It is a difficult thing to do, yet very necessary that we find a place of complete spiritual freedom and loving dependence upon one another.
Here in the wide valley between two high and dangerous peaks is the broad dwelling of God's true and wise children.
The spirit of complete inward freedom is a precious heritage from the cross and should be treasured as one of life's most wonderful possessions. It is our privilege to be wholly free from evil habits, from superstition, from the fear of men, from the slavery of popular customs, from the necessity of pleasing the self-elected dictators of society. Such freedom is wondrously delightful, near to the joy of heaven itself.
The one whom the Son has set free is as free from others as if there were no others living in the world. He would walk with God in quiet inward liberty if no one else on earth were to go along with him. Yet such a happy soul has no feeling of independence; he is deeply conscious that he is a member of a larger body of which Christ is the head, and he willingly acknowledges his indebtedness to all other Christians.
He thanks God for every one of His children and is eager to learn from all of them. He is grateful for "holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," for translators, expositors, teachers, intercessors, hymnists, and he thankfully acknowledges the part they all had in ministering to his own life the liberating things of the free Spirit.
verse
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
— John 8:36
thought
How much we owe to those men and women of God who have gone on before. From their experience and example we have learned much. Yet we, too, may walk with God, enjoying the freedom He gives while learning of Him through others who so walked.
prayer
Father, I want to know that full freedom which is in Christ. I want to be free in the Spirit yet sensitive to what You teach me through other believers.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Some good Christians are afraid to give notice to any lovely virtues which may appear here and there among God's people lest they detract from the glory of Christ.
Such timidity is understandable, but uncalled for. If we know to begin with that all goodness is from Christ, that all sweetness, all holiness, all loveliness are out of Him and from Him and in Him, we will not hesitate to recognize moral excellence wherever it may occur on this dark planet. If a ray of holy light shines out from any man's life, it must be because Christ is there shining in secret in a human breast, and we should be quick to catch this dim glimpse of the Light of the World again incarnated in a human being.
The glory of Christ will not suffer from this frank and eager acknowledgment of virtue where we find it. Because we are sentient beings, we must have some love-motivation to keep us running. This fact (on a lower level) is well known to everyone.
God knew this (for He made us) and gave us the supreme love-Object of the universe to fire our hearts with holy passion. That Object is Jesus. The Christian faith may be summed up in the love of Jesus.
To love Him enough is to be sweetly and wonderfully free.
To love Him as He should be loved is to know at once complete release from religious forms and traditions.
It is to reach the goal of life even here below.
verse
And let the loveliness of our Lord, our God, rest on us, confirming the work that we do. Oh, yes. Affirm the work that we do! (The Message).
— Psalm 90:17
thought
Experiencing Christ's love and loving Him brings a new dimension to daily living. We serve Him, we obey Him, we follow Him because we love Him! Have we opened ourselves to that love?
prayer
May Your loveliness rest on me and all your people. It is that loveliness that confirms the work we do. We serve You as an expression of our love for You.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
One thing the Bible teaches very plainly is that Christ is the sum of all virtues and the essence of all beauty.
On this subject, modern Christians have a lot to learn.
We have been cheated of this truth for the last half-century or more, the emphasis falling elsewhere.
And we are always victims of the prevailing religious vogue. Whatever is getting the attention from our spiritual leaders is what we finally come to accept as orthodoxy in any given period of history. And right now we are definitely not hearing much about the loveliness of Jesus. Christ is God shining through the personality of a man, and shining unhindered.
His sacred humanity does not veil His divine beauty in any degree. The Christ who lived among men showed forth the nature of God as certainly as if He had still been with His Father in the preincarnate state. There is no moral beauty but what Christ is the source of it. Every trait of lovely character we see in any believing man or woman is but an imperfect demonstration of how wonderful Jesus is.
Even those moral beauties that appear to be "natural" to some people have their source in Him.
For human goodness cannot exist apart from Christ. They are but broken lights of Thee, And Thou, O Christ, are more than they.
verse
One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.
— Psalm 27:4
thought
The more we gaze upon the moral beauty of the Lord, particularly as reflected in the human personality of Christ, the more we want to be like Him. Reflecting Christ's beauty in our own piece of the world points others to Him.
prayer
Father, let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me. I've seen shades of that beauty in the lives of some of Your children. May Your Spirit produce it in me. In Jesus' name.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
A local church, as long as it is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, cannot entertain the psychology of competition.
