Tag: Oswald Chambers

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A Joyous Delight

Supernatural Fulfillment 

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

Delight is a genuine joy that wells up within our inner being knowing that we can bless God’s heart by obeying his commands. A believer’s delight is found in their motivation: pleasing, knowing, and loving God brings them great joy. Delight is found in the face of God as we enjoy his constant, conscious presence. In the mist of the stresses, trials, and tribulations of everyday life, Christ’s presence fills our hearts with supernatural satisfaction.

The stronghold of the Christian faith is the joy of God, not my joy in God …. God reigns and rules and rejoices, and His joy is our strength.

Oswald Chambers, Run Today’s Race: A Word from Oswald Chambers for Every Day of the Year, electronic ed. (London : Oswald Chambers Publications Association, Ltd., 1968).

Oh the joy of that life with God and in God and for God! It takes a sharp discipline for many of us to learn that “my goal is God Himself, not joy, nor peace, nor even blessing, but Himself my God.

Oswald Chambers, God’s Workmanship, electronic ed. (Hants, UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1953).

 

 

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Tumult and Anguish

Fear and Apprehension

Do not be anxious about anything, sbut in everything by prayer and supplication twith thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Phil. 4:6 ESV

Anxiety is fear and apprehension resident in our hearts created by constant worry. A troubled, disturbing, uneasiness of mind characterizes our anxious feelings. Anxiety develops as we fear an impending event, anticipated trial, or unexpected disappointment.

Our anxiety is due to a lack of confidence in God’s promises and covenant faithfulness. This overwhelming apprehension is a symptom of our unwillingness to believe God with unanticipated, unpleasant events. We are delivered from our anxiety by laying our fears at the feet of Jesus through prayer and worship.

It is so easy, we think, to “rest in the Lord,” and to “wait patiently for Him,” until the nest is upset; until we live, as many are living to-day, in tumult and anguish—is it possible then? If this “Don’t” does not work then, it will not work at any time.

Resting in the Lord does not depend upon external circumstances, but on the relationship of the life of God in me to God Himself. Fussing generally ends in sin. We imagine that a little anxiety and worry is an indication of how wise we really are; it may be an indication of how wicked we really are.

Oswald Chambers, God’s Workmanship (UK : Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1953).

 

 

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The Trinity Wants You Free

All the Members of the Trinity Want You Holy

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

2 Cor. 13:14

The Father is the Heavenly Vinedresser, the Son is the Vine, and the Holy Spirit is Life itself (John 15: 1-4, 7:37-38). The Father outwardly prunes, the Son indwells us, and the Holy Spirit works through us.  The Father sovereignly directs our circumstances, the Son’s work redeems the circumstance, and the Holy Spirit transforms us in the midst of our circumstances. In short, the Father directs, the Son performs, and the Holy Spirit applies. The Holy Spirit does in us what the Son did for us on the Cross by the will of the Father. All three persons, the Triune God of grace, wants you and me to be free. Free from sin. Free from guilt and shame. Free to enjoy the eternal, unconditional love of God.

The Father is intimately involved in our lives so that our circumstances train us in godliness. The Son has set us free from both the penalty and the power of sin so that we now live under the reign of grace. The Spirit gives us a new attitude toward sin and a new power to change.

The combined forces of the Trinity are at work in our lives to set us free and make us holy.

Tim Chester, You Can Change (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2010), 53.

Jesus Christ cannot begin to do anything for a man until he knows his need; but immediately he is at his wits’ end through sin or limitation or agony and cannot go any further, Jesus Christ says to him, Blessed are you; if you ask God for the Holy Spirit, He will give Him to you. God does not give us the Holy Spirit until we come to the place of seeing that we cannot do without Him (Luke 11:13).

Oswald Chambers, The Shadow of an Agony [CD-Rom] (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1934).

HT: Of First Importance

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What the Blood of Christ Does . . .

Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deedsso that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.

Heb. 9:14 NLT

The blood of Christ is clear confirmation that Christ died a sacrificial death to pay for our release from the captivity of sin and bondage to Satan’s schemes. In other words, we owe our salvation to the death of Christ. His blood removes our guilt before God (1 Pet.1:18-19), cleanses ours stricken consciences (Heb. 9:14), gives us bold access to the Father (Heb. 10:19), on-going cleansing from our sin (1 John 1:7) and conquers all of Satan’s accusations (Rev. 12:10-11). Jesus’ blood condemns death and in that death, the penalty of our sin was paid.

The expression “the blood of Christ” means not only that Christ shed His blood, but that He poured out His very life before God. In the Old Testament the idea of sacrifice is that the blood, which is the life (see Genesis 4:4), is poured out to God, its Giver. When Jesus Christ shed His blood on the Cross it was not the blood of a martyr, or the blood of one man for another; it was the life of God poured out to redeem the world.

