Be Encouraged with my Utmost for His Highest (November 2024)

23 November 2024

The Distractions of Contempt

Oswald Chambers

Are you aware that your state of mind has powerful effects on your business and your life today?

Be encouraged and pray have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us! For we are exceedingly filled with contempt. —Psalm 123:3

What we must beware of is damage not to our belief in God but to our Christian disposition or state of mind.

“Take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously” (Malachi 2:16).

Our state of mind has powerful effects. It can be the enemy that penetrates our souls and distracts our minds from God.

There are certain attitudes we should never dare to indulge. If we do, we will find they have distracted us from faith in God.

Until we get back into a quiet mood before Him, our faith is of no value, and our confidence in the flesh and human ingenuity is what rules our lives.

Beware of “the cares of this world…” (Mark 4:19). They are the very things that produce the wrong attitudes in our souls.

It is incredible what enormous power there is in simple things to distract our attention away from God.

Be encouraged and refuse to be swamped by “the cares of this world.” Another distraction is our passion for vindication.

I must explain myself,” or I must get people to understand.” Our Lord never explained anything—He left others to correct their misunderstandings or misconceptions.

Be encouraged. We block our fellowship with God when we discern that other people are not growing spiritually and allow that discernment to turn to criticism.

God never gives us discernment so that we may criticize but that we may intercede.

Do you always find the need to get people to understand your point?

Do you allow your state of mind to distract you from God?

Did you know that a magnified thought will attract similar thoughts?

Remember, be encouraged, and beware of the world's cares and snares. If you let them, they will worry you to death. Your state of mind is powerful. This mind can hinder you with snares and care that do not concern you. It can penetrate your soul and get in the way of your communing with God.

I am encouraged to know that my faith has no value if I allow the distractions, cares, and snares of the world to negatively impact me. Therefore, I desire to get into a quiet, thankful, and meditative mood with God, always praying for guidance.

Will you refuse to be hindered by the cares and distractions of the world?

Are you like St. Augustine, who prayed, “O Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself.”

This is your question today.

22 November 2024

Shallow and profound

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, are you willing to be shallow and profound by deciding to take no one seriously except God as you find that the first person you must be most critical of as being the most significant fraud you have ever known is yourself?

Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. —1 Corinthians 10:31

Beware of allowing yourself to think that God does not ordain the shallow aspects of life; they are ordained by Him equally as much as the profound.

We sometimes refuse to be shallow, not out of our deep devotion to God but because we wish to impress others because we are not superficial.

This is a sure sign of spiritual pride. We must be careful, for this is how contempt for others is produced.

And it causes us to be a walking rebuke to other people because they are more shallow than we are.

Beware of posing as a profound person— God became a baby.

To be shallow is not a sign of being sinful, nor is shallowness an indication that there is no depth to your life— the ocean has a shore.

Be encouraged to learn that even the shallow things of life, such as eating and drinking, walking and talking, are ordained by God.

These are all things our Lord did. He did them as the Son of God, saying, “A disciple is not above his teacher…” (Matthew 10:24).

The shallow things of life safeguard us. We have to live the surface, commonsense life in a commonsense way.

Then, when God gives us the more profound things, they are separated from the shallow concerns.

Never show the depth of your life to anyone but God. We are so nauseatingly severe, so desperately interested in our character and reputation, we refuse to behave like Christians in the shallow concerns of life.

Be encouraged. Decide to take no one seriously except God.

I have been guilty unknowingly, but I am now encouraged in the shallow things of life because I have to live on the surface common sense areas of life and as stated in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do it to the glory of God.”

Did you know that you may find that the first person you must be the most critical with, as being the most significant fraud you have ever known, is yourself?

This is your question today.

21 November 2024

“It is finished"

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, do you build your case for forgiveness on the idea that God is your Father and will forgive you because He loves you?

I have finished the work which You have given me. —John 17:

The death of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment in history of the very mind and intent of God.

Be encouraged. There is no place for seeing Jesus Christ as a martyr. His death was not something that happened to Him— something that might have been prevented.

His death was the very reason He came.

Be encouraged. Never build your case for forgiveness on the idea that God is our Father and will forgive us because He loves us.

That contradicts the revealed truth of God in Jesus Christ. It makes the Cross unnecessary and the redemption “much ado about nothing.” God forgives sin only because of the death of Christ.

God could forgive people only through the death of His Son, and Jesus is exalted as Savior because of His death.

“We see Jesus…for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor…” (Hebrews 2:9).

The most significant note of triumph ever sounded in the ears of a startled universe was that displayed on the Cross of Christ— “It is finished!” (John 19:30).

Be encouraged because that is the final word in the redemption of humankind.

Anything that lessens or completely obliterates God's holiness through a false view of His love contradicts the truth of God as revealed by Jesus Christ.

Never allow yourself to believe that Jesus Christ stands with us and against God out of pity and compassion or that He became a curse for us out of sympathy for us.

Jesus Christ became a curse for us by divine decree. Our part in realizing the tremendous meaning of His curse is the conviction of sin.

Conviction is a gift of shame and repentance; it is God's great mercy.

Jesus Christ hates the sin in people, and Calvary is the measure of His hatred.

