We may need to look closely to discover the relation between inflation and unbelief, but such a relation does nevertheless exist.
The man of faith is so sure of his position before God that he can quietly allow himself to be overlooked, discredited, deflated, without a tremor of anxiety.
He is willing to wait out God's own good time and let the wisdom of the future judgment reveal his true size and worth.
The man of unbelief dare not do this.
He is so unsure of himself that he demands immediate and visible proof of his success. His deep unbelief must have the support of present judgment. He looks eagerly for evidence to assure him that he is indeed somebody. And of course this hunger for present approval throws him open to the temptation to inflate his work for the sake of appearances.
This need for external support for our sagging faith accounts for the introduction into religious activities of that welter of shoddy claptrap that has become the characteristic mark of modern Christianity.
The church and the minister must make a showing, and nothing would seem to be ruled out that will add to the illusion of success.
At the root of this is plain unbelief.
Religious people are simply not willing to wait till the Lord comes to receive their reward.
They demand it now, and they get it, a circumstance over which they will shed bitter tears in the day of Christ.
verse
That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
— Second Corinthians 12:10
thought
Paul delighted in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, difficulties. Delighted in them! Why? Because he knew that when he was weak, precisely then he was strong.
prayer
May I desire Your approval and Your strength, Lord, only Yours.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The Bible warns against inflation, only it says it another way; it calls it being "puffed up."
There are two ways to increase size: one is to grow normally, the other to become artificially distended.
The first indicates health, the second, disease.
The well-fed child grows larger each year; only the abdomen of the tiny famine victim grows, and that by a pathological distention that tells of approaching death.
In the realm of the spiritual, there is real danger that we may mistake unhealthy bloat for true growth. Paul dealt frankly with this danger and pointed out that being puffed up and being built up are two different things.
We all know how prone we are to find what we are looking for in the Scriptures and in our own lives. When appraising ourselves, we sometimes unconsciously adopt the technique of the defense attorney, that of playing up everything favorable to us and conversely playing down whatever would put us in an unfavorable light.
While considering my own ministry, I have often caught myself magnifying every small victory out of all fair proportion and at the same time alibiing my failures and weaknesses.
It is the old trick of seeing what we want to see and closing our eyes to the things we would rather forget.
This is inflation, and unless it is judged and forsaken, it can result in a completely false estimate of our life and work.
verse
. . . We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
— First Corinthians 8:1
thought
Knowledge puffs up. Love builds up. Knowledge puffs us up. Love builds others up. Knowledge, unless tempered by love and understanding, can produce ego obesity.
prayer
Deliver me, Lord, from ego inflation. But please don't show me all at oncehow weak and unloving I really am.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
For all his faults, or perhaps because of them, Peter could do one thing superbly: he could shed tears of grief when he had offended his Savior.
The ability to repent is a sweet treasure, and one that is rare among us these days.
If we had Peter's penitent heart, we might go on to have his purity and his power.
Should the contemplation of Peter's faults give aid and comfort to an impenitent heart, then that heart has only itself to blame.
God never intended that we should hide our unconfessed sins behind the confessed faults of a saint. Peter's contrary nature drove him to God.
Unless ours does the same, Peter will have lived in vain for us.
Anyway, we are glad Peter lived, and we are glad Christ found him.
He is so much like so many of us, at least in his weaknesses. It only remains for us to learn also the secret of his strength.
verse
The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered . . . And he went outside and wept bitterly.
— Luke 22:61-62
thought
Judas Iscariot and Peter tragically failed their Lord. They staggered in dark Saturday and in that darkness Judas sank. Peter stumbled through it to the brightness of Resurrection morning and beyond to the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. So can we!
prayer
Thank You, Lord. I don't have to sink endlessly in failure. There is forgiveness and enablement in You.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
By a kind of poetic justice, Peter has been the center of a number of historical contradictions, or perhaps we should say traditional,
for many of them lack the dignity of authentic history.
They are the fabrications of the Roman special pleaders who will make a case for themselves even if they must assassinate truth to do it.
Peter is, for instance, the only man in the world who was never married and yet had a mother-in-law; for the Bible says Peter's wife's mother lay sick of a fever, and Rome says he was not married.
He was, according to legend, the first pope, yet Paul crowded him out of first place and eclipsed him easily.
That first pope took a position of meek deference before Paul, a position so definitely below him that one wonders how things got that way. If Peter was pope and not Paul, why did the great official pronouncements issue from Paul and not from Peter?
It is all very confusing, but not much more so than Peter himself.
Well, the good old man of God cannot be blamed for the position Rome has given him. He was long gone from the hustle and bustle of the world before anyone thought of making him a lifelong bachelor and the vicegerent of Christ on earth.
Such doubtful honors he shares with Mary the mother of Christ, who in her simple modesty would be shocked speechless if she could know what manufactured glories are being accorded her now by purblind leaders of the blind.
verse
But Peter and John replied, 'Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.'
— Acts 4:19-20
thought
A certain tradition has been attached to Peter over the years. But the Peter of Scripture is one who, having miserably failed his Lord, experienced radical transformation to become a fearless proclaimer of Christ. A lesson for us all.
prayer
Lord, help me to accurately sift through tradition woven into biblical fact. Your Word is powerful without the taint of tradition..
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Peter contained or has been accidentally associated with more contradictions than almost any other Bible character.
He appeared to be a combination of courage and cowardice, reverence and disrespect, selfless devotion and dangerous self-love.
Only Peter could solemnly swear that he would never desert Christ and then turn around and deny Him the first time he got in a tight place.
Only Peter could fall at Jesus' feet and acknowledge his own sinfulness and then rebuke his Lord for suggesting something with which he did not agree.
