Not How Happy, But How Holy

"What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid!" (Romans 6:15)

A selfish desire for happiness is as sinful as any other selfish desire. Its root is in the flesh which can never have any standing before God. People are coming more and more to excuse every sort of wrongdoing on the grounds that they are "just trying to secure a little happiness..."

The effect of this modern hedonism is felt also among the people of God. The gospel is too often presented as a means toward happiness, to peace of mind or security. There are even those who use the Bible to "relax" them, as if it were a drug.

How far wrong all this is will be discovered easily by the simple act of reading the New Testament through once with meditation. There the emphasis is NOT upon happiness but upon "HOLINESS". God is more concerned with the state of people's hearts than with the state of their feelings. Undoubtedly the will of God brings final happiness to those who obey, but the most important matter is not how happy we are but how holy.

The whole matter of personal holiness is highly important to God! Morally, we dare not ignore this commandment, "Be ye holy."

~A. W. Tozer~

____________________

The Never-Failing Presence

"And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting" (Acts 2:2)

Pentecost did not come and go, Pentecost came and stayed. Chronologically the day may be found on the historic calendar; dynamically it remains with us still in all its fullness of power.

Our insensibility to the presence of the Holy Spirit is one of the greatest losses our unbelief and preoccupation have cost us. We have made Him a tenet in our creed, we have enclosed Him in a religious word, but we have known Him very little in personal experience.

satan has hindered us all he could by raising conflicting opinions about the Holy Spirit, by making Him a topic of hot and uncharitable debate between Christians. In the meanwhile, our hearts crave Him, and we hardly know what the craving means.

It would help us if we could remember that the Spirit is Himself God, the very true Nature of the Godhead subsisting in a form that can impart Himself to our consciousness. it is His light upon the face of Christ which enables us to know Him.

Augustine says it is amazing that anyone should live apart from God, apart from whom he cannot live at all.

~A. W. Tozer~