Citizens of Two Worlds

"We should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world" (Titus 2:12)

Our trouble springs from the fact that we who follow Christ inhabit at once in two worlds - the spiritual and the natural. As children of Adam we live our lives on earth subject to the limitations of the flesh and the weaknesses and ills to which human nature is heir. Merely to live among men requires of us years of hard toil and much care and attention to the things of this world.

In sharp contrast to this is our life in the Spirit. There we enjoy another and higher kind of life - we are children of God; we possess heavenly status and enjoy intimate fellowship with Christ.

This tends to divide our total life into two departments. We come unconsciously to recognize two sets of actions (the sacred and the secular). But the sacred-secular antithesis has no foundation in the New Testament. Paul's exhortation to "do all to the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31) is more than pious idealism. It opens before us the possibility of making every act of our lives contribute to the glory of God.

Christ will not use us to establish His kingdom in the world until He occupies the throne of our entire being and becomes the King of our affections, our motives, our will and all our heart.

~A. W. Tozer~

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Adore - A Precious Word

"Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the Lord hath comforted his people" (Isaiah 49:13)

Fascination with God must necessarily have an element of adoration. You may ask me for a definition of adoration in this context. I will say that when we adore God, all of the beautiful ingredients of worship are brought to white, incandescent heat with the fire of the Holy Spirit. To adore God means we love Him with all the powers within us. We love Him with fear and wonder and yearning and awe.

The admonition to "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, ... and with all thy mind" (Matthew 22:37) can mean only one thing. It means to adore Him.

I use the word "adore" sparingly, for it is a precious word. I love babies and I love people, but I cannot say I adore them. Adoration I keep for the only One who deserves it. In no other presence and before no other being can I kneel in reverent fear and wonder and yearning and feel the sense of possessiveness that cries "Mine, mine!"

God's child wants nothing more than the opportunity to pour out his or her love at the Saviour's feet!

~A. W. Tozer~

Spiritually Shortsighted

Spiritually Shortsighted

Luke 16:19-31

In Luke 16, Jesus told a story about a rich man who lived for himself and ignored God. After death, he experienced the consequences of his choices—eternal separation from the Lord.

Jesus described him as one who lived in luxury every day (v. 19), providing for himself the best that money could buy but giving little to the poor at his gate. It is important to realize that this man wasn’t judged harshly by God because of his wealth. The heavenly Father is not opposed to our success. Nor was the man separated from the Lord because of his lack of charity toward others. He did not deliberately harm others but, rather, overlooked those in need and focused on himself.

The rich man’s mistake was that he prepared everything for the body but nothing for the soul. Our culture practices a similar style of living. Acquiring material riches and satisfying self is the primary pursuit of many in our world. Having what one wants seems to be the goal whether it’s a struggle to make ends meet or the bank account is overflowing.

Scripture says we were created to be in a relationship with the Father through faith in His Son. The rich man ignored God and paid the ultimate price. Our eternal destiny depends on our decision about Christ.

Despite what our culture thinks, life is not about us. It’s about having a relationship with the Lord. Whoever accepts Christ’s gift ofsalvation will live eternally with Him in heaven. Those who reject God will suffer. If you know any spiritually shortsighted people, pray that they will trust in Jesus.

~Dr. Charles F. Stanley~

God Will Manifest Himself

"And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?" (Genesis 3:9)

If God is present at every point in space, if we cannot go where He is not, cannot even conceive of a place where He is not, why then has not that Presence become the one universally celebrated fact of the world?

The Presence and the manifestation of the Presence are not the same. There can be the one without the other. God is here when we are wholly unaware of it. he is manifest only when and as we are aware of His presence.

On our part, there must be surrender to the Spirit of God, for His work is to show us the Father and the Son. If we cooperate with Him in loving obedience, God will manifest Himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life and a life radiant with the light of His face.

