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

31 December 2024

And every virtue we possess

By Oswald Chambers

Today in your business and life the life God places within us develops its new virtues, not the virtues of the seed of Adam, but of Jesus Christ.

Once God has begun the process of sanctification in your life, watch and see how God causes your confidence in your natural virtues and power to wither away.

He will continue until you learn to draw your life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus. Thank God if you are going through this drying-up experience.

I am encouraged by the realization that we dwell in God's presence.

We are His temples. Our bodies are His temple, the place where His glory dwells, His spirit dwells in us, and therefore every virtue we possess.

Our Lord never "patches up" our natural virtues, that is, our natural traits, qualities, or characteristics.

He completely remakes a person on the inside-_" .. put on the new man. (Ephesians 4:24).

Is your natural human life is putting on all that is in keeping with the new life?

This is your question today.

30 December 2024

Deserter or disciple?

By Oswald Chambers

Today in your business and your life, are you a deserter or a disciple, a backslider or devoted Christian? When God, by His Spirit through His Word, gives you a clear vision of His will, you must "walk in the light" of that vision (1 John 1:7).

Even though your mind and soul may be thrilled by it, if you don't "walk in the light" of it you will sink to a level of bondage never envisioned by our Lord.

We tend to lie back and bask in the memory of the wonderful experience we had when God revealed His will to us.

But if a New Testament standard is revealed to us by the light of God, and we don't try to measure up, or even feel inclined to do so, then we begin to backslide.

I am encouraged by the words of Janet Denison’s interpretation of John 6:6

“Many of his disciples went back and walked with Him no more.” But the ones that stayed – changed the world.

Does your conscience respond to the truth?

This is your question today.

29 December 2024

Deserter or disciple?

Today in your business and your life, are you a deserter or a disciple, a backslider or devoted Christian?

When God, by His Spirit through His Word, gives you a clear vision of His will, you must "walk in the light" of that vision (1 John 1:7).

Even though your mind and soul may be thrilled by it, if you don't "walk in the light" of it you will sink to a level of bondage never envisioned by our Lord.

We tend to lie back and bask in the memory of the wonderful experience we had when God revealed His will to us. But if a New Testament standard is revealed to us by the light of God, and we don't try to measure up, or even feel inclined to do so, then we begin to backslide.

I am encouraged by the words of Janet Denison’s interpretation of John 6:6 “Many of his disciples went back and walked with Him no more.” But the ones that stayed – changed the world.

Does your conscience respond to the truth? This is your question today.

28 December 2024

Continuous conversion

By Oswald Chambers

Today in your business and your life, what God sees as the stubborn weakness we call strength.

There are whole areas of our lives that have not yet been brought into submission and this can be done by continuous conversion.

To refuse to continue to be converted puts a stumbling block in the growth of your spiritual life; therefore do you continue to trust in your abilities rather than God’s?

I am encouraged in knowing that when God brings me into new situations, I should immediately make sure that my natural life submits to the spiritual, obeying the orders of the Spirit of God.

No I’m not 100% there yet. Yes, He is still working on me teaching me how to recognize His voice, and I continue to be open to continuous conversion.

Just because we have responded properly in the past is no guarantee that we will do so again.

The response of the natural to the spiritual should be continuous conversion, but this is where we so often refuse to be obedient.

No matter what our situation is, the Spirit of God remains unchanged and His salvation unaltered. But we must "put on the new man ..." (Ephesians 4:24).

God holds us accountable every time we refuse to convert ourselves, and He sees our refusal as willful disobedience.

Our natural life must not rule God must rule in us, will you allow His Spirit to rule?

This is your question today.

27 December 2024

Where the battle is won or lost

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, did you know your battles are won or lost in the secret places of our will in God’s presence, never in the way of the world?

"If you will return, O Israel," says the Lord… —Jeremiah 4:1

Be encouraged as your battles are first won or lost in the secret places of our will in God’s presence, never in full view of the world.

The Spirit of God seizes me, and I am compelled to get alone with God and fight the battle before Him. Until I do this, I will lose every time. The battle may take one minute or one year, but that will depend on me, not God.

However long it takes, I must wrestle with it alone before God, and I must resolve to go through the hell of renunciation or rejection before Him. Be encouraged. Nothing has any power over someone who has fought the battle before God and won there.

I should never say, “I will wait until I get into difficult circumstances, and then I’ll put God to the test.” Trying to do that will not work.

I must settle the issue between God and myself in the secret places of my soul, where no one else can interfere. Then, I can go ahead, knowing that the battle is won. Lose it there, and calamity, disaster, and defeat before the world are as sure as the laws of God.

The reason the battle is lost is that I fight it first in the external world. Get alone with God, battle before Him, and settle the matter once and for all. In dealing with other people, our stance should always be to drive them toward deciding their will.

That is how surrendering to God begins. Not often, but every once in a while, God brings us to a significant turning point— a great crossroads in our life.

From that point, we either go toward a more and more slow, lazy, and useless Christian life, or we become more and more on fire, giving our utmost for His highest— our best for His glory.

Did you know that your battles are won or lost in the secret places of our will in God’s presence, never in the way of the world?

This is your question today

26 December 2024

Walk in the light

By Oswald Chambers

Today in your business and your life, walking in the light” means “growing in holiness and maturing in the faith as we follow Jesus.”

