Tozer Devotional

Tozer Devotional
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Faith Identification with Christ

The Lord becomes to him [the believer] not one of several rival interests, but the one exclusive attraction forever. That we accept Christ in this all-inclusive, all-exclusive way is a divine imperative. Here faith makes its leap into God through the Person and work of Christ, but it never divides the work from the Person. It never tries to believe on the blood apart from Christ Himself, or the cross or the "finished work." It believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, the whole Christ without modification or reservation, and thus it receives and enjoys all that He did in His work of redemption, all that He is now doing in heaven for His own and all that He does in and through them. To accept Christ is to know the meaning of the words "as he is, so are we in this world" (1 John 4:17) . We accept His friends as our friends, His enemies as our enemies, His ways as our ways, His rejection as our rejection, His cross as our cross, His life as our life and His future as our future. If this is what we mean when we advise the seeker to accept Christ we had better explain it to him. He may get into deep spiritual trouble unless we do.

Verse
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Romans 6:11-12

Thought
One with Christ through faith. As A.B. Simpson declared: "One in His merits I stand, one as I pray in His name; all that His worth can command, I can with confidence claim. One in His faith and His love, one in His life I may be. Sealed by the heavenly D

Prayer
Forgive me, Lord, for living in spiritual poverty when by faith I may identify with Christ and experience abundant living.
Tozer Devotional
Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Bowing to Christ's Lordship

Allowing the expression "Accept Christ" to stand as an honest effort to say in short what could not be so well said any other way, let us see what we mean or should mean when we use it. To accept Christ is to form an attachment to the Person of our Lord Jesus altogether unique in human experience. The attachment is intellectual, volitional and emotional. The believer is intellectually convinced that Jesus is both Lord and Christ; he has set his will to follow Him at any cost and soon his heart is enjoying the exquisite sweetness of His fellowship. This attachment is all-inclusive in that it joyfully accepts Christ for all that He is. There is no craven division of offices whereby we may acknowledge His Saviorhood today and withhold decision on His Lordship till tomorrow. The true believer owns Christ as his All in All without reservation. He also includes all of himself, leaving no part of his being unaffected by the revolutionary transaction. Further, his attachment to Christ is all-exclusive. The Lord becomes to him not one of several rival interests, but the one exclusive attraction forever. He orbits around Christ as the earth around the sun, held in thrall by the magnetism of His love, drawing all his life and light and warmth from Him. In this happy state he is given other interests, it is true, but these are all determined by his relation to his Lord.

Verse
Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!" John 20:28

Thought
Thomas got it right. Pushing aside doubt he recognized the Risen Savior as his Lord and God. Each of us must bow to Christ's lordship in all of life, all of life. Have we?

Prayer
Lord, by Your Spirit, expose to me those areas of life I have not yet surrendered to Your Lordship.

Tozer Devotional
Monday, March 12, 2012

"Accepting" Christ

To the question "What must I do to be saved?" we must learn the correct answer. To fail here is not to gamble with our souls: it is to guarantee eternal banishment from the face of God. Here we must be right or be finally lost. To this anxious question evangelical Christians provide three answers, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," "Receive Christ as your personal Saviour," and "Accept Christ." Two of the answers are drawn almost verbatim from the Scriptures (Acts 16:31, John 1:12), while the third is a kind of paraphrase meant to sum up the other two. They are therefore not three but one. Being spiritually lazy we naturally tend to gravitate toward the easiest way of settling our religious questions for ourselves and others; hence the formula "Accept Christ" has become a panacea of universal application, and I believe it has been fatal to many. . . . The trouble is that the whole "Accept Christ" attitude is likely to be wrong. It shows Christ applying to us rather than us to Him. It makes Him stand hat-in-hand awaiting our verdict on Him, instead of our kneeling with troubled hearts awaiting His verdict on us. It may even permit us to accept Christ by an impulse of mind or emotions, painlessly, at no loss to our ego and no inconvenience to our usual way of life. For this ineffectual manner of dealing with a vital matter we might imagine some parallels; as if, for instance, . . . the prodigal son had "accepted" his father's forgiveness and stayed on among the swine in the far country. Is it not plain that if accepting Christ is to mean anything there must be moral action that accords with it?

Verse
They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved--you and your household." Acts 16:31

Thought
Believing in Christ is not merely an intellectual exercise though it involves the mind. Believing in Christ is a heart and life commitment to the Savior, the King of kings and Lord of lords, very God of very God. Moral action results.

Prayer
Thank You that You have received me; forgiven me; made me a new person; come to live in my heart. May my heart commitment to You deepen and grow day by day.

