Add Up the Columns

"But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have ... everlasting life" (Romans 6:22)

God calls us into the joys and reality of eternal life. He calls us into purity of life and spirit, so that we may acceptably walk with Him. He calls us into a life of service and usefulness that brings glory to Himself as our God. He calls us into the sweetest fellowship possible on this earth - the fellowship of the family of God!

I hope I never hear any Christian bragging even a little bit about what he or she gave up and how much it cost him or her to answer the call of God.  Anything that we were or any abilities that we possessed were as nothing compared to what God has called us into as His believing children.

Why is it so difficult in our churches for us to be honest about our lives and our condition as sinners alienated from God? We did not give up anything when God in His love and mercy called us unto Himself and into the blessings of grace and forgiveness and peace!

Counting is not the language of poetry or sentiment but of cold, unerring calculation. It adds up the columns, thus: sorrow, temptation, difficulty, opposition, depression, desertion, danger, discouragement ... but at the bottom of the column God's presence, God's will, God's joy, God's promise, God's recompense.

~A. W. Tozer~

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Celebrate Diversity!

"For as the body is one, and hath many members ... so also is Christ ... For the Body is not one member, but many" (1 Corinthians 12:12, 14)

God makes all of us different from one another, but by His Spirit He will bring divine illumination and power to our beings. It is God's planned variety and not similarity that makes beauty and interest in our world.

We should thank God for giving us our own individual personalities and temperaments and abilities. We should never waste time and energy trying to fashion ourselves after someone else, no matter how much we admire that person. God does not expect us to become identical copies of our spiritual heroes.

In only these respects should  we all try to be alike: We should love God more than anything or anyone else, We should hate sin and iniquity even as Jesus hated them, and we should be willing always to obey God through the leading of His Word and His Spirit. Apart from that, it is perfectly natural for us to be ourselves, that is, different from each other.

 He gives the Spirit to each of His servants. The differences among Christian workers are not due to favoritism or partiality on the part of God, but to the difference way in which each follower of Christ improves His gift.

~A. W. Tozer~