Walking in the light means, “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)

No one knows what sin is until he is born again.

For a person to know what sin is requires the full work and deep touch of the atonement of Jesus Christ which is the imparting of His absolute perfection.

This is achieved through the Holy Spirit administering the work of the atonement to us in the conscience as well as the unconscious realm.

Therefore we must walk in the light as He is in the light, not in the light of my consciousness but in God’s light.

I am encouraged in learning that when I walk in this light His amazing truth is revealed there.

I find one of the best supports for me and the best explanation of the light is written in Psalm 119:105 “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

Have you ever wondered how to walk in the light?

This is your question today

25 December 2024

His birth and our rebirth

By Oswald Chambers

Today in your business and your life, the Holy One is to be born and will be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35). Jesus Christ was born into this world, not from it. He did not emerge out of history; He came into history from the outside.

Jesus Christ is not the best human being the human race can boast of – He is a Being for whom the human race can take no credit at all.

Jesus Christ is not man becoming God, but God Incarnate- God coming into human flesh from outside it. Jesus Christ's life is the highest and the holiest entering through the most humble of doors.

Our Lord's birth was an advent- -the appearance of God in human form. I am encouraged in learning (Galatians 4:19). Just as our Lord came into human history from outside it, He must also come into me from outside.

I have allowed my personal human life to become a "Bethlehem" for the Son of God. I cannot enter the realm of the kingdom of God unless I am born again from above by a birth totally unlike physical birth. "You must be born again" (John 3:7).

This is not a command, but a fact based on the authority of God.

The evidence of the new birth is that I yield myself so completely to God that "Christ is formed" in me. And once "Christ is formed" in me, His nature immediately begins to work through me.

Have you allowed your human life to become a Bethlehem for the Son of God?

This is your question today

24 December 2024

The hidden life

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and your life, will you live the hidden life?

Your life is hidden with Christ in God. —Colossians 3:3 Be encouraged. The Spirit of God testifies to and confirms the simple but almighty security of the life that “is hidden with Christ in God.”

Paul continually brought this out in his New Testament letters. We talk as if living a sanctified life were the most uncertain and insecure thing we could do. Yet it is the most secure thing possible because it has Almighty God in and behind it.

Be encouraged because the most dangerous and unsure thing is to try to live without God. For one who is born again, it is easier to live in a right-standing relationship with God than it is to go wrong, provided we heed God’s warnings and “walk in the light” (1 John 1:7).

When we think of being delivered from sin, being “filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18), and “walk[ing] in the light,” we picture the peak of a great mountain. We see it as very high and outstanding, but we say, “Oh, I could never live up there!”

However, when we do get there through God’s grace, we find it is not a mountain peak at all but a plateau with plenty of room to live and grow. “You enlarged my path under me, so my feet did not slip” (Psalm 18:36).

Be encouraged. When you see Jesus, I defy you to doubt Him.

If you see Him when He says, “Let not your heart be troubled…” (John 14:27), I defy you to worry. It is virtually impossible to doubt when He is there. Whenever you are in personal contact with Jesus, His words are actual to you.

“The peace I give to you…” (John 14:27)— a peace which brings an unconstrained confidence and covers you completely, from the top of your head to the soles of your feet. “…your life is hidden with Christ in God,” and the peace of Jesus Christ that cannot be disturbed has been imparted to you.

Be encouraged, for it is the Spirit of God that testifies and confirms the security of the life that is hidden with Christ in God. Living a sanctified and secure life is the best life to live.

The opposite is the most dangerous, unsafe, and unsure thing to do, which is to live without God. Just imagine and picture the peak of a very high mountain. You can see it is very high and excellent.

Then you may say oh, I could never live up there. This is an example of walking in the light and living a life hidden in Christ after taking the necessary steps to get closer and closer to the peak... I am encouraged to be hidden in Christ Jesus and walk in that light even when I cannot see the next step on the mountain or valley.

This has brought me closer and closer to His Infinite Intelligence through every challenge and struggle.

I am grateful as I learn to live in the hidden life.

Will you live the hidden life?

This is your question today.

23 December 2024

Sharing in the atonement

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and your life, when sharing in the atonement do you have the slightest interest in boasting as if it’s all about you?

God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ… —Galatians 6:14

The gospel of Jesus Christ always forces a decision of our will.

Have I accepted God’s verdict on sin as judged on the Cross of Christ? Do I have even the slightest interest in the death of Jesus? Do I want to be identified with His death— to be completely dead to all interest in sin, worldliness, and self?

Do I long to be so closely identified with Jesus that I am of no value for anything except Him and His purposes?

The great privilege of discipleship is that I can commit myself under the banner of His Cross, and that means death to sin. You must get alone with Jesus and either decide to tell Him that you do not want sin to die out in you or that, at any cost, you want to be identified with His death.

Be encouraged. When you act in confident faith in what our Lord did on the cross, a supernatural identification with His death takes place immediately.

And you will know through a higher knowledge that your old life was “crucified with Him” (Romans 6:6). The proof that your old life is dead, having been “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20), is the incredible ease with which the life of God in you now enables you to obey the voice of Jesus Christ.

Be encouraged because every once in a while, our Lord gives us a glimpse of what we would be like if it were not for Him. This confirms He said— “…without Me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

That is why the underlying foundation of Christianity is personal, passionate devotion to the Lord Jesus.

