The Quill and Me—Devotional Blog•Oswald Chambers Reflections

The Quill and Me—Devotional Blog•Oswald Chambers Reflections   Today's Devotional • Back to Home Page July 31 Today's Reading: My Utmost for His Highest James 1:4 "Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." Remnants of The Carnal Life The Holy Spirit is still working on us because He wants us to be perfect and complete. Chambers says the remnants of our carnal life make us careless, and that carelessness is an insult to the Holy Spirit.  There may be areas where we know we could do better but resist the effort—think again. Chambers says the Holy Spirit will be persistent until we get it right.  Here is a small list of possible remnants of the carnal life still clinging to ours: Daydreaming Self-interest Independent nature Impulsive nature  Carelessness Laziness We must not be careless about anything. We are a living witness for Christ—Christ in us, living through us. We should be mindful of our inward life: our th...

The Quill and Me—Devotional Blog•Oswald Chambers Reflections   Today's Devotional • Back to Home Page July 30 Today's Reading: My Utmost for His Highest John 2:24-25 "Jesus did not commit himself to them . . . for He knew what was in man." Disillusionment 101 Explanation of Verse: Jesus did not commit Himself to the people who believed only because of His miracles. He knew their faith was shallow and based on what they saw , not on surrender. He sees beneath the surface. He knows what is in us — our motives, illusions, and false identities. This verse shows that Jesus is never fooled by appearances. He works with what is true , not what is pretended . Disillusionment happens when God removes what is false so He can reveal what is real. • Seek ye first the kingdom of God and you will not be in disillusionment. The path that led me into disillusionment is not the point—the point is the Lord is going to use my disillusionment today to teach me how to step out of the ol...

The Quill and Me—Devotional Blog•Oswald Chambers Reflections   Today's Devotional • Back to Home Page July 29 Today's Reading: My Utmost for His Highest Revelation 1:7 "Behold, He is coming with clouds . . ." Remember the Lord Thy God God uses clouds to reveal Himself. Difficult days are not signs of His absence — they are invitations to draw nearer. He is always close, but clouds make us aware of Him in ways ordinary days do not. Because God is spirit, we do not see Him with our physical eyes. And because we do not see Him, we tend to forget Him. "Out of sight, out of mind" is a very true saying. But when trouble comes, something inside us wakes up. We remember Him. We call on Him. We look for Him. Not because He moved closer, but because our awareness finally turned toward Him. Deuteronomy 8:18 "But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God" We should be thinking about Him all the time, not only when we need something. But I lived the other way for 6...

The Quill and Me—Devotional Blog•Oswald Chambers Reflections   Today's Devotional • Back to Home Page   Trust ye in the Lord for ever:  for in the Lord JEHOVAH is everlasting strength.  Isaiah 26:4 July 28 Today's Reading: My Utmost for His Highest Mark 6:45 "He made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side. . ." The Process Is the Purpose Chambers says we often misunderstand God's purpose for our lives. We imagine He is leading us toward some great success, a particular end, or a desired goal. But that is not God's purpose at all. God is a God of now , not later. What matters is the moment we are living right this second — and how we walk through it with Him. The way we respond to Him in the present is far more important than any destination we think we're heading toward. Chambers reminds us that God is not focused on where we are going, but on our obedience in each moment . We are to see Him in our lives, to see "Him walk...

The Quill and Me—Devotional Blog•Oswald Chambers Reflections   Today's Devotional • Back to Home Page   Forgiving one another... Ephesians 4:32 July 27 Today's Reading: My Utmost for His Highest John 7:17 "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine . . ." Obedience First—Then Worship Chambers teaches that spiritual knowledge does not come through study alone — it comes through obedience . If we are not growing spiritually, there is something in our lives we have refused to obey. Spiritual darkness is never random; it is the result of a place where we have said, "I will not obey that." Jesus gave a clear example. If you bring a gift to the altar and remember your brother has something against you, you must leave the gift, go make things right, and then return. Obedience comes first . Worship comes after . This is why forgiveness is essential in the Christian walk. We must forgive others, and we must not carry unforgiveness in our he...

