Tozer Devotional

Tozer Devotional
Monday, April 09, 2012

Doing God's Will

God does not dwell passively in His people; He wills and works in them (Phil. 2:13); and remember, wherever He is, God always acts like Himself. He will do in us whatever His holy nature moves Him to do; and unless He is hindered by our resistance He will act in us precisely as He acts in heaven. Only an unsanctified human will can prevent Him. Without doubt we hinder God greatly by our willfulness and our unbelief. We fail to cooperate with the holy impulses of the in-living Spirit; we go contrary to His will as it is revealed in the Scriptures, either because we have not taken time to discover what the Bible teaches or because we do not approve it when we do. This contest between the indwelling Deity and our own fallen propensities occupies a large place in New Testament theology. But the warfare need not continue indefinitely. Christ has made full provision for our deliverance from the bondage of the flesh. A frank and realistic presentation of the whole thing is set forth in Romans 6 and 7, and in the 8th chapter a triumphant solution is discovered: it is, briefly, through a spiritual crucifixion with Christ followed by resurrection and an infusion of the Holy Spirit.

Verse
For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Philippians 2:13

Thought
God works in us to will to act according to His good purpose. It is for us to acknowledge His will and to do it by His enablement.

Prayer
There are areas in my life, Lord, where I have known Your will but failed to do it. Forgive me for wasted opportunities and hindering Your transforming process in me.
Tozer Devotional
Sunday, April 08, 2012
God Lives in People

The truth of the divine indwelling is developed more fully in the epistles of Paul. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? . . . For the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are" (1 Cor. 3:16-17). And again (1 Cor. 6:19), "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" Without question, the teaching of the New Testament is that the very God Himself inhabits the nature of His true children. How this can be I do not know, but neither do I know how my soul inhabits my body. Paul called this wonder of the indwelling God a rich mystery: "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27). And if the doctrine involved a contradiction or even an impossibility we must still believe what the mouth of the Lord has spoken. "Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar" (Rom. 3:4). The spiritual riches lying buried in this truth are so vast that they are worth any care or effort we may give to their recovery. Yet we are not concerned primarily with the theology or metaphysics embodied here. We want to know the reality of it. What does the truth mean to us in practical outworking? What does it have for a serious-minded Christian compelled to live in a dark and godless world? As Paul would say, "Much every way" (3:2).

Verse
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your body. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Thought
From the context and the grammar it is clear that in 1 Cor. 3:16 Paul is referring to the church, the body of believers, as God's temple. In 6:19 it is individual believers whose body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. God does not live in buildings (cf. Ac

Prayer
O God, that You should dwell in a shack, a rat-hole like me! Tear me down and make me Your temple.

Tozer Devotional
Saturday, April 07, 2012

Divinely Occupied

The doctrine of the divine indwelling is one of the most important in the New Testament, and its meaning for the individual Christian is precious beyond all description. To neglect it is to suffer serious loss. The apostle Paul prayed for the Ephesian Christians that Christ might dwell in their hearts by faith. Surely it takes faith of a more than average vitality to grasp the full implications of this great truth. Two facts join to make the doctrine difficult to accept: the supreme greatness of God and the utter sinfulness of man. Those who think poorly of God and well of themselves may chatter idly of "the deity within," but the man who trembles before the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, the man who knows the depth of his own sin, will detect a moral incongruity in the teaching that One so holy should dwell in the heart of one so vile. But however incongruous it may appear to be, in the Holy Scriptures it is taught so fully that it cannot be overlooked and so plainly that it can hardly be misunderstood. "If a man love me," said our Lord Jesus Christ, "he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him" (John 14:23). That this abiding is within the man is shown by these words: "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you" (14: 20). Christ said of the Holy Spirit: "He ... shall be in you" (14: 17), and in His great prayer in John 17 our Lord twice used the words "I in them."

Verse
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Ephesians 3:16-17a

Thought
God in us. God in us! But He doesn't take over as would be His right as God. It is for us to turn our heart-house over to Him. As we do He changes us.

Prayer
Thank You, Lord, You don't remodel me. You make me new!

Tozer Devotional

Friday, April 06, 2012

Tension Between the Old Nature and the New

Christ in a believer's heart will act the same as He acted in Galilee and Judea. His disposition is the same now as then. He was holy, righteous, compassionate, meek and humble then, and He has not changed. He is the same wherever He is found, whether it be at the right hand of God or in the nature of a true disciple. He was friendly, loving, prayerful, kindly, worshipful, self-sacrificing while walking among men; is it not reasonable to expect Him to be the same when walking in men? Why then do true Christians sometimes act in an un-Christlike manner? Some would assume that when a professed Christian fails to show forth the moral beauty of Christ in his life it is a proof that he has been deceived and is actually not a real Christian at all. But the explanation is not so simple as that. The truth is that while Christ dwells in the believer's new nature, He has strong competition from the believer's old nature. The warfare between the old and the new goes on continually in most believers. This is accepted as inevitable, but the New Testament does not so teach. A prayerful study of Romans 6 to 8 points the way to victory. If Christ is allowed complete sway He will live in us as He lived in Galilee.