We mistake the joy of our first introduction into God’s kingdom as His purpose for getting us there.

Yet God’s purpose in getting us into His kingdom is that we may realize all that identification with Jesus Christ means. The gospel of Christ always forces a decision of the will. Do you have the slightest interest in the death of Jesus?

Do you want to be identified with His death to be utterly dead of all interest in sin, worldliness, and self?

Do you long to be so closely identified with Jesus that you have no value for anything except Him?

These are your questions to ponder today

22 December 2024

Sharing in the atonement

By Oswald Chambers

Today in your business and your life, when sharing in the atonement do you have the slightest interest in boasting as if it’s all about you?

The gospel of Christ always forces a decision of the will. Do you have the slightest interest in the death of Jesus?

Do you want to be identified with His death to be completely dead of all interest in sin, worldliness, and self?

Do you long to be so closely identified with Jesus that you have no value for anything except Him?

You must get alone with Jesus and either decide to tell Him that you do not want the sun to die out in you or at any cost that you want to be closely identified with His death.

These are is your questions to ponder today.

21 December 2024

Experience or God's revealed truth

By Oswald Chambers

Today in your business and life, your experiences are not what makes redemption real, redemption is reality.

Consider this, redemption has no real meaning until it is worked out in your consciousness. When you are born again the Spirit of God takes you beyond yourself and your experiences and identifies you with Jesus Christ.

Beware God will make you impatient with your experiences.

Be relentless and hard on yourself if you are in the habit of talking about the experiences you have had. When your faith is based on experience it is not faith.

Faith is based on God’s revealed truth this is the only faith there is.

I am encouraged in knowing that, “We have received the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things which have been freely given to us by God” (1 Corinthians 2:12) What had he freely given?

Therefore also God hath abundantly revealed it to us, that of these "all things" we speak of, He hath given Himself both as the cause and the substance; so that we may know that as all blessings come from God.

Is there any experience dearer to you than your Lord, as you attempt to hold back the Holy Spirit?

This is your question today.

20 December 2024

The right kind of help

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, do you think you are helping lost people with your sympathy and understanding?

And I, if I am lifted…will draw all peoples to Myself. —John 12:32

Very few of us have any understanding of the reason why Jesus Christ died.

If all human beings need sympathy, then the Cross of Christ is absurd, and there is no need for it.

The world needs not “a little bit of love” but major surgery.

When you find yourself face to face with a person who is spiritually lost, remind yourself of Jesus Christ on the cross.

If that person can get to God in any other way, the Cross of Christ is unnecessary.

If you think you are helping lost people with your sympathy and understanding, you are a traitor to Jesus Christ.

Be encouraged. You must have a right-standing relationship with Him and pour your life out in helping others in His way— not in a human way that ignores God.

The theme of today’s world religion is to serve in a pleasant, non-confrontational manner.

But our only priority must be to present Jesus Christ crucified and always lift Him up (see 1 Corinthians 2:2).

Every belief not firmly rooted in the Cross of Christ will lead people astray.

If the worker believes in Jesus Christ and trusts the reality of redemption, his words will be compelling to others.

What is extremely important is for the worker’s simple relationship with Jesus Christ to be strong and growing.

His usefulness to God depends on that and that alone.

The calling of a New Testament worker is to expose sin and to reveal Jesus Christ as Savior.

Consequently, he cannot always be charming and friendly but must be willing to be stern to accomplish significant surgery.

God sends us to lift Jesus Christ, not to give wonderfully beautiful speeches.

Be encouraged because we must be willing to examine others as deeply as God has reviewed us. We must also be sharply intent on sensing those Scripture passages that will drive the truth home and not be afraid to apply them.

Do you understand how to connect with the right kind of help?

Do you ever wonder if there are other ways to get to God?

Do you believe you have a spiritual life, an interior life, like another self inside of you?

Do you believe you should invest time in silence with this other self?

Be encouraged that your relationship with Christ should be firm and growing. You cannot always be charming and friendly. You must be willing to examine others as strongly as God looks at you.

I am encouraged daily to lift the Cross of Christ and continue to grow spiritually by getting the right kind of help and understanding that every belief that is not rooted in Christ will lead me astray.

Will you invest some quiet time to get the right kind of help from the divine within?

Do you think you are helping lost people with your sympathy and understanding?

This is your question today.

18 December 2024

Test of faithfulness

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, do you genuinely believe that God controls all your circumstances?

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

Be encouraged. Only a faithful person truly believes that God sovereignly controls his circumstances.

We take our circumstances for granted, saying God is in control but not believing it.

We act as if people control entirely the things that happen.

To be faithful in every circumstance means having only one loyalty or object of our faith— the Lord Jesus Christ.

God may cause our circumstances to suddenly fall apart, revealing our unfaithfulness to Him for not recognizing that He had ordained the situation.

We never saw what He was trying to accomplish, and that exact event will never be repeated.

This is where the test of our faithfulness comes in.

If we learn to worship God even during difficult circumstances, He will quickly change them for the better if He so chooses.

Be encouraged because being faithful to Jesus Christ is the most challenging thing we try to do today.

We will be faithful to our work, serving others, or doing anything else; don’t ask us to be loyal to Jesus Christ.

Many Christians become very impatient when we talk about faithfulness to Jesus.

Our Lord is dethroned more deliberately by Christian workers than by the world.

