My Utmost for His Highest

by Oswald Chambers

We will be scattered, not into service but into the emptiness of our lives where we will see ruin and barrenness, to know what internal death to God’s blessings means.

God engineers our circumstances to take us there.

Until we have been through that experience, our faith is sustained only by feelings and by blessings. But once we get there, no matter where God may place us or what inner emptiness we experience, we can praise God that all is well. That is ...

Are we prepared to let God do what He wants with us?

If we are willing to wait, we will see God pointing out that we have been interested only in His blessings, instead of in God Himself. The sense of God’s blessings is fundamental.

The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much.

Don’t take it for granted! What we can do by a simple surrender of our heart through words cost Him everything!

you should also say nothing until the Son of Man has risen in you—until the life of the risen Christ so dominates you that you truly understand what He taught while here on earth.

develop the right condition inwardly,

we are not prepared to receive them

understandable

our insensible thinking will end immediately once His resurrection life has its way with us.

no connection between what they say and how they live. Their lives don’t add up because the Son of Man has not yet risen in them. How long will it be before His resurrection life is formed and evident in you and in me?

Eternal life is not a gift from God; eternal life is the gift of God.

We should never bear the burdens of sin or doubt, but there are some burdens placed on us by God which He does not intend to lift off.

roll them back on Him—to

with no intimate fellowship with Jesus Christ, they are soon defeated. They do not know what to do with their burden, and it produces weariness in their lives.

“Cast your burden on the Lord.” You have been bearing it all, but you need to deliberately place one end on God’s shoulder.

Beware of ever thinking, “Oh, that thing in my life doesn’t matter much.” The fact that it doesn’t matter much to you may mean that it matters a great deal to God.

the “high places” still remain in your life. There is still an area of disobedience.

He causes you to doubt? Whenever God causes a doubt about something, stop it immediately, no matter what it may be. Nothing in our lives is a mere insignificant detail to God.

Never allow a feeling that was awakened in you on the mountaintop to evaporate.

We must learn to live in the ordinary “gray” day according to what we saw on the mountain.

Don’t give up because you have been blocked and confused once—go

stand committed to God by an act of y...

Never change your decisions, but be sure to make your decisions in the light of what you saw ...

The true deep crisis of abandonment, or total surrender, is reached internally, not externally.

If you focus your attention on the emotion, you will never make the transaction.

make the determination to surrender your will regarding whatever you see, whether it is in the shallow or the deep, profound places internally.

maintaining your intimate relationship to Him.

We are so busy telling God where we would like to go. Yet the man or woman who is ready for God and His work is the one who receives the prize when the summons comes. We wait with the idea that some great opportunity or something sensational will be coming our way, and when it does come we are quick to cry out, “Here I am.” Whenever we sense that Jesus Christ is rising up to take authority over some great task, we are there, but we are not ready for some obscure duty.

prepared to do the smallest thing or the largest thing—it makes no difference.

He can put us wherever He wants, in pleasant duties or in menial ones, because our union with Him is the same as His union with the Father.

It is our own opinions that make us dense and slow to understand, but when we are simple we are never dense; we have discernment all the time.

The mystery of God is not in what is going to be—it is now, though we look for it to be revealed in the future in some overwhelming, momentous event.

God only exhibits Himself in His children.

“Let not your heart be troubled” (14:1, 27). Am I then hurting Jesus by allowing my heart to be troubled? If I believe in Jesus and His attributes, am I living up to my belief? Am I allowing anything to disturb my heart, or am I allowing any questions to come in which are unsound or unbalanced? I have to get to the point of the absolute and unquestionable relationship that takes everything exactly as it comes from Him. God never guides us at some time in the future, but always here and now. Realize that the Lord is here now, and the freedom you receive is immediate.

A servant of God must stand so very much alone that he never realizes he is alone.

We must build our faith not on fading lights but on the Light that never fails. When “important” individuals go away we are sad, until we see that they are meant to go, so that only one thing is left for us to do—to look into the face of God for ourselves.

And every time you preach make sure you look God in the face about the message first, then the glory will remain through all of it.

The ministry of Christ is characterized by an abiding glory of which the servant is totally unaware—“Moses

Beware of any work for God that causes or allows you to avoid concentrating on Him. A great number of Christian workers worship their work. The only concern of Christian workers should be their concentration on God.

once our concentration is on God, all the limits of our life are free and under the control and mastery of God alone.

The only responsibility you have is to stay in living constant touch with God, and to see that you allow nothing to hinder your cooperation with Him.

freedom that comes after sanctification is the freedom of a child, and the things that used to h...

absolutely devoted to your...

We have no right to decide where we should be placed, or to have preconceived ideas as to what God is preparing us to do. God engineers everything; and wherever He places us, our one supreme goal should be to pour out our lives in wholehearted devotion to Him in that particular work. ...

Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service,

Salvation and sanctification are the work of God’s sovereign grace, and our work as His disciples is to disciple others’ lives until they are totally yielded to God.

Jesus never dictates to us in that way. Whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He always prefaced His words with an “if,” never with the forceful or dogmatic statement—“You must.” Discipleship carries with it an option.

we should “be ready” whether we feel like it or not.