If any man will . . . let him follow me, He says, and some will rise and go after Him, but others give no heed to His voice.
So the gulf opens between man and man, between those who will and those who will not.
Silently, terribly the work goes on, as each one decides whether he will hear or ignore the voice of invitation.
Unknown to the world, perhaps unknown even to the individual, the work of separation takes place.
Each hearer of the Voice must decide for himself, and he must decide on the basis of the evidence the message affords. There will be no thunder sound, no heavenly sign or light from heaven.
The Man is His own proof. The marks in His hands and feet are the insignia of His rank and office. He will not put Himself again on trial; He will not argue, but the morning of the judgment will confirm what men in the twilight have decided. And those who would follow Him must accept His conditions.
Let him, He says, and there is no appeal from His words.
He will use no coercion, but neither will He compromise.
Men cannot make the terms; they merely agree to them.
Thousands turn from Him because they will not meet His conditions.
He watches them as they go, for He loves them, but He will make no concessions. Admit one soul into the Kingdom by compromise and that Kingdom is no longer secure. Christ will be Lord, or He will be Judge.
Every man must decide whether he will take Him as Lord now or face Him as Judge then.
verse
Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'If ayone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.'
— Matthew 16:24
thought
Christ makes clear the way to follow Him. There are no exceptions or modifications. We follow Him or we don't follow Him. What a monumental decision affecting today and the forever tomorrows!
prayer
O Christ, I would follow You on Your terms, in Your way. It is YOU I follow.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
It is like the Lord to fasten a world upon nothing, and make it stay in place.
Here He takes that wonderful, mysterious microcosm we call the human soul and makes its future weal or woe to rest upon a single word if
. If any man, He says, and teaches at once the universal inclusiveness of His invitation, and the freedom of the human will.
Everyone may come; no one need come, and whoever does come, comes because he chooses to. Every man holds his future in his hand. Not the dominant world leader only, but the inarticulate man lost in anonymity is a man of destiny. He decides which way his soul shall go. He chooses, and destiny waits on the nod of his head.
He decides, and hell enlarges herself, or heaven prepares another mansion.
So much of Himself has God given to men.
There is a strange beauty in the ways of God with men. He sends salvation to the world in the person of a Man and sends that Man to walk the busy ways saying, If any man will come after me. No drama, no fanfare, no tramp of marching feet or tumult of shouting.
A kindly Stranger walks through the earth, and so quiet is His voice that it is sometimes lost in the hurly-burly; but it is the last voice of God, and until we become quiet to hear it we have no authentic message.
He bears good tidings from afar but He compels no man to listen.
If any man will, He says, and passes on.
Friendly, courteous, unobtrusive, He yet bears the signet of the King. His word is divine authority, His eyes a tribunal, His face a last judgment.
verse
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
— Matthew 11:28
thought
In Gerhard Tersteegen's words: "God calling yet! And shall He knock and I my heart the closer lock? He still is waiting to receive, and shall I dare His Spirit grieve?" God is calling us and those around us.
prayer
Thank You, Lord, for patiently calling me. I have come to You. May I be a means for others to hear Your call.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
How then shall unbelief be cured and faith be strengthened?
Surely not by straining to believe the Scriptures, as some do.
Not by a frantic effort to believe the promises of God.
Not by gritting our teeth and determining to exercise faith by an act of the will.
All this has been tried and it never helps.
To try thus to superinduce faith is to violate the laws of the mind and to do violence to the simple psychology of the heart. What is the answer?
Job told us, Acquaint thyself with him and be at peace; and Paul said, So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
These two verses show the way to a strong and lasting faith: Get acquainted with God through reading the Scriptures, and faith will come naturally.
This presupposes that we come to the Scriptures humbly, repudiating self-confidence and opening our minds to the sweet operations of the Spirit.
Otherwise stated: Faith comes effortlessly to the heart as we elevate our conceptions of God by a prayerful digestion of His Word.
