The happiest man in the world," said a well-known preacher some time ago, "is the new convert before he has met too many Bible teachers and seen too many church members." . . . The first half of our opening quotation, then, is so true as to need no verification.
"The happiest man in the world is a new convert." But it is the last half that disturbs me.
Why should a Bible teacher or a church member tend to destroy the joy of the new convert?
Well, to be just to everyone I must assert positively that not all Bible teachers and church members would have such an adverse effect. I know Bible teachers who would delight in piling more fuel on the blazing altar of the young Christian's heart, and I know church members whose influence and example would be a source of great strength to his whole life.
But I also know many of the other kind, the kind the young convert must actually climb over in his struggle to advance in the Christian life.
The way some Bible teachers injure the new convert is to take away his simplicity; and the way some church members do it is by disillusioning him before
he is ready for it.
verse
You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?
— Galatians 5:7
thought
How injurious to the new believer are the false teachers and carnal Christians. Confusion and disillusionment can result, impeding growth. Exposure to solid Bible teaching and a model of Spirit-filled living provide invaluable encouragement.
prayer
O Lord, by Your enablement, may I be a help to new believers and not a hindrance.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The happiest man in the world," said a well-known preacher some time ago, "is the new convert before he has met too many Bible teachers and seen too many church members."
Even after we have made what allowance we must for the obvious irony in these words, there still remains in them sufficient truth to perturb the honest Christian soul more than a little. Surely one of the happiest persons in the world should be the new convert. Has he not found Him of whom Moses and all the prophets did write?
The spontaneous song that bursts from his lips is likely to be: "Hallelujah! I have found Him Whom my soul so long has craved. Jesus satisfies my longings; Through His blood I now am saved." Old things pass away and all things become new. So brilliant is the contrast between the dark despair of but a few short hours ago and the new, bright world into which he has been thrust by the miracle of faith that every nerve and cell in his complex personality vibrates joyously.
The testimony of many persons known for their poise and self-restraint has been that at the time of their first satisfying encounter with Christ the whole world took on a new luster.
It is not unusual to hear people say that on the night of their conversion, the air smelled sweeter, the stars shone more brightly and all the common familiar objects of nature appeared to glow with a subdued light. And that these men and women were not the victims of a hallucination is proved triumphantly by the stability of their subsequent lives and the salty good sense manifest in all their religious attitudes.
verse
For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.
— Psalm 36:9
thought
Through faith in Christ we find Him to be the fountain of the light of life. His light dispels the darkness and His life is that light. How blazingly bright is that light!
prayer
You, O Christ, are the Light of life to me. I was blind and dead. In You I see and live. Hallejuah!
malliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
If this working, yet not working, doing God's work, yet not doing it, should seem to be confusing, remember there is a parallel for it in the well-known testimony of Paul in Galatians 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me."
From all this I think we may draw the following conclusion: We can no more do the work of God than we can live the life of God.
In the believing and surrendered soul, Christ lives His life again and continues to live it, and in the obedient, believing man, God will continue to work, reaching out and through the human instrument to accomplish His wonders among men.
It is critically important that we grasp this truth.
Much religious work is being done these days that is not owned by our Lord and will not be accepted or rewarded in that great day. Superior human gifts are being mistaken for the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and neither they who exercise these gifts nor the Christian public before whom they are exercised are aware of the deception.
Never has there been more activity in religious circles and, I confidently believe, never has there been so little of God and so much of the flesh.
Such work is a snare because it keeps us busy and at the same time prevents us from discovering that it is our work and not God's. "Nothing is wrought by creatures," said Meister Eckhart; "the Father works alone. The soul shall never stop until she works as well as God. Then she and the Father shall do His work together: she shall work as one with Him, wisely and lovingly.
That we may be in unity with Him. God help us. Amen."
verse
For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.
— First Corinthians 3:9
thought
What a sacred privilege to be
prayer
Lord, only as I fully surrender to You will You use me as You want to use me. May I so give myself to You!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Certain passages of Scripture, if carelessly read, might give the impression that God delegates some of His work to Christian leaders to do for Him as a manufacturer might sublet to others certain items in a contract; such, for instance, as First Corinthians 15:58,
"Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."