Tozer Devotional
Sunday, March 11, 2012

Facilitating Change

Many a lost man is putting off the day of salvation, vaguely hoping that time is on his side, when actually the likelihood of his ever becoming a Christian grows less day by day. And why? Because the changes taking place in him are hardening his will and making it more and more difficult for him to repent. "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." See the change-words in this text: "seek... call... forsake... return." These all denote specific changes the returning sinner must make in himself, acts that he must perform. But this is not enough. "Have mercy... pardon"; these are the changes God makes in and for the man. To be saved the man must change and be changed. To enter the kingdom of God, our Lord explained, a man must be born again (John 3:3-7). That is, he must undergo a spiritual change. . . . The initial change, however, is not the only one the redeemed man will know. His whole Christian life will consist of a succession of changes, moving always toward spiritual perfection. To achieve these changes the Holy Spirit uses various means, probably the most effective being the writings of the New Testament. Time can help us only if we know that it cannot help us at all. It is change we need, and only God can change us from worse to better.

Verse
Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. Isaiah 55:6-7

Thought
There is a time to wait and a time to act. We sometimes confuse the two. When we know God's will it is always the time to do God's will. Are we changing?

Prayer
You, Lord, would I seek and rise up to do Your will. Change me, Lord, change me!

Tozer Devotional
Saturday, March 10, 2012

Change Occurs within Time but Is Not Caused by It

Saul the Persecutor became Paul the servant of God, but time did not make the change. Christ wrought the miracle, the same Christ who once changed water into wine. One spiritual experience followed another in fairly rapid succession until the violent Saul became a gentle, God-enamored soul ready to lay down his life for the faith he once hated. It should be obvious that time had no part in the making of the man of God. My purpose in writing this little piece is not to engage in an exercise in semantics but to alert my readers to the injury they may suffer from an unfounded confidence in time. Because a Moses and a Jacob lost the impulsive, headstrong sins of their youth and in their old age became gentle, mellow saints we tend to take it for granted that time wrought the transformation. But it is not so. God, not time, makes saints. Human nature is not fixed, and for this we should thank God day and night. We are still capable of change. We can become something other than what we are. By the power of the gospel the covetous man may become generous, the egotist lowly in his own eyes. The thief may learn to steal no more, the blasphemer to fill his mouth with praises unto God. But it is Christ who does it all. Time has nothing to do with it.

Verse
But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, 'You are my God.' My times are in your hands. Psalm 31:14-15a

Thought
God acts within time. He sometimes uses time. But He is not limited by time nor chained to it. The time we have left does not determine the transformation we may experience. Our response to the Spirit within time does.

Prayer
Time cannot change me but You can, O Lord. My times are in Your hands.

Tozer Devotional
Friday, March 09, 2012

Time as Environment not Sanctifier

Sin has done frightful things to us and its effect upon us is all the more deadly because we were born in it and are scarcely aware of what is happening to us. One false concept to which we cling tenaciously is time. We think of it as being a sort of viscid substance flowing onward like a sluggish river, bearing upon its bosom nations and empires and civilizations and men. We visualize this sticky stream as an entity and ourselves as helplessly stuck in it for as long as our earthly lives endure. Or again, by a simple shift in our thinking we picture time as a revealer of the shape of things to come, as when we say "Time will tell." Or we imagine it a benign physician and comfort ourselves with the thought that "Time is a great healer." All this is so much a part of us that it would be too much to expect that the habit of referring everything to time could ever be broken. Yet we may guard against the harm that such thinking carries with it. The most harmful mistake we make concerning time is that it has somehow a mysterious power to perfect human nature. We say of a foolish young man "Time will make him wiser," or we see a new Christian acting like anything but a Christian and hope that time will someday turn him into a saint. The truth is that time has no more power to sanctify a man than space has. Indeed, time is only a fiction by which we account for change. It is change, not time, that turns fools into wise men and sinners into saints. Or more accurately, it is Christ who does the whole thing by means of the changes He works in the heart.

Verse
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 2 Peter 3:8

Thought
Time does not change us, God does. He changes us as we walk by the Spirit.

Prayer
Forgive me, Lord, for trusting time rather than You. Change me, ever change me as I walk with You. For Jesus' sake.

Tozer Devotional
Thursday, March 08, 2012

Living Now in Light of the Not Yet

The Christian is a citizen of heaven and to that sacred citizenship he acknowledges first allegiance . . . He cheerfully expects before long to enter that bright world above, but he is in no hurry to leave this world and is quite willing to await the summons of his Heavenly Father. And he is unable to understand why the critical unbeliever should condemn him for this; it all seems so natural and right in the circumstances that he sees nothing inconsistent about it. The cross-carrying Christian, furthermore, is both a confirmed pessimist and an optimist the like of which is to be found nowhere else on earth. When he looks at the cross he is a pessimist, for he knows that the same judgment that fell on the Lord of glory condemns in that one act all nature and all the world of men. He rejects every human hope out of Christ because he knows that man's noblest effort is only dust building on dust. Yet he is calmly, restfully optimistic. If the cross condemns the world the resurrection of Christ guarantees the ultimate triumph of good throughout the universe. Through Christ all will be well at last and the Christian waits the consummation. Incredible Christian!

Verse
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 1 John 3:2-3

Thought
We shall be like Him! That seems altogether impossible to those who know us now and to ourselves. But we are in the process of transformation. Complete fulfillment of His promises are still in the future but in the light of those promises we can live now

Prayer
Father, I see darkness all around me but you provide a laser beam that leads to home. May that beam of light reflect through my life to those about me. May You shine through me!

