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Daily Reflections with Oswald Chambers [December 31, 2012]
My Utmost for His Highest (The Golden Book of Oswald Chambers;1992) ^ | 1935/1992 | Oswald Chambers

Posted on 12/31/2012 5:30:40 AM PST by Vision

Yesterday

"You shall not go out with haste, . . . for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard"

—Isaiah 52:12

Security from Yesterday. “. . . God requires an account of what is past” (Ecclesiastes 3:15). At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God’s grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present.

Security for Tomorrow. “. . . the Lord will go before you . . . .” This is a gracious revelation— that God will send His forces out where we have failed to do so. He will keep watch so that we will not be tripped up again by the same failures, as would undoubtedly happen if He were not our “rear guard.” And God’s hand reaches back to the past, settling all the claims against our conscience.

Security for Today. “You shall not go out with haste . . . .” As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, forgetful delight, nor with the quickness of impulsive thoughtlessness. But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays hold broken and irreversible things for us. It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ.

Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.


TOPICS: Ecumenism; General Discusssion; Theology; Worship
KEYWORDS: prayer; reflection; selfexamination
Oswald Chambers (1874-1917) was born July 24, 1874, in Aberdeen, Scotland. Converted in his teen years under the ministry of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, he studied art and archaeology at the University of Edinburgh before answering a call from God to the Christian ministry. He then studied theology at Dunoon College. From 1906-1910 he conducted an itinerant Bible-teaching ministry in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan.

In 1910, Chambers married Gertrude Hobbs. They had one daughter, Kathleen.

In 1911 he founded and became principal of the Bible Training College in Clapham, London, where he lectured until the school was closed in 1915 because of World War I. In October 1915 he sailed for Zeitoun, Egypt (near Cairo), where he ministered to troops from Australia and New Zealand as a YMCA chaplain. He died there November 15, 1917, following surgery for a ruptured appendix.

Although Oswald Chambers wrote only one book, Baffled to Fight Better, more than thirty titles bear his name. With this one exception, published works were compiled by Mrs. Chambers, a court stenographer, from her verbatim shorthand notes of his messages taken during their seven years of marriage. For half a century following her husband's death she labored to give his words to the world.

My Utmost For His Highest, his best-known book, has been continuously in print in the United States since 1935 and remains in the top ten titles of the religious book bestseller list with millions of copies in print. It has become a Christian classic.

1 posted on 12/31/2012 5:30:49 AM PST by Vision
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Come to these threads as you are; leave with what you have discovered.

Absolutely no flaming! These daily threads are intended to be devotional in nature. If a particular day's offering says nothing to you, please just go on and wait for the next day. Consider these threads a DMZ of sorts, a place where a perpetual truce is in effect and a place where all other arguments and disagreements from other times and places are left behind.

I can attest from personal experience that reading from Chambers daily will almost certainly change - not one's faith - but one's perspective of his/her own faith, and open up new vistas in your spiritual life. If - when - this happens to a reader of these threads, and they choose to share what has happened within them - we are treading on hallowed ground. Be respectful.

- Religion Moderator

2 posted on 12/31/2012 5:31:23 AM PST by Vision (Obama is king of the "Takers." Don't be a "Taker.")
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To: Religion Moderator; 185JHP; 1lawlady; abigail2; al_c; Alamo-Girl; AlguyA; alpha-8-25-02; ...
Daily Reflections with Oswald Chambers Ping!

"Yesterday"
3 posted on 12/31/2012 5:32:09 AM PST by Vision (Obama is king of the "Takers." Don't be a "Taker.")
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To: Religion Moderator; 185JHP; 1lawlady; abigail2; al_c; Alamo-Girl; AlguyA; alpha-8-25-02; ...
Daily Reflections with Oswald Chambers Ping!

"Yesterday"
4 posted on 12/31/2012 5:32:54 AM PST by Vision (Obama is king of the "Takers." Don't be a "Taker.")
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To: Vision
It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ.

Indeed. Thank you for this beautiful devotion!
5 posted on 12/31/2012 8:34:31 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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