Accepting and Deciding

"He that overcometh ... shall be clothed in white raiment ... I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels" (Revelation 3:5)

it is time for us to seek again the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Man's lordship has cost us too much.  Man's intrusive will has introduced such a multiplicity of unscriptural ways and unscriptural activities as positively to threaten the life of the Church. These divert annually millions of dollars from the true work of God and waste Christian man-hours in such vast numbers as to be heartbreaking.

There is another and worse evil which springs from this basic failure to grasp the radical difference between the natures of two worlds. It is the habit of languidly "accepting" salvation as if it were a small mater and one wholly in our hands. Men are exhorted to think things over and "decide" for Christ. By a complete misunderstanding of the noble and true doctrine of the freedom of the human will, salvation is made to depend perilously upon the will of man instead of upon the will of God.

There is no genuine repentance where there is no forsaking of sin. Still to go on in sin, to practice iniquity with greediness, with constancy, and with perseverance, is incompatible with the nature of that sorrow which is unto salvation.

~A. W. Tozer~

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How Badly Do You Want God?

"He that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst" (John 6:35)

"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled" (Matthew 5:6). Hunger and thirst are physical sensations which, in their acute stages, may become real pain.

It has been the experience of countless seekers after God that when their desires become a pain they were suddenly and wonderfully filled. The problem is not to persuade God to fill us, but to want God sufficiently to permit Him to do so.

The average Christian is so cold and so contend with his wretched condition that there is no vacuum of desire into which the blessed Spirit can rush in satisfying fullness.

Child of the kingdom be filled with the Spirit.
Nothing but fullness thy longing can meet;
'Tis the enduement for life and for service -
Thine is the promise, so certain, so sweet.

"I will pour water on him who is thirsty,
I will pour floods upon the dry ground;
Open your heart for the gift I am bringing.
While ye are seeking me, I will be found.

~A. W. Tozer~