The Quill and Me—Devotional Blog•Oswald Chambers Reflections   Today's Devotional • Back to Home Page    Open thou mine eyes  Psalm 119:18 The prayer that breaks spiritual blindness July 26 Today's Reading: My Utmost for His Highest Matthew 15:18-20 "Those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart . . . . For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man . . ." Open My Eyes, Lord Chambers continues his theme on purity . . . Purity. A newborn baby is pure innocence. A tiny baby animal is pure innocence. Even a grown animal is innocence to me because they live from instinct—God given instinct. I love animals and consider them innocent. God gave Adam reign over this world, animals are under our jurisdiction. They are at our mercy. But a human being is no longer innocent once childhood has evaporated from their life. I relate innocence with purity...

The Quill and Me—Devotional Blog•Oswald Chambers Reflections   Today's Devotional • Back to Home Page   But the Comforter . . . he shall teach you all things,  and bring all things to your remembrance . . . John 14:26 July 25 Today's Reading: My Utmost for His Highest Matthew 5:3-11 "Blessed are . . ." The Astonishing Beatitude Chambers' dry humor made me laugh saying... when you read the Beatitudes they seem to be beautiful precepts for seemingly overly spiritual and useless people, but of very little practical use for us.   Until you encounter a circumstance in your own life that brings you face to face with one of the principles Jesus taught.  And then you realize how difficult it really is to live the way that Jesus taught. In reality we rarely come across a time in our lives when we must turn the other cheek... but they do surface and what do we do? We demand justice, the pride within us rises and all we want to do is retaliate, we realize we do not wa...

The Quill and Me—Devotional Blog•Oswald Chambers Reflections   Today's Devotional • Back to Home Page   I, The Lord,  Search the Heart . . . Jeremiah 17:10 July 24 Today's Reading: My Utmost for His Highest Matthew 5:20 ". . . unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven When Motives Become Pure Chambers' opening line: The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in his motives, having been made good by the supernatural grace of God.  Human righteousness will never equal pure motives. We need His righteousness to purify motives.  Motives originate in the heart, are interpreted by the mind, and discerned by God. Jeremiah 17:10: "I, the Lord, search the heart . . ."  "Unless our righteousness exceed..." How do we measure our own righteousness?  It is our heart's "posture" before God: being poor in spirit, dependi...

The Quill and Me—Devotional Blog•Oswald Chambers Reflections  Today's Devotional • Back to Home Page   Abide in Me, and I in you John 15:4 July 23 Today's Reading: My Utmost for His Highest 1 Corinthians 1:30 "But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us . . . sanctification . . ." The Moment After You Let Go The Life Side of Sanctification The truth of sanctification is... at the very moment you loosen the grip of control you have over your life is the very moment Jesus speaks of in Matthew 16: 25-26... we lose our life for Jesus' sake and find it. The sanctification of your soul has begun. You have the Holy Spirit already in you. Now He will work the very life of our perfect and holy Saviour, Jesus Christ, into your life.  Sanctification is Christ in you. The qualities of our Lord, Jesus Christ, are instantly ours. He will live His life through us. It is a gift of God's grace. Sanctification means nothing less than Jesus living through us. His qua...

The Quill and Me—Devotional Blog•Oswald Chambers Reflections  Today's Devotional • Back to Home Page For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.  For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world,  and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Matthew 16: 25-26 July 22 Today's Reading: My Utmost for His Highest 1 Thessalonians 4:3 "This is the will of God, your sanctification . . ." The Moment You Let Go The Death Side of Sanctification ...  There is a season in life where we have to make a decision to choose Christ or... not. Death to self is a term used to describe the stripping down of the person you think you are to the person Christ wants to sanctify. Sanctification cannot come until you are stripped of all identities except the only one that matters.  This is a time of inner struggle. A time of coming to Jesus just as we are and letting Him work a miracl...

The Quill and Me—Devotional Blog•Oswald Chambers Reflections  Today's Devotional • Back to Home Page I dwell... with him also that is of a  contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.  Isaiah 57:15 July 21 Today's Reading: My Utmost for His Highest Matthew 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit . . ." When the Soul Reaches Empty Many believe Jesus was just a teacher. But what He taught were the secrets of the kingdom of the eternal God.  Poor in spirit is spiritual poverty. He started the Sermon on the Mount with poverty of the spirit. Why? Because you cannot be any of the other things He taught about until you have reached the level of empty. Empty enough that you realise your need of Him. This is the narrow doorway. The end of self struggle when you look up to heaven and declare in your heart that you need God.  Nothing else in the Christian life can happen until self is broken.  Self will alw...