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Tuesday, May 12, 2015

The Remains

"And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write: These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name, that thou livest, and art dead." (Revelation 3:1)

I think we are going to have to restudy this whole teaching of the place of the Holy Spirit in the Church, so the Body can operate again. If the life goes out of a man's body, he is said to be a corpse. He is what they call "the remains." All the remains of the man, and the least part about him, is what you an see there in the funeral home. The living man is gone. You have only the body. The body is "the remains."

So it is in the Church of Christ. It is literally true that some churches are dead. The Holy Spirit has gone out of them and all you have left are "the remains." You have the potential of the church but you do not have the church, just as you have in a dead man the potential of a living man but you do not have a living man. He can't talk, he can't taste, he can't touch, he can't feel, he can't smell, he can't see, he can't hear - because he is dead! The soul has gone out of the man, and when the Holy Spirit is not present in the Church, you have to get along after the methods of business or politics or psychology or human effort.

May we cease to simply go through the motions without true life. Infuse us with Your Spirit, Father, that the Church might live! Amen

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God So Loved

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

If we are to judge John 3:16 on the basis of its value to the human race, we would have to say that it is probably the most precious cluster of words ever assembled by the mind of an intelligent man; a twenty-five word compendium is which is contained the eternal Christian evangel, the message of genuine good news!

We learn in school that diamonds are made from native carbon which has been placed under tremendous pressure which in time brings about the process of crystallization.

If we will just let our imaginations soar a bit, we can properly say that the Holy Spirit has taken the redemptive evangel and has placed it under the emotional pressure of the triune God, so unbelievably strong and powerful that it has been crystallized into this shining diamond of truth.

Using our imaginations again, I believe that if we could place this John 3:16 text on one side of some vast eternal scale held in space by some holy one to measure its value to mankind, it would prove to be more precious than all of the books that have ever been written by men.

I worship You today, Lord, for the truth of John 3:16, a precious nugget that  expresses Your saving grace. Amen

~A. W. Tozer~

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