The Complete Christian - Oswald Chambers

The Complete ChristianConformed to the Master’s Standard (Luke 6:40)Jesus Christ’s standard for the worker is Himself. Am I allowing His standard to obsess me? Am I measuring my life by His all the time? The one standard put before us is Our Lord Himself; we have to be saturated in this ideal in thinking and in praying, and allow nothing to blur the standard. We must lift up Jesus Christ not only in the preaching of the Gospel but to our own souls. If my mind and heart and spirit is getting fixed with one Figure only, the Lord Jesus Christ, and other people and other ideas are fading, then I am growing in grace. The one dominant characteristic in the life of the worker is that Jesus Christ is coming more into the ascendant. The motive is not a sentiment but a passion, the blazing passion of the Holy Ghost in the soul of the worker; not—“because Jesus has done so much for me,” that is a sickening, unscriptural statement. The one attitude of the life is Jesus Christ first, second, and third, and nothing apart from Him. The thing that hinders God’s work is not sin, but other claims which are right, but which at a certain point of their rightness conflict with the claims of Jesus Christ. If the conflict should come, remember it is to be Jesus first (see Luke 14:26).Consecrated to the Master’s Sovereignty (2 Timothy 2:21)The vessels in a household have their honour from the use made of them by the head of the house. As a worker I have to separate myself for one purpose—for Jesus Christ to use me for what He likes. Imitation, doing what other people do, is an unmitigated curse. Am I allowing anyone to mould my ideas of Christian service? Am I taking my ideas from some servant of God or from God Himself? We are here for one thing only—to be vessels “meet for the Master’s use.” We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has apprehended us. Natural ability has nothing to do with service; consequently there is never any thought of, “Oh, well, I am not fitted for this.”One student a year who hears God’s call would be sufficient for God to have called this College into existence. This College as an organisation is not worth anything, it is not academic; it is for nothing else but for God to help Himself to lives. Is He going to help Himself to your life, or are you taken up with your conception of what you are going to do? God is responsible for our lives, and the one great keynote is reckless reliance upon Him.Complete for the Master’s Service (2 Timothy 3:14, 17)Am I learning how to use my Bible? The way to become complete for the Master’s service is to be well soaked in the Bible, some of us only exploit certain passages. Our Lord wants to give us continuous instruction out of His word; continuous instruction turns hearers into disciples. Beware of “spooned meat” spirituality, of using the Bible for the sake of getting messages; use it to nourish your own soul. Be a continuous learner, don’t stop short, and the truth will open to you on the right hand and on the left until you find there is no problem in human life with which the Bible does not deal. But remember that there are certain points of truth Our Lord cannot reveal to us until our character is in a fit state to bear it. The discernment of God’s truth and the development of character go together.The life God places in the Christian worker is the life of Jesus Christ, which is continually changing spiritual innocence into glorious practical character.-from Approved Unto God by Oswald Chambers

Just a tag on...Inspired WaitingI will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower . . .How steadily all through the Old and New Testament God calls us to stand on the watch and wait for His indications, and how often God’s answers to our prayers have been squandered because we do not watch and wait. My brother or sister, are you thoroughly perplexed over God’s way?—you cannot reconcile God’s clear way as revealed in His Book with the way He is leading you. Take the line of this prophet during his perplexity, stand and watch to see what God will say—watch at the right place.There is a difference in the prayers of the Old and the New Testament. In chapter 3 the prophet bases his prayer on the character of God, and appeals to God’s great mercies. In the New Testament, prayer is based on a relationship with God through Jesus Christ: “When ye pray, say, Our Father.” There is another difference—the prayers in the Old Testament have to do with an earthly people in an earthly setting; the prayers in the New Testament have to do with a heavenly state of mind in a heavenly people while on this earth. We are continually being reminded that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and the rulers of this world’s darkness. The first thing to remember is that we watch at the right place, i.e., the place God has put us in. Watch for God’s answer to your prayers, and not only watch, but wait. When God calls upon you to pray, when He gives the vision, when He gives an understanding of what He is going to do through you in your Sunday-school class, in your Church, or home—watch. How