I am encouraged in knowing that through John 17:4, IT IS FINISHED, and He has accomplished the work He came to do, which was to die for our sins, and therefore we are saved by our faith and forgiven.

Do you believe that God forgives sin because of the death of Christ?

This is your question today.

20 November 2024

The Forgiveness of God

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and your life, did you know that forgiveness is the divine miracle of God?

In Him, we have…the forgiveness of sins… —Ephesians 1:7

Be encouraged and beware of the pleasant view of the fatherhood of God: God is so kind and loving that, of course, He will forgive us.

That thought, based solely on emotion, is not found anywhere in the New Testament.

The only basis on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ.

To base our forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy.

The only ground on which God can forgive our sins and reinstate us to His favor is through the Cross of Christ.

There is no other way! Forgiveness, which is so easy for us to accept, costs the agony at Calvary.

Be encouraged and know we should never take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and our sanctification in simple faith and then forget the enormous cost to God that made all of this ours.

Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace. The cost to God was the Cross of Christ.

This price had to be paid to forgive sin while remaining a holy God.

Never accept a view of the fatherhood of God if it blots out the atonement.

God's revealed truth is that without the atonement, He cannot forgive— He would contradict His nature if He did.

Be encouraged. The only way we can be forgiven is by being brought back to God through the atonement of the Cross.

God’s forgiveness is possible only in the supernatural realm.

Compared with the miracle of the forgiveness of sin, the experience of sanctification is small.

Sanctification is simply the wonderful expression or evidence of the forgiveness of sins in a human life.

But what awakens the bottomless fountain of gratitude in a human being is the knowledge that God has forgiven his sins.

Paul never got away from this. Once you realize all that it cost God to forgive you, you will be held as in a vise, constrained by the love of God.

Do you think God is so kind and loving that he will forgive you?

Be encouraged and inspired that the only basis that God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ.

Be encouraged. Sanctification is simply the wonderful expression or evidence of the forgiveness of sin in a human life.

I am encouraged by the fact that God can only forgive us for our sins and reinstate us in His favor through the Cross of Christ. I am also inspired by Alexander Pope's quote, “To err is human; to forgive is divine.”

Did you know that forgiveness is the divine miracle of God?

This is your question today.

19 November 2024

When He had come

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, do you know the experience of being disturbed because you have done the wrong things?

When He has come, He will convict the world of sin… —John 16:8

Be encouraged because very few of us know anything about sin conviction. We know the experience of being disturbed because we have done wrong things.

But the conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit blots out every relationship on earth and makes us aware of only one— “Against You, You only, have I sinned…” (Psalm 51:4).

When a person is convicted of sin this way, he knows with every bit of his conscience that God would not dare to forgive him.

If God had forgiven him, this person would have a stronger sense of justice than God.

God does forgive, but it costs the breaking of His heart with grief in the death of Christ to enable Him to do so.

Be encouraged. The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and the death of Jesus Christ alone enables the divine nature to forgive and remain faithful to itself in doing so.

It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love.

Once we have been convicted of sin, we will never repeat this. The love of God means Calvary— nothing less!

The love of God is spelled out on the Cross and nowhere else.

Be encouraged. The only basis for which God can forgive me is the Cross of Christ. It is there that His conscience is satisfied.

Forgiveness doesn’t merely mean that I am saved from hell and have been made ready for heaven (no one would accept forgiveness on that level).

Forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a newly created relationship that identifies me with God in Christ. The miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of Himself, the Holy One.

He does this by putting into us a new nature, the nature of Jesus Christ.

Did you know that God does forgive?

Be encouraged by the reality that forgiveness does not merely mean that you are saved from hell and have been made ready for heaven; it means that you are forgiven into a newly created relationship that identifies you with God in Christ.

Do you know the experience of being disturbed because you have done wrong?

This is your question today.

18 November 2024

Winning into freedom

Today, in your business and your life, do you suffer from wandering thoughts?

If the Son makes you accessible, you shall be free indeed. —John 8:36 is

Be encouraged if there is even a trace of individual self-satisfaction left in us. It always says, “I can’t surrender” or “I can’t be free.”

But the spiritual part of our being never says, “I can’t;” it simply absorbs everything around it.

Our spirit hunger for more and more. It is the way we are built. We are designed with a great capacity for God, but sin, our individuality, and wrong thinking keep us from getting to Him.

Be encouraged. God delivers us from sin— we must give ourselves from our individuality.

This means offering our natural life to God and sacrificing it so He may transform it into a spiritual life through our obedience.

God pays no attention to our natural individuality when developing our spiritual life.

His plan runs right through our natural life. We must see that we aid and assist God and not stand against Him by saying, “I can’t do that.”

God will not discipline us; we must discipline ourselves. God will not bring our “arguments…and every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5)— we have to do it.

Don’t say, “Oh, Lord, I suffer from wandering thoughts.” Don’t suffer from wandering thoughts.

Stop listening to the tyranny of your individual natural life and win freedom in the spiritual life.

“If the Son makes you free….” Do not substitute Savior for Son in this passage.

The Savior has set us free from sin, but this freedom comes from being set free from myself by the Son.

It is what Paul meant in?Galatians 2:20 when he said, “I have been crucified with Christ….”

