My Utmost for His Highest: Classic Language

by Oswald Chambers

When we are getting into contact with God in order to find out what He wants, dreaming is right; but when we are inclined to spend our time in dreaming over what we have been told to do, it is a bad thing and God's blessing is never on it.

God's initiative is always in the nature of a stab against this kind of dreaming, the stab that bids us "neither sit nor stand but go."

always beware of giving over to mere dreaming when once God has spoken. Leave Him to be the source of al your dreams and joys and delights, and go out and obey what He has said.

If you are in love, you do not sit down and dream about the one you love al the time, you go and do something for him; and that is what Jesus Christ expects us to do. Dreaming after God has spoken is an indication that we do not trust Him.

If human love does not carry a man beyond himself, it is not love. If love is always discreet, always wise, always sensible and calculating, never carried beyond itself, it is not love at al . It may be affection, it may be warmth of feeling, but it has not the true nature of love in it.

Have I ever been carried away to do something for God not because it was my duty, nor because it was useful, nor because there was anything in it at al beyond the fact that I love Him?

Have I ever realized that I can bring to God things which are of value to Him, or am I mooning round the magnitude of His Redemption whilst there are any number of things I might be doing? Not Divine, colossal things which could be recorded as marvel ous, but ordinary, simpl...

There are times when it seems as if God watches to see if we wil give Him the abandoned tokens of how genuinely we do love Him. Abandon to God is of more value than personal holiness. Personal holiness focuses the eye on our own whiteness; we are greatly concerned about the way we walk and talk and look, fearful lest we offend Him. Perfect love casts out al that when once we are abandoned to God.

We have to get rid of this notion - "Am I of any use?" and make up our minds that we are not, and we may be near the truth. It is never a question of being of use, but of being of value to God Himself.

Tenacity is more than endurance, it is endurance combined with the absolute certainty that what we are looking for is going to transpire. Tenacity is more than hanging on, which may be but the weakness of being too afraid to fal off. Tenacity is the supreme effort of a man refusing to believe that his hero is going to be conquered.

The greatest fear a man has is not that he wil be damned, but that Jesus Christ wil be worsted, that the things He stood for - love and justice and forgiveness and kindness among men - wil not win out in the end; the things He stands for look like wil -o'-the-wisps. Then comes the cal to spiritual tenacity, not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately on the certainty that God is not going to be worsted.

If our hopes are being disappointed just now, it means that they are being purified. There is nothing noble the human mind has ever hoped for or dreamed of that wil not be fulfil ed. One of the greatest strains in life is the strain of wa...

We have the idea that a man cal ed to the ministry is cal ed to be a different kind of being from other men. According to Jesus Christ, he is cal ed to be the "door-mat" of other men; their spiritual leader, but never their superior.

So long as there is a human being who does not know Jesus Christ, I am his debtor to serve him until he does.

If we are devoted to the cause of humanity, we shal soon be crushed and broken-hearted, for we shal often meet with more ingratitude from men than we would from a dog; but if our motive is love to God, no ingratitude can hinder us from serving our fel ow men.

When we realize that Jesus Christ has served us to the end of our meanness, our selfishness, and sin, nothing that we meet with from others can exhaust our determination to serve men for His sake.

Christ is interested in every kind of man there is. We have no right in Christian work to be guided by our affinities; this is one of the biggest tests of our relationship to Jesus Christ.

The delight of sacrifice is that I lay down my life for my Friend, not fling it away, but deliberately lay my life out for Him and His interests in other people, not for a cause.

When a man says he must develop a holy life alone with God, he is of no more use to his fel ow men: he puts himself on a pedestal, away from the common run of men.

Many of us are after our own ends, and Jesus Christ cannot help Himself to our lives. If we are abandoned to Jesus, we have no ends of our own to serve.

We are apt to be devoted, not to Jesus Christ, but to the things which emancipate us spiritual y.

The real test of the saint is not preaching the gospel, but washing disciples' feet, that is, doing the things that do not count in the actual estimate of men but count everything in the estimate of God.

Beware of the pious fraud in you which says - I have no misgivings about Jesus, only about myself. None of us ever had misgivings about ourselves; we know exactly what we cannot do, but we do have misgivings about Jesus. We are rather hurt at the idea that He can do what we cannot.

Suppose there is a wel of fathomless trouble inside your heart, and Jesus comes and says - "Let not your heart be troubled"; and you shrug your shoulders and say, "But, Lord, the wel is deep; You cannot draw up quietness and comfort out of it." No, He wil bring them down from above. Jesus does not bring anything up from the wel s of human nature.

