My Utmost for His Highest - G4E

1 From My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers. l935 by DoddMead & Co., renewed 1963 by the Oswald Chambers Publications Assn.,Ltd. Al rights Chambers (1874-1917)Oswald Chambers was a Scottish minister and teacher whose teachings on thelife of faith and abandonment to God have endured to this day. He was born inScotland and spent much of his boyhood there. His ministry of teaching andpreaching took him for a time to the United States and Japan. The last six yearsof his life were spent as principal of the Bible Training Col ege in London, andas a chaplain to the British Commonwealth troops in Egypt during World WarI. After his death, the books which bear his name were compiled by his wifefrom her own verbatim shorthand notes of his talks.

2 This daily devotional is acol ection of his teachings compiled by his wife into a daily devotional 's presented here in the original daily readings have been selected from various sources, chiefly from thelectures given at the Bible Training Col ege, Clapham, during the years 1911-1915; then, from October 1915 to November 1917, from talks given night bynight in the Huts, Zeitoun, Egypt. In November 1917 my husbandentered into God's presence. Since then many of the talks have been publishedin book form, and others from which these readings have been gathered wil alsobe published in due large proportion of the readings have been chosen from the talks given duringthe Devotional Hour at the Col ege - an hour which for many of the studentsmarked an epoch in their life with God.

3 "Men return again and again to the few who have mastered the spiritual secret,whose life has been hid with Christ in God These are of the old time religion,hung to the nails of the Cross." (Robert Murray McCheyne.)It is because it is felt that the author is one to whose teaching men wil return,that this book has been prepared, and it is sent out with the prayer that day byday the messages may continue to bring the quickening life and inspiration ofthe Holy Church Crescent,Muswel Hil ,London, US KEEP TO THE POINT"My eager desire and hope being that I may never feel ashamed, but that nowas ever I may do honour to Christ in my own person by fearless courage."Philippians 1:20 (MOFFATT)My Utmost for His Highest . "My eager desire and hope being that I may neverfeel ashamed.

4 " We shal al feel very much ashamed if we do not yield to Jesuson the point He has asked us to yield to Him. Paul says - "My determination isto be my Utmost for His Highest ." To get there is a question of wil , not ofdebate nor of reasoning, but a surrender of wil , an absolute and irrevocablesurrender on that point. An overweening consideration for ourselves is the thingthat keeps us from that decision, though we put it that we are consideringothers. When we consider what it wil cost others if we obey the cal of Jesus, wetel God He does not know what our obedience wil mean. Keep to the point; Hedoes know. Shut out every other consideration and keep yourself before Godfor this one thing only - My Utmost for His Highest . I am determined to beabsolutely and entirely for Him and for Him Undeterredness for His Holiness.

5 "Whether that means life or death, nomatter!" ( ) Paul is determined that nothing shal deter him from doingexactly what God wants. God's order has to work up to a crisis in our livesbecause we wil not heed the gentler way. He brings us to the place where Heasks us to be our Utmost for Him, and we begin to debate; then He produces aprovidential crisis where we have to decide - for or against, and from that pointthe "Great Divide" the crisis has come to you on any line, surrender your wil to Him absolutelyand YOU GO OUT WITHOUT KNOWING?"He went out, not knowing whither he went." Hebrews 11:8 Have you been "out" in this way? If so, there is no logical statement possiblewhen anyone asks you what you are doing. One of the difficulties in Christianwork is this question - "What do you expect to do?

6 " You do not know whatyou are going to do; the only thing you know is that God knows what He isdoing. Continual y revise your attitude towards God and see if it is a going outof everything, trusting in God entirely. It is this attitude that keeps you inperpetual wonder - you do not know what God is going to do next. Eachmorning you wake it is to be a "going out," building in confidence on God."Take no thought for your life, .. nor yet for your body" - take no thought forthe things for which you did take thought before you "went out."Have you been asking God what He is going to do? He wil never tel you. Goddoes not tel you what He is going to do; He reveals to you Who He is. Do youbelieve in a miracle-working God, and wil you go out in surrender to Him untilyou are not surprised an atom at anything He does?

7 Suppose God is the God you know Him to be when you are nearest to Him -what an impertinence worry is! Let the attitude of the life be a continual"going out" in dependence upon God, and your life wil have an ineffable charmabout it which is a satisfaction to Jesus. You have to learn to go out ofconvictions, out of creeds, out of experiences, until so far as your faith isconcerned, there is nothing between yourself and AND DARKNESS"Clouds and darkness are round about Him." Psalm 97:2A man who has not been born of the Spirit of God Wil tel you that theteachings of Jesus are simple. But when you are baptized with the Holy Ghost,you find "clouds and darkness are round about Him." When we come into closecontact with the teachings of Jesus Christ we have our first insight into thisaspect of things.

8 The only possibility of understanding the teaching of Jesus isby the light of the Spirit of God on the inside. If we have never had theexperience of taking our commonplace religious shoes off our commonplacereligious feet, and getting rid of al the undue familiarity with which weapproach God, it is questionable whether we have ever stood in His people who are flippant and familiar are those who have never yet beenintroduced to Jesus Christ. After the amazing delight and liberty of realizingwhat Jesus Christ does, comes the impenetrable darkness of realizing Who said: "The words that I speak unto you," not the words I have spoken,"they are spirit, and they are life." The Bible has been so many words to us -clouds and darkness - then al of a sudden the words become spirit and lifebecause Jesus re-speaks them to us in a particular condition.

9 That is the wayGod speaks to us, not by visions and dreams, but by words. When a man gets toGod it is by the most simple way of CANNOT I FOLLOW THEE NOW?"Peter said unto Him, Lord, why cannot I follow Thee now?" John 13:37 There are times when you cannot understand why you cannot do what youwant to do. When God brings the blank space, see that you do not fil it in, butwait. The blank space may come in order to teach you what sanctificationmeans, or it may come after sanctification to teach you what service run before God's guidance. If there is the slightest doubt, then He is notguiding. Whenever there is doubt - don' the beginning you may see clearly what God's wil is - the severance of afriendship, the breaking off of a business relationship, something you feeldistinctly before God is His wil for you to do, never do it on the impulse of thatfeeling.

10 If you do, you wil end in making difficulties that wil take years of timeto put right. Wait for God's time to bring it round and He wil do it without anyheartbreak or disappointment. When it is a question of the providential wil ofGod, wait for God to did not wait on God, he forecast in his mind where the test would come,and the test came where he did not expect it. "I wil lay down my life for Thysake." Peter's declaration was honest but ignorant. "Jesus answered him ..Thecock shal not crow, til thou hast denied Me thrice." This was said with a deeperknowledge of Peter than Peter had of himself. He could not fol ow Jesusbecause he did not know himself, of what he was capable. Natural devotionmay be al very wel to attract us to Jesus, to make us feel His fascination, but itwil never make us disciples.