My Utmost for His Highest

by Oswald Chambers

The proof that our relationship is right with God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not.

No, you will not, and God will make sure of that. Those times are entirely the gift of God.

become an intolerable burden on Him.

If you make a god out of your best moments, you will find that God will fade out of your life, never to return until you are obedient in the work He has placed closest to you, and until you have learned not to be obsessed with those exceptional moments He has given you.

God wants you to be in a much closer relationship with Himself than simply receiving His gifts—He wants you to get to know Him.

Ask God for what you want and do not be concerned about asking for the wrong thing, because as you draw ever closer to Him, you will cease asking for things altogether.

Then why should you ask? So that you may get to know Him.

Are you prepared to ask yourself what it is you want from God and why you want it? God always ignores your present level of completeness in favor of your ultimate future completeness. He is not concerned about making you blessed and happy right now, but He’s continually working out His ultimate perfection for you—“that they may be one just as We are one” (John 17:22).

we look upon uncertainty as a bad thing. We think that we must reach some predetermined goal, but that is not the nature of the spiritual life. The nature of the spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty.

Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life—gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life.

We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. As soon as we abandon ourselves to God and do the task He has placed closest to us, He begins to fill our lives with surprises.

Leave everything to Him and it will be gloriously and graciously uncertain how He will come in—but you can be certain that He will come. Remain faithful to Him.

Can we do our work when it seems that God has sealed up heaven?

But what God wants us to do is to “walk by faith.” How many of us have set ourselves aside as if to say, “I cannot do anything else until God appears to me”? He will never do it. We will have to get up on our own, without any inspiration and without any sudden touch from God.

“Why, He was there all the time, and I never knew it!”

God will give us His touches of inspiration only when He sees that we are not in danger ...

our work is our s...

“Though it tarries, wait for it.” Habakkuk 2:3

Patience is not the same as indifference; patience conveys the idea of someone who is tremendously strong and able to withstand all assaults.

Having the vision of God is the source of patience because it gives us God’s true and proper inspiration.

because he had a vision of God.

A person who has the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue—he is devoted to God Himself. You always know when the vision is of God because of the inspiration that comes with it. Things come to you with greatness and add vitality to your life because everything is energized by God.

simply endure, and the power to endure will be there because you see God.

proof that we have the vision is that we are reaching out for more than we have already grasped.

Our reach must exceed our grasp.

if we have the inspiration of the vision of God, we have more than we can experience.

All that we build is going to be inspected by God. When God inspects us with His searching and refining fire, will He detect that we have built enterprises of our own on the foundation of Jesus?

We are living in a time of tremendous enterprises, a time when we are trying to work for God, and that is where the trap is. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus, as the Master Builder, takes us over so that He may direct and control us completely for His enterprises and His building plans; and no one has any right to demand where he will be put to work.

A saint’s life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, but our Lord continues to stretch and strain, and every once in a while the saint says, “I can’t take any more.” Yet God pays no attention; He goes on stretching until His purpose is in sight, and then He lets the arrow fly. Entrust yourself to God’s hands.

Is there something in your life for which you need perseverance right now? Maintain your intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through the perseverance of faith.

Faith is not some weak and pitiful emotion, but is strong and vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. And even though you cannot see Him right now and cannot understand what He is doing, you know Him.

God is holy love.

God ventured His all in Jesus Christ to save us, and now He wants us to venture our all with total abandoned confidence in Him.

places still untouched by the life of God.

There were none of those places in Jesus Christ’s life, and there ar...

The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to...

If we will take this view, life will become one great romance—a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us t...

A person’s own idea of God and His attributes may actually be used to justify and rationalize his deliberate neglect of his duty.

wherever there is vision, there is also a life of honesty and integrity, because the vision gives me the moral incentive.

Once we lose sight of God, we begin to be reckless.

We set prayer aside as well and cease having God’s vision in the little things of life.

doing things solely on our own initiative without expecting God to come in, we...

Are we expecting God to do greater things than He has...

we have to do something. We are in danger of forgetting that we cannot do what God does, and that God will not do what we can do.

God will not give us good habits or character, and He will not force us to walk correctly before Him. We have to do all that ourselves.

we must get into the habit of doing things, and in the initial stages that is difficult.

make a beginning—to instruct yourself in the way you must go.

Beware of the tendency to ask the way when you know it perfectly well. Take the initiative—stop hesitating—take the first step. Be determined to act immediately in faith on what God says to you when He speaks...

Take the initiative yourself, make a decision of your will right now, and make it impossible to go back.

We have to get into the habit of carefully listening to God about everything, forming the habit of finding out what He says and heeding it.