Oswald Chambers, Biblical Ethics (Hants, UK : Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1997), 60.

 

 

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Who Are the Poor in Spirit?

The Spiritually Bankrupt

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matt. 5:3 NIV

Every year, the gospel reading for Ash Wednesday is the Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7); it is a privilege to yearly meditate and preach on this great sermon. Last Ash Wednesday, we examined several significant truths found within Jesus’ magisterial teaching, let’s look at one of those insights in this post and several more in the coming days.

Who are the poor in spirit? Eugene Peterson paraphrases this verse in The Message, “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.” For Peterson, the poor in spirit are those who are at the end of their rope: they have nowhere else to turn, nowhere else to hide, and no one else who can help. They have nothing left, but God.

Indeed, the poor in spirit acknowledge their complete and utter bankruptcy before God. They are afflicted and know deep down inside that they cannot save themselves. The poor in spirit confess their unworthiness and utter dependence on God’s mercy and grace. The “poor” have confidence only in God. These dear ones will receive God’s kingdom: the rule and reign of Christ in their hearts now. They will experience the very life of God: all he is and who is in their lives today.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit”—towards God. Am I a pauper towards God? Do I know I cannot prevail in prayer; I cannot blot out the sins of the past; I cannot alter my disposition; I cannot lift myself nearer to God? Then I am in the very place where I am to receive the Holy Spirit. No man can receive the Holy Spirit who is not convinced he is a pauper spiritually.

Oswald Chambers, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, electronic ed. (Hants, UK : Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1996).

 

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“He Came to Make Us What He Teaches We Should Be”

The Sermon on the Mount

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matt. 5:3 NIV

It’s just impossible! Absolutely impossible! I thought to myself as I read the Sermon on the Mount for the first time. I can’t, and no one can, live and obey Jesus’ directives in this sermon. Three chapters of loving those who hate you, laying down your life for those who persecute you, and forgiving those who have used you. Not only are Jesus’ words difficult to keep, but also, these admonitions should be obeyed out of love with a joyful heart. This sermon is impossible to live. But, that’s the rub.

We can’t live the Sermon the Mount in our own power. We must be poor in spirit desperately needing God’s strength in our weakness (Matt. 5:3). We must be mourners, a people who grieve the state of our fallenness yearning for help (Matt. 5:4). We must hunger and thirst for righteousness for we have no means within ourselves to overcome the world’s influences, sin’s grip, and the devil’s temptations (Matt. 5:6). The Sermon on the Mount is lived not by being adequate, but by being available. That is, available to Christ’s all-powerful and sufficient grace (2 Cor. 9:8; 12:9).

The Sermon on the Mount can only be lived by trusting Christ to live his life in and through us (1 John 4:9). Only Christ successfully lived the Sermon on the Mount and he can do it again in us (Col. 1:27). By summary, the Sermon on the Mount is what our lives look like when Christ is having his way in us.

Beware of placing our Lord as Teacher first instead of Saviour. That tendency is prevalent today, and it is a dangerous tendency. We must know Him first as Saviour before His teaching can have any meaning for us, or before it can have any meaning other than that of an ideal which leads to despair. Fancy coming to men and women with defective lives and defiled hearts and wrong mainsprings, and telling them to be pure in heart! What is the use of giving us an ideal we cannot possibly attain? We are happier without it.

If Jesus is a Teacher only, then all He can do is to tantalise us by erecting a standard we cannot come anywhere near. But if by being born again from above  we know Him first as Saviour, we know that He did not come to teach us only: He came to make us what He teaches we should be. The Sermon on the Mount is a statement of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is having His way with us (emphasis mine).

Oswald Chambers, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, electronic ed. (Hants, UK : Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1996), 10.

 

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My Baptism in the Spirit (Part One)

 

 

What is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?

Be (continuously) filled with the Spirit.

Eph. 5:18

As I begin this series of personal reflections of my experience in the Holy Spirit, let me define what I mean by the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.

The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is a state of being totally overwhelmed in the presence of Jesus Christ both within and without. “Being filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18) refers to God’s presence fully saturating our hearts, souls, minds, and spirits. This infilling is not only a one time experience at conversion or just a singular dramatic encounter occurring later in the Christian life. The filling of the Spirit is to be a life lived continually in God’s presence. The infilling of the Spirit is a crisis, a one-time encounter, and a process. This on-going experience of the Spirit is sometimes described as one baptism and many fillings.