Tozer Devotional
Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Paradox Living

The paradoxical character of the Christian is revealed constantly. For instance, he believes that he is saved now, nevertheless he expects to be saved later and looks forward joyfully to future salvation. He fears God but is not afraid of Him. In God's presence he feels overwhelmed and undone, yet there is nowhere he would rather be than in that presence. He knows that he has been cleansed from his sin, yet he is painfully conscious that in his flesh dwells no good thing. He loves supremely One whom he has never seen, and though himself poor and lowly he talks familiarly with One who is King of all kings and Lord of all lords, and is aware of no incongruity in so doing. He feels that he is in his own right altogether less than nothing, yet he believes without question that he is the apple of God's eye and that for him the Eternal Son became flesh and died on the cross of shame. The Christian is a citizen of heaven and to that sacred citizenship he acknowledges first allegiance; yet he may love his earthly country with that intensity of devotion that caused John Knox to pray "O God, give me Scotland or I die."

Verse
Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:8-9

Thought
Living in the paradox with our faith eyes fixed on the unseen. We are aliens surrounded by the ultimately unreal. We are pilgrims on our way home. In it all He is real and we are really His.

Prayer
O God, my faith is fixed on You. I am Your child. You are my Father. With my hand in Yours I walk through the paradox of life.

Tozer Devotional
Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Amid Contradictions

The Christian soon learns that if he would be victorious as a son of heaven among men on earth he must not follow the common pattern of mankind, but rather the contrary. That he may be safe he puts himself in jeopardy; he loses his life to save it and is in danger of losing it if he attempts to preserve it. He goes down to get up. If he refuses to go down he is already down, but when he starts down he is on his way up. He is strongest when he is weakest and weakest when he is strong. Though poor he has the power to make others rich, but when he becomes rich his ability to enrich others vanishes. He has most after he has given most away and has least when he possesses most. He may be and often is highest when he feels lowest and most sinless when he is most conscious of sin. He is wisest when he knows that he knows not and knows least when he has acquired the greatest amount of knowledge. He sometimes does most by doing nothing and goes furthest when standing still. In heaviness he manages to rejoice and keeps his heart glad even in sorrow.

Verse
Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. 1 Corinthians 3:18-19

Thought
Strong when weak and weak when strong! To embrace that truth--not just in mind but in heart and life expression-- is to take a giant leap in spiritual maturity!

Prayer
Lord, Your pattern of life for me is antithetical to that of this world. But it is in You I live. Deliver me from the enemy's deception that I may see clearly Your way and follow it. In Jesus' name

Tozer Devotional
Monday, March 05, 2012

The Cross Message: Foolishness or the Power of God?

The cross stands in bold opposition to the natural man. Its philosophy runs contrary to the processes of the unregenerate mind, so that Paul could say bluntly that the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness. To try to find a common ground between the message of the cross and man's fallen reason is to try the impossible, and if persisted in must result in an impaired reason, a meaningless cross and a powerless Christianity. But let us bring the whole matter down from the uplands of theory and simply observe the true Christian as he puts into practice the teachings of Christ and His apostles. Note the contradictions: The Christian believes that in Christ he has died, yet he is more alive than before and he fully expects to live forever. He walks on earth while seated in heaven and though born on earth he finds that after his conversion he is not at home here. Like the nighthawk, which in the air is the essence of grace and beauty but on the ground is awkward and ugly, so the Christian appears at his best in the heavenly places but does not fit well into the ways of the very society into which he was born.

Verse
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 1 Corinthians 1:18

Thought
The message of the Cross--Christ dying for sinners--is perceived so differently. It is foolishness to those who are perishing. It is the power of God to those who are being saved. Faith makes the difference; faith that recognizes personal sin and God's i

Prayer
You are the crucified, risen Christ. I thankfully receive Your forgiveness of my sin and Your life for my daily living. Praise Your name!

Tozer Devotional
Sunday, March 04, 2012

Work and Pray

It is useless to ask God for something we could obtain with a bit of effort properly directed. No instructed Christian will waste his time praying for things that are within his own power to obtain. To do so is to deceive ourselves and make a farce of the whole concept of prayer. If work will get it for us, then work it is or we can go without it. God will not contribute to our delinquency by supplying us with gifts which we could get for ourselves but have done nothing to obtain. But there is a third category consisting of desired objects which work alone can never secure. They lie far enough out of our reach that it will take something supernatural to get them for us, yet near enough that we must labor to obtain them. This adds up to work and prayer, and it will probably be found that the greatest majority of desired objects and objectives fall within this category. And this situation brings us close to God and makes us His co-laborers. Whether it be a desire to open a closed field, win a hostile tribe, obtain a better job, build a new church, have a successful meeting, rear a family, get through school or do any one of an almost infinIte number of legitimate things, the method is likely to be the twofold one of work and prayer. We might paraphrase the famous exhortation of Dr. Simpson and say that when faced with these borderline tasks which we must work at but which we can never do alone, the thing to do is to work as if we had it all to do and pray as if we expected God to to it all. But wishing-let the vain dreamers and the builders of Spanish castles spend their time at it if they will. We know better than to waste our time and efforts at anything so useless.