In First Corinthians 16:10 Paul says plainly that Timothy "is carrying on the work of the Lord, just as I am," but we must never understand from this that these men did a work of God apart.
Rather they were the obedient instruments in whom and through whom God wrought His own work.
Any misunderstanding about this is cleared up by the explanation of Paul in Colossians 1:29,
"To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me";
and First Corinthians 15:10, "I worked harder than all of them yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me."
verse
Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
— 1 Corinthains 15:58
thought
Labor in the Lord is not in vain. Labor outside the Lord may well be in vain. We labor in the Lord when we labor using His enablement for His glory.
prayer
Forgive me, Lord, for trying to serve You in my own strength and ability when You have provided Your enablement.
cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
In a close and final sense no one can do God's work. Nor does He turn His work over to others to do
. He works in His people and through them, but always it is He who works. Jesus said, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working" (John 5:17); and Paul said, "It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose" (Philippians 2:13).
This is not to teach that men should not work. One has but to run his eyes over the pages of the Bible casually to become convinced that God intends His people to work.
He put the man in the Garden of Eden "to work it and take care of it" (Genesis 2:15).
Our Lord was a carpenter and He chose active men for His first disciples.
The book of Proverbs has some scathing things to say about the sluggard who loafs away his days in careless indolence only to have poverty come upon him at last like an armed man (Proverbs 6:11).
verse
'As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.'
— John 9:4
thought
Satan smiles when after God has used a believer to do some of His work that believer directly or indirectly takes credit for it. If we ask the Lord to use us and He does, let's remember that it is He who is working through us.
prayer
Father, it amazes me that You would use someone as weak and imperfect as me to do Your work. When You do, may I not forget that the glory belongs to You.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
. . . Why do the majority of present day Christians prefer shallow religious fiction?
Or uninspired Bible talks that never get beyond the "first principles"?
Or one-page daily devotions?
Or watered-down Christian biography? . . . . . .
present day evangelical Christianity is not producing saints.
The whole concept of religious experience has shifted from the transcendental to the utilitarian.
God is valued as being useful and Christ appreciated because of the predicaments He gets us out of. He can deliver us from the consequences of our past, relax our nerves, give us peace of mind and make our business a success.
The all-consuming love that burns in the writings of an Augustine, a Bernard or a Rolle is foreign to the modern religious spirit.
Like understands like and fails to comprehend what is unlike itself.
The tortoise finds the mockingbird dull.
Esau has no fellowship with Jacob. "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14).
To come to our devotions straight from carnal or worldly interests is to make it impossible to relish the deep, sweet thoughts found in the great books we are discussing here.
We must know their heart-language, must vibrate in harmony with them, must share their inward experiences or they will mean nothing to us.
Because we are too often strangers to their spiritual mood, we are unable to profit by them and are forced to turn to one or another form of religious entertainment to make our Christianity palatable enough to endure.
verse
I give you sound learning so do not forsake my teaching.
— Proverbs 4:2
thought
Listen to Frederick Faber as he sings: "Burn, burn, O love within my heart, burn fiercely night and day, till all the dross of earthly loves is burned and burned away." Intensity of desire for God that few of us know!
prayer
Thank You, Lord, for access to the writings of those who give direction and encouragement to those of us still in the race.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The devotional works that have appeared have been so varied as to make classification difficult.
Some of the great names are Meister Eckhart, Bernard of Clairvaux, Jan van Ruysbroeck, Michael Molinos, John of the Cross, Thomas Traherne, Richard Rolle, William Law, Walter Hilton, Francis de Sales, Jakob Boehme and Gerhart Tersteegen.
To those might be added the more familiar names of Fenelon, Guyon and Thomas Kempis.
To a large extent these were universal Christians who experienced the grace of God so deeply and so broadly that they encompassed the spiritual possibilities of all men and were able to set forth their religious experiences in language acceptable to Christians of various ages and varying doctrinal viewpoints.