We treat God as if He were a machine designed only to bless us, and we think of Jesus as just another one of the workers.

The goal of faithfulness is not that we will do work for God but that He will be free to do His work through us.

God calls us to His service and assigns us tremendous responsibilities. He expects no complaining from us and does not explain His part. God wants to use us as He used His own Son.

When you are encouraged, It is through your faithfulness that you can genuinely believe that God sovereignly controls your circumstances.

God may cause our circumstances to suddenly fall apart, which may lead us to realize that we have been unfaithful to Him by not recognizing that He has ordained the situation.

As a believer, do you believe everything works together for your good?

Do you act and believe that other people control your circumstances as a believer?

As a believer, do you treat your Lord like one of the other hired workers to bless you?

I am encouraged to take one day at a time, and staying focused, positive, and faithful to God is one of the most challenging things I encounter.

When God creates circumstances that allow my life to fall apart, I still trust Him and worship Him for it and through it all. This is where the test of my faithfulness comes in.

Will you pass the test of faithfulness?

This is your question today.

17 December 2024

Redemption – creating the need, it satisfies

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and your life, did you know that the gospel creates a need for the gospel?

The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him… —1 Corinthians 2:14

The gospel of God creates a sense of need for it. Is the gospel hidden from those who are already servants?

No, Paul said, “But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe…” (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).

Be encouraged. The majority of people consider themselves completely moral and have no need for the gospel.

God creates a human being's sense of need, but the person remains unaware of his need until God makes Himself evident.

Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you…” (Matthew 7:7). God cannot give until a man asks.

It is not that He wants to withhold something from us, but that is the plan He has established for the way of redemption.

Be encouraged because, through our asking, God begins His process, creating something in us that was nonexistent until we asked.

The inner reality of redemption is that it is created all the time.

And as redemption creates the life of God in us, it also makes the things that belong to that life.

The only thing that can satisfy the need is what created the need.

This is the meaning of redemption— it creates and satisfies.

Jesus said, “And I, if I am lifted from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself” (John 12:32).

When we preach our own experiences, people may be interested, but it does not awaken a real sense of need.

But once Jesus Christ is “lifted,” the Spirit of God creates an awareness of the need for Him.

The creative power of the redemption of God works in the souls of men only through the preaching of the gospel.

Sharing personal experiences never saves people, but the truth of redemption. “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63).

Do you consider yourself moral and do not need the gospel?

Do you expect to receive it without asking?

Through your asking, God begins His process. He creates something in you that was nonexistent until you asked.

The inner reality of redemption is that it is created all the time.

I am encouraged to learn that as redemption creates the life of God in us, it also makes the things that belong to that life, but I must ask.

The only thing that satisfies the need is what created the need. This is the meaning of redemption.

It establishes and satisfies. As a professional speaker, I am also learning that this creative power of redemption of God works only through the preaching of the gospel.

It is never the sharing of personal experiences that saves people. This is the truth of redemption.

Check out some favorite speakers like John Maxwell, Les Brown, TD Jakes, or Joyce Meyers.

Do you have an ask?

Did you know that the gospel creates a need for the gospel?

This is your question today.

15 December 2024

Approved to God

Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, are you diligent in presenting yourself approved to God, studying to divide the Word of truth?

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and correctly handles the word of truth. — 2 Timothy 2:15

What we need today isn’t a new gospel; it’s men and women who can restate the gospel of the Son of God in terms that will reach the heart of people’s problems.

There’s nothing easy or automatic about becoming such a man or woman. If you wish to become a worker who, as Paul puts it, “correctly handles the word of truth,” you must “do your best”—that is, make a serious effort.

If you can’t clearly express your thoughts on a truth God has given you, struggle until you can.

Otherwise, you’ll be unable to pass it on, and someone will be poorer for it all the days of his life.

But when you put serious effort into reexpressing some truth of God for yourself, God will use that expression for someone else.

Be encouraged. Go through the winepress where God’s grapes are crushed, struggle to get at the expression you need, and a time will come when that expression will be the very wine of strength to another. If, instead, you say, “I’m not going to struggle to express this truth for myself; I’ll borrow what I say,” the expression will be not only of no use to you but of no use to anyone.

Try to restate to yourself what you implicitly feel to be God’s truth, and you will give God a chance to pass it on to someone else through you.

Be encouraged. Always practice challenging your mind to think out what it accepts readily.

Our position is not truly ours until we make it ours by suffering. The author who benefits you doesn’t tell you something you didn’t know before; it’s the one who expresses the truth that has been struggling for utterance inside you.

Do you strive to re-express the word of the truth of God to yourself to understand t and explain it to others?

Are you willing to go through God's wine press, where the grapes are crushed?

Are you willing to struggle, experiment, and rehearse your words to express God’s truths clearly?

There will come a time when that expression will become God’s wine of strength for someone else.

Be encouraged. State the truth of God’s Word and be willing to share your trials, tribulations, and triumphs of the power of those words over your situation.

I am encouraged to learn while not being ashamed to rightly divide the Word of truth and study to present myself approved to God. I am going through God’s wine press, where, like grapes, I am being crushed as I struggle, experiment, and rehearse His word daily right here, right now, as you read my thoughts and feel my heart.

Are you willing to study to learn how to express these truths in your own words?

This is your question today.