Verse
After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. . . . One of those listening was a woman named Lydia . . . The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message Acts 16:10, 14

Thought
Paul would never have experienced the demonstration of God's power in Philippi had he not obeyed God and gone there. Yet Paul could not open Lydia's heart to respond to the message. Only God could do that. There is that for us to do and that for God to d

Prayer
O Lord, give me sensitivity to Your direction as to what You want me to do and what only You can do. In Jesus' name.

Tozer Devotional
Saturday, March 03, 2012

Praying for the "Impossible" that God Wills for Us

Every desire should be brought to the test of God's will. If the desire is out of the will of God, it should be instantly dismissed as unworthy of us. To continue to long for something that is plainly out of the will of God for us is to prove how unreal our consecration actually is. If, however, the desired object is legimate and innocent, then there are three possible ways by which it may be obtained: one is to work for it, another is to pray for it and a third is to work and pray for it. These are clear methods by which God gives His good gifts to His people. They are not to be confused with each other and may be distinguished in practical living. Some things are altogether out of the sphere of possibility for us, and yet altogether within God's gracious will for us. What to do? Prayer is the immediate answer. God has planned that we should go to Him for impossibilities when those impossibilities are a part of His eternal will for our highest good. Under such circumstances we should press our petitions upon Him with all the boldness and ardor of an obedient and trusting child. God loves such praying and has given every reason for us to believe that He will hear our prayer and in due time send the answer.

Verse
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.' Matthew 7:7-8

Thought
Ask, seek and knock. God delights in answering our prayer, especially those things we view as "impossible. " But it is for us to ask, seek and knock. He may answer quickly or after many years. Or He may simply and clearly say "no."

Prayer
Lord, I'm sometimes impatient in prayer and sometimes even give up. Forgive me. You know how best to answer my prayer and when. Thank You that You delight in granting the impossible.

Tozer Devotional
Friday, March 02, 2012

Censoring Our Desires In the Will of God

The word wish in its modern sense has little or no place in the Christian's vocabulary. The word occurs rarely in the Bible, and when it does it seldom means more than to will or desire. It is hard to conceive of anything more completely futile than wishing. It is significant that wishing is done mostly by children and superstitious people. However sweet and innocent it may appear to see a child going through his little ritual of wishing, it can become something far from harmless when carried over into adult life. And even the child should be taught very early that wishing gets him nowhere. The evil of the empty wish lies in the fact that the wisher is not adjusted to the will of God. He allows his desires to play over things that are entirely out of God's will for him and dreams of possessing what he well knows he should not have. Five minutes of this futile dreaming and he has lost the fine edge off his spiritual life. Should the act ripen into a habit, his Christian life may be seriously injured. The man soon comes to substitute mere longing for hard work, and unless he corrects his fault sharply, he will degenerate into a spineless dreamer of empty dreams. Every desire should be brought to the test of God's will. If the desire is out of the will of God, it should be instantly dismissed as unworthy of us. To continue to long for something that is plainly out of the will of God for us is to prove how unreal our consecration actually is.

Verse
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us-whatever we ask-we know that we have what we asked of him. 1 John 5:14-15

Thought
God invites us to petition Him boldly, assuring us that He hears us and will grant our requests. However, those petitions are to accord with His will. In some areas His will is crystal clear; in others somewhat unclear. Are our prayers according to His w

Prayer
Lord, I'm sometimes guilty of asking what I know is not Your will for me. Forgive me. Your will be done in my life as it is in heaven!

Tozer Devotional
Thursday, March 01, 2012

Inward Friction

But there is another kind of friction which retards spiritual progress and does real injury to the soul. It is the friction created by inward maladjustment. Our Lord had this in mind when He spoke of the value of the "single eye," and James referred to the same thing when he told of the wavering man of double mind who was unstable in all his ways. While the heart is at cross-purposes with itself, there can be no inward harmony, only discord and carnal heat that slowly wear out the life. One source of friction is resentfulness. To hold bad feeling against another is to put the brakes on; no matter how sincerely we desire to go on in the holy way, we are held back by the grinding of resentment within us. Morally resentment is static and will brake to a stop any soul that will harbor it. It is vitally important to remove the pressure that is checking forward motion. This we can do by forgiving our enemies and taking pardon and cleansing from the Lord. To name all the possible causes of inward friction would be to list the works of the flesh in their entirety. The flesh warreth against the spirit: that is, it seeks to stop the motions of the growing heart and bring it to a standstill. Or, failing that, it will put as much pressure as possible on the life and slow its progress as much as it can. The sad thing is that so many of us seem willing to let things go on that way. We "grovel here below," creeping forward painfully and at a snail's pace, when we might be racing unhindered toward the prize. Let's check up on ourselves. Possibly we may need to take the brakes off.