When it begins to compete with another church, it is a true church of God no longer; it has voided its character and gone down onto a lower level.
The Spirit that indwells it is no longer divine; it is human merely, and its activities are pitched on the plane of the natural. Wherever the spirit of competition between brethren rears its head, there will be found carnality, selfishness and sin. The only way to deal with it is to tag it for what it is and put it away in the sorrows of repentance.
The Holy Spirit always cooperates with Himself in His members.
The Spirit-directed body does not tear itself apart by competition.
The ambitions of the various members are submerged in the glory of the Head, and whatever brings honor to the Head meets with the most eager approval of the members. We should cultivate the idea that we are co-workers rather than competitors.
We should ask God to give us the psychology of cooperation. We should learn to think of ourselves as being members in particular of one and the same body, and we should reject with indignation every suggestion of the enemy designed to divide our efforts.
verse
I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.
— 1 Corinthians 3:6-7
thought
Since the church, its ministry, its servants, its people are God's, ministers and people cooperate in serving and glorifying God. A physical body in which the individual members compete rather than cooperate illustrates the chaos that results when compet
prayer
By Your Spirit, Lord, remind me that I am one member of Your family. May I relate to other believers, other ministers as to family members with whom to cooperate not compete.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
It is too bad that anything so obvious should need to be said at this late date, but from all appearances, we Christians have about forgotten the lesson so carefully taught by Paul: God's servants are not to be competitors, but co-workers.
In any religious work there are two interests, either of which may be served: the spiritual interest or the natural; the divine or the human; our own or God's.
And it is altogether possible to serve our own interests with poured-out devotion.
It is possible to serve the flesh even while engaged in the most intense sort of religious activities.
The very fact that our activities are religious will sometimes disguise the presence of the rankest kind of selfishness.
It is impossible for two servants of Christ to compete as long as the work they are doing is God's work.
When the spirit of competition enters, we may be sure that the work of God is no longer being done. God is one; it is wholly impossible for Him to compete with Himself. As long as His Spirit is in control there can be no such thing as competition among those who are under that control.
The Spirit achieves cooperation, always, and makes of His servants not competitors, but co-workers.
verse
For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.
— 1 Corinthians 3:9
thought
The church, its servants, its people are God's. There is, then, no basis and no room for competition. Just as there is no competition in the Godhead.
prayer
Father, varied are the traditions, the interpretation of certain biblical passages, and the gifts of my brothers and sisters in Christ. But we are one family. We are co-workers for Your glory. May I treat them as co-workers, not competitors.is no longer being done. God is one; it is wholly impossible for Him to compete with Himself. As long as His Spirit is in control there can be no such thing as competition among those who are under that control. The Spirit achieves cooperation, always, and makes of His servants not competitors, but co-workers.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
A determination to know what cannot be known always works harm to the Christian heart.
Ignorance in matters on our human level is never to be excused if there has been opportunity to correct it.
But there are matters which are obviously "too high for us."
These we should meet in trusting faith and say as Jesus said, "Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight."
There are things that we can never understand until we have the benefit of advanced experience and the addition of a light beyond anything we possess at present. Under those circumstances it is not good to attempt to understand. Confessed ignorance becomes us better. Human curiosity and pride often combine to drive us to try to understand acts of God which are plainly outside the field of human understanding.
We dislike to admit that we do not know what is going on, so we torture our minds trying to fathom the mysterious ways of the Omniscient One. It's hard to conceive of a more fruitless task. For instance, a child which had been long desired and prayed for is suddenly taken away. The parents are prostrated with grief, and to add to their suffering comes the torturing thought that they should know why it all happened, but do not.
Then begins the long, painful attempt to learn the secret of life and death. Why did this happen? What does God have in mind? These poor friends bruise their minds cruelly trying to fathom the unfathomable. We may as well learn (and the earlier the better) that God has no private secretaries who are on the inside of the secrets of eternity. All God wanted to say, He has said in the Scriptures.