Verse
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Galatians 5:24-25

Thought
Christ in us does not mean that we no longer are. Our old nature is not ripped out. Christ will change us and live out through us as we daily live under His control.

Prayer
Thank You, Lord, for Your patience with me. I sometimes stumble and miserably fail. But You convict me and forgive me. Live through me!

Tozer Devotional
Thursday, April 05, 2012
Houses of God

That Christ actually inhabits the nature of the regenerate believer is assumed, implied and overtly stated in the Holy Scriptures. All the Persons of the Godhead are said to enter the nature of the one that engages New Testament truth in faith and obedience. "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him" (John 14:23). And the doctrine of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is too well known to need support here; everyone that is taught even slightly in the Word of God understands this. Whatever God is, the Man Christ Jesus is also. It has been the firm belief of the Church from the days of the apostles that God is not only manifest in Christ but that He is manifest as Christ. In the days of the Arian controversy the church fathers were driven to put the teaching of the New Testament on this subject into a highly condensed "rule" or creed which might be accepted as final by all believers. This they did in the following words: The right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man. God of the substance of His Father, begotten before all ages: Man of the substance of His mother, born in the world. Perfect God and perfect Man. . . . As the reasonable soul and flesh is one man: so God and man is one Christ.

Verse
Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him." John 14:23

Thought
God stoops to make His home with us! In us! He is closer than friends, family and loved ones around us. We are His temple.

Prayer
How can it be, O Lord, that You live in me? How can it be? I cannot comprehend it but I open to You all of me.

Tozer Devotional
Wednesday, April 04, 2012

As the Son so the Father

It is a rare mind, I suppose, that is much concerned with the conduct of God in those distant realms that lie beyond human experience. But almost everyone has wondered how God would act if He were in our place. And we may have had moments when we felt that God could not possibly understand how hard it is for us to live right in such an evil world as this. And we may have wondered how He would act and what He would do if He were to live among us for a while. To wonder thus may be natural but it is wholly needless. We know how God would act if He were in our place--He has been in our place. It is the mystery of godliness that God was manifest in human flesh. They called His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us. When Jesus walked on earth He was a man acting like God; but equally wonderful is it that He was also God acting like Himself in man and in a man. We know how God acts in heaven because we saw Him act on earth. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?" (John 14:9). As glorious as this is, it does not end there. God is still walking in men, and wherever He walks He acts like Himself. This is not poetry but plain, hard fact capable of being tested in the laboratory of life.

Verse
Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you for such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." John 14:9

Thought
Follow Jesus through the four Gospels. See Him as He interacts with people in daily life, all kinds of people. Listen to His words. Consider His actions. In getting to know Jesus Christ we come to know the Father.

Prayer
You walk among us, Lord. You express Yourself through Your people and by Your Spirit. You are here in my highest and lowest moments. Thank You!

Tozer Devotional
Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Delighted Wonder!

God always acts like Himself, wherever He may be and whatever He may be doing; in Him there is neither variableness nor shadow of turning. Yet His infinitude places Him so far above our knowing that a lifetime spent in cultivating the knowledge of Him leaves as much yet to learn as if we had never begun. God's limitless knowledge and perfect wisdom enable Him to work rationally beyond the bounds of our rational knowing. For this reason we cannot predict God's actions as we can predict the movements of the heavenly bodies, so He constantly astonishes us as He moves in freedom through His universe. So imperfectly do we know Him that it may be said that one invariable concomitant of a true encounter with God is delighted wonder. No matter how high our expectation may be, when God finally moves into the field of our spiritual awareness we are sure to be astonished by His power to be more wonderful than we anticipate, and more blessed and marvelous than we had imagined He could be. Yet in a measure His actions may be predicted, for, as I have said, He always acts like Himself. Since we know, for instance, that God is love, we may be perfectly sure that love will be present in His every act, whether it be the salvation of a penitent sinner or the destruction of an impenitent world. Similarly we can know that He will always be just, faithful, merciful and true.

Verse
The earth is filled with your love, O LORD. Psalm 119:64a

Thought
It is for us to discover the delighted wonder of God. As we do, we find as did Frederick Faber: ". . . the love of God is broader than the measures of man's mind; and the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind."

Prayer
Your wonder, O God, is beyond my ability to take in. Your infinite love and kindness is You even when I cannot understand their expression.

