Appraise, Then Act

"Prove all things; hold just that which is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21)

Many tender minded Christians fear to sin against love by daring to inquire into anything that comes wearing the cloak of Christianity and breathing the name of Jesus. They dare not examine the credentials of the latest prophet to hit their town lest they be guilty of rejecting something which may be of God. This is supposed to indicate a high degree of spirituality. But in sober fact it indicates no such thing. It may indeed be evidence of the absence of the Holy Spirit.

Gullibility is not synonymous with spirituality. Faith is not a mental habit leading its possessor to open his mouth and swallow everything that has about it the color of the supernatural. Faith keeps its heart open to whatever is of God, and rejects everything that is not of God, however wonderful it may be.

"Try the spirits" is a command of the Holy Spirit to the Church (1 John 4:1). We may sin as certainly by approving the spurious as by rejecting the genuine. To appraise things with a heart of love and then to act on the results is an obligation resting upon every Christian in the world.

Can you renounce everything which is inconsistent with the glory of God and the highest good of your fellowmen?

~A. W. Tozer~

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Energy From Indwelling Power

"He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you" (Romans 8:11)

Our Lord was able to work with a minimum of weariness because He was a man completely possessed by the Holy Spirit. As a man He did grow tired and had to sleep and rest to refresh Himself, but the strain and the exhaustion that He would otherwise have suffered were spared Him by the constant quickening of the Holy Spirit.

Peter explained that Christ "went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil," after God had "anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power" (Acts 10:38)

It is possible to work far beyond the normal strength of the human constitution and yet experience little or no fatigue because the energy for the work has been provided, not by the burning up of human tissue, but by the indwelling Spirit of power. This has been realized by a few unusual souls, and the pity is that they are "unusual."

To live in the Spirit is to receive the life of the Holy Spirit in our physical being and to find in Him the source of constant stimulus and strength for our mind and all the functions of our body.

~A. W. Tozer~