Oswald Chambers Quotes

We are too ready to imagine that we are religious, because we know something of religion. We appropriate to ourselves the pious sentiments we read, and we talk as if the thoughts of other men's heads were really the feelings of our own hearts. But piety has not its seat in the memory, but in the affections, for which however the memory is an excellent purveyor, though a bad substitute.

Who is telling us about the false self today? Who is even equipped tell us? Many clergy have not figured this out for themselves, since even ministry can be a career decision or an attraction to "religion" more than the result of an encounter with God or themselves. Formal religious status can maintain the false self rather effectively, especially if there are a lot of social payoffs like special respect, titles, salaries, a good self image, or nice costumes. It is no accident that the religious "Pharisees" became the symbolic bad guys in the Jesus story.

Much of what is called Christianity has more to do with disguising the ego behind the screen of religion and culture than any real movement toward a God beyond the small self, and a new self in God.

The Church can't be a religious theater where paid men perform for the religious amusement of the people who pay them.

When Jesus came to earth, demons recognized him, the sick flocked to him, and sinners doused his feet and head with perfume. Meanwhile he offended pious Jews with their strict preconceptions of what God should be like. Their rejection makes me wonder, could religious types be doing just the reverse now? Could we be perpetuating an image of Jesus that fits our pious expectations but does not match the person portrayed so vividly in the Gospels?

What I thought as a young adult is you act like you have it together whether or not you do because that is what church people do. That is not what God has called us to do.

A truly religious man does not embrace a religion; and he who embraces one has no religion.

Better is the sinner who hath thoughts about God, than the saint who hath only the show of sanctity.

To be alive spiritually man must have union with God and must be conscious of it. Apart from this union his religious life will be an empty drudgery, a mere imitation of true spirituality.

We may sing our hymns and psalms, and offer prayers, but they will be an abomination to God, unless we are willing to be thoroughly straightforward in our daily life.

The Jesus who makes everything okay for everyone is a phantom, a dream, not a real figure.

The greatest challenge the church faces today is to be authentic disciples of Jesus.

I can not imagine a God ... made happy by my getting down on my knees and calling him 'great'.

If Jesus Christ isn't the central figure in our lives and in our churches, we're only fooling ourselves.

Religious people love to hide behind religion. They love the rules of religion more than they love Jesus. With practice, Condemners let rules become more important than the spiritual life.

Nothing so tends to mask the face of God as religion; it can be a substitute for God himself.

There is no question but that if Jesus Christ, or a great prophet from another religion, were to come back today, he would find it virtually impossible to convince anyone of his credentials despite the fact that the vast evangelical machine on American television is predicated on His imminent return among us sinners.

I want to remain distinct and authentically Christian in whatever realm I'm in. That's really what my aim is, for people to see I truly treasure and value Jesus and His Word.

God prefers fruits of the spirit over religious nuts.

I live in a country where 90 or 95 percent of the people profess to be religious, and maybe they are religious, though my experience of religion suggests that very few people are actually religious in more than a conventional sense.

You've been acting like Jesus owes you a favor, but he's a little smart for you to fool.

Jesus lets us be real with our life and our faith.

Jesus was and is the enemy of dead religion.

The sinners to whom Jesus directed His messianic ministry were not those who skipped morning devotions or Sunday church. His ministry was to those whom society considered real sinners. They had done nothing to merit salvation. Yet they opened themselves to the gift that was offered them. On the other hand, the self-righteous placed their trust in the works of the Law and closed their hearts to the message of grace.

I wish not merely to be called Christian, but also to be Christian.