From Within or Above

"If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth" (1 Peter 4:11)

The Church at this moment needs men, the right kind of men - bold men. The talk is that we need revival, that we need a baptism of the Spirit - and God knows we must have both; but God will not revive mice. He will not fill rabbits with the Holy Spirit.

We languish for men who feel themselves expendable in the warfare of the soul, who cannot be frightened by threats of death because they have already died to the allurements of this world. Such men will be free from the compulsions that control weaker men. They will not be forced to do things by the squeeze of circumstances; their only compulsion will come from within -or from above.

God does ask us and expect us to be holy men and women of God, because we are the children of God, who is holy. The provision of God by His pure and gentle and loving Spirit is still the positive answer for those who hunger and thirst for a life and spirit well-pleasing to God.

~A. W. Tozer~

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Not I, But Christ

"...that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell" (Colossians 1:18-19)

Someone wrote the godly Macarius of Optino that his spiritual counsel had been helpful.

"This cannot be," Macarius wrote in reply, "Only the mistakes are mine. All good advice is the advice of the Spirit of God; His advice that I happen to have heard rightly and to have passed on without distorting it."

There is an excellent lesson here which we must not allow to go unregarded. It is the sweet humility of the man of God. In this day when shimmering personalities carry on the Lord's work after the methods of the entertainment world, it is refreshing to associate for a moment even in the pages of a book with a sincere and humble man who keeps his own personality out of sight and places the emphasis upon the inner working of God.

Oh, to be saved from myself, dear Lord!
Oh, to be lost in Thee!
Oh, that it might be no more I, but
Christ that lives in me!

~A. W. Tozer~