His individuality had been broken, and his spirit had been united with his Lord, not just merged into Him, but made one with Him. “…you shall be free indeed”— accessible to the core of your being, free from the inside to the outside.

We tend to rely on our energy instead of being energized by the power that comes from identification with Jesus.

Do you expect God to discipline you and your thoughts? God will not punish us. We must discipline ourselves.

Do you seek self-satisfaction in your natural life over your spiritual life?

Be encouraged. Do not suffer from wandering thoughts. Stop listening to the tyranny of your natural man and win freedom into the spiritual life.

I am encouraged to set a specific time daily to reflect and journal my wandering thoughts, using a written, documented process called MY DAILY DATE WITH MYSELF.

Do you suffer from wandering thoughts?

This is your question today.

17 November 2024

The eternal goal

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, are you willing to see God through your obedience and allow God to speak to His nature in you?

By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing…I will bless you… —Genesis 22:16-17

At this point, Abraham has reached a point where he is in touch with God's very nature. He now understands God's reality.

My goal is God Himself…At any cost, dear Lord, by any road.?“At any cost…by any road” means submitting to God’s way of bringing us to the goal.

There is no possibility of questioning God when He speaks if He speaks to His nature in you.

Like Abraham in Genesis 22:16-17, I am encouraged to begin to reach that place of not questioning God. It’s not easy, but it's a journey of obedience.

Prompt obedience is the only result. When Jesus says, “Come,” I come; when He says, “Let go,” I let go; when He says, “Trust God in this matter,” I trust.?

Be encouraged.?This work of obedience is evidence that the nature of God is in me.

Be encouraged. Your character, not God’s, influences God’s revelation of Himself to you.

’Tis because I am ordinary.?Thy ways often look familiar to me.

Through the discipline of obedience, I am able to go where Abraham was and see who God is.?

God will never be real to me until I meet Him in Jesus Christ.?

Then I will know and can boldly proclaim, “In all the world, my God, there is none but Thee, there is none but Thee.”

Be encouraged.?The promises of God are of no value to us until, through obedience, we come to understand the nature of God.?

We may read some things in the Bible daily for a year, which may mean nothing to us.?

Then, because we have been obedient to God in some small detail, we suddenly see what God means, and His nature is instantly opened up to us. “All the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen…” (2 Corinthians 1:20).?

Our “Yes” must be born of obedience; when by obedience, we ratify a promise of God by saying, “Amen,” or, “So be it.” That promise becomes ours.

Did you know that the work of obedience is evidence that the nature of God is in you?

Did you know that your character influences the revelation of God in you?

Are you willing to see God through your obedience and allow God to speak to His nature in you?

These are your questions today.

16 November 2024

Still human

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, whatever you do, can you go through your daily crises glorifying God in them?

…whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. —1 Corinthians 10:31

Be encouraged to learn in the Scriptures the great miracle of the incarnation slips into the ordinary life of a child; the great miracle of the transfiguration fades into the demon-possessed valley below; the glory of the resurrection descends into a breakfast on the seashore.

This is not an anticlimax but a great revelation of God.

We look for wonder in our experiences and mistake heroic actions for real heroes.

It’s one thing to go through a crisis grandly, yet quite another to glorify God every day when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to us.

If we are not looking for halos, we want something that will make people say, “What a wonderful man of prayer he is!” or, “What a great woman of devotion she is!”

If you are appropriately devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached a lofty height where no one would ever notice you personally.

All that is noticed is that the power of God is always coming through you.

We want to be able to say, “Oh, I have had a wonderful call from God!”

But to do even the most humbling tasks to the glory of God takes the Almighty God Incarnate working in us.

Be encouraged because to be utterly unnoticeable requires God’s Spirit in us, making us humanly His.

The test of a saint’s life is not success but faithfulness on the human level.

We tend to set up success in Christian work as our purpose, but our purpose should be to display the glory of God in human life, to live a life “hidden with Christ in God” in our everyday human conditions (Colossians 3:3).

Our human relationships are the very conditions in which the ideal life of God should be exhibited.

Are you looking for wonder in your experiences and mistake heroic actions for real heroes?

Do you tend to look for wonder in your experiences?

Be encouraged. When devoted adequately to The Lord Jesus, you have reached a lofty height where no one would ever notice you personally. All that is seen is the power of God coming through you all the time.

Do you do what you do to the glory of God?

Are you willing to glorify God daily when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one looking for a hero or watching you?

This is your question today.

15 November 2024

"What is it to you?"

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, is there stagnation in your spiritual life?

Peter…said to Jesus, "But Lord, what about this man?" Jesus said to him, "…what is that to you? You follow Me." —John 21:21-22

Be encouraged. One of the hardest lessons to learn comes from our stubborn refusal to refrain from interfering in other people’s lives.

It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur providence, interfering with God’s plan for others.

You see someone suffering and say, “He will not suffer, and I will ensure he doesn’t.”

You put your hand before God’s permissive will to stop it, and then God says, “What is that to you?”

Is your spiritual life stagnating? Don’t allow it to continue; get into God’s presence and find the reason.

