Oswald Chambers Men Quotations

When a man is at his wits' end it is not a cowardly thing to pray, it is the only way he can get in touch with Reality.

A good book, in the language of the book-sellers, is a salable one; in that of the curious, a scarce one; in that of men of sense, a useful and instructive one.

Holiness, not happiness, is the chief end of man.

The men with God's 'go' in them have these three characteristics-a saving experience, the evidence of supernatural power at work, and the spiritual efficacy of success in prayer.

The historic idea that the devil tempts men had this remarkable effect, it produced the man of iron who fought; the modern idea of blaming his heredity or his circumstances produces the man who gives in at once.

We have to keep letting go, and slowly and surely the great full life of God will invade us in every part, and men will take knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus.

God has one destined end for mankind - holiness! His one aim is the production of saints. God is not an eternal blessing-machine for men. He did not come to save men out of pity. He came to save men because He had created them to be holy.

The man who prays ceases to be a fool

Every man carries his kingdom within, and no one knows what is taking place in another's kingdom. 'No one understands me!' Of course they don't, each one of us is a mystery. There is only One Who understands you, and that is God. Hand yourself over to Him.

When a man’s heart is right with God the mysterious utterances of the Bible are spirit and life to him. Spiritual truth is discernible only to a pure heart, not to a keen intellect. It is not a question of profundity of intellect, but of purity of heart.

When a man says he must develop a holy life alone with God, he is of no more use to his fellow men: he puts himself on a pedestal, away from the common run of men.........If we are abandoned to Jesus, we have no ends of our own to serve.

God’s training is for now, not presently. His purpose is for this minute, not for something in the future. we have nothing to do with the afterwards of obedience; we can get it wrong when we think of the afterwards. what men call training and preparation, God calls the end… if we realize that obedience is the end, then each moment is precious.

Do not have as your motive the desire to be known as a praying man. Get an inner chamber in which to pray where no one knows you are praying, shut the door, and talk to God in secret.

The great thing about faith in God is that it keeps a man undisturbed in the midst of disturbance.

Am I getting nobler, better, more helpful, more humble, as I get older? Am I exhibiting the life that men take knowledge of as having been with Jesus, or am I getting more self-assertive, more deliberately determined to have my own way? It is a great thing to tell yourself the truth.

God is not concerned about our plans; He doesn’t ask, “Do you want to go through this loss of a loved one, this difficulty, or this defeat?” No, He allows these things for His own purpose. The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, and nobler men and women, or they are making us more critical and fault-finding, and more insistent on our own way. The things that happen either make us evil, or they make us more saintly, depending entirely on our relationship with God and its level of intimacy.

The heart of salvation is the Cross of Christ. The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. The Cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened. But all the cost and pain of the collision was absorbed by the heart of God.

Jesus Christ reveals, not an embarrassed God, not a confused God, not a God who stands apart from the problems, but One who stands in the thick of the whole thing with man.

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.

If a man cannot prove his religion in the valley, it is not worth anything.

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.

Before God can use a man greatly he must wound him deeply.

It is not what a man does that is of final importance, but what he is in what he does. The atmosphere produced by a man, much more than his activities, has the lasting influence.

It is in the middle that human choices are made; the beginning and the end remain with God. The decrees of God are birth and death, and in between those limits man makes his own distress or joy.

Doubt is not always a sign that a man is wrong; it may be a sign that he is thinking.

To terrorize a man into believing in God is never the work of God, but the work of human expediency. If we want to convince a congregation of a certain thing, we may use terror to frighten them into it; but never say that is God's way, it is our way. To call that God's method is a travesty to the character of God.

The agony of a man's affliction is often necessary to put him into the right mood to face the fundamental things of life. The Psalmist says: "Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept Thy Word.

Never look for right in the other man, but never cease to be right yourself. We are always looking for justice; the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is - Never look for justice, but never cease to give it.

God saved us to make us holy, not happy. Some experiences may not contribute to our happiness, but all can be made to contribute to our holiness. Vance Havner The destined end of man is not happiness, nor health, but holiness. God's one aim is the production of saints.

Jesus Christ carries on intercession for us in heaven; the Holy Ghost carries on intercession in us on earth; and we the saints have to carry on intercession for all men.

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.

Jesus Christ became Incarnate for one purpose, to make a way back to God that man might stand before Him as He was created to do, the friend and lover of God Himself.