Verse
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:32

Thought
Resentment and unforgiveness can eat away at love and peace. The solution is simple enough. Forgive others as Christ has forgiven you.

Prayer
Lord, help me run the race with the brakes off. By your Spirit highlight those areas of life where I am yielding to the flesh rather than to You.

Tozer Devotional
Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Circumstantial Friction

Many Christians live like a man driving with his brakes on. It is, of course, friction that retards the car's progress, for all brakes work by friction. The car is temporarily at odds with itself; one surface wants to revolve and another surface in contact with it wants to stand still. This clash of purposes sets up friction; and friction always wins at last. Nothing can continue to move if it is opposed by enough friction. Even the most perfectly operated car cannot escape some resistance to its forward motion. There will always be gravity, air presssure and the unavoidable pressures of working parts that will tend to slow it down. But these are figured in and overcome by the steady application of energy to the wheels. It's the brakes that give a car a hard time. Now all this would seem to be a parable of some kind. The Christian need not expect to escape opposition. As long as Satan stands to resist the sons of God, as long as the world and the flesh remain, the believing man will meet opposition. Sometimes it will be sharp and obvious, but mostly it will be just the hidden and unsuspected friction set up by circumstances. No one need be anxious about this, however, for God has figured it in and made allowance for it. That kind of friction does little real harm. It will not retard progress much, and the very necessity of overcoming opposition will but add strength to the Christian's moral muscles.

Verse
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Philippians 4:6

Thought
There are circumstances that we feel we can control yet fail to do so. Then there are the circumstances beyond our control. It is that circumstantial friction that slows spiritual progress, causes us to veer off the path or detracts our attention from th

Prayer
Forgive me, Father, for falling into anxiety when You invite me to throw all my care on You.

Tozer Devotional
Tuesday, February 28, 2012

The Inner Chamber of Humankind

However we may explain this mysterious "ground" within us, we will not have been long in the Christian way until we begin to experience it. We will find that we have within us a secret garden where no one can enter except ourself and God. Not only does no one else enter, no one else can enter. This secret inner chamber is the sacred trysting place for Christ and the believing soul; no one among all our dearest friends has the open sesame that will permit him to enter there. If God is shut out, then there can be only everlasting loneliness and numb despair. Where God is not known in the inner shrine, the individual must try to compensate for his sense of aloneness in whatever way he can. Most persons run away to the world to find companionship and surround themselves with every kind of diversionary activity. All devices for killing time, every shallow scheme for entertainment, are born out of this inner loneliness. It is a significant and revealing fact that such things have in these last days grown into billion dollar enterprises! So much will men pay to forget that they are a temple without a God, a garden where no voice is heard in the cool of the day. The better minds among us, goaded by this subconscious loneliness, may, as Schopenhauer, become philosophers of despair or, as Byron and Hardy, poets of desperation and hopelessness. But no matter how brilliant the intellect, the lonely heart can never know peace. Until we find God through Christ, that inner "ground" will remain a kind of eternal thirst inside of us, and its voice, where that voice is recognized, will be a plea, an accusation, a thin plaintive cry deep within us asking for eternal life and restoration and God.

Verse
The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children." Romans 8:16

Thought
That inner chamber of our being is our spirit. It is with our spirit that the Holy Spirit communes. He assures us that we are God's children. He witnesses to us of Christ and eternal realities.

Prayer
You stoop to commune with me, O God. Your Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I am Your child. Thank You for that holy communion.

Tozer Devotional
Monday, February 27, 2012
That Fragrance of the Rose of Sharon

The Holy Spirit never differs from Himself, and wherever He touches a human mind His sure marks are always present so plainly that there can be no mistaking them. Anyone familiar with the work of the French artist Millet will notice a similarity in everything he painted, as if the very breathing personality of the man had somehow gotten into the paint and onto the canvas. So the Holy Spirit teaches the same thing to everyone; however different the subjects may be from each other, the fine touch of the Spirit's hand may be detected on each one. For this reason, Christian devotional books are very much alike no matter who may have written them or how widely divergent may have been the religious views of the authors. The masters of the inner life may at first appear to be far apart in some of their theological positions, but before he has read long, the delighted reader will discover the likenesses in the spirit of their teachings. They are talking about the same thing in their several ways and are as alike as various paintings by the same artist. The fragrance of the Rose of Sharon lingers over their pages; one face looks forth from the lattice and one voice is heard in the garden. Because this is true, Eckhart's doctrine of "the ground of the soul" will be recognized as an old friend by the Spirit-taught Christian even though he had never before heard of Eckhart. He will find himself in familiar surroundings because he has walked there himself at other times and in different company.

Verse
I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me. John 10:14

Thought
We recognize brothers and sisters in Christ even when they speak a different theological and experiential language. As we draw near we perceive their love for Christ, their family likeness, the fragrance of the Rose of Sharon.

Prayer
Beyond what seems correct theological language and form, Lord, may there exude from me the fragrance of You presence.