The two natures that strove within him made him say and do things that appeared to be in direct contradiction to each other and all within a matter of hours.
Peter was a "rock," yet he wavered, and so, I suppose, managed to become the only wavering rock in history.
And he surely was the only man in the world who had faith enough to walk on water but not enough faith to continue to do so when the wind blew.
For better or for worse, that was Peter, and it took God a long time to unify his nature so that the strife within him ceased.
And he had to learn some things the hard way even after Pentecost.
verse
But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, 'Lord, save me!'
— Matthew 14:30
thought
It is true that after walking on the water, Peter the Rock sank. Rocks do sink on water. Yet of all the disciples only Peter is reported to have walked on water. If only he had kept his eyes on Jesus!
prayer
Lord, remind me to keep my eyes fixed on You this day.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
For some queer reason, we seem to love people more when they are not too perfect.
In the presence of a faultless saint, the average one of us feels ill at ease.
We are likely to be discouraged rather than inspired by the sight of a character too impeccable to be human.
We draw more help from a man if we know that he is going through the fire along with the rest of us, and we may even take courage from the fact that he does not enjoy it any more than we do.
This may be the reason Christians have always felt a special affection for Simon Peter.
We speak of Paul with solemn respect but of Peter with an understanding smile. When the doughty old fisherman is mentioned, the face of the ordinary struggling Christian lights up.
Here is a man who is one of us, we say to ourselves. He had faults, but he conquered them and went on to become great in spite of them.
He was no alabaster saint, faintly redolent of incense, gazing absently over our heads as we labor onward through the storm. He too knew the sting of the wind and the fury of the waves and, what is more to our comfort, he did not always acquit himself like a hero when he was in a tight spot.
And that helps a lot when we are not doing too well ourselves.
verse
'Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.'
— Luke 22:31-32
thought
Satan sought to sift Peter as wheat as he does all of us. But Jesus prayed for Peter as He does for us. Through the experience of his own failure and restoration, Peter became a stengthener of others. So may we!
prayer
Lord, may I learn from my failures the lessons You seek to teach me.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The Christian is concerned primarily with truth, and especially with Him who is Truth incarnated.
Facts are not to be despised. They are to be sought for their practical value and used in the service of truth, but they are never to be allowed to substitute for those "treasures of wisdom and knowledge" which are hidden in Christ.
In this day of moral confusion, truth is not always understood to be a master to which we must render obedience; it is rather conceived to be a servant which we may use to further ends that lie outside of truth.
Private ends are often sought by the aid of truth, ends that stand outside of and bear no relation whatever to truth itself.
If we were to observe strict accuracy, we should always capitalize the word Truth, for when we have pushed it back as far as we can, we will come to God Himself.
For this reason, truth will always be the master, never the servant.
And truth can never be understood apart from its moral and spiritual implications.
verse
Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'
— John 14:6
thought
Christ is the Truth. He is the way, the truth and the life. Through Him we come to the Father Himself.
prayer
Thank You, Lord, I can know truth in experientially knowing You.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
One of the great religious thinkers of this century has pointed out a strange contradiction in the mental attitude of our times our eager love of knowledge and our universal neglect of truth.
That men love knowledge is too well demonstrated to need proof, if by knowledge we mean facts, know-how, statistics, technical information, scientific and mechanical skills.
Our printing presses are constantly rolling out books crammed with useful information.
Our schools are bulging with eager students bent on acquiring all possible knowledge in the shortest possible time.
Among the most popular and lucrative radio programs on the air today are those designed to discover how many unrelated bits of information the participants possess.
"Who? What? When? Where?" run the endless questions, and the impression is created that the one who can answer the greatest number is in some way a superior person.
It is vitally important that we make a sharp distinction between knowledge and truth , that is, between the knowledge that is but the sum of facts we possess and truth which is a moral and spiritual thing.
It is possible to fill the mind with facts and be none the better for it, for facts have no moral or spiritual significance.
Facts bear the same relation to truth that a corpse bears to a man.
They serve as a medium whereby truth relates itself to outward life and circumstance but must depend for their significance upon the inner essence of truth.
verse
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
— John 16:13
thought
"What is truth?" that poignant question of Pilate (John 18:38). Christ has sent the Spirit to guide us into all truth. Are we responsive to our Guide? Are we seeking truth?
prayer
O Father, may I pursue Truth and not be satisfied with just facts and knowledge.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Two other considerations may help us here.
One is that our Lord did on at least one occasion pray for sinners. "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing," was a request made to God on behalf of evil men.
Is it not reasonable that if Christ prayed for sinners once, He may be expected to pray for them again?
Also we must remember that Jesus was a Son of man and frequently referred to Himself by that title. As such, He had and has a relationship to the whole human race.
Is it thinkable that He would not pray for the race to which He belonged?
I realize that we are on holy ground right here, and common modesty would urge us to withhold any dogmatic judgments. But I believe that the question, Does our Lord pray for the unsaved? may be answered truthfully as follows:
(1) As High Priest of His own redeemed people, Christ prays an efficacious prayer of intercession which avails only for those who trust Him as their Redeemer and Lord.
This prayer is found in essence in John 17.
(2) As Son of man and Savior, He prays for the lost world as well.
Unless His prayers for the world were ascending to heaven, the judgment of God would not be withheld for a moment from the earth.
verse
Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.'
— Luke 23:34
thought
Amazing the love of Christ! He asks the Father to forgive those responsible for His crucifixion because they do not understand what they are doing. He models in His death what He instructs us to practice in life (Luke 6:35-36).
prayer
Lord, I want to be a faithful intercessor for brothers and sisters in Christ, for those who have not yet received You, and for those who are my enemies.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/