14 December 2024

The great life

Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, will you choose to receive the peace of life not as others give it but as you accept it?

Peace I leave with you, The peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I provide you. Let not your heart be troubled… —John 14:27

Be encouraged. Whenever we experience something difficult in our personal life, we are tempted to blame God.

But we are the ones in the wrong, not God. Blaming God is evidence that we refuse to let go of some disobedience somewhere in our lives.

Be encouraged because as soon as we let go, everything becomes as clear as daylight.

As long as we try to serve two masters, ourselves and God, difficulties will be combined with doubt and confusion.

Be encouraged. Your attitude must be one of complete reliance on God. Once we get to that point, there is nothing easier than living the life of a saint.

We encounter difficulties when we try to usurp the authority of the Holy Spirit for our purposes.

God’s mark of approval, whenever you obey Him, is peace. He sends an immeasurable, deep peace, not a natural peace, “as the world gives,” but the peace of Jesus.

Whenever peace does not come, please wait until it does or seek to discover why it is not coming. If you are acting on your impulse or out of a sense of heroism to be seen by others, the peace of Jesus will not exhibit itself.

This shows no unity with God or confidence in Him. The spirit of simplicity, clarity, and unity is born through the Holy Spirit, not your decisions.

God counters our self-willed decisions with an appeal for simplicity and unity.

My questions arise whenever I cease to obey. When I do obey God, problems arise, not between me and God but to keep my mind examining with amazement the revealed truth of God.

But any problem between God and myself is the result of disobedience.

Any problem that comes while I obey God (and there will be many) increases my overjoyed delight because I know that my Father knows and cares, and I can watch and anticipate how He will unravel my problems.

Do you blame God for your problems?

Are you refusing to let go of some disobedience somewhere?

Did you know that whenever problems come, if you are obeying God, they will increase your overjoyed delight?

God’s mark of approval, when you obey Him, is peace.

Watch Him send you immeasurable, deep peace when you obey Him.

I am encouraged to know that my questions when they arise are because I cease to obey.

Will you choose to live an extraordinary life in obedience?

This is your question today.

13 December 2024

What to pray for

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, when you pray, do you easily give up?

Men ought always to pray and not to faint. — Luke 18:1

You cannot intercede if you do not believe in the reality of Redemption; you will turn intercession into futile sympathy with human beings, which will only increase their submissive content of being out of touch with God.

In intercession, you bring the person or the circumstance that impinges on you before God until you are moved by His attitude towards that person or circumstance.

Intercession means filling up “that which is behind the afflictions of Christ,” which is why there are so few intercessors. Intercession is put on the line of — “Put yourself in his place.” Never!

Be encouraged. Try to put yourself in God’s place.

As a worker, be careful to keep pace with God's communications about reality, or you will be crushed.

Be encouraged. If you know too much, more than God has engineered for you to know, you cannot pray. The people's condition is so crushing that you cannot get through to reality.

Our work lies in coming into definite contact with God about everything; we shirk it by becoming active workers.

We do the things that can be tabulated, but we will not intercede. Intercession is the one thing that has no snares because it keeps our relationship with God completely open.

The thing to watch in intercession is that no soul is patched up; a soul must come into contact with God's life.

Be encouraged. Think of the number of souls God has brought about our path, and we have dropped them!

When we pray on the ground of Redemption, God creates something He can only create through intercessory prayer.

When you pray, do you easily give up?

This is your question today.

12 December 2024

Personality

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and your life, your personality is the characteristic mark of your inner spiritual man, just as your individuality is the characteristic of your outer man.

that they may be one just as We are one… —John 17:22

Personality is the unique, limitless part of our lives that distinguishes us from everyone else.

Be encouraged because it is too vast for us even to comprehend. An island in the sea may be just the top of a large mountain, and our personality is like that island.

We don’t know the great depths of our being. Therefore, we cannot measure ourselves.

We start out thinking we can, but soon realize that there is only one Being who fully understands us, and that is our Creator.

Personality is the characteristic mark of the inner, spiritual man, just as individuality is the characteristic of the outer, natural man.

Our Lord can never be described in terms of individuality and independence, but only in terms of His total Person— “I and My Father are one” (John 10:30).

Be encouraged as your personality merges, and you only reach your true identity once you are merged with another person.

When love or the Spirit of God comes upon a person, he is transformed.

Be encouraged. He will then no longer insist on maintaining his individuality. Our Lord never referred to a person’s individuality or isolated position but spoke about the total person— “…that they may be one just as We are one….”

Be encouraged. Once your rights to yourself are surrendered to God, your authentic personal nature begins responding to God immediately.

Jesus Christ brings freedom to your total person, and even your individuality is transformed.

The transformation is brought about by love— personal devotion to Jesus.

Love is the overflowing result of one person in true fellowship with another.

Do you know your personality helps describe who you are?

Did you know your personality is the unique, limitless part of your life that makes you distinct from everyone else?

Just imagine your personality as the tip of the iceberg of the inner potential of who you are.

Now, consider your individuality as the characteristic of your outer natural self.

When the love of God, The Spirit, comes upon a person, and you surrender, you are transformed. You no longer insist upon your individuality.

I am encouraged to continue to look within and strengthen my personality as I am merged with another person, my purpose of suffering, the cause and effect, and to look deeper for the remedy hidden within the still small voice as I stay still long enough to hear the truth of a conquered mind and a quiet, obedient heart while communing with the Spirit as I no longer desire to maintain my individuality.

