The Complete Christian
By Oswald Chambers
(1874-1917)

(Many of these comments are addressing Christian workers) 

Jesus Christ’s standard for the worker is Himself. Am I allowing His standard to obsess me? Am I measuring my life by His all the time? The one standard put before us is Our Lord Himself; we have to be saturated in this ideal in thinking and in praying, and allow nothing to blur the standard. We must lift up Jesus Christ not only in the preaching of the Gospel but to our own souls. If my mind and heart and spirit is getting fixed with one Figure only, the Lord Jesus Christ, and other people and other ideas are fading, then I am growing in grace. The one dominant characteristic in the life of the worker is that Jesus Christ is coming more into the ascendant. The motive is not a sentiment but a passion, the blazing passion of the Holy Ghost in the soul of the worker; not—"because Jesus has done so much for me," that is a sickening, unscriptural statement. The one attitude of the life is Jesus Christ first, second, and third, and nothing apart from Him. The thing that hinders God’s work is not sin, but other claims which are right, but which at a certain point of their rightness conflict with the claims of Jesus Christ. If the conflict should come, remember it is to be Jesus first (see Luke 14:26).

The vessels in a household have their honour from the use made of them by the head of the house. As a worker I have to separate myself for one purpose—for Jesus Christ to use me for what He likes. Imitation, doing what other people do, is an unmitigated curse. Am I allowing anyone to mould my ideas of Christian service? Am I taking my ideas from some servant of God or from God Himself? We are here for one thing only—to be vessels "meet for the Master’s use." We are not here to work for God because we have chosen to do so, but because God has apprehended us. Natural ability has nothing to do with service; consequently there is never any thought of, "Oh, well, I am not fitted for this."

One student a year who hears God’s call would be sufficient for God to have called this College into existence. This College as an organization is not worth anything, it is not academic; it is for nothing else but for God to help Himself to lives. Is He going to help Himself to your life, or are you taken up with your conception of what you are going to do? God is responsible for our lives, and the one great keynote is reckless reliance upon Him.

Am I learning how to use my Bible? The way to become complete for the Master’s service is to be well soaked in the Bible, some of us only exploit certain passages. Our Lord wants to give us continuous instruction out of His word; continuous instruction turns hearers into disciples. Beware of "spooned meat" spirituality, of using the Bible for the sake of getting messages; use it to nourish your own soul. Be a continuous learner, don’t stop short, and the truth will open to you on the right hand and on the left until you find there is no problem in human life with which the Bible does not deal. But remember that there are certain points of truth Our Lord cannot reveal to us until our character is in a fit state to bear it. The discernment of God’s truth and the development of character go together.

The life God places in the Christian worker is the life of Jesus Christ, which is continually changing spiritual innocence into glorious practical character.

General Maxims—

(a) If you lack education, first realize it; then cure it.

(b) Beware of knowing what you don’t practice.

Give attendance to reading. (1 Timothy 4:13)

If we wish to excel in secular things, we concentrate; why should we be less careful in work for God? Don’t get dissipated; determine to develop your intellect for one purpose only—to make yourself of more use to God. Have a perfect machine ready for God to use. It is impossible to read too much, but always keep before you why you read. Remember that "the need to receive, recognize, and rely on the Holy Spirit" is before all else.

Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine. (1 Timothy 4:16)

Remember that preaching is God’s ordained method of saving the world (see 1 Corinthians 1:21). Take time before God and find out the highest ideal for an address. Never mind if you do not reach the ideal, but work at it, and never say fail. By work and steady application you will acquire the power to do with ease what at first seemed so difficult. Avoid the temptation to be slovenly in your mind and be deluded into calling it "depending on the Spirit." Don’t misapply Matthew 10:19-20. Carelessness in spiritual matters is a crime.

