Words of Wisdom and Revelation # 4

Words of Wisdom and Revelation # 4

The Work of Grace in a Life

The human clay with all its potentialities is by no means perfectly suitable to Divine and Heavenly purpose. It may have the particular dispositional properties, but in the natural man everything is mixed, complicated, distorted, and tainted. The clay has been marred and the vessel spoiled. Another must be made. Paul is the most outspoken as to the incapacitation of the natural man with regard to spiritual things. The temperament of Saul of Tarsus, vehemently religious as it was, led him all astray.

So grace had to get to work to break down the natural strengths and to reconstitute according to Christ. This meant that grace had to work in terms of spiritual illumination and understanding; to inculcate Christly patience and forbearance, over against intolerance, to establish balance over against the natural tendency to extremes; to break down the walls of prejudice and enlarge the spirit beyond the limits of national, social, and religious exclusiveness. In a word, to redeem the true values and potentialities of the human nature, and undercut and cripple - like Jacob's thigh - the strength of self-hood. So grace is not only acceptance, it is strength under discipline, submission under chastening, meekness in adversity, and understanding when painful precautionary measures are taken, as in the case of the "thorn in the flesh" to circumvent spiritual pride. Grace is a working power unto the "gaining of the soul," not its destruction or annihilation.

Upon the clay,divinely selected, grace gets to work, not to change the essential personality, for we shall always be ourselves, but to effect an INWARD circumcision, a cutting around or between the self-strength and a dependence wholly upon God. This is the life-long operation of the Spirit of God and the work of grace.

~A. W. Tozer~
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Characteristics of the Leader

God's leaders are not essentially leaders because of certain natural qualifications. They go to school with God, and in a hard school the kind of qualities required by God are inculcated. Another general thing about leaders chosen by God is that they, while being very human, are, in many respects, a class by themselves. They are pioneers, and pioneers are lonely people in more respects than one. In some ways they are difficult people. Their standard and measure has to be ahead of others, and as human nature generally likes not to be disturbed, but would seek the easy way, the pioneer is often a bit too much for people. He is restless, never satisfied, always pressing and urging forward. The keynote of his life is "Let us go on." His is not the easy way, the leader is not always popular. The whole nature of man is either downward or to a quiet and happy mean and snugness. The pioneer is therefore not always appreciated, but often very much otherwise. He is so much contrary to this mediocre gravitation. A part of the price of leadership is loneliness.

~A. W. Tozer~
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Something More Than Evangelical

We can be passionately evangelical or fundamentalist"; we can be fastidiously jealous for correct doctrine and order, and yet - with all this - still be spiritual men. There can be as wide a gap between a rabid fundamentalist and a spiritual man as there is between a conservative and a liberal theologian. Failure to understand this difference results in a very great deal of confusion.

Good motive and intention may be quite right, but with that there must be spiritual understanding. Zeal, yes, indeed; but not zeal that is not according to knowledge. Let there be a desire to do God's will, but let the doing and the way of doing be governed by the Spirit of God, and not just by human judgment. God's way is as important as God's end.

~A. W. Tozer~
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The Possibility of Spiritual Tragedy

If the Cross and the nature of Resurrection-life do not go more than halfway into our natural constitution, while our "Fundamentalism" or "Evangelicalism", our personal faith and devotion to the Lord Jesus may be unquestionable, we may yet be a spiritual tragedy.

~A. W. Tozer~