And such faith endures, for it is grounded upon the Rock.
verse
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
— Hebrews 4:12
thought
Prayerfully submerging ourselves in the Word results in increasing obedience, growing faith and expanding concept of God. Let's get into the Word and let the Word get into us!
prayer
Lord, open my heart eyes to You as I feed on Your Word. By Your Spirit show me more and more who You are.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
All things else being equal, the destiny of a man or nation may safely be predicted from the idea of God which that man or that nation holds.
No nation can rise higher than its conception of God.
While Rome held to her faith in the stern old gods of the Pantheon she remained an iron kingdom. Her citizens unconsciously imitated the character of her gods, however erroneous their conception of the Deity might have been. When Rome began to think loosely about God she began to rot inwardly, and that rot never stopped till it brought her to the ground.
So it must always be with men and nations.
A church is strong or weak just as it holds to a high or low idea of God. For faith rests not primarily upon promises, but upon character.
A believer's faith can never rise higher than his conception of God.
A promise is never better or worse than the character of the one who makes it. An inadequate conception of God must result in a weak faith, for faith depends upon the character of God just as a building rests upon its foundation.
This explains why unbelief is such a grievous sin; it is pure libel against the Lord of heaven and earth.
Unbelief judges God to be unworthy of confidence and withholds its trust from Him.
Can there be a more heinous sin than this?
He that believeth not God hath made him a liar? (1 John 5:10).
Our hearts shrink from the full implications of such a statement, but would not this seem to teach that unbelief attributes to God the character of Satan?
Jesus said of Satan, He is a liar and the father of it.
Unbelief says virtually the same thing of God.
verse
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! 'Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay him?' Fo
— Romans 11:33-36
thought
How big is our God? Our prayer, our daily life, our worship reflect our concept of God. Let's let God be GOD in our life!
prayer
O God, forgive me for my small concept of You. In increasing measure show me who You are! In Jesus' name.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Let us plant ourselves on the hill of Zion and invite the world to come over to us, but never under any circumstances will we go over to them.
The cross is the symbol of Christianity, and the cross speaks of death and separation, never of compromise. No one ever compromised with a cross. The cross-separated between the dead and the living.
The timid and the fearful will cry Extreme! and they will be right.
The cross is the essence of all that is extreme and final.
The message of Christ is a call across a gulf from death to life, from sin to righteousness and from Satan to God.
The first step for any Christian who is seeking spiritual power is to accept his unique position as a son of heaven temporarily detained on the earth, and to begin to live as becometh a saint. The sharp line of demarcation between him and the world will appear at once and the world will never quite forgive him.
And the sons of earth will make him pay well for separation, but it is a price he will gladly pay for the privilege of walking in fruitfulness and power.
verse
May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
— Galatians 6:14
thought
The cross of Christ marks an unbridgeable gulf between the believer and the world. Paul clearly understood that his embrace of the cross of Christ meant unmistakable severance from this world. Do we?
prayer
May my faith identification with You, O Christ, welcome Your life in me and my death to this world system. For Your glory!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Men are impressed with the message of the Church just as far and as long as she is different from themselves.
When she seeks to be like them they no longer respect her.
They believe (and rightly) that she is playing false to herself and to them.
The moral jar that results when an indoctrinated son of Adam meets a son of heaven is one of the most wholesome things that can happen to both of them. And contrary to common opinion, men are more inclined to follow the way of Christ when they are compelled to make a radical alteration in their lives than they are when the way is made easy for them.
The human heart senses its need to be changed, and when religion appears offering life without such change, it is not taken seriously by thinking men.
The superficial, the insincere, may embrace such a low-powered brand of religion, but the seeking heart must reject it as false and unreal.
All conformity to the world is a negation of our Christian character and a surrender of our heavenly position.
verse
Don't let the world around you squeeze into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within . . . (Phillips Translation).