many of us have had to learn by God’s reproof, by God’s chastisement, the blunder of conferring with flesh and blood. Are you discouraged where you are, worker? Then get upon this tower with God, and watch and wait. The meaning of waiting in both the Old and New Testament is “standing under,” actively enduring. It is not standing with folded arms doing nothing; it is not saying, “In God’s good time it will come to pass”—that often means in my abominably lazy time I let God work. Waiting means standing under, in active strength, enduring till the answer comes.Never make the blunder of trying to forecast the way God is going to answer your prayer. When God made a tremendous promise to Abraham, he thought out the best way of helping God to fulfil His promise and did the wisest thing he knew according to flesh and blood common-sense reasoning. But for thirteen years God never spoke to him until every possibility of his relying on his own intelligent understanding was at an end. Then God came to him and said, “I am God Almighty”—El Shaddai—“walk before Me, and be thou perfect” (rv). Over and over again God has to teach us how to stand and endure, watching actively and wondering. It is always a wonder when God answers prayer. We hear people say, “We must not say it is wonderful that God answers prayer”; but it is wonderful. It is so wonderful that a great many people believe it impossible. Listen!— “Whatsoever ye shall ask in My name, that will I do.” Isn’t that wonderful? It is so wonderful that I do not suppose more than half of us really believe it. “Every one that asketh receiveth.” Isn’t that wonderful? It is so wonderful that many of us have never even asked God to give us the Holy Spirit because we don’t believe He will. “If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven.” Isn’t that wonderful? It is tremendously wonderful. “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” Isn’t that wonderful?Christian worker, you have had visions of how wonderfully God can answer prayer, are you watching to-day for Him to answer prayer along His line? Are you on your tower, watching stedfastly every sign of God’s goings? Or are you coming under the bitter blight that came on Meroz? When the Spirit of the Lord came on Deborah, the prophetess of the Lord, what was her cry? “Curse ye Meroz, . . . curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord . . . against the mighty.” The first chapter of Habakkuk speaks of the tremendous devastations that are to come upon Israel (see vv. 1-11); apply it spiritually to our own day. The majority of us as saints are sound asleep to the devastation going on, and we shall come under the bitter curse of Meroz if we do not rouse ourselves up and stand with God against the mighty—spiritualism, super-naturalism, Christian Science, Millennial-dawnism*—all terribly wide-spread, sweeping, devouring errors. Are we thoroughly awake and watching, or are we crying in a cowardly way, “Tell us the thing that leaves us as we are; tell us the things that please us, that rouse us up and kindle us on our own lines; don’t tell us about the perplexities you have as a prophet or handmaid of God regarding His work”? God grant that every child of His may get on the watch-tower and stand and watch. Immediately a difficulty comes on the horizon and clouds gather, where is the intense watching? We sulk and turn aside, we turn our backs on God and on His messengers, and say, “Thou hast not brought us into a land that floweth with milk and honey.” God grant that in times of perplexity we may get back again to the watch-tower, back again to inspired waiting, back again to the wide-eyed wonder of a child at God’s answers to our prayers.*Millennial Dawnism: another name for Russellism or the Jehovah's Witnesses, founded by Charles Taze Russell.Oswald Chambers ~ If ye shall ask."Isn't that wonderful?" 8-)

The Way of the Apprehension of the Soul (Ephesians 5:16-17)understanding what the will of the Lord is . . . (Ephesians 5:17)What is possible in the Way of IntelligenceHave we begun to form the habit of thinking? Thinking is the habit of expressing what moves our spirit. In order to think we must concentrate. Thinking is a purely physical process. No one can tell us how to begin to think, all they can do is to tell us what happens when we do think. In the grey matter of the brain are multitudes of blood-vessels, distributed equally all over the brain, and when we think, the blood gathers to the one part of the brain we are using. This is called concentration. Dissipated thinking means that the blood goes back to the other parts of the brain and wakens up associated ideas. When we focus our will around certain thoughts, the blood converges to that particular part of the brain, and if we can hold our wills fixed there for five minutes, we have done a tremendous thing, we have begun to form the habit of mental concentration. The majority of us allow our brains to wool-gather, we never concentrate on any particular line. Concentration is physical, not spiritual. The brain must be brought into order by concentration, then when the Spirit of God brings a spontaneous