Oh, may He come to us now and light up the sanctuary of our hearts until they shine like the chambers above! may He open to our vision His own immediate, everlasting presence! Amen!

~A. W. Tozer~

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The Voluntary Sellout

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life" (John 10:27-28)

Let no one imaging that he will lose anything of human dignity by this voluntary sell-out of his all to his God. He does not by this degrade himself as a man; rather he find his right place of high honor as one made in the image of his Creator. His deep disgrace lay in his moral derangement, his unnatural usurpation of the place of God. His honor will be proved by restoring again that stolen throne. In exalting God over all he finds his own highest honor upheld.

Anyone who might feel reluctant to surrender his will to the will of another should remember Jesus' words, "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin" (John 8:34). We must of necessity be servant to someone, either to God or to sin. The man who surrenders to Christ exchanges a cruel slave driver for a kind and gentle Master whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light.

The spirit of the carnal mind is an independent spirit. But a sense of perfect dependence is a grateful guest of the broken and contrite heart.

~A. W. Tozer~

I Am The Only One Left!

I Am the Only One Left!

J. R. Miller

Elijah replied, "I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too!" 1 Kings 19:10

Elijah at a certain great crisis, thought he was the only one left to stand for God. There were others—but he did not know of them. He was indeed the only one in the field for God. He stood alone, one man against and evil king and false priests and sinful people. It was a splendid heroism.

There come times in the lives of all who are Christians—when they must stand alone for God, without companionship, perhaps without sympathy or encouragement. Here is a young person, the only one of his family who has confessed Christ. He takes Him as His Savior and then stands up before the world and vows to be His and to follow Him. He goes back to his home. The members of his home circle are very dear to him—but none of them are Christians, and he must stand alone for Christ among them. Perhaps they oppose him—in his following Christ. In varying degrees, this many times is the actual experience. Perhaps they are only indifferent, making no opposition, only quietly watching his life to see if he is consistent. In any case, however, he must stand alone for Christ, without the help that comes from companionship.

Or it may be in the workshop or in the school that the young Christian must stand alone. He returns from the Lord's table to his weekday duties, full of noble impulses—but finds himself the only Christian. His companions are ready to sneer, and they point the finger of scorn at him, with irritating epithets. Or they even persecute him in petty ways. At the least—they are not Christ's friends, and he as a follower of the Master—finds no sympathy among them in his new life. He must stand alone in his discipleship, conscious all the while that unfriendly eyes are upon him. Many a young or older Christian, finds it very hard to be the only one to stand for Christ in the place of his daily work.

This aloneness puts upon one a great responsibility. Perhaps you are the only Christian in your home. You are the only witness Christ has in your house, the only one through whom He may reveal His love, His grace, His holiness. You are the only one to represent Christ in your family, to show to them the beauty of Christ, the sweetness and gentleness of Christ, to do there the works of Christ—the things He would do if He lived in your home. If you falter in your loyalty, if you fail in your duty, your loved ones may be lost, and the blame will be yours; their blood will be upon you.

In like manner, if you are the only Christian in the shop, the store, or the office where you work, a peculiar responsibility rests upon you, a responsibility which no other one shares with you. You are Christ's only witness in your place. If you do not testify there for Him, there is no other one who will do it.

Miss Havergal tells of her experience in a girl's school of Dusseldorf. She went there soon after she had become a Christian and had confessed Christ. Her heart was very warm with love for her Savior, and she was eager to speak for Him. To her amazement, however, she soon learned that among the hundred girls in the school—that she was the only Christian. Her first feeling was one of dismay—she could not confess Christ in that great company of worldly ungodly companions. Her gentle, sensitive heart—shrank from a duty so hard. Her second thought, however, was that she could not refrain from confessing Christ. "I am the only one He has here!" she said. And this thought became a great source of strength and inspiration to her. She realized that she had a mission in that school—that she was Christ's witness there, His only witness, and that she dare not fail.