— Romans 12:2
thought
In our efforts to be "seeker friendly" there is the danger of downplaying the radical nature of conversion, the cost to the sinful nature of daily cross-carrying, and separation from this world. For the child of God there is heavenly citizenship. This wo
prayer
O God, may You express Your love through me to the people of this world, yet keep me being squeezed into this world's mould.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The Church's mightiest influence is felt when she is different from the world in which she lives.
Her power lies in her being different, rises with the degree in which she differs and sinks as the difference diminishes.
This is so fully and clearly taught in the Scriptures and so well illustrated in Church history that it is hard to see how we can miss it. But miss it we do, for we hear constantly that the Church must try to be as much like the world as possible, excepting, of course, where the world is too, too sinful; and we are told to get adjusted to the world and be all things to all men. (This use of the passage, incidentally, points up Peter's saying that Our beloved brother Paul wrote some things which the unlearned and the unstable wrest to their own destruction.)
One sure mark of the Church's heavenly character is that she is different from the rest of mankind; similarity is a mark of her fall.
The sons of God and the sons of men are morally and spiritually separated, and between them there is a great gulf fixed.
When religious persons try to bridge that gulf by compromise they violate the very principles of the kingdom of God.
verse
If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
— John 15:19
thought
How much are we hated by the world not because of personal peculiarities or hypocrisy but because of likeness to Christ? The world hated Christ. What is its attitude to us?
prayer
Lord, in seeking to love the people of the world may I clearly reject the world's values and practices. I am Yours not theirs.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
It was a saying of George Mueller that faith grows with use.
If we would have great faith we must begin to use the little faith we already have. Put it to work by reverent and faithful praying, and it will grow and become stronger day by day.
Dare today to trust God for something small and ordinary and next week or next year you may be able to trust Him for answers bordering on the miraculous.
Everyone has some faith, said Mueller; the difference among us is one of degree only, and the man of small faith may be simply the one who has not dared to exercise the little faith he has.
According to the Bible, we have because we ask, or we have not because we ask not.
It does not take much wisdom to discover our next move.
Is it not to pray, and pray again and again till the answer comes?
God waits to be invited to display His power in behalf of His people.
The world situation is such that nothing less than God can straighten it out.
Let us not fail the world and disappoint God by failing to pray.
verse
Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.
— Colossians 4:2
thought
Said Wesley Deuwel: "Prayer is not limited to the humanly possible. Prayer is a work of faith. The purpose of prevailing prayer is to bring to pass things that are divinely possible and that are in God's will. . . . He has chosen to make us His co-labore
prayer
Father, what unbelievable resources You have given me ? prayer, believing prayer. I can touch the world through prayer. May I grow in faith as I believingly pray.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Men may, and often do, pray without faith (though this is not true prayer), but it is not thinkable that men should have faith and not pray.
The biblical formula is The prayer of faith. Prayer and faith are here bound together by the little preposition of, and what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Faith is only genuine as it eventuates into prayer.
When Tennyson wrote More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, he probably uttered a truth of vaster significance than even he understood.
While it is not always possible to trace an act of God to its prayer-cause, it is yet safe to say that prayer is back of everything that God does for the sons of men here upon earth. One would gather as much from a simple reading of the Scriptures. What profit is there in prayer?
Much every way. Whatever God can do faith can do, and whatever faith can do prayer can do when it is offered in faith.
An invitation to prayer is, therefore, an invitation to omnipotence, for prayer engages the Omnipotent God and brings Him into our human affairs.
Nothing is impossible to the man who prays in faith, just as nothing is impossible with God.
This generation has yet to prove all that prayer can do for believing men and women.
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
Why would God invite, even command us to pray if He were not going to answer? He is ready to answer. It is for us to pray in faith according to His revealed will, persevere in prayer and leave the means and the timing to Him.
prayer
Grow me, Lord, to be a person of faithful, faith-filled prayer. May I make prayer my major ministry.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/