Milo

“The great word of Jesus to his disciples is abandon. When God has brought us into the relationship of disciples, we have to venture on his word; trust entirely to him and watch that when he brings us to the venture, we take it.”

“I feel I shall be buried for a time, hidden away in obscurity; then suddenly I shall flame out, do my work, and be gone.” So wrote 22-year-old Oswald Chambers as he began his long preparation in a remote Scottish town before being thrust into the world as a preacher. He was partially right; after 15 years of public ministry, Chambers died suddenly at age 43. But he remains far from gone—his devotional My Utmost for His Highest (sermons published posthumously, like nearly 50 other devotionals bearing his name) remains one of the most popular devotional guides ever printed.

Portrait of an artist

Born as a Baptist preacher’s son in Aberdeen, Scotland, Chambers converted under the preaching of Charles Spurgeon. In his twenties, he sought to portray the message of God’s redemption in art, studying technique in London and Edinburgh.

Timeline
1859	Japan reopens to foreign missionaries
1860	U.S. Civil War begins
1865	J. Hudson Taylor founds China Inland Mission
1874	Oswald Chambers born
1917	Oswald Chambers dies
1924	First Christian radio broadcasts

Gradually Chambers began to believe God wanted him not to pursue the arts for God’s sake, but God for the sake of his will alone. As he later wrote, “It takes me a long while to realize that God has no respect for anything I bring him. All he wants from me is unconditional surrender.”

His decision led him to Dunoon College, a small, interdenominational theological school. It wasn’t long before Chambers himself began to believe, like family members and his artist colleagues, he was foolish—or insane. During those “four years of hell on earth,” Chambers continued his work but inside felt overcome by an acute vision of his own depravity and the powerlessness of his faith.

The experience brought Chambers to the brink of spiritual desperation. He threw himself completely on Jesus’ promise that God would give his Spirit to those who ask. The struggle was instantly over. Chambers later described the restult: “Glory be to God, the last aching abyss of the human heart is filled to overflowing with the love of God.”

A brief, shining light

Soon after his “spiritual emancipation,” Chambers became much in demand as an itinerant speaker and teacher through the revivalistic League of Prayer.

Because Chambers believed that spiritual mediocrity was often the result of mental lethargy, he opened the Bible Training College with the League in 1911. When World War I interrupted academic life, Chambers enlisted as a chaplain to the armed forces. In October 1915, he proceeded to Zeitoun, Egypt, where he and his wife evangelized soldiers.

Whether speaking to soldiers or students, Chambers called his listeners to live aggressively for God. God’s will, he said, can be found in any circumstance of life, so long as individuals are willing to have a personal relationship with Christ and completely abandon themselves to him. “The great word of Jesus to his disciples is abandon,” he wrote. “When God has brought us into the relationship of disciples, we have to venture on his word; trust entirely to him and watch that when he brings us to the venture, we take it.”

His utmost

A ruptured appendix and consequent complications cut Chambers’s life short in late 1917. It seemed an unbelievably tragic end to a life of promise. But it wasn’t the end. His wife, whose ambition to become secretary to England’s prime minister prompted her to acquire an astonishing skill at shorthand, transcribed and published Chambers’s lectures. She sent them in pamphlet form to many soldiers to whom Chambers had ministered, as well as to past students. Soon she gathered the material into book form and, in 1927, she first published My Utmost for His Highest.

March 4th

Could this be true of me?

But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself. Acts 20:24.

It is easier to serve God without a vision, easier to work for God without a call, because then you are not bothered by what God requires; common sense is your guide, veneered over with Christian sentiment. You will be more prosperous and successful, more leisure-hearted, if you never realize the call of God. But if once you receive a commission from Jesus Christ, the memory of what God wants will always come like a goad; you will no longer be able to work for Him on the commonsense basis.
What do I really count dear? If I have not been gripped by Jesus Christ, I will count service dear, time given to God dear, my life dear unto myself. Paul says he counted his life dear only in order that he might fulfil the ministry he had received; he refused to use his energy for any other thing. Acts 20:24 states Paul’s almost sublime annoyance at being asked to consider himself; he was absolutely indifferent to any consideration other than that of fulfilling the ministry he had received. Practical work may be a competitor against abandonment to God, because practical work is based on this argument—‘Remember how useful you are here,’ or—‘Think how much value you would be in that particular type of work.’ That attitude does not put Jesus Christ as the Guide as to where we should go, but our judgment as to where we are of most use. Never consider whether you are of use; but ever consider that you are not your own but His.