Just as a sincere hymn may strike a worshipful chord common to all Christians, so these works of devotion instantly commend themselves to true seekers everywhere.
There need only be genuine faith in Christ, complete separation from the world, an eager cleaving unto God and a willingness to die to self and carry the cross, and the Holy Spirit will introduce His people to each other across the centuries and teach them the meaning of spiritual unity and the communion of saints. . . . . . . people are unable to appreciate the great spiritual classics because they are trying to understand them while having no intention to obey them.
The Greek Church father, St. Gregory, said it better than I could, so we'll let him tell us: "He who seeks to understand commandments without fulfilling commandments, and to acquire such understanding through learning and reading, is like a man who takes shadows for truth. For the understanding of truth is given to those who have become participants in truth (who have tasted it through living). Those who are not participants in truth and are not initiated therein, when they seek this understanding, draw from it a distorted wisdom.
Of such the apostle says, `The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit,' even though they boast of their knowledge of truth."
In conclusion, we use books profitably when we see them as a means toward an end; we abase them when we think of them as ends in themselves.
And for all books of every sort let us observe Bacon's famous rule: "Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested."
verse
He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.
— Proverbs 13:20
thought
How much we owe to those who walked with God in days past and left to us a record of their experiences. Their religious context, terminolgy and practice may differ from ours but their love for Christ shines through. They goad us toward God!
prayer
Thank You, Father, for those who have "climbed the steep ascent of heaven through peril, toil and pain." O God, may I follow in their train
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Good speaking as well as good writing has its pitch, its tempo, its balance and rhythm, its tone and timbre.
And these things cannot be learned in the popular sense of the word; they can only be acquired by unconscious imitation.
If we listen long and sympathetically to someone who uses English with style and artistry, something of his art will seep through the pores of our minds and improve our own style greatly.
And remember that reading is hearing with the mind.
We listen to a man when we read his book with a congenial spirit. Some of my younger readers may want to know who the "masters" are to whom I have referred, and what books I recommend to develop verbal skill.
Here are a few: John Bunyan for simplicity;
Joseph Addison for clarity and elegance;
John Milton for nobility and consistent elevation of thought;
Dickens for sprightliness (start with the Christmas Carol);
Bacon for conciseness and dignity.
In addition to these I would recommend Robert Louis Stevenson, John Ruskin, Thomas Carlyle, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Also the poetry of Wordsworth, Bryant, Blake, Keats and Shelley. . . .
verse
To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning.
— Daniel 1:17
thought
At the feet of the "masters" we may sit and learn how to communicate verbally ? thought, expression, beauty. We may not agree with all they say but we can learn from the way they say it!
prayer
Lord, what vast resources are available to me from which I may learn. Deliver me from mental and verbal laziness and give me knowledge and understanding. In Jesus' name.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
God has honored human speech by using it as a medium through which to express His message of salvation, first in the inspired Scriptures and afterwards in a thousand languages and dialects among the nations of mankind.
Language is the mighty organ upon which may be played the joyous oratorio of redemption for the blessing of men and for the high honor of God.
Among the countless gifts of God, one of the most precious to us is our beautiful, expressive English tongue.
That such a gift should be neglected by busy men and women in their wild race to make a living is at least understandable, if unfortunate; but that it should be neglected as well by the ministers of the sanctuary is not only impossible to understand but completely inexcusable.
For the very reason that God has committed His saving truth to the receptacle of human language, the man who preaches that truth should be more than ordinarily skillful in the use of language.
It is necessary that every artist master his medium, every musician his instrument.
For a man calling himself a concert pianist to appear before an audience with but a beginner's acquaintance with the keyboard would be no more absurd than for a minister of the gospel to appear before his congregation without a thorough knowledge of the language in which he expects to preach.
verse
I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another.
— Romans 15:14
thought
Competency in instructing others requires not only understanding of truth and the living of it, but mastery of the language in which we communicate that truth. Have you so prayed for your missionaries today?
prayer
Thank You, Lord, for those servants of Yours who not only understand Your Word but communicate it in language and style I can understand.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/