Called To Be Good, Not Great

"A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things" Matthew 12:35)

Every pastor knows the plain people who have nothing to recommend them but their deep devotion to their Lord and the fruit of the Spirit which they all unconsciously display. Without these the churches could not carry on.

These are the first to come forward when there is work to be done and the last to go home when there is prayer to be made. They are not known beyond the borders of their own perish because there is nothing dramatic faithfulness or newsworthy in goodness, but their presence is a benediction wherever they go.

They have no greatness to draw to them the admiring eyes of carnal men but are content to be good men and full of the Holy Spirit.

When they die they leave behind them a fragrance of Christ that lingers long after the cheap celebrities of the day are forgotten.

It remains only to be said that not all men can be great, but all men are called to be good by the blood of the Lamb and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Come unto God, unite yourself to God, and the doing power you have is infinite!

~A. W. Tozer~

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The Holy Spirit Is Indispensable

"Repent, and be baptized every one ... and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38)

The continued neglect of the Holy Spirit by evangelical Christians is too evident to deny and impossible to justify.

Evangelical Christianity is Trinitarian: "Praise Father, Son and Holy Spirit" is sung in almost every church every Sunday of the year; and whether the singer realizes it or not he is acknowledging that the Holy Spirit is God indeed with equal claim to be worshiped along with the Father and the Son. Yet after this claim is sung at or near the beginning of the service little or nothing is heard of the Spirit again until the benediction.

There can be no doubt that there is a huge disparity between the place given to the Spirit in the Holy Scriptures and the place He occupies in popular evangelical Christianity. In the Scriptures the Holy Spirit is necessary.

David Brainerd once compared a man without the power of the Spirit trying to do spiritual work to a workman without fingers attempting to do manual labor. The figure is striking but it does not overstate the facts. The Holy Spirit is not a luxury. The Spirit is an imperative necessity. Only the Eternal Spirit can do eternal deeds.

~A. W. Tozer~