Will you look within and strengthen your personality?

Did you know your personality is only a characteristic of your inner, spiritual self, while individuality is a characteristic of the outer natural man?

This is your question today.

9 December 2024

The Offering of The Natural

Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and your life, do you ever consider how to deal differently with the spiritual versus the natural in your daily affairs?

It is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman and the other by a freewoman. —Galatians 4:22

In this chapter of Galatians, Paul did not deal with sin but with the relation of the natural to the spiritual.

Be encouraged. The natural can be turned into the spiritual only through sacrifice. Without this, a person will lead a divided life.

Why did God demand that the natural must be sacrificed? God did not require it. It is not God’s perfect will but His permissive will.

God’s perfect will was to change the natural into the spiritual through obedience.

Sin is what made it necessary for the natural to be sacrificed.

Abraham had to offer Ishmael before he offered Isaac (see Genesis 21:8-14).

Be encouraged, for some of us are trying to offer spiritual sacrifices to God before we have sacrificed the natural.

The only way we can offer a spiritual sacrifice to God is to “present [our] bodies a living sacrifice…” (Romans 12:1).

Sanctification means more than being free from sin. It means deliberately committing myself to the God of my salvation and being willing to pay whatever it may cost.

If we do not sacrifice the natural to the spiritual, the wildlife will resist and defy the life of the Son of God in us and will produce continual turmoil.

This is always the result of an undisciplined spiritual nature. We go wrong because we stubbornly refuse to discipline ourselves physically, morally, or mentally.

We excuse ourselves by saying, “Well, I wasn’t taught to be disciplined when I was a child.”

Then discipline yourself now! If you don’t, you will ruin your entire personal life for God.

God is not actively involved with our natural life as long as we continue to pamper and gratify it.

But God will be with it once we are willing to put it out in the desert and are determined to keep it under control.

Be encouraged. He will then provide wells and oases and fulfill all His promises for the natural (see Genesis 21:15-19).

Did you know there is a difference between the natural and the spiritual?

Are you trying to offer spiritual sacrifices to God before offering ( giving up) natural sacrifices?

Did you know that before offering a spiritual sacrifice to God, you must present your body as a living sacrifice?

I am encouraged to learn to put my natural life out into the desert to focus and grow spiritually with greater awareness and intention to live in the abundance of the oasis of life.

Do you ever consider how to deal differently with the spiritual versus the natural in your daily affairs?

This is your question today.

8 December 2024

The Impartial Power of God

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and your life, did you know that the only reason for forgiving your sins is so that you could forget them?

For by one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. — Hebrews 10:14

We trample on the blood of the Son of God if we think the reason our sins are forgiven is that we are sorry for them.

The only explanation for God’s forgiveness of our sins is the death of Jesus Christ.

Be encouraged. Our being sorry, our repenting, is merely an outcome, the effect of a personal realization of what Christ accomplished in the atonement: “Christ Jesus… has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30).

When we realize all Christ has done for us, the boundless joy of God begins.

Wherever the joy of God is absent, the death sentence is at work.

Who or what we are doesn’t matter; the only way we are reinstated into good standing with God is by the death of Jesus Christ.

We can’t earn this reinstatement; we can only accept it. All our pleading with God amounts to a deliberate refusal to recognize the cross and is of no use.

When we plead, it’s like we’re pounding on a door other than the one Jesus has opened. “I don’t want to go that way,” we say. “It’s too humiliating to be received as a sinner.”

But there is only one way: “For there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Be encouraged. God may appear heartless in his refusal to receive us in any state other than as lowly sinners.

But his apparent heartlessness is the expression of his honest heart, for there is boundless entrance into the holiness of Christ by the way he has designated for us. “In him, we have redemption through his blood” (Ephesians 1:7).

Identification with the death of Jesus Christ means identification with Him and the death of everything not of Him.

God is justified in saving evil men and women only as he makes them suitable.

Be encouraged. He doesn’t pretend we’re all right when we’re all wrong. The atonement is an act by which God, through the death of Jesus, makes an unholy person holy.

Did you know that Christ became the wisdom of God?

Did you know that Christ became righteousness, sanctification, and redemption?

Did you know that God restores us to right standing with Himself only through the death of Jesus Christ?

I am encouraged to know that once I realized and accepted this fact, everything and everyone changed for me. The limitless joy is just overwhelming. As an unholy person, the Cross makes us holy, not necessarily right.

Did you know that the only reason for the forgiveness of your sins is so that you could forget them?

This is your question today.

7 December 2024

Repentance

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, will you examine yourself to see if you know how to repent truly?

"Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret. — 2 Corinthians 7:10

Repentance is the definition of deep sorrow, compunction, or contrition for a past sin, wrongdoing, or the like, the action of repenting; sincere regret or remorse for each person who turns to God in genuine repentance and faith will be saved.

Be encouraged. Repentance involves recognizing that you have thought wrongly in the past and determining to think rightly in the future.

Have you ever made foolish mistakes?

Did you know your sins are only against God?

Did you know that the true sign of repentance is when you mean what you say when you confess the sin?

Did you know that the conviction of sin is one of the most common things that ever happen in a person’s life?

Be encouraged. Entrance into the kingdom of God is experienced when the Holy Spirit produces these struggles, which drive the pains of repentance.