Tozer Devotional
Monday, April 2, 2012
Worshipers then Workers

The primary work of the Holy Spirit is to restore the lost soul to intimate fellowship with God through the washing of regeneration. To accomplish this He first reveals Christ to the penitent heart (1 Cor. 12:3). He then goes on to illumine the newborn soul with brighter rays from the face of Christ (John 14:26; 16:13-15) and leads the willing heart into depths and heights of divine knowledge and communion. Remember, we know Christ only as the Spirit enables us and we have only as much of Him as the Holy Spirit imparts. God wants worshipers before workers; indeed the only acceptable workers are those who have learned the lost art of worship. It is inconceivable that a sovereign and holy God should be so hard up for workers that He would press into service anyone who had been empowered regardless of his moral qualifications. The very stones would praise Him if the need arose and a thousand legions of angels would leap to do His will. Gifts and power for service the Spirit surely desires to impart; but holiness and spiritual worship come first.

Verse
He [the Holy Spirit] will bring glory to me by taking what is mine and making it known to you. John 16:14

Thought
Worshipful workers, that's what God wants us to be. It is by worshiping in spirit and in truth that we become worshipful workers. For most of us it is easier to work than worship. Out of a worshiping heart we can do all things to the glory of God.

Prayer
O Holy Spirit, show me Christ and the things of Christ. Help me to worshipfully gaze on Him and then worshipfully serve Him.

Tozer Devotional
Devotions » Tozer Devotional

Sunday, April 1, 2012

"Being" Determines "Doing"
To teach that the filling with the Holy Spirit is given to the Christian to provide "power for service" is to teach truth, but not the whole truth. Power for service is but one effect of the experience, and I do not hesitate to say that it is the least of several effects. It is least for the very reason that it touches service, presumably service to mankind; and contrary to the popular belief, "to serve this present age" is not the Christian's first duty nor the chief end of man. As I have stated elsewhere, the two great verbs that dominate the life of man are be and do. What a man is comes first in the sight of God. What he does is determined by what he is, so is is of first importance always. The modern notion that we are "saved to serve," while true, is true only in a wider context, and as understood by busy Christians today it is not true at all. Redemption became necessary not because of what men were doing only, but because of what they were. Not human conduct alone had gone wrong but human nature as well; apart from the moral defect in human nature no evil conduct would have occurred. Fallen men acted in accord with what they were. Their hearts dictated their deeds. "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth" (Gen. 6:54). That much any moral being could have seen. But God saw more; He saw the cause of man's wicked ways, and that "every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (6:5). The stream of human conduct flows out of a fountain polluted by evil thoughts and imaginations. To purge the stream it was necessary to purify the fountain; and to reform human conduct it is necessary to regenerate human nature. The fundamental be must be sanctified if we would have a righteous do, for being and doing are related as cause and effect, as father and son.

Verse
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. 1 Thessalonians 5:23

Thought
We emphasize "doing"--getting things done and so making a difference in this world. But in God's order "being" precedes "doing." "Being" effects how and why we do as well as what we do.

Prayer
Sometimes I try to camouflage what I am by what I do. But Father, You know the real me. And it is the me who must be changed. Purify my heart, O God!

Tozer Devotional

Saturday, March 31, 2012

We Take, He Undertakes

A. B. Simpson knew by experience the unavailing struggle to be holy, and he knew also the Bible way to holiness. In a little hymn composed to be spoken at the conclusion of one of his sermons he states it this way: I take Him as my holiness, My spirit's spotless, heavenly dress, I take the Lord my righteousness- I take, He undertakes. We have but to abandon the effort to be holy and trust God to do the work within us. He will surely undertake. There are many other happy exchanges we Christians may make if we will, among them being our ignorance for His knowledge, our folly for His wisdom, our demerit for His merit, our sad mortality for His blessed immortality and faith for sight at last.

Verse
I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13

Thought
As we give ourselves to Christ, He undertakes for us. We cannot make ourselves holy but He can and will as we rest in Him. The exchanged life is ours by trustful faith in Him.

Prayer
I can do everything You want me to do but only through You, Lord Jesus, who gives me strength.

Tozer Devotional
Friday, March 30, 2012

Live by the Spirit

Actually the purest saint at the moment of his greatest strength is as weak as he was before his conversion. What has happened is that he has switched from his little human battery to the infinite power of God. He has quite literally exchanged weakness for strength, but the strength is not his; it flows into him from God as long as he abides in Christ. One of the heaviest problems in the Christian life is that of sanctification: how to become as pure as we know we ought to be and must be if we are to enjoy intimate communion with a holy God. The classic expression of this problem and its solution is found in Paul's epistle to the Romans, chapters seven and eight. The cry, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (7:24) receives the triumphant answer, "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (8:2). No one who has given attention to the facts will deny that it is altogether possible for a man to attain to a high degree of external morality if he sets his heart to it. Marcus Aurelius, the pagan emperor, for instance, lived a life of such exalted morality as to make most of us Christians ashamed, as did also the lowly slave Epictetus; but holiness was something of which they were totally ignorant. And it is holiness that the Christian heart yearns for above all else, and holiness the human heart can never capture by itself.

