I needed Power

Oswald Chambers

(1874-1917)

I needed Power
TGIF Today God Is First Volume 2, by Os Hillman

"If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Luke 11:13).

Oswald Chambers struggled to understand the role of the Holy Spirit in his life. It is good for us to know the struggles others had in their own journey.

"I was in Dunoon College as a tutor in philosophy when Dr. F. B. Meyer came and spoke about the Holy Spirit. I determined to have all that was going, and went to my room and asked God simply and definitely for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, whatever that meant. I had no conscious communion with Him despite winning many souls. The Bible was the dullest, most uninteresting book in existence, and the vileness and bad-motiveness of my nature was terrific.

At a little meeting held during a mission in Dunoon, a well-known lady led our meeting and set us to prayer, and then sang "Touch me again, Lord."

I rose to my feet in an effort to receive that prayer then sat down. The lady worker, who knew me well, said: 'That is very good of our brother, he has spoken like that as an example to the rest of you.' Up I got again and said: 'I got up for no one else's sake, I got up for my own sake; either Christianity is a downright fraud, or I have not got hold of the right end of the stick.' And then there I claimed the gift of the Holy Spirit in dogged commitment to Luke 11:13.

I had no vision of heaven or angels, I had nothing. Then like a flash something happened inside of me, and I saw that I had been wanting power in my own hand, so to speak, that I might say, 'Look what I have by putting my all on the altar.'


If the four previous years had been hell on earth, these five years have truly been heaven on earth. The last aching abyss of my heart is filled to overflowing with the love of God. Love is the beginning, love is the middle and love is the end. After He comes in, all you see is 'Jesus only, Jesus ever.'"*


*Adapted from V. Raymond Edman, They Found the Secret, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1984, ppo. 33,34

TODAY'S PRAYER

Heavenly Father, Thank-you for rescuing me. Thank you for new life, life everlasting. May the righteousness of Christ shine through me and may my life be a bright light to this lost and dying world. Please show me how to use my gifts to influence people for You, Father to lead them into Your presence and experience Your amazing love, life-giving power and forgiveness. In Jesus' precioius name I pray. Amen

Feel The Light by Britt Nichole

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WORDS TO WARM THE HEART

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PRAYER by Oswald Chambers

It is not so true that "prayer changes things" as that prayer changes me and I change things. God has so constituted things that prayer on the basis of Redemption alters the way in which a man looks at things. Prayer is not a question of altering things externally, but of working wonders in a man's disposition. - Oswald Chambers

We look upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves; The Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself. - Oswald Chambers

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Prayer is often a temptation to bank on a miracle of God instead of on a moral issue, i.e., it is much easier to ask God to do my work than it is to do it myself. Until we are disciplined properly, we will always be inclined to bank on God's miracles and refuse to do the moral thing ourselves. It is our job, and it will never be done unless we do it.- Oswald Chamber

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God's silences are His answers. If we only take as answers those that are visible to our senses, we are in a very elementary condition of grace.- Oswald Chambers

Never say you will pray about a thing; pray about it.- Oswald Chambers