Neglect not the gift that is in thee. (1 Timothy 4:14)

In immediate preparation don’t call in the aid of other minds; rely on the Holy Spirit and on your own resources, and He will select for you. Discipline your mind by reading and by building in stuff in private, then all that you have assimilated will come back. Keep yourself full to the brim in reading; but remember that the first great Resource is the Holy Ghost Who lays at your disposal the Word of God. The thing to prepare is not the sermon, but the preacher.

Follow after righteousness. (1 Timothy 6:11)

It is possible to have a saved and sanctified experience and a stagnant mind. Learn how to make your mind awake and fervid, and when once your mind is awake never let it go to sleep. The brain does not need rest, it only needs change of work. The intellect works with the greatest intensity when it works continuously; the more you do, the more you can do. We must work hard to keep in trim for God. Clean off the rust and keep bright by use.

Be instant in season, out of season. (2 Timothy 4:2)

You cannot always be in conscious glowing touch with God, but don’t wait for ecstasy. See that you make all else secondary to the one purpose of your life. "My one aim is to preach Jesus by lip and life, and I will allow no other interest to dominate," then every other thing will be related to that purpose. "Instant in season, out of season"; never give way to discouragement.

Immorality and holiness are absolute, you cannot get behind them. When Our Lord talks about the radical evil of the human heart (e.g. Mark 7:21-22), it is a revelation we know nothing of; it comes to the shores of our lives in immorality and holiness. Immorality has its seat in every one of us, not in some of us. If a man is not holy, he is immoral, no matter how good he may seem. Immorality is at the basis of the whole thing; if it does not show itself outwardly, it will show itself before God. The New Testament teaches that no man or woman is safe apart from Jesus Christ because there is treachery on the inside. "Out of the heart of men, proceed. . . ." The majority of us are grossly ignorant about the possibilities of evil in the heart. Never trust your common sense when the statements of Jesus contradict it, and when you preach see that you base your preaching on the revelation of Jesus Christ, not on the sweet innocence of human nature. When you hear a man cry out, like the publican of old, "God be merciful to me a sinner," you have the problem of the whole universe. That man has reached the realization of himself at last, he knows that he is a guilty, immoral type of man and needs saving. Never take anyone to be good, and above all never take yourself to be good. Natural goodness will always break, always disappoint, why? Because the Bible tells us that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" Never trust anything in yourself that God has not placed there through the regeneration of Our Lord Jesus Christ; and never trust anything saving that in anyone else.

That is the stern platform you have to stand on when you present the truth of God, and it will resolve you on to a lonely platform, because your message will be craved for but its way of being presented will be resented. The Gospel of Jesus Christ awakens an intense craving and an equally intense resentment. Base on personal love for the Lord, not on personal love for men. Personal love for men will make you call immorality a weakness, and holiness a mere aspiration; personal love for the Lord will make you call immorality devilish, and holiness the only thing that can stand in the light of God. The only safety for the preacher is to face his soul not with his people, or even with his message, but to face his soul with his Saviour all the time.

There is a method of making disciples which is not sanctioned by Our Lord. It is an excessive pressing of people to be reconciled to God in a way that is unworthy of the dignity of the Gospel. The pleading is on the line of: Jesus has done so much for us, cannot we do something out of gratitude to Him? This method of getting people into relationship to God out of pity for Jesus is never recognized by Our Lord. It does not put sin in its right place, nor does it put the more serious aspect of the Gospel in its right place. Our Lord never pressed anyone to follow Him unconditionally; nor did He wish to be followed merely out of an impulse of enthusiasm. He never pleaded, He never entrapped; He made discipleship intensely narrow, and pointed out certain things which could never be in those who followed Him. To-day there is a tendency to take the harshness out of Our Lord’s statements. What Jesus says is hard; it is only easy when it comes to those who are His disciples. Whenever Our Lord talked about discipleship He prefaced it with an "IF," never with an emphatic assertion, "You must." Discipleship carries an option with it.