Tozer Devotional
Sunday, February 26, 2012

The Gift of Divine Power

It is the teaching of Meister Eckhart that there is something far inside the mysterious depths of a human life which is unknown except as God and the individual know it. This he called the "ground" of the soul. This "ground" is, according to Eckhart, the stuff which once received the image of God at creation. The lesser powers of the soul are the instruments through which this mysterious primal stuff makes itself felt in the world. These powers are imagination, reason, the faculty of speech and the creative powers which appear at full bloom in the artist and the poet and in varying degrees of brilliance in the commonalty of mankind. In this far-in secret sanctuary, God reveals Himself to the individual as a "birth," bringing forth a new creation by the regenerating act of the Holy Spirit. Thus we receive from Christ the very nature of God (2 Peter 1:4) and are spiritually prepared for the full revelation of Christ in us, the hope of glory. This would seem to be but a slightly different way of stating the truths taught by Paul in his inspired epistles. The apostle used the language of theology, or better still, he used the language of the Bible, but what he taught was not different from that taught by the man Eckhart. This great mystic theologian thought in terms of the psychology of his times, but when we make allowance for the difference of approach, the substance is the same. And a thoroughly Christian heart will understand the language of both.

Verse
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate 2 Peter 1:3-4

Thought
God equips us for high level living. His divine power enables us to participate in the divine nature. Why, then, do we live as spiritual paupers?

Prayer
Lord, I want to soar as an eagle into the heights of spiritual reality. Show me what it means to participate in the divine nature. For Jesus' sake.

Tozer Devotional
Saturday, February 25, 2012

Alive in Christ

We might well spend the rest of the year reverently inquiring into the meanings of the resurrection. And probably the best method to pursue is to search for those meanings that touch us as individual Christians here and now. It is, of course, necessary to preserve the theology of the resurrection and to guard the truth well and carefully; but that is not enough. We must know what it means to us as pilgrims and strangers. That He "rose again the third day according to the Scriptures" is the biblical foundation for our faith in a risen Lord. But love and faith would go further; they would devoutly seek to experience the present riches of His Easter triumph. Jesus is Victor! That is the truth His resurrection proclaims. Now it remains for us to allow Him to be Victor in us, thus multiplying the glory of His triumph in the hearts of His trusting people.

Verse
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." Romans 6:11

Thought
Are we living in the shadows of Friday and Saturday or in the triumph of Easter Sunday resurrection? Too often we live as if unrelated to the Risen Christ rather counting ourselves dead to sin and alive to God.

Prayer
Your death and resurrection, Lord, I see as not merely historical events of the past. Thank You that through faith in You I may experience the effects of those events in daily life.

Tozer Devotional
Friday, February 24, 2012

Livng By Faith In the Victor

The two major elements present in the Easter story are the fact and the meaning of the fact. That Christ arose after He had been put to death by crucifixion is the fact; the true historicity of the event is too well established to require proof or even comment today. The meaning of that resurrection, however, must be rediscovered by each believing soul and by the church age after age till our Lord returns to earth again. One meaning attached to the resurrection is that Christ has conquered the enemies of mankind and guaranteed the final triumph of all true believers over every power of the devil. For the rescue of the lost race was effected only after a fight. Let us not allow our poetic imagination to run away with us. Easter is more than sunshine and lilies. It signifies the appearance again of our David who went into the field to meet the Goliath of sin and death in mortal combat. Christ came back to assure us that the victory had been won. Death and the devil had been done in by the only One who was capable of such a mighty act, Jesus the Son of God. An old hymn states this for us in ecstatic language: The strife is o'er, the battle done; The victory of life is won; The Song of triumph has begun--Hallelujah! The powers of death have done their worst,But Christ their legions hath dispersed; Let shouts of holy joy outburst--Halleluja h! He brake the age-bound chains of hell; The bars from heaven's high portals fell; Let hymns of praise His triumph tell: Hallelujah!

Verse
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:56-57

Thought
Not only has Christ won the victory over sin, death and Satan, we may share in that victory. We can't win it ourselves but we can participate in it by faith identification with the Victor.

Prayer
Thank You, Father, for victory through the Lord Jesus Christ. I stand with Christ in His victory.

Tozer Devotional
Thursday, February 23, 2012

Love the Cause of Redemption

Everything that God does is done without effort or strain. He does all his acts with equal ease and tranquillity. We are often tempted to wonder how God could love us, but honest as this feeling is, it is nevertheless the result of a wrong way of looking at things. God does not love us because we are hard or easy to love; He loves us because He is God, not because we are good or bad or more attractive or less so. God's love is not drawn out of Him by its object; it flows out from God in a steady stream because He is love. "God so loved the world," not because the world was lovable but because God is love. Christ did not die for us that God might love us; He died for us because God already loved us from everlasting. Love is not the result of redemption; it is the cause of it. One question may demand to be answered: Does God love some people more than others? If not, what was meant by calling John "the disciple Jesus loved," as if to say that He loved John more than the rest? The answer is simple. John was more responsive to the love of Christ and could receive and enjoy it to a greater fullness. The divine love could operate toward this loving man with a joyous freedom not possible with others who had not his simplicity and faith. The sunflower that turns its face to the sky all day long gets more sun than the violet that hides among the leaves. But the same sun shines in fullness upon both. God has no favorites, except as some of His children by their loving response make it possible for Him to shower more love upon them.