Beyond that we show the greatest wisdom simply to remain still before Him and whisper, "Even so, Father." To the adoring heart, the best and most satisfying explanation for anything always will be, "It seemed good in thy sight."
verse
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
— Isaiah 55:8-9
thought
There are mysteries God deigns to unlock for humankind and there are other mysteries that will always remain just that. We sometimes confuse the two categories.
prayer
Thank You, God, that I am not God. For the foolishness of sometimes trying to be, forgive me.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The Christian owes it to the world to be supernaturally joyful.
In this day of universal apprehension when men's hearts are failing them for fear of those things that are coming upon the earth, we Christians are strategically placed to display a happiness that is not of this world and to exhibit a tranquility that will be a little bit of heaven here below.
All this takes for granted that sin has been dealt with by sincere repentance and thorough amendment of life. It assumes that we are walking in the light of truth, for true joy cannot be artificially induced. The "keep smiling" school of applied psychology is not even remotely related to the true faith of Christ.
The chief fun of the comedian and the good humor of the wit who is the life of the party are like flowers growing on old graves, briefly interesting, but evanescent and always touched with sadness. But the fountain of Christian joy flows out from the throne of God, pure, refreshing and sweet everlastingly.
verse
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
— John 15:11
thought
It was Tertullian who said that the Christian saint is hilarious. The closer one comes to God, the more joy is experienced. Joy based not on circumstances or passing emotion but the joy of the Lord that comes from knowing Him.
prayer
O Lord, the reality of being Yours opens my heart to the flow of Your joy. Thank You!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Faith is at the foundation of all Christian living, and because faith has to do with the character of God, it is safe from all vacillations of mood.
A man may be believing soundly and effectively even when his mood is low, so low that he is hardly aware that he is alive emotionally at all. That is one thing, and it is good to know and still better to put in practice. But like every other truth, it has two sides.
Our trouble today is that we tend to forget the other side, that is, that elevated spiritual mood is a tremendous aid to victorious living. The relation of faith to mood may be stated by means of a number of metaphors: if faith is the tree, mood is the blossom; if faith is the flower, mood is the fragrance; if faith is the instrument, mood is the melody.
And who will deny the vital place of the blossom, the fragrance and the music in human life? Mood is a kind of mental weather.
There is weather in which nothing will grow. The farmer knows the damage done by prolonged periods of cold, wet weather in the spring after the seed has been planted. Sometimes the seed will rot in the ground, requiring a new planting with all the loss and extra work this entails.
Weather may be too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet to favor good crops, and the Christian's moods, in like manner, may be unfavorable to spiritual growth and fruitfulness. Christian service carried on during prolonged heaviness of heart may be as good as wasted.
verse
We live by faith, not by sight.
— 2 Corinthians 5:7
thought
We walk by faith not by sight, mood or feeling. There are times when faith is all we have in the midst of darkness. There are also times when faith lifts mood and elevates feeling.
prayer
Thank You, Lord, for the bright moods and joyfulness. Keep me from becoming unduly dependent upon them.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
No one need feel ashamed if he has come to God as a last resort, especially if he has found the help he sought "in the bosom of his Father and his God."
God has received a great army of such persons, and if He is satisfied, we should be.
Billy Sunday once testified that he had been scared into the kingdom of God. "But," said he, "by the grace of God I'm not going to be scared out."
But be all this as true as it may be, still it is a bad habit for us as Christians to get into-the habit of trying everything before taking our problems to God. God should come first. If in our sinful ignorance we once knew no better, there is no reason for our continuing in the same rut now that we are children of the kingdom. It cheats us out of many a victory and leaves us for long periods in a state of perplexity and distress when we might be walking in freedom without a care in the world. Going to God first will head off many a bad situation.
A young man falls in love and without as much as a word of counsel from God plunges into marriage.
A few years later he finds that he has made a bad mistake. Then he goes to God to seek a way out, and learns that he is too late.
God will still help him even in such circumstances, but the sacred vows have been taken, and the die is cast. It would have been better to go to God first. Our chastenings come when we look somewhere else for help and neglect the one real source of all help and comfort. It's always best to go to God first.
verse
He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.
— Psalm 25:9
thought
What pain and regret we cause ourselves when we fail to go to God first. When we are sure we are in God's will then trial and sorrow change drastically in color. We know that out of His infinite riches in Christ Jesus, grace God gives and gives and gives
prayer
Thank You for Your guidance and Your grace, Lord. I am such a debtor to Your grace which is mine through Christ.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/