Verse
So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. Galatians 5:16

Thought
We can live today by the Spirit. In ourselves we are hopelessly weak failures. In Christ we are strong because of His strength. Let's live today by the Spirit!

Prayer
You know my weakness, Lord, far better than I do. But You give me Your strength. Yours! I breathe it in today as I live this day for You.

Tozer Devotional

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Personally Weak but Strong in Him

After the exchange of sin for righteousness is that of wrath for acceptance. Then comes the exchange of death for life. Christ died for dead men that they might rise to be living men. Paul's happy if somewhat involved testimony makes this clear: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Gal. 2:20) . This is mysterious but not incredible. It is one more example of how the ways of God and the ways of man diverge. Man is a born cobbler. When he wants a thing to be better he goes to work to improve it. He improves cattle by careful breeding; cars and planes by streamlining; health by diet, vitamins. and surgery; plants by grafting; people by education. But God will have none of this cobbling. He makes a man better by making him a new man. He imparts a higher order of life and sets to work to destroy the old. Then as suggested in the Isaiah text, the Christian exchanges weakness for strength. I suppose it is not improper to say that God makes His people strong, but we must understand this to mean that they become strong in exact proportion to their weakness, the weakness being their own and the strength God's. "When I am weak, then am I strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10), is the way Paul said it, and in so saying set a pattern for every Christian.

Verse
For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God's power. Likewise, we are weak in him, yet by God's power we will live with him to serve you. Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize th 2 Corinthians 13:4-5

Thought
Christ in us! He is our strength, our enablement. We are hopelessly weak in ourselves but powerfully strong in Him!

Prayer
You, O Christ, are in me. How can it be? You are my only hope of glory. You are my strength. Hallelujah!

Tozer Devotional

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Priceless Exchange
A great preacher whom I heard a few years ago said that the word "renew" in Isaiah 40:31 really meant "exchange"; so the text should read, "They that wait upon the Lord shall exchange their strength." Oddly enough I do not now remember how he developed his sermon or just how he applied the text, but I have been thinking lately that the man had hit upon a very important idea; namely, that a large part of Christian experience consists of exchanging something worse for something better, a blessed and delightful bargain indeed. At the foundation of the Christian life lies vicarious atonement, which in essence is a transfer of guilt from the sinner to the Saviour. I well know how vigorously this idea is attacked by non-Christians, but I also know that the wise of this world in their pride often miss the treasures which the simple-hearted find on their knees; and I also remember the words of the apostle; "He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him" (2 Cor. 5:21). This is too plain to miss for anyone who is not willfully blind: Christ by His death on the cross made it possible for the sinner to exchange his sin for Christ's righteousness. It's that simple. No one is compelled to accept it, but at least that is what it means. And that is only the beginning. Almost everything thereafter is an exchange of the worse for the better. Next after the exchange of sin for righteousness is that of wrath for acceptance. Today the wrath of God abides upon a sinning and impenitent man; tomorrow God's smile rests upon him. He is the same man, but not quite, for he is now a new man in Christ Jesus. By penitence and faith he has exchanged the place of condemnation for the Father's house. He was rejected in himself but is now accepted in the Beloved, and this not by human means but by an act of divine grace.

Verse
But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. Isaiah 40:31

Thought
Those who hope or wait on the LORD renew or exchange their strength for that which is from God. As a result, they soar on wings as eagles. What a priceless exchange!

Prayer
Lord, my feeble weakness I gladly exchange for Your strength; my sin for Christ's righteousness; my condemnation for Your welcome.

Tozer Devotional
Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Choosing God's Will

No act that is done voluntarily is an abrogation of the freedom of will. If a man chooses the will of God he is not denying but exercising his right of choice. What he is doing is admitting that he is not good enough to desire the highest choice nor is he wise enough to make it, and he is for that reason asking Another who is both wise and good to make his choice for him. And for fallen man this is the ultimate use he should make of his freedom of will. Tennyson saw this and wrote of Christ, Thou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood, Thou; Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, to make them Thine. There is a lot of sound doctrine in these words--"Our wills are ours, to make them Thine." The secret of saintliness is not the destruction of the will but the submergence of it in the will of God. The true saint is one who acknowledges that he possesses from God the gift of freedom. He knows that he will never be cudgled into obedience nor wheedled like a petulant child into doing the will of God; he knows that these methods are unworthy both of God and of his own soul. He knows he is free to make any choice he will, and with that knowledge he chooses forever the blessed will of God.