Verse
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

Thought
God loves us because He is God. He does not love some of us more or less than others. He loves each one. Out of His love He has provided redemption. Are we running to His love or running from it?

Prayer
Father, You so love me that You gave Christ for me. He so loved me that He paid the penalty of my sin by dying for me. In thanks and worship I bow before You.

Tozer Devotional
Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Never-ending Love

Meister Eckhart said that God must love if He is to remain God. Were He to stop loving us He would lose His Godhead. Such expressions as "if God is to remain God" and all others like them are in one sense ridiculous, for God can never cease to be God, nor can He lose anything that is Himself. The human mind, however, in its struggle to understand the impenetrable mysteries that surround the Person of God, is forced to think according to its own laws and to express itself in language that is in itself inaccurate, but which nevertheless represents an honest effort of the human heart to grasp the inconceivable. In saying that God must love us if He is to remain God, we are simply thinking human thoughts about God. It is the effort of the finite to contain the infinite, and while the thoughts are short of the mark, they are the best we are able to produce, we being what we are. Eckhart was right in saying that God must love us. God being what He is, He has no choice. His love falls upon everything and everyone as the sun's rays light upon all the ten thousand objects on the face of the earth. The sun has no choice; it must shine on, whether it is shining upon a beautiful forest or a rubbish heap. The object upon which it shines has nothing to do with its shining. It shines because it is the sun. God is love, so His loving is not something He may do nor not do at His will. Loving us is not an intermittent act or series of acts which God does in between other acts. His love flows steadily out upon the whole human race in an unbroken and continuous fullness. There is not a time, not a fraction of time, when God's love is not active toward us. It is as constant as the being of God, for it is the being of God in unforced, normal expression.

Verse
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:8

Thought
God is love. He eternally loves others. "Love is the being of God in unforced, normal expression." What release to know that God does not stop loving me when I fail Him. His love is as eternal as He is, because God is love.

Prayer
O God, I will never understand the quality, the depth, the eternalness of Your love. But thank You, thank You. You love me!

Tozer Devotional
Tuesday, February 21, 2012

God is Our Critic

Was it not Voltaire who said that some people were like insects, they would never be noticed except that they sting? A traveler must make up his mind to go on regardless of the insects that make his trip miserable. They cannot stop a determined man; they can only make his journey unpleasant. So it is with the people who delight to swarm around the ears of God's servants as they move onward toward their appointed goal. We may all expect to be stung by our many fellow humans who appear to have dedicated themselves to the task of causing minor heartaches wherever they can as long as they can to as many people as possible. These misguided people cannot be escaped, they can only be endured. One thing is certain, a Christian's standing before God does not depend upon his standing before men. A high reputation does not make a man dearer to God, nor does the tongue of the slanderer influence God's attitude toward His people in any way. He knows us each one, and we stand or fall in the light of His perfect knowledge. Let us be sure that we are right with God and with men; after that there is nothing we can do except to "both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord." And by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, we may do our hoping and waiting in such a way that our enemies will be forced to admit that we have been with Jesus and learned of Him.

Verse
You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat. Romans 14:10

Thought
It is to God we are responsible. We can sometimes learn from our critics. But we serve God. He is our judge. Remembering that can help us to go on despite criticism and also save us from becoming critics of others.

Prayer
Forgive me, Lord, for judging my brothers and sisters. And forgive them for unjustly judging me. Help me to discern the difference between evil criticism and that which is for my good.

Tozer Devotional
Monday, February 20, 2012

Handling Criticism

"Let not thy peace depend on the tongues of men," said the wise old Christian mystic, Thomas a Kempis; "for whether they judge well or ill, thou art not on that account other than thyself." The desire to stand well with our fellow men is a natural one, and quite harmless up to a point, but when that desire becomes so all-consuming that we cannot be happy apart from the praises of men, it is no longer harmless, it is sinful in itself and injurious in its effects. One of the first things a Christian should get used to is abuse. The sweetest soul ever to live in this world was subjected to an ever-increasing barrage of vile calumny during His walk among men; and if they so used the Master of the house, how can the servants hope to escape? The only way to avoid evil tongues is to withdraw entirely from the society of men; and even then there might be those who would raise a meaningful eyebrow and suggest that perhaps after all we may have a pretty good reason for getting under cover! To do nothing is to get abused for laziness, and to do anything is to get abused for not doing something else.

Verse
My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. 1 Corinthians 4:4

Thought
How vulnerable we are to the criticism of others, particularly those whom we respect. There is the danger that we listen more closely to the praise and criticism of others than to God. It is God whom we serve today and tomorrow.

Prayer
Lord, You know that I do and say much that is deserving of criticism. May I change where You show me and may I follow Your will even when others do not understand.