This new life drives the conscious to repentance. This drives unconscious holiness.

I am encouraged by Psalm 51:4, “Against You, You only have I sinned.” The realization for me is in only seeing and seeking Him in all my actions, and when I am in the wrong, I am slowly learning to take full responsibility for my actions.

Will you examine yourself to see if you know how to repent truly?

Tmi’s is your question today.

6 December 2024

My Rainbow in The Cloud

Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and your life, did you know it is the will of God for you to be in the right relationship with Him?

I set My rainbow in the cloud, which shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. —Genesis 9:13

It is the will of God that human beings should get into a right-standing relationship with Him, and His covenants are designed for this purpose.

Why doesn’t God save me? He has accomplished and provided for my salvation, but I have not yet entered a relationship with Him.

Why doesn’t God do everything we ask? He has done it. The point is— will I step into that covenant relationship?

All God's great blessings are finished and complete, but they are not mine until I enter into a relationship with Him based on His covenant.

Being encouraged while waiting for God to act is fleshly unbelief. It means that you have no faith in Him.

I wait for Him to do something in me so I may trust in that. But God won’t do it because that is not the basis of the God-and-man relationship.

Man must go beyond the physical body and feelings in his covenant with God, as God goes beyond Himself in reaching out with His covenant to man.

It is a question of faith in God— a scarce thing. We only have faith in our feelings. I don’t believe God until He puts something tangible in my hand so that I know I have it.

Then I say, “Now I believe.” There is no faith exhibited in that. God says, “Look to Me and be saved…” (Isaiah 45:22).

When I have transacted business with God based on His covenant, letting everything else go, there is no sense of personal achievement— no human ingredient.

Instead, there is a completely overwhelming sense of being brought into union with God, and my life is transformed and radiates peace and joy.

Do you ever wonder why God doesn’t do everything you ask?

Are you willing to enter into a covenant relationship with Him?

Be encouraged. Waiting for God to act is fleshy and means you have no faith in Him. It would be best if you went beyond your physical feelings. You must believe God before the physical manifestation.

Be encouraged because when you let everything else go, there is no sense of personal achievement.

I am encouraging you to be in a good-standing relationship with God, and His covenants are designed for that purpose.

Do you ever ask God to save you from struggles, problems, and challenges?

This is your question today.

5 December 2024

The Temple of the Holy Spirit

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and life, do you believe that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?

Only regarding the throne will I be more significant than you. —Genesis 41:40

I am accountable to God for the way I control my body under His authority.

Paul did not “set aside the grace of God” to make it ineffective (Galatians 2:21).

Be encouraged. The grace of God is absolute and limitless, and the work of salvation through Jesus is complete and finished forever.

I am not being saved— I am saved. Salvation is as eternal as God’s throne, but I must put it to work or use what God has placed within me.

To “work out [my] own salvation” (Philippians 2:12) means that I am responsible for using what He has given me.

It also means that I must exhibit in my own body the life of the Lord Jesus, not mysteriously or secretly, but openly and boldly. “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection . . .” (1 Corinthians 9:27).

Be encouraged to learn that every Christian can have his body under God's absolute control. God has given us the responsibility to rule over all “the temple of the Holy Spirit,” including our thoughts and desires (1 Corinthians 6:19).

We are responsible for these and must never give way to improper ones.

But most of us are much more severe in our judgment of others than we are in judging ourselves.

Be encouraged because we make excuses for things in ourselves while we condemn things in the lives of others simply because we are not naturally inclined to do them.

Paul said, “I beseech you…that you present your bodies a living sacrifice…” (Romans 12:1).

I must decide whether or not to agree with my Lord and Master that my body will indeed be His temple.

Once I agree, all the rules, regulations, and legal requirements concerning the body are summed up in this revealed truth: the body is “the temple of the Holy Spirit.”

Did you know your body includes your thoughts and desires?

Did you know that you must discipline your body and your thoughts?

Most of us are much more severe in judging others than we are in judging ourselves

We make excuses for things in ourselves while condemning others for the same acts and things we are not naturally inclined to do.

I am encouraged and accountable to God for the way I control my body under his authority.

Of course, these fleshly tents (as Paul puts it in 2 Cor. 5:1-5) are not built to last forever. Eventually, my body will wear out.

It is a temporal structure that houses my soul and God’s Holy Spirit. Our bodies are a stewardship from the Lord, a gift from above. I desire to become a better steward.

Will you agree that your body is The Temple of the Holy Spirit?

This is your question today.

4 December 2024

The law of opposition

Oswald Chambers

Today, your business and your life, are you aware that it is a continuous war, and you will struggle in the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual realms?

To him who overcomes… —Revelation 2:7

Life without war is impossible in the natural or the supernatural realm. It is a fact that there is a continuing struggle in the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual areas of life.

Health is the balance between the physical parts of my body and all the things and forces surrounding me.

Be encouraged to maintain good health. You must have sufficient internal strength to fight off external threats.

Everything outside my physical life is designed to cause my death. The very elements that sustain me while I am alive work to decay and disintegrate my body once it is dead.

Be encouraged if you have enough inner strength to fight. You help to produce the balance needed for health.

The same is true of the mental life. If I want to maintain a strong and active mental life, I have to fight.

This struggle produces the mental balance called thought.