The filling of the Spirit should be our moment by moment experience of the constant, conscious presence of Christ.  “Being constantly filled,” (Eph. 5:18) with the Holy Spirit is freedom to enjoy Christ and his presence on a daily, if not, hourly, and even possibly, minute-by minute basis. The filling of the Spirit is described by the Apostle Paul as a daily “walking in the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25). The Lord desires something better for us, a continual abiding in the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9) as we perform the daily tasks of life.

The supreme test and proof of the fullness of the Spirit is the Presence and Preciousness of Christ.

W. H. Griffith Thomas, The Holy Spirit of God(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1913), 278.

The thought is unspeakably full of glory, that God the Holy Ghost can come into my heart and fill it so full that the life of God will manifest itself all through this body which used to manifest exactly the opposite. If I am willing and determined to keep in the light and obey the Spirit, then the characteristics of the indwelling Christ will manifest themselves.

Oswald Chambers, Biblical Psychology : A Treasure Chest for Christian Counselors, (London: Simpkin Marshall., 1996), 146.

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Bored and Weary

Loss of Joy and Fulfillment in God

Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand.

Col 3:1 NLT

Boredom is the refusal to enjoy the presence of God and weariness is our unwillingness to be refreshed in Christ. Boredom is the result of becoming so focused on the passing pleasures of this life that we forget the joy of our heavenly reward. Boredom is being so absorbed by the immediate gratification of electronic stimuli that we cannot enjoy the simple blessing of God’s presence.  Boredom is a state of being weary and restless caused by the loss of the constant conscious presence of Christ. Boredom and weariness are sisters, they are both symptoms of our loss of joy, peace, and rest in God.

There is no such thing as weariness in God’s work. If you are in tune with the joy of God, the more you spend out in God’s service, the more the recuperation goes on, and when once the warning note of weariness is given, it is a sign that something has gone wrong. If only we would heed the warning, we would find it is God’s wonderfully gentle way of saying—“Not that way; that must be left alone; this must be given up.” Spiritual fatigue comes from the unconscious frittering away of God’s time. When you feel weary or are exhausted, don’t ask for hot milk, but get back to God.

Oswald Chambers, Not Knowing Where (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House, 1996).

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Enfleshment

God Became Actual

Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

Phil. 2:6-8 NLT

Incarnation means enfleshment: Jesus Christ is God in human flesh. The great act of God: the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God, took upon himself our human nature. Incarnation means that God is with us, near us, transforming us. The incarnation means that God cared and came among us to deliver us from ourselves.

Jesus Christ is God-Man. God in Essence cannot come anywhere near us. Almighty God does not matter to me, He is in the clouds. To be of any use to me, He must come down to the domain in which I live; and I do not live in the clouds but on the earth. The doctrine of the Incarnation is that God did come down into our domain. The Wisdom of God, the Word of God, the exact expression of God, was manifest in the flesh. That is the great doctrine of the New Testament—dust and Deity made one. The pure gold of Deity is of no use to us unless it is amalgamated in the right alloy, viz. the pure Divine working on the basis of the pure human: God and humanity one, as in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Oswald Chambers, Shade of His Hand: Talks on the Book of Ecclesiastes (Hants UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1936).

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Deep Supernatural Fulfillment

Joy in You

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

John 15:11

Joy is that deep, supernatural fulfillment that comes in knowing that we are experiencing and expressing the one who is true satisfaction, Jesus Christ. Joy begins with acknowledging that we are unconditionally loved, graciously forgiven, and eternally kept in Christ. Joy is released in our lives when we cultivate Christ’s conscious, constant presence.

Joy is not produced by celebration or emotional highs: supernatural fulfillment is imparted by obedience to God’s commands. Joy is not dependent on pleasant circumstances, but it is the fruit of finding and meeting Christ in the midst of all our circumstances both pleasant and painful. Joy is spontaneously experiencing the risen Jesus and sharing him with others.

Joy is not happiness, joy is the result of the perfect fulfilment of the purpose of the life. We never want praise if we have done perfectly what we ought to do; we only want praise if we are not sure whether we have done well. Jesus did not want praise; He did not need it, and He says “that My joy may be in you” (rv). The joy of Jesus Christ was in the absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice of Himself to His Father, the joy of doing what the Father sent Him to do—“I delight to do Thy will,” and that is the joy He prays may be in His disciples.

It is not a question of trying to work as Jesus did, but of having the personal presence of the Holy Ghost Who works in us the nature of Jesus. One of the consolations of the way is the fathomless joy of the Holy Ghost manifesting itself in us as it did in the Son of God in the days of His flesh.

Oswald Chambers, So Send I You: The Secret of the Burning Heart (Hants UK: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1930), 98.