Verse
I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart. Psalm 40:8

Thought
Choosing God's will is a personal choice of each of us. Choosing His will as He has already and continues to show it to us is a pattern of daily living. Dramatic life change results!

Prayer
My choices have often been wrong ones, Lord. I freely bow to Your choices for me. Show them to me by Your Spirit.

Tozer Devotional
Monday, March 26, 2012

Defining Sin

For an act to be sinful the quality of voluntariness must also be present. Sin is the voluntary commission of an act known to be contrary to the will of God. Where there is no moral knowledge or where there is no voluntary choice, the act is not sinful; it cannot be, for sin is the transgression of the law and transgression must be voluntary. Lucifer became Satan when he made his fateful choice: "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High" (Isaiah 14:14). Clearly here was a choice made against light. Both knowledge and will were present in the act. Conversely, Christ revealed His holiness when He cried in His agony, "Not my will, but thine, be done" (Luke 22:42). Here was a deliberate choice made with the full knowledge of the consequences. Here two wills were in temporary conflict, the lower will of the Man who was God and the higher will of the God who was Man, and the higher will prevailed. Here also was seen in glaring contrast the enormous difference between Christ and Satan; and that difference divides saint from sinner and heaven from hell. But someone may ask, "When we pray 'Not my will, but Thine be done,' are we not voiding our will and refusing to exercise the very power of choice which is part of the image of God in us?" The answer to that question is a flat No, but the whole thing deserves further explanation.

Verse
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Ephesians 6:10

Thought
Voluntary commissions and moral knowledge are necessary for "sinful' acts. We are subject to force and presssure from our sinful nature and the evil one. But the Holy Spirit is ours, too, and in His power we may choose God's will.

Prayer
You know, Father, that I am weak-willed in many areas of life. Yet in all my weakness and failure I reach out to Your strength and mighty power.

Tozer Devotional
Sunday, March 25, 2012

The Responsibility of Choice

Our Lord Jesus looked after the rich young ruler as he walked away, but He did not follow him or attempt to coerce him. The dignity of the young man's humanity forbade that his choices should be made for him by another. To remain a man he must make his own moral choices; and Christ knew this and permitted him to go his own chosen way. If his human choice took him at last to hell, at least he went there a man; and it is better for the moral universe that he should do so than that he should be jockeyed to a heaven he did not choose, a soulless, will-less automaton. God will take nine steps toward us, but He will not take the tenth. He will incline us to repent, but He cannot do our repenting for us. It is of the essence of repentance that it can only be done by the one who committed the act to be repented of. God can wait on the sinning man; He can withhold judgment; He can exercise long-suffering to the point where He appears "lax" in His judicial administration; but He cannot force a man to repent. To do this would be to violate the man's freedom and void the gift God originally bestowed upon him. Where there is no freedom of choice there can be neither sin nor righteousness, because it is of the nature of both that they be voluntary. However good an act may be, it is not good if it is imposed from without. The act of imposition destroys the moral content of the act and renders it null and void.

Verse
Jesus looked at him and loved him, "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. Mark 10:21-22

Thought
Moving, isn't it. Jesus loved the young man who sadly went away. That rich young ruler made his choice as we make ours. Others cannot choose for us or repent for us. We are personally responsible for our choices.

Prayer
O God, so important are the choices before me. You have given me personal responsibility of choice. Thank You for the revelation of Your will to guide me and the presence of Your Spirit to enable me!

Tozer Devotional
Saturday, March 24, 2012

The Privilege of Choice

It is inherent in the nature of man that his will must be free. Made in the image of God who is completely free, man must enjoy a measure of freedom. This enables him to select his companions for this world and the next; it enables him to yield his soul to whom he will, to give allegiance to God or the devil, to remain a sinner or become a saint. And God respects this freedom. God once saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. To find fault with the smallest thing God has made is to find fault with its Maker. It is a false humility that would lament that God wrought but imperfectly when He made man in His own image. Sin excepted, there is nothing in human nature to apologize for. This was confirmed forever when the Eternal Son became permanently incarnated in human flesh. So highly does God regard His handiwork that He will not for any reason violate it. For God to override man's freedom and force him to act contrary to his own will would be to make a mockery of the image of God in man. This God will never do.

Verse
Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. . . . But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, . . . But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD. Joshsua 24:14-15

Thought
Being made in the image of God brings with it the privilege of choice. Freedom to choose is not absolute but it is ours to exercise. Whom and what are we choosing?

Prayer
I choose You, O Lord, and to You I submit my choices. I want to choose Your will today. Reveal it to me clearly concerning all of today's choices. For Jesus' sake.