You may find it is because you have been interfering in the life of another— proposing things you had no right to offer or advising when you had no right to counsel.

Be encouraged. When you have to advise another person, God will recommend through you with a direct understanding of His Spirit.

You must maintain the right relationship with God so that His discernment can come through you continually to bless someone else.

Most of us live only at the level of consciousness—consciously serving and devoted to God.

This shows immaturity and the fact that we’re not yet living the authentic Christian life.

Maturity is produced in the life of a child of God on the unconscious level until we become so totally surrendered to God that we are unaware of being used by Him.

We have yet another level to reach when we are consciously aware of being used as broken bread and poured-out wine. At this level, all awareness of ourselves and what God is doing through us is eliminated.

A saint is never consciously a saint but consciously dependent on God.

Be encouraged. One of the most challenging lessons to learn comes from our stubbornness and refusal to see someone else suffer and refrain from interfering in other people's lives.

It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur providence as we interfere with God’s plans for the lives of others.

I am encouraged to know that.

Yes, I am convicted, and I promise not to interfere.

Do you get in God’s way when you see someone suffering and say, “He will not suffer, and I will ensure he doesn’t?”

This is your question today.

14 November 2024

Discovering Divine Design

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and your life, did you know that disobedience is a warning of the spirit and an inner conflict is produced in you?

As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me… —Genesis 24:27

We should be so one with God that we don’t need to ask continually for guidance.

Sanctification means that we are made the children of God. A child’s life is normally obedient until he chooses disobedience.

But as soon as he chooses to disobey, an inherent inner conflict is produced.

Be encouraged. On the spiritual level, inner conflict is the warning of the Spirit of God. When He warns us this way, we must stop at once and be renewed in the spirit of our mind to discern God’s will (see Romans 12:2).

If we are born again by the Spirit of God, our devotion to Him is hindered, or even stopped, by continually asking Him to guide us here and there. “…the Lord led me…” and looking back, we see the presence of a fantastic design.

If we are born of God, we will see His guiding hand and give Him the credit.

We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the growth of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail.

Never believe that the so-called random events of life are anything less than God’s appointed order.

Be encouraged and be ready to discover His divine designs anywhere and everywhere.

Beware of being obsessed with consistency in your convictions instead of being devoted to God.

If you are a saint and say, “I will never do this or that,” in all probability, this will be exactly what God will require of you.

There was never a more inconsistent being on this earth than our Lord, but He was never inconsistent with His Father.

The important consistency in a saint is not to a principle but to the divine life. The divine life continually makes more and more discoveries about the divine mind.

It is easier to be an excessive fanatic than to be consistently faithful because God causes an amazing humbling of our religious conceit when we are faithful to Him.

How do you discern when you receive a warning of the Spirit?

When do you stop to renew the Spirit of your mind, to discern God‘s will?

When you receive a warning from the spirit, your devotion to him is hindered, even stopped by continually asking him to guide you here and there.

Be encouraged and take the time to look back on your life and see the presence of an amazing design. If you are born again of God, you will see His guiding hand in your life.

Are you discovering the divine design for God’s will for your life because the Lord is leading you?

This is your question today.

13 November 2024

Faith or Experience

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and your life, do you battle through negative experiences, feelings, and moodiness, or do you have absolute devotion to the Lord to work through those feelings?

…the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. —Galatians 2:20

We must break out of our little world of experience into abandoned devotion to Him.

Think who the New Testament says Jesus Christ is, and then think of the despicable meagerness of the miserable faith we exhibit by saying, “I haven’t had this experience or that experience”!

Think what faith in Jesus Christ claims and provides— He can present us faultless before the throne of God, inexpressibly pure, absolutely righteous, and profoundly justified.

Be encouraged and stand in absolute adoring faith “in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God— and righteousness and sanctification and redemption…” (1 Corinthians 1:30).

How dare we talk of making a sacrifice for the Son of God!

We are saved from hell and destruction, and then we talk about making sacrifices!

We must continually focus and firmly place our faith in Jesus Christ— not a “prayer meeting” Jesus Christ, or a “book” Jesus Christ, but the New Testament Jesus Christ, who is God Incarnate, and who ought to strike us dead at His feet.

Be encouraged. Your faith must be in the One from whom your salvation springs. Jesus Christ wants your absolute, unrestrained devotion to Himself.

We can never experience Jesus Christ or selfishly bind Him in the confines of our hearts. Our faith must be built on determined, solid confidence in Him.

It is because we trust in experience that we see the Holy Spirit's steadfast impatience against unbelief.

Our fears are sinful, and we create our fears by refusing to nourish ourselves in our faith.

How can anyone identified with Jesus Christ suffer from doubt or fear?

Our lives should be an absolute hymn of praise resulting from perfect, irrepressible, triumphant belief.

Today, do battle. Battle through your daily moods and feelings. And emotions. You know that voice in your head.

As you are identified with Christ, what or who can you fear?

Be encouraged. You must continually place your faith in Him, not in your experience or connections.

Do you know what your faith in Jesus Christ provides?

Did you know that He can present you as faultless before God?

Did you know He can present you as absolute, pure, and justified before God?

Will you trust Him?

Do you place your faith in a prayer meeting, a book, a connection, or Jesus Christ?