Morally, it is the same.

Be encouraged. Anything that does not strengthen me morally is the enemy of virtue within me.

Whether I overcome and thereby produce virtue depends on my life's level of moral excellence.

But we must fight to be moral. Morality does not happen by accident; moral virtue is acquired.

And spiritually, it is also the same. Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation…” (John 16:33).

This means that anything which is not spiritual leads to my downfall. Jesus went on to say, “…but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

I am learning to fight against and overcome the things that come against me and, in that way, produce a balance of holiness.

Then, it becomes a delight to meet opposition.

Holiness is the balance between my nature and the law of God, as expressed in Jesus Christ.

Did you know your health balances the spiritual and physical forces surrounding you?

Did you know that everything outside your body is designed to cause your death?

Do you have enough inner strength to fight for your health?

Did you know that fighting is the key to maintaining a solid, active mental life?

This struggle produces thoughts and feelings that require action in the external world.

Jesus's words in John 16:33 encourage and remind me: “ In the world, you will have tribulations, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.

Through these words, I am learning to be encouraged, strengthened, and grateful to fight for my health, family, spirit, and morality by controlling my thoughts. This is the battlefield of my mind.

Are you aware that life is a continuous war, and you will struggle and fight in the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual realms?

This is your question today.

3 December 2024

Not by might, nor by power

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and your life, are you hindering people from getting to reality if, in your sharing the gospel, you substitute your knowledge of the way of salvation for confidence in the power of the gospel?

My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power… —1 Corinthians 2:4

If you substitute your knowledge of the way of salvation for confidence in the gospel's power in preaching the gospel, you hinder people from reaching reality.

Be encouraged, and take care to ensure that while you proclaim your knowledge of the way of salvation, you are rooted and grounded in God's faith.

Never rely on the clarity of your presentation; as you explain, make sure you rely on the Holy Spirit.

Be encouraged and rely on the certainty of God’s redemptive power, and He will create His own life in people.

Once you are rooted in reality, nothing can shake you. If your faith is in experiences, anything that happens will likely upset that faith.

But nothing can ever change God or the reality of redemption. If you base your faith on that, you are as eternally secure as God Himself.

You will never be moved again once you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

That is the meaning of sanctification. God disapproves of our human efforts to cling to the concept that sanctification is merely an experience while forgetting that even our sanctification must also be sanctified (see John 17:19)

I must deliberately give my sanctified life to God for His service so He can use me as His hands and feet.

Are you rooted and grounded by faith in God?

Are you relying on the certainty of God’s redemptive power?

Are you relying on your presentation as you give your explanation of God?

Be encouraged. Anything will upset you if your faith is rooted only in your experience. Base your faith on the reality of redemption, and you will be eternally secure as God Himself.

I am encouraged to rely only on the redemptive power of the Spirit as I learn to share His demonstrated power of the Spirit in my life and business.

As I reflect daily, whenever I am observant long enough, I can see the desires of my heart manifesting by faith in advance.

I can not explain it, but I can honestly share what I experience, allowing Him to use me as His hands and feet. That is all that matters to me.

Are you only relying on persuasive words from your human wisdom?

Are you willing to let Gio use you as His hands and feet?

Are you hindering people from getting to reality if, in your sharing the gospel, you substitute your knowledge of the way of salvation for confidence in the power of the gospel?

This is your question today.

2 December 2024

Christian Perfection

By Oswald Chambers

Today, in your business and your life, do you expect God to make you into a perfect specimen of what He can do? Really?

What do you call the evidence of God in your life?

Not that I have already attained or am already perfect… —Philippians 3:12

It is a trap to presume that God wants to make us perfect specimens of what He can do— God’s purpose is to make us one with Himself.

The emphasis of holiness movements tends to be that God produces specimens of holiness to put in His museum.

Be encouraged. If you accept this concept of personal holiness, your life’s determined purpose will not be for God but for what you call the evidence of God in your life.

How can we say, “It could never be God’s will for me to be sick”? If it was God’s will to bruise His own Son (Isaiah 53:10), why shouldn’t He injure you?

What shines forth and reveals God in your life is not your relative consistency to an idea of what a saint should be but your genuine, living relationship with Jesus Christ and unrestrained devotion to Him, whether you are well or sick.

Christian perfection is not, and never can be human perfection. Christian perfection is the perfection of a relationship with God that shows itself to be true even amid the seemingly unimportant aspects of human life.

Be encouraged. When you obey the call of Jesus Christ, the first thing that hits you is the pointlessness of the things you have to do.

The next thought that strikes you is that other people seem to live perfectly consistent lives.

Such lives may lead you to believe that God is unnecessary—that through your human effort and devotion, you can attain God’s standard for your life.

Be encouraged. In a fallen world, this can never be done. I am called to live in such a perfect relationship with God that my life produces a yearning for God in the lives of others, not admiration for myself.

Thoughts about myself hinder my usefulness to God. God’s purpose is not to perfect me but to make me a trophy in His showcase; He is getting me to where He can use me. Let Him do what He wants.

Do you question if it’s God’s will for you to be sick?

Christian perfection is not and can never be human perfection.

I am encouraged to know that thoughts about myself hinder my relationship with God, for God’s purpose is to make us one with Himself. I ask myself why God shouldn’t bruise me.

Will you let God use you and do what He wants?

This is your question today