The aspect of the cross in discipleship is lost altogether in the present-day view of following Jesus. The cross is looked upon as something beautiful and simple instead of a stern heroism. Our Lord never said it was easy to be a Christian; He warned men that they would have to face a variety of hardships, which He termed bearing the cross.

The time when Jesus comes to us is not so much in a revival issue, a time when He is in the ascendant, but rather at a time when we are in the ascendant, when our wills are perfectly free, when the fascination and beauty of the world on the one hand and the repelling aspect of Jesus Christ on the other is there. Our Lord never allows an allegiance which is the outcome of an impulse of enthusiasm that sweeps us off our feet, not knowing what we are doing. We must be at the balance of our wills when we choose. That is why the call of Jesus Christ awakens an immense craving and an intense resentment, and that is why as New Testament preachers we must always push an issue of will.

The next time you read those words, "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me," strip them of all their poetry. It is an effort to us to think of the cross as Our Lord thought of it. When Jesus said "let him deny himself, and take up his cross," He had in mind not a thing of beautiful sentiment to arouse heroism, but an ugly cruel thing, with awful nails that tore the flesh. For twenty centuries people have covered up the Cross with sentiment, and we can sit and listen to the preaching of the crucifixion of Jesus and be dissolved in tears, but very few of us have any appreciation of what our Lord conveyed when He said, "let him deny himself, and take his cross, and follow Me."

The Cross of Christ stands unique and alone; we are never called upon to carry His Cross. Our cross is something that comes only with the peculiar relationship of a disciple to Jesus Christ, it is the evidence that we have denied the right to ourselves. Our Lord was not talking about suffering for conscience’ sake or conviction’s sake; men suffer for conscience’ sake who know nothing about Jesus Christ and own Him no allegiance; men suffer for conviction’s sake, if they are worth their salt, whether they are Christians or not. The Cross of Jesus Christ is a revelation; our cross is an experience.

What the Cross was to Our Lord such also in measure was it to be to those who followed Him. The cross is the pain involved in doing the will of God. That aspect is being lost sight of, we say that after sanctification all is a delight. Was Paul’s life all delight? Was Our Lord’s life all delight? Discipleship means we are identified with His interests, and we have to fill up "that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ." Only when we have been identified with Our Lord in sanctification can we begin to understand what our cross means.

These verses need to be re-read because we are apt to think that Jesus Christ took all the bitterness and we get all the blessing. It is true that we get the blessing, but we must never forget that the wine of life is made out of crushed grapes; to follow Jesus will involve bruising in the lives of the disciples as the purpose of God did in His own life. The thing that makes us whimper is that we will look for justice. If you look for justice in your Christian work you will soon put yourself in a bandage and give way to self-pity and discouragement. Never look for justice, but never cease to give it; and never allow anything you meet with to sour your relationship to men through Jesus Christ. "Love . . . as I have loved you."

In Matthew 10:34 Jesus told the disciples that they would be opposed not only in private life, but that the powers of state would oppose them and they would have to suffer persecution, and some even crucifixion. Don’t say, "But that was simply meant for those days." If you stand true to Jesus Christ you will find that the world will react against you with a butt, not with a caress, annoyed and antagonistic (see John 15:18-20).

When Our Lord spoke of the cross His disciples were to bear, He did not say that if they bore it they would become holy; He said the cross was to be borne for His sake, not for theirs. He also said that they would suffer in the same way as the prophets suffered, because of the messages they spoke from God (see Matthew 5:11-12). The tendency to-day is to say, "Live a holy life, but don’t talk about it; don’t give your testimony; don’t confess your allegiance to Jesus, and you will be left alone."

"Whosoever therefore shall confess Me . . . ," i.e., confess Me by lip and by life. People are not persecuted for living a holy life, it is the confession of Jesus that brings the persecution. There is a great deal of social work done to-day that does not confess Jesus, although people may praise Him to further orders; and if you confess Him there, you will find the ostracism He mentions: "Keep your religion out; don’t bring your jargon of sanctification here." You must take it there, and when you do, the opposition will be tremendous. The reason for the opposition is that men have vested interests which philanthropy and kindness to humanity do not touch, but which the Spirit of Jesus testified to by human lips does touch, and indignation is awakened against the one who dares to carry the cross for his Lord there.