March 3rd

The unrelieved quest

Feed My sheep. John 21:17.

This is love in the making. The love of God is un-made, it is God’s nature. When we receive the Holy Spirit He unites us with God so that His love is manifested in us. When the soul is united to God by the indwelling Holy Spirit, that is not the end; the end is that we may be one with the Father as Jesus was. What kind of oneness had Jesus Christ with the Father? Such a oneness that the Father sent him down here to be spent for us, and He says—“As the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you.”
Peter realizes now with the revelation of the Lord’s hurting question that he does love Him; then comes the point—Spend it out. Don’t testify how much you love Me, don’t profess about the marvellous revelation you have had, but—“Feed My sheep.” And Jesus has some extraordinarily funny sheep, some bedraggled, dirty sheep, some awkward butting sheep, some sheep that have gone astray! It is impossible to weary God’s love, and it is impossible to weary that love in me if it springs from the one centre. The love of God pays no attention to the distinctions made by natural individuality. If I love my Lord I have no business to be guided by natural temperament; I have to feed His sheep. There is no relief and no release from this commission. Beware of counterfeiting the love of God by working along the line of natural human sympathy, because that will end in blaspheming the love of God.

March 2nd

Have you felt the hurt of the Lord?

Jesus said unto him the third time, Lovest thou Me? John 21:17.

Have you felt the hurt of the Lord to the uncovered quick, the place where the real sensitiveness of your life is lodged? The devil never hurts there, neither sin nor human affection hurts there, nothing goes through to that place but the word of God. “Peter was grieved, because Jesus said unto him the third time.…” He was awakening to the fact that in the real true centre of his personal life he was devoted to Jesus, and he began to see what the patient questioning meant. There was not the slightest strand of delusion left in Peter’s mind, he never could be deluded again. There was no room for passionate utterance, no room for exhilaration or sentiment. It was a revelation to him to realize how much he did love the Lord, and with amazement he said—“Lord, Thou knowest all things.” Peter began to see how much he did love Jesus; but he did not say—‘Look at this or that to confirm it.’ Peter was beginning to discover to himself how much he did love the Lord, that there was no one in heaven above or upon earth beneath beside Jesus Christ; but he did not know it until the probing, hurting questions of the Lord came. The Lord’s questions always reveal me to myself.
The patient directness and skill of Jesus Christ with Peter! Our Lord never asks questions until the right time. Rarely, but probably once, He will get us into a corner where He will hurt us with His undeviating questions, and we will realize that we do love Him far more deeply than any profession can ever show.

March 1st

The undeviating question

Lovest thou Me? John 21:17.

Peter declares nothing now (cf. Matthew 26:33–35 ). Natural individuality professes and declares; the love of the personality is only discovered by the hurt of the question of Jesus Christ. Peter loved Jesus in the way in which any natural man loves a good man. That is temperamental love; it may go deep into the individuality, but it does not touch the centre of the person. True love never professes anything. Jesus said—“Whosoever shall confess Me before men,” i.e., confess his love not merely by his words, but by everything he does.
Unless we get hurt right out of every deception about ourselves, the word of God is not having its way with us. The word of God hurts as no sin can ever hurt, because sin blunts feeling. The question of the Lord intensifies feeling, until to be hurt by Jesus is the most exquisite hurt conceivable. It hurts not only in the natural way but in the profound personal way. The word of the Lord pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, there is no deception left. There is no possibility of being sentimental with the Lord’s question; you cannot say nice things when the Lord speaks directly to you, the hurt is too terrific. It is such a hurt that it stings every other concern out of account. There never can be any mistake about the hurt of the Lord’s word when it comes to his child; but the point of the hurt is the great point of revelation.