illumination of a particular theme instantly the brain is at the disposal of God. If we have not learned to concentrate, the brain cannot focus itself anywhere, it fusses all round and wool-gathers. No one is responsible for that but ourselves.This is true in ordinary thinking, and the same brain is used by the Holy Spirit. We have to learn to bring “every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (rv); to “stay our imagination” (rv mg) on God. This can only be done by concentration, by fixing our thoughts and our imagination deliberately on God. The majority of us are unable to fix our thoughts in prayer, we lie all abroad before God and do not rouse ourselves up to lay hold of Him, consequently we have wandering thoughts continually. God will not bring every thought and imagination into captivity; we have to do it, and that is the test of spiritual concentration. The inattentive, slovenly way we drift into the presence of God is an indication that we are not bothering to think about Him. Whenever our Lord spoke of prayer, He said, “ask.” It is impossible to ask if you do not concentrate. The marvel of the goodness of God is that He does so much for us; if we would only meet with physical obedience what God does for us spiritually, the whole of our body would be under such control that we should apprehend His meaning when He speaks. It is not a question of learning a thing outside but of determination inside. God gives us the Holy Spirit not only for holy living but for holy thinking, and we are held responsible if we do not think concentratedly along the right lines. To concentrate with our mind fixed on one trend of things is never easy to begin with. There never is a time when we cannot begin to concentrate.Chambers, O. The moral foundation of life : A series of talks on the ethical principles of the Christian life.

The Way of Appreciation by the Soul (Ephesians 5:18). . . be filled with the Spirit.What is Possible in the Way of InspirationThere are two ways of inspiration possible—being drunk with wine, and being filled with the Spirit. We have no business to be nondescript, drunk neither one way nor the other. A man may be sober and incapable as well as drunk and in capable. Watch human nature; we are so built that if we do not get thrilled in the right way, we will get thrilled in the wrong. If we are without the thrill of communion with God, we will try to get thrilled by the devil, or by some concoction of human ingenuity. Don’t be inspired with wine, the counterfeit of the Spirit, says Paul, but be filled with the Spirit. Enthusiasm is the idea— intoxicated with the life of God. Paul puts it as a command, “Be being filled.” When our Lord talked to the woman of Samaria, He said, “the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” Profoundly speaking, there is no refilling; “a well of water” is there all the time. The picture is not that of a channel, but of a fountain, a continual infilling and overflowing of the inspiration of God.In the matter of inspiration the first thing to watch is the temper of our own soul. A blameworthy temper of mind about another soul will end in the spirit of the devil. We cannot approach God in a wrong temper of mind, it will put a shutter down between and we shall not see Him. God introduces us to people who conduct themselves to us as we have conducted ourselves to Him, and if we do not recognise what He is doing we will ride a moral hobby-horse—“I will not be treated like that.” There is no further inspiration possible from the Spirit of God until that temper of mind is gone. “Take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.” Our Lord always puts His finger unerringly on the thing that is wrong. “First be reconciled . . .” (Matthew 5:24). The next thing we have to watch is our private relationship with God. Are we determined to prove that God must do what we have said He must? If so, our intercession becomes frenzied fanaticism. Or are we only concerned about being brought into an understanding of God, which is the real meaning of prayer? The greatest barrier to intercession is that we take ourselves so seriously, and come to the conclusion that God is reserved with us; He is not. God has to ignore things we take so seriously until our relationship to Him is exactly that of a child. If we are watching the temper of our minds towards other people and towards God, there will be the continual incoming and outflowing of the inspiration of God, a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit all the time. Imagine Jesus being jaded in the life of God! There was never anything jaded about Him. When we are jaded there is always a reason, and it is either the temper of our mind towards another or towards God. We have no business to be half-dead spiritually, to hang like clogs on God’s plan; we should be filled with a radiant intensity of life, living at the highest pitch all the time without any reaction. “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”Be being filled with the life Jesus came to give.Chambers, O. The moral foundation of life : A series of talks on the ethical principles of the Christian life.