For many years, I have made “My Utmost For His Highest” part of my daily devotions. I can easily understand why it is said to be, apart from the Bible, the most read Christian book of all time. Oswald Chambers shared his wisdom over 100 years ago, but his insights are truly timeless, challenging his readers to engage faith, Scripture, and Christ in deeper, more thoughtful ways than many Christians typically do. His reflections are as relevant (perhaps even more relevant) as when he first expressed them before his death on November 15, 1917. I always read “My Utmost” at the end of my devotional time because I especially appreciate Oswald’s keen insights into following Jesus. They send me out into my day with energy and conviction, and continually encourage me to be “my utmost for HIS highest!”

I’d like to share a couple of writings from this exceptional book as we approach the 91st anniversary of Oswald Chambers passing tomorrow. The November 9th and 13th devotionals impacted me in a powerful way this year; see if they don’t challenge you too in your understanding of what is most important regarding preaching about Jesus and what faith is truly about. (The italicized paragraphs are the passages from "My Utmost.")

First , the November 9th entry, “Sacramental Service:”

"Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ. . . ." Colossians 1:24

The Christian worker has to be a sacramental "go-between," to be so identified with his Lord and the reality of His Redemption that He can continually bring His creating life through him. It is not the strength of one man's personality being superimposed on another, but the real presence of Christ coming through the elements of the worker's life.

How true this is! In our witness, our preaching, our evangelism, it must always be about Christ and not about us! I think we agree with this, but the ways of the world all too often influence and overcome us, and we can be more enamored with the person--the famous speaker/teacher/author/band/singer--than with Jesus and His message. Our media-saturated culture and obsession with celebrity has, unfortunately, infected our spiritual values and perspectives as Christians and so we must continually resist the pressure to focus on the messenger instead of the message, and on our Lord.

When we preach the historic facts of the life and death of Our Lord as they are conveyed in the New Testament, our words are made sacramental, God uses them on the ground of His Redemption to create in those who listen that which is not created otherwise. If we preach the effects of Redemption in human life instead of the revelation regarding Jesus, the result in those who listen is not new birth, but refined spiritual culture, and the Spirit of God cannot witness to it because such preaching is in another domain. We have to see that we are in such living sympathy with God that as we proclaim His truth He can create in souls the things which He alone can do.

Did you catch that? “Preach the historic facts of the life and death of Our Lord!” That’s incarnational theology! What I believe is the most incredible, fantastic, unique centerpiece of Christian faith: that the very God of the universe loved us--His human, fallible, earthly creatures--so much that He willingly limited Himself and entered into our very existence and experienced everything that we go through in life. It’s absurd! Crazy! Impossible and incomprehensible and irrational--and it is the cornerstone of our faith! Of our relationship with God Himself! As Oswald also says, it is the Redemption that God made possible through His incarnation in Jesus that must always be our focus and not the effects of Redemption in our lives. The objective reality of Christ and what He has accomplished is the important thing, not how our salvation makes us feel or how changed and wonderful our lives might be as a result of our acceptance of Christ. Focusing on the results puts the emphasis in the wrong place--but again, this is what people in our culture love to get caught up in: the emotion and drama, the excitement and "gusto" of the experiences of life! We who follow Jesus regularly look first for these effects too, rather than focusing on the objective reality of the Redemption made actual in Jesus Himself. We Christians like “chills” and “how it brought tears to my eyes” and how powerful worship or preaching make us feel, just as much as non-believers enjoy their own thrills and chills! (More on this in the next devotional...) This is not right. It is something we need to repent of, guard against, and instead we must strive to intentionally re-focus our attention on the amazing truth of the Redemption itself. Otherwise, as Oswald concludes:

What a wonderful personality! What a fascinating man! Such marvellous insight! What chance has the Gospel of God through all that? It cannot get through, because the line of attraction is always the line of appeal. If a man attracts by his personality, his appeal is along that line; if he is identified with his Lord's personality, then the appeal is along the line of what Jesus Christ can do. The danger is to glory in men; Jesus says we are to lift HIM up.



The November 13th entry is entitled “Faith And Experience:”

"The Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Galatians 2:20

We have to battle through our moods into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus, to get out of the hole-and-corner business of our experience into abandoned devotion to Him.

This is so very difficult for us, isn’t it? To get over our infatuation with “experience” and “feelings” and all of our personal, individualistic, emotional obsessions and, instead, make it all about Jesus. To truly have FAITH--faith in the One Whom we claim is Savior of the world. Remember that “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1) However, the outer circumstances of our lives, the things that are so familiar and comfortable and pleasing to us, those “thrills and chills” when it comes to our spiritual lives--all of this is, unfortunately, where many of us who claim to have “faith” put our focus instead. It is all too easy to be devoted to the outer expressions and realities of our faith rather than, as Oswald says, “into abandoned devotion to Him.”

Think Who the New Testament says that Jesus Christ is, and then think of the despicable meanness of the miserable faith we have - I haven't had this and that experience!

