Oswald Chambers
The Surrendered Life
Oswald Chambers was a man unbridled by the world and its desires.
Some say he was one of the greatest Christian thinkers of our time.
He would say if any credit is given, let it go to Jesus Christ, his
Lord and Savior. Much like the apostle Paul, life for Oswald
Chambers was but an open opportunity to glorify God.
He was born on July 24, 1874 in Aberdeen Scotland, where he became
a Christian during his teen years under the ministry of Charles
Spurgeon. God used many things to shape and mold Chambers. One of
which was his acceptance into the University of Edinburgh. Rapid
spiritual development followed as Chambers became intently
interested in the things of God. After answering God's call into
the ministry, he studied theology at Dunoon College. From 1906-10,
he conducted itinerant Bible-teaching ministries in the United
States, United Kingdom, and Japan. Upon his return home, he married
Gertrude Hobbs. In 1911, he founded and was named principal of the
Bible Training College in Clapham, London. The school closed in
1915 due to World War I. Chambers was then commissioned by YMCA to
go to Zeitoun, Egypt, where he ministered to Australian and New
Zealand troops.
Many of Chambers' devotional lectures make up a large portion of My
Utmost For His Highest, now considered a classic and his best-known
book. His death, the result of a ruptured appendix in 1917, came as
a shock to all who knew him. He had often told friends: "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."
After his death, a fellow worker remarked: "It is a mighty thing to
see even once in a lifetime a man the self-expression of whose
being is the Redemption of Jesus Christ manifested in daily hourly
living. He would have [simply] called himself 'A believer in
Jesus.'" The fact is, God made this man "a refuge from the storm"
for many downcast souls. Through his written words, God continues
to touch and change lives for Christ's sake.
Through Trial God Brightens the Flame
However, there was a time when answering God's call seemed
difficult and painful. For several years, poverty and spiritual
loneliness clouded his life. Then came the breakthrough. God had
used a wilderness experience to "bring him to the end of himself."
He became keenly aware of his utter worthlessness. He found his
only worth to be that which God had given him in Christ.
There arose within Oswald Chambers' life a deep desire to abandon
all for Christ's sake. He writes, "A sanctified soul may be an
artist, or a musician [anyone]; but he is not a sanctified artist
or musician: he is one who expresses the message of God through a
particular medium. As long as the artist or musician imagines he
can consecrate his artistic gifts to God, he is deluded.
Abandonment of ourselves is the kernel of consecration, not
presenting our gifts, but presenting ourselves without reserve [to
Christ]."
Sooner or later God makes each of us aware of the areas in our
lives where "self interest" abides. These are the areas He comes to
touch and demand complete surrender.
Living The Surrendered Life
The Cross of Christ took on a new dimension to Oswald. No longer
was it just a point of salvation; it became the place of self
abandonment and surrender to the call of God.
It was more than a place of forgiveness; it was a place of hallowed
ground where he and we stand and willingly identify with Jesus
Christ. It is where we "give up our right to ourselves" and die to
self.
Out of this death comes life and the opportunity to live a
Spirit-filled existence. (John 12:24) As we respond in obedience to
God, He promises to lead and guide us through life with a sense of
victory and hope. The times of trial, distress, and isolation are
times God accomplishes His greatest work, when He molds us into the
likeness of Christ.
"The one great need for the missionary (Chambers uses this term for
those who have given their lives completely to Christ) is to be
ready for Jesus Christ, and we cannot be ready unless we have seen
Him." The way we come to see Jesus is through surrender. The
blessing of living life abandoned to Him is to witness His daily
power and grace alive and flowing through our lives into the lives
of others.
In abandonment and surrender we find the unbridled soulone not
tempted by the treasures of the world, but bound to the grace and
glory of the Savior. Oswald Chambers' message is one that still
calls to us today. It is a call to leave behind everything outside
of Jesus Christ:
"The battle is lost or won in the secret places of the will before
God, never first in the external world. . . . Every now and again,
not often, but sometimes, God brings us to a point of climax. That
is the Great Divide in the life; from that point we either go
towards a more and more dilatory and useless type of Christian
life, or we become more and more ablaze for the glory of God -
[Our] Utmost for His Highest."