Oswald Chambers

Prayer is not getting things from God. That is a most initial stage; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God: I tell Him what I know He knows in order that I may get to know it as He does.

God makes us as broken bread and poured-out wine to please Him. Beware of competing calls once the call of God grips you.

Repentance always brings a person to the point of saying, “I have sinned.” The surest sign that God is at work in his life is when he says that and means it. Anything less is simply sorrow for having made foolish mistakes-a reflex action caused by self-disgust.

The only way we can be of use to God is to let Him take us through the crooks and crannies of our own characters.

The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of principles to be obeyed apart from identification with Jesus Christ. The Sermon on the Mount is a statement of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is getting his way with us.

Never consider whether you are of use; but ever consider that you are not your own but His.

Wait on God and He will work, but don't wait in spiritual sulks because you cannot see an inch in front of you! Are we detached enough from our spiritual hysterics to wait on God? To wait is not to sit with folded hands, but to learn to do what we are told.

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

Do I believe that God can change bitter circumstances into sweet blessing? Am I willing to let Him?

If we are devoted to the cause of humanity, we shall soon be crushed and broken-hearted, for we shall 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 fellow men.

The peace that Jesus gives is never engineered by circumstances on the outside.

Discipleship is based solely on devotion to Jesus Christ, not on following after a particular belief or doctrine.

We think of prayer as a preparation for work, or a calm after having done work, whereas prayer is the essential work.

We say, sorrow, disaster, calamity. God says, chastening and it sounds sweet to him though it is a discord to our ears. Don't faint when you are rebuked, and don't despise the chastening of the Lord. In your patience possess your souls.

The saint is hilarious when he is crushed with difficulties because the thing is so ludicrously impossible to anyone but God.

If ever we are going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed; you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed. I wonder what kind of finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you, and you have been like a marble and escaped?

Get into the habit of saying, ''Speak, Lord,'' and life will become a romance.

God's grace turns out men and women with a strong family likeness to Jesus Christ, not milksops.

Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything.

Obedience to the call of Christ nearly always costs everything to two people- the one who is called, and the one who loves that one.

Beware of reasoning about God's Word - obey It.