This is your question today.

12 November 2024

The Changed Life

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and your life, do you understand the salvation of your soul?

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. —2 Corinthians 5:17

Be encouraged when you ask what understanding you have of your soul's salvation.

The work of salvation means that things are dramatically changed in one's real life.

You no longer look at things in the same way. Your desires are new, and the old things have lost their power to attract you.

One of the tests for determining if the work of salvation in your life is genuine is— has God changed the things that matter to you?

If you still yearn for the old things, it is absurd to talk about being born from above— you are deceiving yourself.

If you are born again, the Spirit of God makes the change very evident in your life and thoughts.

Be encouraged, for when a crisis comes, you are the most amazed person on earth at the wonderful difference in you.

There is no possibility of imagining that you did it. This complete and remarkable change is the very evidence that you are saved.

Can you say, “I am encouraged by this changed life, and I can not imagine returning to the old thoughts that kept me bound in spirit and flesh.?”

What difference has your salvation and sanctification made?

For instance, can you stand in the light of 1 Corinthians 13, or do you squirm and evade the issue?

Be encouraged. True salvation, worked out in you by the Holy Spirit, frees you completely. And as long as you “walk in the light as He is in the light” (1 John 1:7), God sees nothing to rebuke because His life is working itself into every detailed part of your being, not on the conscious level, but even more profound than your consciousness.

Do you continue to look at things the same way?

Do you still seek after old desires?

Test yourself.

Do you still yearn for the old things?

Has God changed the things that matter to you?

This is your question today.

11 November 2024

The supreme climb

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, when God speaks to you, are you compelled to confer with flesh and blood or even your thoughts, insight, or understandings, or anything that is not based on your relationship with God?

He said, "Take now your son…" —Genesis 22:2

God’s command is, “Take now,” not later. It is incredible how we debate!

Be encouraged whenever you know something is correct, but we try to find excuses for not doing it immediately.

If we are to climb to the height God reveals, it can never be done later— it must be done now.

And the sacrifice must be worked through our will before we perform it.

“So Abraham rose early in the morning…and went to the place of which God had told him” (Genesis 22:3).

Oh, the incredible simplicity of Abraham! When God spoke, he did not “confer with flesh and blood” (Galatians 1:16).

Be encouraged. However, beware when you want to “confer with flesh and blood” or even your thoughts, insights, or understandings — anything not based on your relationship with God. These are all things that compete with and hinder obedience to God.

Abraham did not choose the sacrifice. Always guard against self-chosen service for God.

Self-sacrifice may be a disease that impairs your service. If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; or even if He has made it bitter, drink it in communion with Him.

If God's providential will means a challenging time for you, go through it.

But never decide the place of your martyrdom, as if to say, “I will only go there, but no farther.”

God chose the test for Abraham, and Abraham neither delayed nor protested but steadily obeyed.

If you are not living in touch with God, it is easy to blame Him or pass judgment on Him.

Be encouraged because you must go through the trial before you have any right to pronounce a verdict. By going through the trial, you learn to know God better. God is working in us to reach His highest goals until His purpose and our purpose become one.

When you know something is right, do you find excuses for not doing it immediately?

Do you desire to choose your sacrifice?

If God has made your cup sweet, will you drink it?

If God has made your cup bitter, will you drink it?

You must go through the trial before you have any right to pronounce a verdict because by going through the trial, you learn to know God better.

God is working in you to reach His highest goals until his purpose and your purpose become one.

Be encouraged by going through the trial to get to know God better. God is working through us to reach His goals until His purpose and our purpose is one.

Are you willing to climb to the height that God reveals to you?

This is your question today. It

10 November 2024

Fellowship in the Gospel

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, when you stop telling God what you want, He can freely work in you, but will you?

…fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ… —1 Thessalonians 3:2

After sanctification, it is difficult to state your life purpose because God has moved you into His purpose through the Holy Spirit.

He is using you for His purposes throughout the world, as He used His Son for our salvation.

Be encouraged if you seek great things for yourself, thinking, “God has called me for this and for that. " You are barricading God from using you.

You cannot be completely aligned or identified with God’s interests as long as you maintain your interests and ambitions.

Be encouraged. This can only be accomplished by giving up your plans and allowing God to take you directly into His purpose for the world.

Your understanding of your ways must also be surrendered because they are now the ways of the Lord.

I must learn that my life's purpose belongs to God, not me. God is using me from His great personal perspective, and all He asks of me is that I trust Him.

I should never say, “Lord, this causes me such heartache.” To talk that way makes me a stumbling block.

When I stop telling God what I want, He can freely work His will in me without hindrance.

He can crush me, exalt me, or do anything else He chooses. He asks me to have absolute faith in Him and His goodness.

Self-pity is of the devil, and if I wallow in it, God cannot use it for His purpose in the world.

Doing this creates my own cozy “world within the world,” God will not be allowed to move me from it because of my fear of being “frost-bitten.”

Will you allow God to move you into His purpose?

Do you seek great things of God?

Are you maintaining your ambitions?

Be encouraged because, after sanctification, you must learn that your life's purpose is for God, not for you.

Are you willing to be used by God for His purpose in the world?