Jesus Christ out-socialists the socialists. He says that in His Kingdom he that is greatest shall be the servant of all. The real test of the saint is not preaching the gospel, but washing disciples' feet, that is, doing the things that do not count in the actual estimate of men but count everything in the estimate of God.

Intercessory prayer for one who is sinning prevails. God says so! The will of the man prayed for does not come into question at all, he is connected with God by prayer, and prayer on the basis of the Redemption sets the connection working and God gives life.

The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not--Do your duty, but--Do what is not your duty. It is not your duty to go the second mile, to turn the other cheek, but Jesus says if we are His disciples we shall always do these things. There will be no spirit of--"Oh, well, I cannot do any more, I have been so misrepresented and misunderstood". . . Never look for right in the other man, but never cease to be right yourself. We are always looking for justice; the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is--Never look for justice, but never cease to live it.

There is nothing attractive about the gospel to the natural man; the only man who finds the gospel attractive is the man who is convicted of sin.

No man has ever gone through the crisis of deliberately making Jesus Lord and found Him to be a failure.

There is always one fact more in every man's case about which we know nothing.

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

Jesus Christ demands the same unrestrained, adventurous spirit in those who have placed their trust in Him that the natural man exhibits. If a person is ever going to do anything worthwhile, there will be times when he must risk everything by his leap in the dark.

Our Lord's first obedience was to the will of his Father, not to the needs of men; the saving of men was the natural outcome of his obedience to the Father.

We hear it said that a man will suffer in his life is he does not pray; I question it. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God within him, which is nourished not by food but by prayer...Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished.

Every man is made to reach out beyond his grasp.

For one man who can introduce another to Jesus Christ by the way he lives and by the atmosphere of his life, there are a thousand who can only talk jargon about him

When a man gets to despair he knows that all his thinking will never get him out. He will only get out by the sheer creative effort of God. Consequently he is in the right attitude to receive from God that which he cannot gain for himself.

People say that it is so hard to bring Jesus Christ and present him before the lives of men today. Of course it is. It is so hard that it is impossible except by the power of the indwelling Holy Ghost.

A practical help in keeping your personal purity unblemished in your relations with other people is to begin to see them as God does. Say to yourself, “That man or that woman is perfect in Christ Jesus! That friend or that relative is perfect in Christ Jesus!

When Jesus Christ shed his blood on the cross, it was not the blood of a martyr; or the blood of one man for another; it was the life of God poured out to redeem the world.

When you meet a man or woman who puts Jesus Christ first, knit that one to your soul.

Not every man can carry a full cup. Sudden elevation frequently leads to pride and a fall. The most exacting test of all to survive is prosperity.

One man or woman called of God is worth a hundred who have elected to work for God.

Joy is the great note all through the Bible. We have the notion of joy that arises from good spirits or good health, but the miracle of joy of God has nothing to do with a man's life or his circumstances or the condition he is in. Jesus Christ does not come to a man and say, 'Cheer up.' He plants within a man the miracle of the joy of God's own nature.

When you pray, things remain the same, but you begin to be different. The same thing when a man falls in love, his circumstances and conditions remain the same, but he has a sovereign preference in his heart for another person which transfigures everything!

Satan tried to put Jesus Christ on the way to becoming King of the world and Savior of men in a way other than that predetermined by God.

We preach to men as if they were conscious they were dying sinners, they are not; they are having a good time.

God is not saving the world; it is done. Our business is to get men and women to realize it.

The greatest test of a man's character is his tongue.

Our Lord did not say it was wrong to pray in the corners of the street, but He did say it was wrong to have the motive to "be seen of men".

A man ceases to be an honest doubter the moment he refuses one way of getting at the truth because he does not like that way.

Our Lord’s teaching is always anti-self-realization. His purpose is not the development of a man; His purpose is to make a man exactly like Himself, and the characteristic of the Son of God is self-expenditure.

The marvel of the Redemptive Reality of God is that the worst and the vilest can never get to the bottom of His Love. Paul did not say that God separated him to show what a wonderful man He could make of him, but to "to reveal His Son in me

The entrance into the Kingdom is through the panging pains of repentance crashing into a man's respectable goodness; then the Holy Ghost, who produces these agonies begins the formation of the Son God in the life.

It is better to enter into life maimed but lovely in God’s sight than to appear lovely to man’s eyes but lame to God’s.

The emphasis to-day is being put on the fact that we have to save men; we have not. We have to exalt the Saviour Who saves men, and then make disciples in His Name.

All that Our Lord heeds in a man's life is the relationship of worth to His Father.