Oswald Chambers (1874 – 1917) lived a brief 43 years but his legacy and fame became world-wide through his daily devotional My Utmost for His Highest, the most popular devotional book of all time, published six years after his death by his widow.
Chambers was an early twentieth-century Scottish evangelist and teacher who had a wonderful gift of speaking. He fashioned himself as a traveling preacher in the British Isles. In 1908 he began a tour in the United States and while aboard the ship to America he met his future wife, Gertrude Hobbs, who he married two years later. As providence would have it she studied Pitman shorthand and became a stenographer.
Early on in their marriage they felt the call of God to open a Bible College in London. Unfortunately, shortly after they opened the school World War I broke out and the Chambers’ found themselves without students. They closed the school and fortunately the YMCA offered Oswald a chaplaincy position to the British troops in Zeitoun, Egypt, which he started in October 1915. His wife and only child, Kathleen, joined him by Christmas of that year. Sadly, two years later Oswald died from complications following an operation for a ruptured appendix.
But Oswald’s widow, I believe, realized that her late husband’s work was not finished and she embarked on a 50 year labor of love working to get Oswald’s teachings and sermons into print. According to John Hudson Tiner: “At the time of his death, Oswald had written but one book, Baffled to Fight Better. Mrs. Chambers returned to London. During their seven years together, she had taken shorthand notes of his messages. She combined her notes with his journals, sermons, lectures, letters, and poems. She began Oswald Chambers Publishing, and over the next 50 years, she compiled 30 published books that bear her husband’s name.”1 And one of these books, as mentioned above, My Utmost for His Highest, is the most popular devotional book of all time!
Below is a small sample of quotes by Oswald Chambers that I believe will show you the depth of his spiritual insights.2
“We are not responsible for the circumstances we are in, but we are responsible for the way we allow those circumstances to affect us; we can either allow them to get on top of us or we can allow them to transform us into what God wants us to be.”
“The remarkable thing about God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else.”
“Spiritual maturity is not reached by the passing of the years, but by obedience to the will of God.”
“We pray when there’s nothing else we can do; Jesus wants us to pray before we do anything at all.”
“Solitude with God repairs the damage done by the fret and noise and clamour of the world.”
“There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself. If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you – and His experiments always succeed.”
“Never water down the Word of God, but preach it in its undiluted sternness. There must be unflinching faithfulness to the Word of God, but when you come to personal dealings with others, remember who you are – you are not some special being created in heaven, but a sinner saved by grace.”
“All our fret and worry is caused by calculating without God.”
“We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties.”
“God never gives us discernment in order that we may criticize, but that we may intercede.”
“All heaven is interested in the cross of Christ, all hell terribly afraid of it, while men are the only beings who more or less ignore its meaning.”
“We are not sent to do battle for God, but to be used by God in His battles.”
“Never make the blunder of trying to forecast the way God is going to answer your prayer.”
“God will never reveal more truth about himself until you have obeyed what you know already.”
“Christianity is not devotion to work, or to a cause, or a doctrine, but devotion to a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
“Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him.”
“You must learn to wrestle against the things that hinder your communication with God.”
“Get into the habit of saying, ‘Speak, Lord,’ and life will become a romance.”
“Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless in the first waking moment of the day you learn to fling the door wide back and let God in, you will work on a wrong level all day; but swing the door wide open and pray to your Father in secret, and every public thing will be stamped with the presence of God.”
“When you meet a man or woman who puts Jesus Christ first, knit that one to your soul.”
“No healthy Christian ever chooses suffering; he chooses God’s will, as Jesus did, whether it means suffering or not.”
“Don’t forget to pray today because God did not forget to wake you up this morning.”
“The golden rule for understanding spiritually is not intellect, but obedience. If a man wants scientific knowledge, intellectual curiosity is his guide; but if he wants insight into what Jesus Christ teaches, he can only get it by obedience.”
1 John Hudson Tiner, For Those Who Dare (Green Forest, Arkansas: Master Books, Inc. 2002), p. 242.
2 All of these quotes are from the following website:
TOP 25 QUOTES BY OSWALD CHAMBERS (of 754) | A-Z Quotes (azquotes.com)