Tozer Devotional
Friday, March 23, 2012

Cultivating Faith

Though God dwells in the center of eternal mystery, there need be no uncertainty about how He will act in any situation covered by His promises. These promises are infallible predictions. God will always do what He has promised to do when His conditions are met. And His warnings are no less predictive: "The ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous" (Psalm 1:5). In the light of all this how vain is the effort to have faith by straining to believe the promises in the Holy Scriptures. A promise is only as good as the one who made it, but it is as good, and from this knowledge springs our assurance. By cultivating the knowledge of God we at the same time cultivate our faith. Yet while so doing we look not at our faith but at Christ, its author and finisher. Thus the gaze of the soul is not in, but out and up to God. So the health of the soul is secured.

Verse
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Hebrews 12:2a

Thought
Confident faith comes as we know God. The better we know Him the more we will trust Him because we will understand who He is. Emphasis, then, is not so much on believing Him as it is in knowing Him.

Prayer
Lord, help me to cultivate the life-habit of gazing on You!

Tozer Devotional
Thursday, March 22, 2012

God Always Acts Like Himself

Since true faith rests upon what God is, it is of utmost importance that, to the limit of our comprehension, we know what He is. "They that know thy name will put their trust in thee" (Psalm 9:10). The name of God is the verbal expression of His character, and confidence always rises or falls with known character. What the psalmist said was simply that they who know God to be the kind of God He is will put their confidence in Him. This is not a special virtue, I repeat, but the normal direction any mind takes when confronted with the fact. We are so made that we trust good character and distrust its opposite. That is why unbelief is so intensely wicked. "He that believeth not God hath made him a liar" (1 John 5:10). The character of God is the Christian's final ground of assurance and the solution of many, if not most, of his practical religious problems. Some persons, for instance, believe that God answered prayer in Bible times but will not do so today, and others hold that the miracles of olden days can never be repeated. To believe so is to deny or at least to ignore almost everything God has revealed about Himself. We must remember that God always acts like Himself. He has never at any time anywhere in the vast universe acted otherwise than in character with His infinite perfections. This knowledge should be a warning to the enemies of God, and it cannot but be an immense consolation to His friends.

Verse
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Hebrews 13:8

Thought
Horatius Bonar understood it well when he wrote: "I change, He changes not, the Christ can never die; His love, not mine, the resting place; His truth, not mine, the tie."

Prayer
You are my resting place. The more I know You the more I trust You. I can trust You even when I do not understand.

Tozer Devotional
Wednesday, March 21, 2012

What Is Faith?

Remember that faith is not a noble quality found only in superior men. It is not a virtue attainable by a limited few. It is not the ability to persuade ourselves that black is white or that something we desire will come to pass if we only wish hard enough. Faith is simply the bringing of our minds into accord with the truth. It is adjusting our expectations to the promises of God in complete assurance that the God of the whole earth cannot lie. A man looks at a mountain and affirms, "That is a mountain." There is no particular virtue in the affirmation. It is simply accepting the fact that stands before him and bringing his belief into accord with the fact. The man does not create the mountain by believing, nor could he annihilate it by denying. And so with the truth of God. The believing man accepts a promise of God as a fact as solid as a mountain and vastly more enduring. His faith changes nothing except his own personal relation to the word of promise. God's Word is true whether we believe it or not. Human unbelief cannot alter the character of God. Faith is subjective, but it is sound only when it corresponds with objective reality. The man's faith in the mountain is valid only because the mountain is there; otherwise it would be mere imagination and would need to be sharply corrected to rescue the man from harmful delusion. So God is what He is in Himself. He does not become what we believe. "I AM That I AM." We are on safe ground only when we know what kind of God He is and adjust our entire being to the holy concept.

Verse
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. Hebrews 11:1-2

Thought
Faith is trusting God and what He has promised even when we cannot see and may not experience the fulfillment of those promises according to our personal calendar.

Prayer
Father, my faith finds its resting place in You, in You the Eternal God.

Tozer Devotional
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Those Sanctifying Effects of Suffering

Instant Christianity tends to make the faith act terminal and so smothers the desire for spiritual advance. It fails to understand the true nature of the Christian life, which is not static but dynamic and expanding. It overlooks the fact that a new Christian is a living organism as certainly as a new baby is, and must have nourishment and exercise to assure normal growth. It does not consider that the act of faith in Christ sets up a personal relationship between two intelligent moral beings, God and the reconciled man, and no single encounter between God and a creature made in His image could ever be sufficient to establish an intimate friendship between them. By trying to pack all of salvation into one experience, or two, the advocates of instant Christianity flaunt the law of development which runs through all nature. They ignore the sanctifying effects of suffering, cross carrying and practical obedience. They pass by the need for spiritual training, the necessity of forming right religious habits, and the need to wrestle against the world, the devil and the flesh. Undue preoccupation with the initial act of believing has created in some a psychology of contentment, or at least of non-expectation. To many it has imparted a mood of disappointment with the Christian faith. God seems too far away, the world is too near, and the flesh too powerful to resist. Others are glad to accept the assurance of automatic blessedness. It relieves them of the need to watch and fight and pray, and sets them free to enjoy this world while waiting for the next. Instant Christianity is twentieth century orthodoxy. I wonder whether the man who wrote Philippians 3:7-16 would recognize it as the faith for which he finally died. I am afraid he would not.