I am encouraged as I ask you this question. I am also asking myself the same question.

It is tough to say yes without also saying yes to the internal preparation required for me to fulfill His purpose. It is not easy, but it is better than the alternative.

Be encouraged Like David in 1 Samuel 30:6 (KJV) David encouraged himself in the LORD his God.

What about you, are you willing?

When you stop telling God what you want, He can freely work in you, but will you?

This is your question today.

9 November 2024

Sacred Service

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and your life, are you living and working in such harmony with God that as you proclaim His truth, He can create those things that He alone can do in others?

I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ… —Colossians 1:24

The Christian worker has to be a sacred “go-between.”

He must be so closely identified with his Lord and the reality of His redemption that Christ can continually bring His creating life through him.

Be encouraged. I am not referring to the strength of one individual’s personality being superimposed on another, but the real presence of Christ coming through every aspect of the worker’s life.

When we preach the historical facts of the life and death of our Lord as they are conveyed in the New Testament, our words are made sacred.

God uses these words, based on His redemption, to create something in those who listen that otherwise could never have been made.

If we preach the effects of redemption in human life instead of the revealed, divine truth regarding Jesus Himself, the result is not new birth in those who listen.

The result is a refined religious lifestyle, and the Spirit of God cannot witness it because such preaching is in a realm other than His.

Be encouraged because we must ensure that we live in such harmony with God that as we proclaim His truth, He can create in others the things He alone can do.

When we say, “What a wonderful personality, what a fascinating person, and what wonderful insight!” then what opportunity does the gospel of God have through all that?

It cannot get through because the attraction is to the messenger, not the message.

If a person attracts through his personality, that becomes his appeal.

Be encouraged if, however, he is identified with the Lord Himself. Then, the appeal becomes what Jesus Christ can do. The danger is to glory in men, yet Jesus says we are to lift only Him (see John 12:32).

Is Christ coming through in every area of your life?

Is He reflected in your health?

Is He reflected in your finances?

Is He reflected in your business?

Is He reflected through your service?

Is He reflected through your relationships?

Is He reflected in your character?

Is He reflected through your speech?

Is He reflected in your consciousness?

Be encouraged. Remember you are a sacred go-between for Him as others see Him through you.

Are you making sure that you live in such harmony with God that as you proclaim His truths, those who hear it are attracted to the message more than the messenger?

Are you attracted to the messenger or the MESSAGE?

These are your questions today.

8 November 2024

The unrivaled power of prayer

Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and your life, do you know what to pray for?

We do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes us with groanings that cannot be uttered. —Romans 8:26

We realize that the Holy Spirit energizes us for prayer, and we know what it is to pray by the Spirit, but we don’t often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prays prayers in us, which we cannot utter ourselves.

When we are born again of God and are indwelt by the Spirit of God, He expresses for us the unutterable.

“He,” the Holy Spirit in you, “makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:27).

And God searches your heart, not to know what your conscious prayers are, but to find out what the prayer of the Holy Spirit is.

Be encouraged. The Spirit of God uses the believer's nature as a temple to offer His prayers of intercession. “…your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit…” (1 Corinthians 6:19).

When Jesus Christ cleansed the temple, “…He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple” (Mark 11:16).

Be encouraged that the Spirit of God will not allow you to use your body for convenience.

Jesus ruthlessly cast out everyone who bought and sold in the temple and said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer…. But you have made it a ‘den of thieves’ ” (Mark 11:17).

Have we realized our “body is the temple of the Holy Spirit”?

If so, we must be careful to keep it undefiled for Him. We must remember that our conscious life, even though only a tiny part of our total person, is to be regarded by us as a “temple of the Holy Spirit.”

Be encouraged. He will be responsible for the unconscious part, which we don’t know, but we must pay careful attention to and guard the conscious part for which we are accountable.

Did you know that the Holy Spirit prays for you?

Did you know that God searches your heart to find the prayers of the Spirit?

This is your question today.

7 November 2024

The undetected sacredness of circumstances

Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, are you making the Holy Spirit’s work difficult by being vague and unsure or trying to do His work for Him?

Be encouraged. We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God… —Romans 8:28

God ordains the circumstances of a saint’s life. In the life of a saint, there is no such thing as chance.

God, by His providence, brings you into circumstances you can’t understand, but the Spirit of God understands.

God brings you to places, among people, and into certain conditions to accomplish a definite purpose through the intercession of the Spirit in you.

For example, it was only by looking in the rearview mirror of my life’s circumstances I could see this scripture working. Now, by faith, I can look forward in the windshield of my life with a vision of the future and believe, now what about you?

Be encouraged and never put yourself in front of your circumstances and say, “I’m going to be my providence here; I will watch this closely or protect myself from that.”

All your circumstances are in God's hands; therefore, you don’t ever have to think they are unnatural or unique.

Be encouraged and know your part in intercessory prayer is not to agonize over how to intercede but to use the everyday circumstances and people that God brings without excuses.

God puts around you by His providence to bring them before His throne and allow the Spirit in you to intercede for them.

In this way, God will touch the whole world with His saints. Am I making the Holy Spirit’s work difficult by being vague and unsure or trying to do His work for Him?

