So, what is My Utmost for His Highest?
I laughed out loud and asked the question after glancing through my list of blog posts.
If you’re not familiar with the devotional, you might not know why I write about it all the time.
Here are some descriptions and explanations
A devotional
My Utmost for His Highest at its most basic is a Christian devotional
.
Compiled from lectures Bible teacher Oswald Chambers gave in America, England and Egypt between 1910 and 1917, it’s 366 short readings.
There’s one for every day of the year.
Each day features a short Bible verse from which the theme is taken.
Several paragraphs follow to expand on what the verse means.
One devotional per page, about 250 words long. A relatively quick read, if you’re skimming.
A convictor
Photo by Kathleen Isaacson
If you’re skimming My Utmost for His Highest , it can be difficult to understand.
But, if you ponder the words (“Brood over the ideas,” as Oswald used to say) it can convict you.
The truths are simple yet straight to the point.
Sometimes I pray while reading it a second time to try to figure out why I feel uncomfortable.
A confuser
Many people struggle to understand what it means.
My husband discovered the same issue when using My Utmost for His Highest in his college-age Sunday School class.
You can learn his tips here.
You can also read about Drs. Jed and Cecilie Macosko’s A Daily Companion to My Utmost for His Highest in an interview here and here!
I wrote on the same subject here.
A way of life
The point of a Christian devotional is to read it every day as part of your “quiet time.”
They’re designed to compliment your Bible reading, often using short stories (one page) to amplify at teaching.
I’ve written about Christians devotionals here.
You can read the full post here.
Many people like me read My Utmost for His Highest daily, month after month, year after year.
2017 marks my 18th year of reading it every day.
You can read how it affects me here.
A labor of love
I’m perhaps more intimate with My Utmost for His Highest because I wrote Mrs. Oswald Chambers–the biography of the compiler.
Biddy Chambers undertook a task given by God, to share her husband’s works and ideas about God with the world.
She endured deprivation, poverty, hard work and three years of combing through all her notes to produce the devotional.
In her forward, which makes no mention of her work, Biddy quoted Robert Murray McCheyne:
“Men return again and again to the few who have mastered the spiritual secret, whose life has been hid with Christ in God.
“These are of the old time religion, hung to the nails of the Cross.”
The final paragraph explains “B. C.’s” reasoning:
It is because it is felt that the author is one to whose teaching men will return that this book has been prepared, and it is sent out with the prayer that day by day the message may continue to bring the quickening life and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.”
A blessing
My Utmost for His Highest has not been out of print since Biddy first released it to the world in October, 1927.
It has encouraged, strengthened and blessed millions of people, worldwide, in at least 40 languages over the last ninety years.
Isn’t it remarkable what a significant influence a small book can have on so very many people?
Have you read My Utmost for His Highest? How has it affected you?
Tweetables
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90 years of Holy Spirit inspiration: My Utmost for His Highest. Click to Tweet
Every month in 2017, I told the stories about God’s leading and my blessed–and astonished–reactions while writing Mrs. Oswald Chambers
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[…] of print in 90 years, edited by Biddy Chambers. I’ve written about it innumerable times, but here, here and here are basic blog […]