Self-denial and self-sacrifice are continually spoken of as being good in themselves; Our Lord never used any such affectation. He aimed a blow at the mistake that self-denial is an end in itself. He spoke of self-denial and self-sacrifice as painful things that cost and hurt (see Matthew 10:38-39). The term self-denial has come to mean giving up things; the denial Jesus speaks of is a denial right out to my right to myself, a clean sweep of all the decks to the mastership of Jesus. Some folks are so mixed up nervously that they cannot help sacrificing themselves, but unless Jesus Christ is the lodestar there is no benefit in the sacrifice. Self-denial must have its spring in personal out flowing love to Our Lord; we are no longer our own, we are spoilt for every other interest in life saving as we can win men to Jesus Christ. The one great spring of sacrifice is devotion to Jesus, "For My sake."

The vows of God are on me, and I may not stay
To play with shadows, or pluck earthly flower,
Till I my work have done.
And rendered up account.

The first requirement of the worker is discipline voluntarily entered into. It is easy to be passionate, easy to be thrilled by spiritual influences, but it takes a heart in love with Jesus Christ to put the feet in His footprints, and to square the life to a steady going "up to Jerusalem" with Him. Discipline is the one thing the modern Christian knows nothing of, we won’t stand discipline nowadays. God has given me an experience of His life and grace, therefore I am a law unto myself. The discipline of a worker is not in order to develop his own life, but for the purposes of his Commander. The reason there is so much failure is because we forget that we are here for that one thing, loyalty to Jesus Christ; otherwise we have no business to have taken the vows of God upon us. If a soldier is not prepared to be killed, he has no business to have enlisted as a soldier. The only way to keep true to God is by a steady persistent refusal to be interested in Christian work and to be interested alone in Jesus Christ.

A disciplined life means three things—a supreme aim incorporated into the life itself; an external law binding on the life from its Commander; and absolute loyalty to God and His word as the ingrained attitude of heart and mind. There must be no insubordination; every impulse, every emotion, every illumination must be rigorously handled and checked if it is not in accordance with God and His word.

Our Lord Himself is the example of a disciplined life. He lived a holy life by sacrificing Himself to His Father; His words and His thinking were holy because He submitted His intelligence to His Father’s word, and He worked the works of God because He steadily submitted His will to His Father’s will; and as is the Master, so is the disciple.

A disciple of Jesus must know from what he is to be disentangled. The disentanglement is from things which would be right for us but for the fact that we have taken upon us the vows of God. There is a difference between disentanglement for our own soul’s sake and disentanglement for God’s sake. We are apt to think only about being disentangled from the things which would ensnare us—we give up this and that, not for Jesus Christ’s sake, but for our own development. A worker has to disentangle himself from many things that would advantage and develop him but which would turn him aside from being broken bread and poured out wine in his Lord’s hands. We are not here to develop our own spiritual life, but to be broken for Jesus Christ’s sake. There is much that would advantage and develop us and make us more desirable than we are, but if we have taken the vows of God upon ourselves, those considerations must never enter in. Paul argues in this way: If anything in me, right or wrong, is hindering God’s work and causing another to stumble, I will give it up, even if it is the most legitimate thing on earth (see 1 Corinthians 8:13). People say, "Why cannot I do this?" For pity’s sake do it! There is no reason why you shouldn’t, there is neither right nor wrong about it; but if your love for Jesus Christ is not sufficient to disentangle you from a thousand and one things that would develop you, you know nothing about being His servant.