I must do the human side of intercession, utilizing my circumstances and the people around me.

I must keep my conscious life as a sacred place for the Holy Spirit. Then, as I lift different ones to God through prayer, the Holy Spirit intercedes for them.

Your intercessions can never be mine, and my intercessions can never be yours, “…but the Spirit Himself makes intercession” in each of our lives (Romans 8:26). Without that mediation, the lives of others would be left in poverty and ruin.

Do you realize that God ordains your circumstances?

Do you believe everything works together for your good if you are a believer?

Do you ever put yourself before your circumstances?

Do you know that all your circumstances are in the hands of God?

Remember, God will place you in places, among people, and under certain conditions to accomplish a definite purpose through the intercession of the Spirit in you.

Do not agonize over how to intercede for those God places in your path. Just pray and allow the Spirit in you to negotiate on their behalf.

Are you making the Holy Spirit’s work difficult by being vague and unsure or trying to do His work for Him?

This is your question today.

6 November 2024

Intimate theology

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in business and life, do you have a business challenge or a personal problem that creates an individual need to have a closer relationship with Christ?

Do you believe this? —John 11:26

Martha believed in the power available to Jesus Christ; she believed that if He had been there, He could have healed her brother; she also thought that Jesus had a unique intimacy with God and that whatever He asked of God, God would do.

But— she needed a closer personal intimacy with Jesus. Martha’s theology had its fulfillment in the future.

But Jesus continued to attract and draw her in until her belief became an intimate possession.

It slowly became a personal inheritance— “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ…” (John 11:27).

Is the Lord dealing with you in the same way? Is Jesus teaching you to have a personal intimacy with Himself? Allow Him to drive His question home to you— “Do you believe this?”

Are you facing an area of doubt in your life? Have you come, like Martha, to a crossroads of overwhelming circumstances where your theology is about to become a very personal belief? This happens only when a unique problem brings awareness of our individual needs.

To believe is to commit. In intellectual learning, I commit myself mentally and reject anything unrelated to that belief.

In personal belief, I commit myself morally to my convictions and refuse to compromise.

Be encouraged and learn in intimate personal belief, commit yourself spiritually to Jesus Christ, and be determined to be dominated by Him alone.

Then, when you stand face to face with Jesus Christ, He asks you, “Do you believe this?”

Be encouraged to find that faith is as natural as breathing. And may stagger when you think how foolish you may have been in not trusting Him earlier.

How do you commit mentally?

How do you commit morally?

How do you commit spiritually?

In his book The Problems of Pain,

CS Lewis writes, “God whispers in our pleasures, he speaks in our conscience, he shouts in our pain;” it is His megaphone to a deaf world. This quote inspires me regarding my pain.

Is Jesus teaching you to have a personal relationship with Him as He shouts in your pain?

These are your questions today.

5 November 2024

Partakers of his suffering

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in business and life, will you be used by God by attempting to shortcut partaking in His sufferings?

"..but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings...

(1 Peter 4:13).

If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through several experiences that are not meant for you.

They are designed to make you useful in His hands and to enable you to understand what takes place in the lives of others.

Because of this process, you will never be surprised by what comes your way.

You say, “Oh, I can’t deal with that person.” Why can’t you? God gave you sufficient opportunities to learn from Him about that problem, but you turned away, not heeding the lesson because it seemed foolish to spend your time that way.

Be encouraged to learn the sufferings of Christ were not those of ordinary people. He suffered “according to the will of God” (1 Peter 4:19), having a different point of view of suffering from ours.

Be encouraged that only through your relationship with Jesus Christ can you understand what God is after in His dealings with you.

When it comes to suffering, it is part of your Christian culture to want to know God’s purpose beforehand.

In the history of the Christian church, the tendency has been to avoid being identified with Jesus Christ's sufferings.

For example, this was me in m my earlier years as a Christian worshiping my mom’s God. I could not and did not want to be identified with His suffering. But now, why not me?

People have sought to carry out God’s orders through a shortcut.

God’s way is always the way of suffering— the way of the “long road home.”

It will mean not knowing why God is taking us that way because knowing would make us spiritually proud.

We never realize what God is putting us through at the time— we go through it more or less without understanding.

Then suddenly, we reach enlightenment and realize— “God has strengthened me through my struggles, and I didn’t even know it!”

Be encouraged in the moment. You may not realize what God is putting you through at the time, but will you go through it anyway?

Be encouraged when you come to a place of enlightenment.

Are you willing to be partakers of His sufferings when He takes you through experiences that are not meant for you and may seem foolish at the time?

Do you realize He will take you through experiences that are not personally meant for you? It’s not about you.

Are you surprised at what challenges you must face?

Are you prepared for God to stamp out your ambitions for His purposes?

Are you willing to be partakers in His sufferings?

These are your questions today.

4 November 2024

The Authority of Truth

Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and your life, do you allow people to act on the truth of God?

"Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you" (James 4:8).

You must give people the opportunity to act on the truth of God. The responsibility must be left with the individual— you cannot act for him.

It must be his deliberate act, but the evangelical message should always lead him to action.

Refusing to act leaves a person paralyzed, exactly where he was previously.

