The True Essence of Faith

"Now we have received ... the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God" (1 Corinthians 2:12)

The witness of the Spirit is a sacred inner thing which cannot be explained. It is altogether personal and cannot be passed from one to another. The outward ear cannot hear what it says. Much less can the worldly onlooker know what is taking place.

The Spirit whispers its mysterious Presence to the heart, and the heart knows without knowing "how" it knows. Just as we know we are alive by unmediated knowledge and without recourse to proof, so we know we are alive in the Holy Spirit. The witness is in the hidden regions of the spirit, too deep for proof, where external evidence is invalid and "signs" are of no use.

When all is said, it may easily be that the great difference between professing Christians (the important difference in this day) is between those who have reduced Christianity to an intellectual formula and those who believe that the true essence of our faith lies in the supernatural workings of the Spirit in a region of the soul not accessible to mere reason.

Show me a man who makes the word of God the rule, and the glory of God the end of his conduct and I will show you one whose heart has been sanctified by the Spirit of grace.

~A. W. Tozer~

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Attitude is Everything

"Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another" (Romans 14:19)

I think God looks beyond the situation to the spirit and attitude. I think He is more concerned with how we react to abuse and mistreatment than to the fact that we have been abused by someone.

Some of us have had experiences of being "told off" most eloquently by people with a very descriptive flow of language; but the eloquence is lost completely insofar as God is concerned.

If you are His child taking some abuse or persecution for His sake, His great concern is the attitude that you will show in return.

Will you reveal a stubborn spirit intent upon revenge? If you resist the Spirit of God asking you to demonstrate the love and grace of Jesus Christ, your Saviour, you can be sure of one thing: God will resist you!

He who does not seek and find God everywhere, and in everything, finds Him nowhere and in nothing. And he who is not at the Lord's service in everything, is at His service in nothing.

~A. W. Tozer~