This same sense of responsibility, rests upon every thoughtful Christian who is called to be Christ's only witness in a place—in a home, in a community, in a store, or school, or shop, or social circle. He is Christ's only servant there—and he dare not be unfaithful. He is the one light set to shine there for his Master, and if his light is hidden, then the darkness will be unrelieved. So there is special inspiration in this consciousness of being the only one Christ has in a certain place.

There is a sense in which this is true also of everyone of us—all the time. We are always the only one Christ has at the particular place at which we stand. There may be thousands of other lives about us. We may be only one of a great company, of a large congregation, of a populous community. Yet each one of us has a life that is alone in its responsibility, in its danger, in its mission and duty. There may be a hundred others close beside me—but not one of them can take my place, or do my duty, or fulfill my mission, or bear my responsibility. Though every one of the other hundred, does his work and does it perfectly, my work waits for me—and if I do not do it—it will never be done.

We can understand how that if Elijah had failed God that day when he was the only one God had to stand for Him, the consequences would have been disastrous; the cause of God would have suffered irreparably. But are we sure that the calamity to Christ's kingdom would be any less—if one of us should fail God in our lowly place, on any common day?

Stories are told of a child finding a little leak in the dike that shuts off the sea from Holland, and stopping it with his hand until help could come—staying there all night, holding back the floods with his little hand. It was but a tiny, trickling stream that he held back; yet if he had not done it—it would soon have become a torrent, and before morning the sea would have swept over all the land, submerging fields, homes, and cities. Between the sea and all this devastation, there was but a boy's hand. Had the child failed, the floods would have rolled in with their remorseless ruin! We understand how important it was that the boy should be faithful to his duty, since he was the only one God had that night—to save Holland.

But how do you know that your life may not stand someday, and be all that stands, between a great flood of moral decay—and broad, fair fields of beauty? How do you know that your failure in your lowly place and duty may not let in a sea of disaster which shall sweep away human hopes and joys, possibly human souls? The humblest of us dare not fail—for our one life is all God has at the point where we stand.

This truth of personal responsibility is one of tremendous importance. We do not escape it by being in a crowd, one of a family, or one of a congregation. No one but ourselves can live our lives, do our work, meet our obligation, bear our burdens. No one but ourselves can stand for us at last before God—to render an account of our deeds. In the deepest, most real sense—each one of us lives alone!

There is another phase of this lesson; we are responsible only for our own life and duty. The prophet thought his work had failed, because the overthrow of Baalism seemed incomplete. But God comforted him, by telling him of three other men who would come, each in his time, and do each his part of the work in destroying Baalism. Elijah's work had not failed—but it was only a fragment of the whole work.

The best work any of us do in this world—is but a fragment. We all enter into each other's work, and others in turn shall enter into ours and finish or carry on toward completion, what we have begun. Our duty is simply to do well our own little part. If we do that, we need never worry about the part we cannot do. That belongs to some other worker, coming after us—not to us at all.

So while we are alone in our responsibility—we need have no concern for anything but our own duty, our own little fragment of the Lord's work. The things we cannot do—some other one is waiting and preparing now to do—after the work has passed from our hand. There is comfort in this for any who fail in their efforts, and must leave tasks unfinished—which they had hoped to complete. The finishing is another person's mission.

When God Breaks Through

"I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth" (Jeremiah 1:8-9)

Pascal wrote on a piece of paper a brief account of his experience, folded the paper and kept it in a pocket close to his heart, apparently as a reminder of what he had felt. Those who attended him at his death found the worn, creased paper. In Pascal's own hand it read:

"From about half-past ten at night to about half-after midnight - fire! O God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob - not the God of the philosophers and the wise. The God of Jesus Christ who can be known only in the ways of the gospel. Security - feeling - peace - joy - tears of joy. Amen"

Were these the expressions of a fanatic, an extremist? No. Pascal's mind was one of the greatest. But the living God had broken through and beyond all that was human and intellectual and philosophical. The astonished Pascal could only describe in one word the visitation in his spirit: "FIRE!"