Verse
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3:10-11

Thought
We want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection but what about the "fellowship of sharing in his sufferings"? Today there are in this world believers who are suffering with and for Christ. Some aspects of maturity are achieved only through suffe

Prayer
Forgive me, Lord, for leaving behind the carrying of the cross when trying to follow You. I look for the easy way when it is through pain and suffering that You refine me and reveal Your strength.

Devotional
Monday, March 19, 2012

Growing Up into Christ

By "instant Christianity" I mean the kind found almost everywhere in gospel circles and which is born of the notion that we may discharge our total obligation to our own souls by one act of faith, or at most by two, and be relieved thereafter of all anxiety about our spiritual condition. We are saints by calling, our teachers keep telling us, and we are permitted to infer from this that there is no reason to seek to be saints by character. An automatic, once-for-all quality is present here that is completely out of mode with the faith of the New Testament. In this error, as in most others, there lies a certain amount of truth imperfectly understood. It is true that conversion to Christ may be and often is sudden. Where the burden of sin has been heavy the sense of forgiveness is usually clear and joyful. The delight experienced in forgiveness is equal to the degree of moral repugnance felt in repentance. The true Christian has met God. He knows he has eternal life and he is likely to know where and when he received it. And those also who have been filled with the Holy Spirit subsequent to their regeneration have a clear-cut experience of being filled. The Spirit is self-announcing, and the renewed heart has no difficulty identifying His presence as He floods in over the soul. But the trouble is that we tend to put our trust in our experiences and as a consequence misread the entire New Testament. We are constantly being exhorted to make the decision, to settle the matter now, to get the whole thing taken care of at once--and those who exhort us are right in doing so. There are decisions that can be and should be made once and for all. There are personal matters that can be settled instantaneously by a determined act of the will in response to Bible-grounded faith. No one would want to deny this; certainly not I. The question before us is, Just how much can be accomplished in that one act of faith? How much yet remains to be done and how far can a single decision take us?

Verse
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. Ephesians 4:15

Thought
Growing up into Christ calls for tremendous growing. It does not occur at one point in time or by means of one decision. Oh, how much growing we have yet to experience!

Prayer
Lord, plant my feet on higher ground! I want to grow up into Christ. May Your Spirit fill me and change me day by day, month by month, year by year.

Tozer Devotional
Sunday, March 18, 2012

"Fast Food" Christianity

It is hardly a matter of wonder that the country that gave the world instant tea and instant coffee should be the one to give it instant Christianity. If these two beverages were not actually invented in the United States it was certainly here that they received the advertising impetus that has made them known to most of the civilized world. And it cannot be denied that it was American Fundamentalism that brought instant Christianity to the gospel churches. Ignoring for the moment Romanism, and Liberalism in its various disguises, and focusing our attention upon the great body of evangelical believers, we see at once how deeply the religion of Christ has suffered in the house of its friends. The American genius for getting things done quickly and easily with little concern for quality or permanence has bred a virus that has infected the whole evangelical church in the United States and, through our literature, our evangelists and our missionaries, has spread all over the world. Instant Christianity came in with the machine age. Men invented machines for two purposes. They wanted to get important work done more quickly and easily than they could do it by hand, and they wanted to get the work over with so they could give their time to pursuits more to their liking, such as loafing or enjoying the pleasures of the world. Instant Christianity now serves the same purposes in religion. It disposes of the past, guarantees the future and sets the Christian free to follow the more refined lusts of the flesh in all good conscience and with a minimum of restraint.

Verse
Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe. Hebrews 12:28

Thought
Keep the services short and the sermons 'sound-byte size.' People are busy these days. They don't have time for long services and biblical studies." But what about that unsatisfied hunger of heart? That worship with reverence and awe? That encounter with

Prayer
Lord, teach me to wait, to quietly wait on You. I want to worship You. To listen to You. You are God."

Tozer Devotional
Saturday, March 17, 2012

You Are a Theologian!

