with me what it likes, make the heavens like brass, earth like hell, my body loathsome (as Job’s was), but the soul that is trusting in Jesus gets where Job got, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.”Chambers, Oswald, Run Today’s Race, c1968.

Remarkable clarity.Recommended reading.Ron, keep on posting. . .Lars

If we do only what we are inclined to do, some of us would do nothing for ever and ever! There are unemployables in the spiritual domain, spiritually decrepit people, who refuse to do anything unless they are supernaturally inspired. The proof that we are rightly related to God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not.Chambers, Oswald, Run Today’s Race, c1968.

A great many Christian workers worship their work. The one concern of the workers should be concentration on God, and this will mean that all other margins of life are free with the freedom of a child—a worshipping child, not a wayward child.Chambers, Oswald, Run Today’s Race, c1968.

November 16 \tGod will put you through many mills that are not meant for you, mills you would not be put through but that He wants to make you good bread for His little ones to eat. You can see now the meaning of that hard place you have been in.Chambers, Oswald, Run Today’s Race, c1968.

November 17We say, “Seeing is believing,” but it isn’t true. Belief is necessary before we can interpret what we see; we will explain things away if we don’t believe them possible. “. . . because thou hast seen Me, hast thou believed?” (John 20:29 rv mg).Chambers, Oswald, Run Today’s Race, c1968.

November 18A good way to measure our spiritual life is to ask ourselves—What is it that produces the greatest perturbation in me? Is it the sins of men against men, or is it the sins of spiritual pride against God?Chambers, Oswald, Run Today’s Race, c1968.

November 19\tOur attitude to the Bible is a stupid one, we come to the Bible for proof of God’s existence: the Bible has no meaning for us unless we know that God does exist. The Bible states and affirms facts for the benefit of those who believe in God, those who don’t believe in God can tear it to bits if they like.Chambers, Oswald, Run Today’s Race, c1968.

This is very true, I think only time the bible says something even like this would be twice in Psalms:The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.The bible does say (I think) that men are without excuse to not believe in God in Romans 1:20For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:My only question is could an atheist come to believe in God by reading the bible?Perhaps this will need to be moved to create a new thread.