The appeal made in Christian work nowadays is that we must keep ourselves fit for our work, we must not; we must be in the hands of God for God to do exactly what He likes with us, and that means disentanglement from everything that would hinder His purpose. If you want to remain a full-orbed grape you must keep out of God’s hands for He will crush you, wine cannot be had in any other way. The curse in Christian work is that we want to preserve ourselves in God’s museum; what God wants is to see where Jesus Christ’s men and women are. The saints are always amongst the unofficial crowd, the crowd that is not noticed, and their one dominant note is Jesus Christ.

The worker must live a life detached to God, and the illustration of the detached life is that of a priest who intercedes. The reason so few of us intercede is because we do not understand that intercession is a vicarious work. It is not meant to develop us; it is vicarious from beginning to end.

The detached life is the result of an intensely narrow moral purity, not of a narrow mind. The mental view of Jesus Christ was as big as God’s view, consequently He went anywhere—to marriage feasts, into the social life of His time, because His morality was absolutely pure; and that is what God wants of us. In the beginning we are fanatical and we cut ourselves off from external things, until we learn that detachment is the outcome of an inner moral purity, inwrought by God and maintained by walking in the light. Then God can put us where He likes, in the foreign field or anywhere, and we will never be entangled—placed there, but detached. Whenever we make our personal convictions the standard for a society or a class, we take them the first step away from Christ, and that will happen every time the light we are walking in is not the light of God. It is enough to make the heart of a stone bleed to see royal souls turning away from God in their very eagerness to serve Him, and entering into worldliness instead of standing absolutely detached.

The worker has to have discernment like that of a farmer, that is, he must know how to watch, how to wait, and how to work with wonder. The farmer does not wait with folded arms but with intense activity, he keeps at it industriously until the harvest.

When someone comes to you with a question which makes you feel at your wits’ end, never say, "I can’t make head or tail of it." Of course you cannot. Always take the case that is too hard for you to God, and to no one else, and He will give you the right thing to say. When you are being taught by God to discern, you will deal with the case in the way that God has prompted you to and you will speak with discernment. When you are used of God it is not because you discern what is wrong, but because the Holy Spirit gives you discernment, and as you speak you realize in what an amazing way the words meet the case, and you say, "I wonder why I said that?" Don’t wonder any more, it was the Spirit of God inspiring you. When we are used, we never know we are used, and the times we expect to be used, we are not. We have to keep our heads out of the rush of things in order that the Spirit of God may discern through us.

The discernment for the worker himself is I am God’s, therefore I am good for no one else; not good for nothing, but good for no other calling in life. "No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." If you have taken on you the vows of God, never be surprised at the misery and turmoil that come every time you turn aside. Other people may do a certain thing and prosper, but you cannot, and God will take care you do not. There is always one fact more known only to God.

The one word to be written indelibly on each one of us is "God’s." There is no responsibility in the life that is there, it is full of speechless child-like delight in God. Whenever a worker breaks down it is because he has taken responsibility upon himself which was never God’s will for him to take. "Think of the responsibility it will be for you!" There is no responsibility whatever, saving that of refusing to take the responsibility. The responsibility that would rest on you if you took it would crush you to the dust; but when you know God you take no responsibility upon yourself, you are as free as a child, and the life is one of concentration on God. "Cast that He hath given thee upon the Lord" (Psalm 55:22 rv mg). The thing that interferes with the life with God is our abominable seriousness which chokes the freedom and simplicity which ought to mark the life. The freedom and simplicity spring from one point only, a heart at rest with God and at leisure from itself.

None of this is experience, it is a life; experience is the door that opens into the life. When we have had an experience the snare is that we want to go back to it. Leave experiences alone, let them come or go. God wants our lives to be absolutely centered in Himself. "We cannot kindle when we will the fire which in the heart resides," God gives us marvelous hours of insight, then He withdraws them, and we have to begin to work out "with aching hands and bleeding feet" what we saw in vision, and few understand this.

Click here to read J.C. Ryle's article on SANCTIFICATION