The effort to be practicing Christians without knowing what Christianity is about must always fail. The true Christian should be, indeed must be, a theologian. He must know at least something of the wealth of truth revealed in the Holy Scriptures. And he must know it with sufficient clarity to state it and defend his statement. And what can be stated and defended is a creed. Because the heart of the Christian life is admittedly faith in a person, Jesus Christ the Lord, it has been relatively easy for some to press this truth out of all proportion and teach that faith in the Person of Christ is all that matters. Who Jesus is matters not, who His Father was, whether Jesus is God or man or both, whether or not He accepted the superstitions and errors of His time as true, whether He actually rose again after His passion or was only thought to have done so by His devoted followers--these things are not important, say the no-creed advocates. What is vital is that we believe on Him and try to follow His teachings. What is overlooked here is that the conflict of Christ with the Pharisees was over the question of who He was. His claim to be God stirred the Pharisees to fury. He could have cooled the fire of their anger by backing away from His claim to equality with God, but He refused to do it. And He further taught that faith in Him embraced a belief that He is very God, and that apart from this there could be no salvation for anyone. "He said unto them, 'Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.'" To believe on Christ savingly means to believe the right things about Christ. There is no escaping this.

Verse
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi;, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.' 'But what about you?' he Matthew 16:13-15

Thought
At least informally, we are all theologians. We must all come, and we do, to theological conclusions concerning Christ. Our salvation depends upon it. Who is He to us? What has He done that concerns us? How are we relating to Him? Those are a few of the

Prayer
You are Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. At Your name every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that You are Lord, to the glory of God the Father! And You are my Lord!

HeavenTozer Devotional
Friday, March 16, 2012

Personal Creed in Development

Preaching Christ is generally, and correctly, held to be the purest, noblest ministry in which any man can engage; but preaching Christ includes a great deal more than talking about Christ in superlatives. It means more than giving vent to the religious love the speaker feels for the Person of Christ. Glowing love for Christ will give fragrance and warmth to any sermon, but it is still not enough. Love must be intelligent and informed if it is to have any permanent meaning. The effective sermon must have intellectual content, and wherever there is intellect there is creed. It cannot be otherwise. This is not to plead for the use of the historic creeds in our Christian gatherings. I realize that it is entirely possible to recite the Apostles' Creed every Sunday for a lifetime with no profit to the soul. The Nicene Creed may be said or sung in every service without benefiting anyone. The standard creeds are a summary of what the Christian professes to believe, and they are excellent as far as they go yet they may be learned by rote and repeated without conviction and so be altogether stale and unprofitable. While we may worship (and thousands of Christians do) without the use of any formal creed, it is impossible to worship acceptably without some knowledge of the One we seek to worship. And that knowledge is our creed whether it is ever formalized or not. It is not enough to say that we may have a mystical or numinous experience of God without any doctrinal knowledge and that is sufficient. No, it is not sufficient. We must worship in truth as well as in spirit; and truth can be stated and when it is stated it becomes creed.

Verse
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. John 4:24

Thought
Perceiving God's truth enables me to verbalize that truth. That stated truth becomes my creed. That creed will be revised and refined as I learn more of the Word and seek to practice it. The Spirit will teach me, often through other believers.

Prayer
I want to worship You in truth, O God. Give me understanding of Your truth that I may live by it and share it with others.

Tozer Devotional
Thursday, March 15, 2012

Creed or Creedless?

Among certain Christians it has become quite the fashion to cry down creed and cry up experience as the only true test of Christianity. The expression "Not creed, but Christ" (taken, I believe, from a poem by John Oxenham) has been widely accepted as the very voice of truth and given a place alongside of the writings of prophets and apostles. When I first heard the words they sounded good. One got from them the idea that the advocates of the no-creed creed had found a precious secret that the rest of us had missed; that they had managed to cut right through the verbiage of historic Christianity and come direct to Christ without bothering about doctrine. And the words appeared to honor our Lord more perfectly by focusing attention upon Him alone and not upon mere words. But is this true? I think not. Now I have a lot of sympathy for the no-creed creedalists for I realize that they are protesting the substitution of a dead creed for a living Christ; and in this I join them wholeheartedly. But this antithesis need not exist; there is no reason for our creeds being dead just as there is no reason for our faith being dead. James tells us that there is such a thing as dead faith, but we do not reject all faith for that reason. Now the truth is that creed is implicit in every thought, word or act of the Christian life. It is altogether impossible to come to Christ without knowing at least something about Him; and what we know about Him is what we believe about Him; and what we believe about Him is our Christian creed. Otherwise stated, since our creed is what we believe, it is impossible to believe on Christ and have no creed.

Verse
Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory. 1 Timothy 3:16

Thought
In 1 Tim.3:16 Paul may be quoting an early creedal hymn. A Creed is intended to be a terse, succinct statement of what one believes. That statement is a basic affirmation of one's principal beliefs, not an exhaustive one. As believers can we be creedless

Prayer
Father, enable me to identify eternal truth from Your Word and the application of that truth to my life. Help me to major on the majors and not the minors. In Jesus' name.