But once he acts, he is never the same. The apparent folly of the truth stands in the way of hundreds who the Spirit of God has convicted.

I am encouraged; I immediately begin to live once I press myself into action. Anything less is merely existing.

The moments I truly live are when I act with my entire will.

Be encouraged when the truth of God is brought home to your soul. Never allow it to pass without acting on it internally in your will, not necessarily externally in your physical life.

Be encouraged, record it with ink and blood, and work it into your life. The weakest saint who transacts business with Jesus Christ is liberated the second he acts, and God’s almighty power is available on his behalf.

We come to the truth of God, confess we are wrong, and then go back again.

Then we approach it again and turn back until we finally learn we have no business going back.

When confronted with such a word of truth from our redeeming Lord, we must move directly to transact business with Him.

“Come to Me…” (Matthew 11:28). His word come means “to act.” Yet the last thing we want to do is come.

But everyone who does come knows that, at that very moment, the supernatural power of the life of God invades him.

Be encouraged. The dominating power of the world, the flesh, and the devil is now paralyzed, not by your act, but because your act has joined you to God and tapped you into His redemptive power.

Do you know how to act on the truth of God?

Do you refuse to act when the truth is brought to your soul?

This is your question today.

3 November 2024

A bondservant of Jesus

Today, in your business and life, will you give up when you lose your independence by becoming a bondservant?

"I have been crucified with Christ: it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:20).

These words mean the breaking and collapse of my independence brought about by my own hands and the surrendering of my life to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus.

Be encouraged. No one can do this for you; you must do it yourself. God may bring you to this point three hundred and sixty-five times a year, but He cannot push you through it.

Be encouraged. It means breaking the hard outer layer of your independence from God and liberating yourself and your nature into oneness with Him, not following your ideas but choosing absolute loyalty to Jesus.

Once I am at that point, there is no possibility of misunderstanding. Very few of us know anything about loyalty to Christ or understand what He meant when He said, “…for My sake” (Matthew 5:11). That makes a strong saint.

Has that breaking of my independence come?

All the rest is religious fraud.

The one point to decide is— will I give up? Will I surrender to Jesus Christ, placing no conditions on how the brokenness will come?

I must be broken from my understanding of myself. When I reach that point, the reality of the supernatural identification with Jesus Christ occurs immediately.

And the witness of the Spirit of God is unmistakable— “I have been crucified with Christ….”

My passion for Christianity comes from deliberately signing away my rights and becoming a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I will not begin to be a saint.

One student a year who hears God’s call would be sufficient for God to have called the Bible Training College into existence.

This college has no value as an organization, not even academically. Its sole value for existence is for God to help Himself to live.

Will you allow Him to help Himself to you, or are you more concerned with your ideas of what you will be?

This is your question today.

2 November 2024

Obedience or independence?

Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, will you choose obedience or independence?

"If you love Me, keep My commandments" (John 14:15).

The Lord never insists on our obedience. He stresses what we ought to do but never forces us to do it.

Be encouraged and remember, the Lord does not give you rules, but he makes His standards very clear. If your relationship with Him is that of love, you will do what He says without hesitation.

If you hesitate, it is because you love someone you have placed in competition with Him, namely yourself.

Your personal life may be filled with small, petty happenings that are altogether insignificant. But if you obey Jesus Christ in the seemingly random circumstances of life, they become pinholes through which you can see the face of God.

Be encouraged. Then you will discover that thousands were blessed through your obedience because when God‘s redemption brings us souls to the point of obedience, it always produces.

Will you choose obedience or independence?

This is your question today.

1 November 2024

YOU ARE NOT YOUR OWN

Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, if God can accomplish His purpose through a broken heart, why not thank Him for breaking yours?

"Do you not know that . . . you are not your own?" (1 Corinthians 6:19).

There is no such thing as a private life or a place to hide in this world for a man or woman who is intimately aware of and shares in the sufferings of Jesus Christ.

The older I get, the greater clarity I get in understanding this scripture and the realization that we were bought at a price. Having received our bodies as a gift from God, we will use them to honor God.

When my problems arise and surface, I am no longer surprised; I quickly look for the lesson and turn it in. In my 70-plus years, I have experienced many heartbreaks. I no longer ask why me.

God divides the private life of His saints and makes it a highway for the world on the one hand and for Himself on the other.

Be encouraged because no human being can stand that unless identified with Jesus Christ.

We are not sanctified for ourselves. We are called into intimacy with the gospel, and things that appear to have nothing to do with us happen.

But God is getting us into fellowship with Himself. Let Him have His way. If you refuse, you will be of no value to God in His redemptive work, but you will be a hindrance and a stumbling block.

The first thing God does is ground us in strong reality and truth. He does this until our care has been brought into submission to His way for His redemption.

Be encouraged. Why shouldn’t you experience heartbreak? Through those doorways, God is opening up ways of fellowship with His Son.

Be encouraged. Most of us collapse at the first grip of pain. We sit down at the door of God’s purpose and enter a slow death through self-pity.

And all the so-called Christian sympathy of others helps us to our deathbed.

But God will not. He comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son as if to say, “Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine.”

If God can accomplish His purposes through a broken heart, why not thank Him for breaking yours?

This is your question today.