We limit the Holy One of Israel by remembering what we have al owed Him to do for us in the past, and by saying, "Of course I cannot expect God to do this thing." The thing that taxes almightiness is the very thing which we as disciples of Jesus ought to believe He wil do. We impoverish His ministry the moment we forget He is Almighty; the impoverishment is in us, not in Him. We wil come to Jesus as Comforter or as Sympathizer, but we wil not come to Him as Almighty.

Beware of the satisfaction of sinking back and saying - "It can't be done"; you know it can be done if you look to Jesus. The wel of your incompleteness is deep, but make the effort and look away to Him.

Many a Christian worker has left Jesus Christ alone and gone into work from a sense of duty, or from a sense of need arising out of his own particular discernment. The reason for this is the absence of the resurrection life of Jesus. The soul has got out of intimate contact with God by leaning to its own religious understanding.

when the soul realizes how he has hindered his understanding of Jesus Christ, and produced for himself perplexities and sorrows and difficulties, it is with shame and contrition he has to come back.

We need to rely on the resurrection life of Jesus much deeper down than we do, to get into the habit of steadily referring everything back to Him; instead of this we make our common - sense decisions and ask God to bless them. He...

If we do a thing from a sense of duty, we are putting up a standard in competition with Jesus Christ. We become a "superior person," and say - "Now in this matter I must do this and that." We have put our sense of duty on the throne instead of the resurrection life of Jesus. We are not told to walk in the light of...

When we do anything from a sense of duty, we can back it up by argument; when we do anything in obedience to the Lord, there is no argument possible; th...

What is the thing that not only disturbs you but makes you a disturbance? It is always some thing you cannot deal with yourself. "They rebuked him that he should hold his peace . . . but he cried so much the more." Persist in the disturbance until you get face to face with the Lord Himself;

When Jesus asks us what we want Him to do for us in regard to the incredible thing with which we are faced, remember that He does not work in common-sense ways, but in supernatural ways.

Watch how we limit the Lord by remembering what we have al owed Him to do for us in the past: I always failed there, and I always shal ; consequently we do not ask for what we...

If it is an impossibility, it is the thing we have to ask. If it is not an impossible thing, it is not a real disturbance. Go...

Faith is not in what Jesus says but in Himself; if we only look at what He says we shal never believe. When once we see Jesus, He does the impossible thing as natural y as breathing.

Our agony comes through the wilful stupidity of our own heart. We won't believe, we won't cut the shore line, we prefer to worry on.

Natural individuality professes and declares; the love of the personality is only discovered by the hurt of the question of Jesus Christ.

temperamental love; it may go deep into the individuality, but it does not touch the centre of the person. True love never professes anything.

Unless we get hurt right out of every deception about ourselves, the word of God is not having its way with us. The word of God hurts as no sin can ever hurt, because sin blunts feeling.

The question of the Lord intensifies feeling, until to be hurt by Jesus is the most exquisite hurt conceivable. It hurts not only in the natural way but in the profound personal way. The word of the Lord pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, there is no deception left.

There is no possibility of being sentimental with the Lord's question; you cannot say nice things when the Lord speaks directly to you, the hurt is too terrific. It is such a hurt that it stings every other concern out of account. There never can be any mistake about the hurt of the Lord's word when it...

It is impossible to weary God's love, and it is impossible to weary that love in me if it springs from the one centre. The love of God pays no attention to the distinctions made by natural individuality. If I love my Lord I have no business to be guided by natural temperament; I have to feed His sheep. There is no relief and no release from this commission.

Beware of counterfeiting the love of God by working along the line of natural human sympathy, because that wil end in blaspheming the love of God.

It is easier to serve God without a vision, easier to work for God without a cal , because then you are not bothered by what God requires; common sense is your guide, veneered over with Christian sentiment. You wil be more prosperous and successful, more leisure-hearted, if you never realize the cal of God.

if once you receive a commission from Jesus Christ, the memory of what God wants wil always come like a goad; you wil no longer be able to work for Him on the common-sense basis.

What do I real y count dear? If I have not been gripped by Jesus Christ, I wil count service dear, time given to God dear, my life dear unto myself. Paul says he counted his life dear only in order that he might fulfil the ministry he ...

Remember how 'useful you are here, or - Think how much value you would be in that particular type of work." That attitude does not put Jesus Christ as the Guide as to where we should go, but our judgment as to where we are of most use. Never consider whether you are of use; but ever consider that you are not your own but His.

We have al to find our niche in life, and spiritual y we find it when we receive our ministry from the Lord. In order to do this we must have companied with Jesus; we must know Him as more than a personal Saviour. "I wil show him how great things he must suffer for My sake."

There is no choice of service, only absolute loyalty to Our Lord's commission; loyalty to what you discern when you are in closest contact with God.