What we need among us is a genuine visitation of the Spirit.

Nothing can prevent the spiritual rejuvenation of the soul that insists upon having it.

~A. W. Tozer~

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The Being and the Seeing

"They shall know that I am the Lord their God ... that I may dwell among them: I am the Lord their God" (Exodus 29:46)

Adam sinned and, in his panic, frantically tried to do the impossible; he tried to hide from the presence of God. David also must have had wild thoughts of trying to escape from the Presence, for he wrote, "Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?" (Psalm 139:7).

Then he proceeded through one of his most beautiful psalms to celebrate the glory of the divine immanence. "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me" (139:8-10).

And he knew that God's being and God's seeing are the same, that the seeing Presence had been with him even before he was born, watching the mystery of unfolding life.

At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His presence.

~A. W. Tozer~

What Really Matters

"Who is this pagan Philistine anyway, that he is allowed to defy the armies of the living God?"

—1 Samuel 17:26

David was awestruck by Goliath, but not because of his size. David was awestruck by the fact that Goliath was blaspheming God and no one was doing anything about it.

So David asked, "What will a man get for killing this Philistine and ending his defiance of Israel? Who is this pagan Philistine anyway, that he is allowed to defy the armies of the living God?" (1 Samuel 17:26).

He was saying, "This isn't right. Someone has to do something about this." And immediately David faced opposition. Where did it come from? It came from his own brother, Eliab.

In 1 Samuel 17:28 we read, "But when David's oldest brother, Eliab, heard David talking to the men, he was angry. 'What are you doing around here anyway?' he demanded. 'What about those few sheep you're supposed to be taking care of?' "

David's brothers had gone to fight for their country while David was stuck at home. So his father sent him on an errand to see how his brothers were doing and to take them some bread and cheese. David brought them the food, and it was his faithfulness on this errand for his father that resulted in his first great victory.

I find it interesting how sometimes when we set out to do the work of God, we will be opposed by fellow Christians. We have a lost world outside our doors while, all too often, we are quibbling among ourselves. We argue and expend our energy talking about minutiae when we have a world that is on its way to hell.

As Vance Havner said, if we are too busy using our sickles on each other, we will miss the harvest. That is why we must take our eyes off the trivial and focus on what really matters.

~Greg Laurie~

The Manifest Presence

"The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good" (Proverbs 15:3)

The omnipresence of the Lord is one thing, and is a solemn fact necessary to His perfection.

The manifest Presence is another thing altogether, and from that Presence we have fled, like Adam, to hide among the trees of the garden, or like Peter, to shrink away crying, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord" (Luke 5:8).

So the life of man upon the earth is a life away from the Presence, wrenched loose from that "blissful center" which is our right and proper dwelling place, our first estate which we kept not, the loss of which is the cause of our unceasing restlessness.

The Holy Spirit is God, and the most important thing is that the Holy Spirit is present now. There is unseen deity present. I cannot bring Him to you; I can only tell you that He is here.

~A. W. Tozer~

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Saved to Worship

"Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty" (1 Chronicles 29:11)

I believe a local church exists to do corporately what each Christian believer should be doing individually - and that is to worship God.

We are saved to worship God. All that Christ has done for us in the past and all that He is doing now leads to this one end. If we are denying this truth and if we are saying that worship is not really important, we can blame our attitudes for the great wave of arrested development in our Christian fellowships.

Why should the church of Jesus Christ be a spiritual school where hardly anyone ever graduates from the first grade?

Do you love Jesus for the divine glories of His person, for the excellence of His life, for the benefits of His death, for the prevalence of His intercession, for His resurrection, His dominion over the world, and His office as the supreme and final Judge? Are the feelings of your heart drawn out towards Christ as your chief joy? Can you sit down under His shadow with great delight, and find His fruit sweet to your taste?

~A. W. Tozer~