Tozer Devotional
Sunday, February 19, 2012

Seeing God through the Window of the Scriptures

There is a naive assumption on the part of many that the Bible has about it some kind of magic power for good, so that merely to read it or quote it is profitable, regardless of the circumstances. This idea needs to be corrected. Peter suggested that the writings of Paul might not always be profitable to everyone. ". . . Even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction" (2 Peter 3:15-16). There is a danger that the Word of God may become an opaque veil to hide God from us, and without doubt it sometimes is just that. The Scripture should be like the atmosphere, a transparent medium through which we look at the sun. When the atmosphere above us stops the light and allows us to see it instead of seeing through it, then its proper function is destroyed. So it is with the Word of God. When we so read the Bible as to make it an end rather than a medium through which we penetrate to the divine Person of God, it is no longer doing its proper work in us. Or otherwise stated, the Bible is a telescope through which we look at the "land that is very far off." When we become content with the telescope, it must surely fail us, for God never meant an instrument to take the place that belongs to Him alone; He never intended that a Book should substitute for the Living Word. The threefold purpose of the Bible is to inform, to inspire faith and to secure obedience. Whenever it is used for any other purpose, it is used wrongly and may do actual injury. The Holy Scriptures will do us good only as we present an open mind to be taught, a tender heart to believe and a surrendered will to obey. If we do these things, then the written Word will surely become to us a transparent lens through which we may gaze upon the Triune God. And so to gaze in faith is to experience a bit of heaven here below.

Verse
Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. Luke 24:45

Thought
The Scriptures are a window through which to see God; an amplifier by which to hear His voice. Essential in "inscripturization" was the ministry of the Holy Spirit. His ministry continues essential in opening our minds to understand the Scriptures.

Prayer
Open my eyes to see, my ears to hear, my mind to understand. I want to see You, to discern Your voice, to live in the enablement You give. In Jesus' name.


Tozer Devotional
Saturday, February 18, 2012

Being Holy In All We Do

It is the privilege of every Christian to live so fully in God that he never gets out of the experienced Presence for one moment. When we have so learned to live in God and to experience His continual Presence, everything in our lives becomes spiritually significant. The old dividing line between the spiritual and the secular is removed, and every act becomes spiritual. What before had seemed mundane and nonspiritual now shines with a new light. God is found to be inhabiting our simplest acts as surely as our most lofty ones. All of life becomes good and acceptable to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. A life lived in Christ becomes in the true sense a life of unceasing prayer. The whole life becomes a prayer: words are verbal prayers, thoughts become mental prayers, deeds become prayers in action and even sleep may be but unconscious prayer. Psychology acknowledges a deep-down stratum of the mind which it calls the subconscious. It is that part which is in control during sleep and while we are under the power of an anesthetic. It may be the part of us that receives spiritual impressions first, becoming consciously aware of them only after they have first been received and registered in that mysterious depth of the mind which lies immediately below consciousness. Whether or not that is the correct explanation for things, it is still true that the whole mind may be placed so fully under the control of Christ that even sleep and forgetfulness work on our side to bless and help us in our practical waking lives. Whatever the explanation, the fact is known to every Spirit-filled Christian. We are only trying to state the familiar truth in less familiar language.

Verse
But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: 'Be holy, because I am holy.' 1 Peter 1:15-16

Thought
'Be holy in all you do.' When we open to the Holy Spirit everything-all rooms of our heart, all the closets, the crevices-everything , those secular/sacred compartmental dividers disappear. We allow the Spirit control of everything!

Prayer
O Spirit of God, I throw open to You my whole heart and life. Change me. Change my thinking. Wholly cleanse. Fill me!

Tozer Devotional
Friday, February 17, 2012

Stepping Out of the Shadows

All things are but shadows cast by the great Reality, God, and if we were to gain the whole world and miss God, we should have no more than a handful of shadows. With this great eternal truth before His mind--the absolute reality of God as the central fact of existence--Christ taught the necessity of separation from the world and of complete consecration to God as the only way to escape the shadows and obtain those riches that cannot pass away. The modern Christian who insists upon separation as a condition of true spirituality is not the old-fashioned narrow person he is currently declared to be. His religious philosophy is altogether sound and wholly in accord with the total sum of things in heaven and earth. God being who and what He is and things being what they are, complete consecration is the only way to peace for any of us. The drift among Christians today is definitely away from this truth. More and more, our religious leaders are coming to place confidence in shadows and are teaching others to do the same. And just so far as shadows are accepted as real, the one great Reality is ignored. It is hard to think how a greater tragedy could possibly come upon us.

Verse
Then he said to them all: 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.'" Luke 9:23-24

Thought
One day we will step on heaven's shore into the full glory of God-Reality. Will we then discover that here on earth we spent most of our life in the shadows, in cultural Christianity, when we could have embraced the reality of God?

Prayer
O Lord, how often I forget that in this world system I am an alien. I want to know You, to follow You. That means taking up my cross daily. May I do it even if few around me understand.