Now, you might be thinking that Oswald is speaking against Christian testimony. That when we see and hear about the effect Jesus has on the lives of different people we are almost making an idol of that person and of the experience. I don’t think that this is what Oswald means, at least not completely. Transformation in people is, in a sense, “incarnational” as well; a witness to Jesus Christ enfleshed in the very being of a follower of our Lord! What Oswald means here is that we must not make dramatic or emotional or specially unique experiences the measure of anyone’s relationship with Christ. No! Let me say it again: it must always be about Christ and not about us! It’s just hard for us to keep the main thing the main thing because in our humanness, we tend toward what is most immediate and easiest to grasp: those activities and things that our senses engage and interact with. Christ and God and faith and belief are more intangible; harder to get a grip on. So we can all too quickly allow ourselves to be caught up in the expressions and experiences of our faith rather than in the rock solid reality of who and what our faith is in: Jesus Christ Himself.

Think what faith in Jesus Christ claims: that He can present us faultless before the throne of God, unutterably pure, absolutely rectified and profoundly justified.

Do we “get it?” Can we truly wrap our minds around this? Is this more than a doctrinal or theological statement to us; something we only affirm in our heads, but that is too transcendent and vague and incomprehensible to really impact us at the level of our actual lives?

Stand in implicit adoring faith in Him, He  is made unto us "wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." How can we talk of making a sacrifice for the Son of God! Our salvation is from hell and perdition, and then we talk about making sacrifices!

Wow! Have you ever thought of it in this way? That what we call “sacrifices” and struggles, hardships, and pain are only minor temporary irritations compared to what God accomplished for all eternity in and through our Savior, Jesus? Think of it; of what we are “saved” from: hell and perdition (an old fashioned word that means complete and irreparable loss of our souls and our hope for salvation, and damnation instead!) as well as from sin, death, and the devil! Sacrifices? How can anything we label “sacrifice” in our lives compare to what we actually receive and possess through Jesus’s sacrifice?

We have to get out into faith in Jesus Christ continually; not a prayer meeting Jesus Christ, nor a book Jesus Christ, but the New Testament Jesus Christ, Who is God Incarnate, and Who ought to strike us to His feet as dead. Our faith must be in the One from Whom our experience springs.

THERE YOU HAVE IT IN A NUTSHELL! I can say no more...it’s Jesus, not our experience.

Jesus Christ wants our absolute abandon of devotion to Himself. We never can experience Jesus Christ, nor ever hold Him within the compass of our own hearts, but our faith must be built in strong emphatic confidence in Him.

Do we comprehend this? Can we go forward in our lives, individually and as a church, centered on this true reality; on the “bigness” of Jesus Christ Who is SO much beyond what we can “ever hold within the compass of our hearts?” Can we abandon ourselves to Him? Can our confidence be in Him only, so that all of the outer “experiences” of Him (sounds and sights of worship, words and phrases of Scripture, familiar expressions of faith, personal preferences, prejudices, and desires) no longer entangle us but, instead, fade into the background, becoming mere lenses through which we are able to embrace the ultimate reality of our Lord? Is this easy? Not at all! Can we get our heads around it? Barely! But I believe this re-focusing and re-prioritizing of our energies and attitudes and emotions on Jesus, not on our experiences, could be more deeply transforming for us, individually and as a church. It could alleviate tension between people, anxiety over change, and the need to have old familiar patterns be the expression of our faith in Christ. The result of all this would be an easier ability to embrace all that is necessary to be a church that can reach the ever-changing culture we are in the midst of today. If we could truly focus on Jesus--just Jesus--and not on our priorities and agendas, think of how freely Jesus could live and move in us! No longer restrained by our apprehensions, concerns, expectations, and desires of what we want our faith to be like. Think how attractive this could be to ousiders looking in on us who, sadly, usually only see the outer facade or expressions of our relationship with Jesus--and to many people, what they see is not attractive at all. Our confidence and delight must be in Jesus, not in the externals of our faith!

It is along this line that we see the rugged impatience of the Holy Ghost against unbelief. All our fears are wicked, and we fear because we will not nourish ourselves in our faith. How can any one who is identified with Jesus Christ suffer from doubt or fear! It ought to be an absolute pæan of perfectly irrepressible, triumphant belief.

Fear. Are you fearful these days? Unsure of the future, not only of the economy, of terrorism, of the unsettledness of the world, of so many things that you don’t understand, but also frightened by change, especially of what is happening to churches today, ours included? Feeling almost like an alien in your own surroundings because of the fast pace of life, changing technology, and unfathomable challenges facing us on every side today? Oswald certainly startles us with his words, “All our fears are wicked!” He calls us back to the simple, central reality where we must nourish our faith: Jesus! We must let go of all our concerns, including the ones we have about our church; concerns about change, style, conflict, music, tradtions, innovations, personalities--all of them. We need to come to the place where we realize that even if all of the things we cherish and hold dear were taken from us, we would be perfectly fine--even content, happy, joyful--because we have Jesus! This is how it was in the early Church. This is how it is for believers who are facing persecution right now, all over the world. And isn’t it interesting that this is where the Church is growing and thriving today? Where all of the things we give so much attention and energy to, that we are afraid to see changed or taken away from us, are removed from Christians who are in the midst of persecution? You see, all they have is Jesus! We can certainly learn from them. Can we embrace voluntarily what they are facing through force? And give our full attention to Jesus, “the author and finisher” (KJV), “the pioneer and perfecter” (RSV), “the source and goal” (Phillips), “on whom faith depends from start to finish.” (NEB)

As Oswald concludes: “How can anyone who is identified with Jesus Christ suffer from doubt or fear!”

May this be our reality in our lives, in our church, in the communities where we live today.

Oswald Chambers, July 24, 1874-November 15, 1917: Requiescat in pace. Amen.