. . . O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands.
— Daniel 9:4
The third stage of true worship is wonder. Here the mind ceases to understand and goes over to a kind of delightful astonishment. Carlyle said that worship is ?transcendent wonder,? a degree of wonder without limit and beyond expression. That kind of worship is found throughout the Bible (though it is only fair to say that the lesser degrees of worship are found there also). Abraham fell on his face in holy wonderment as God spoke to him. Moses hid his face before the presence of God in the burning bush. Paul could hardly tell whether he was in or out of the body when he was allowed to see the unspeakable glories of the third heaven.
When John saw Jesus walking among His churches, he fell at His feet as dead. We cite these as examples; the list is long in the Biblical record. It may be said that such experiences as these are highly unusual and can be no criterion for the plain Christian today. This is true, but only of the external circumstances; the spiritual content of the experiences is unchanging and is found alike wherever true believers are found. It is always true that an encounter with God brings wonderment and awe. The pages of Christian biography are sweet with the testimonies of enraptured worshipers who met God in intimate experience and could find no words to express all they felt and saw and heard. Christian hymnody takes us where the efforts of common prose break down, and brings the wings of poetic feeling to the aid of the wondering saint.But wonder is not yet the last nor highest element in worship. The soaring saint has one more mountain peak to clear before he has reached the rarefied air of purest worship. He must adore.
Open an old hymnal and turn to the sections on worship and the divine perfections and you will see the part that wonder has played in worship through the centuries.
thought
Frederick Faber was one of those enraptured worshipers. He prayed: "Father of Jesus, love's reward. What rapture will it be prostrate before Thy throne to lie, and gaze and gaze on Thee!" When is the last time you so gazed?
prayer
O Lord, what delight to pause from asking and just to gaze, to gaze upon You.ot yet the last nor highest element in worship. The soaring saint has one more mountain peak to clear before he has reached the rarefied air of purest worship. He must adore.
The dictionary says that to admire is to regard with wondering esteem accompanied by pleasure and delight; to look at or upon with an elevated feeling of pleasure.
According to this definition, God has few admirers among Christians today. Many are they who are grateful for His goodness in providing salvation.
At Thanksgiving time the churches ring with songs of gratitude that all is safely gathered in.
Testimony meetings are mostly devoted to recitations of incidents where someone got into trouble and got out again in answer to prayer. To decry this would be uncharitable and unscriptural for there is much of the same thing in the Book of Psalms. It is good and right to render unto God thanksgiving for all His mercies to us. But Gods admirers, where are they The simple truth is that worship is elementary until it begins to take on the quality of admiration.
Just as long as the worshiper is engrossed with himself and his good fortune, he is a babe. We begin to grow up when our worship passes from thanksgiving to admiration. As our hearts rise to God in lofty esteem for that which He is (?I AM THAT I AM), we begin to share a little of the selfless pleasure which is the portion of the blessed in heaven.
verse
Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.
— Psalm 145:3
thought
Great is Yahweh! His greatness is humanly unfathomable. His greatness is in who He is. So little time do we devote to just reflecting upon His greatness. It is that reflection that generates heart worship.
prayer
O God, You are great, great beyond my ability to grasp, but I worship You, O Lord!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
In the love which any intelligent creature feels for God there must always be a measure of mystery.
It is even possible that it is almost wholly mystery, and that our attempt to find reasons is merely a rationalizing of a love already mysteriously present in the heart as a result of some secret operation of the Spirit within us, "working like a miner, toiling unseen in the depths of the earth?(Fenelon).
But so far as reasons can be given, they would seem to be two: gratitude and excellence. To love God because He has been good to us is one of the most reasonable things possible. The love which arises from the consideration of His kindness to us is valid and altogether acceptable to Him.
It is nevertheless a lower degree of love, being less selfless than that love which springs from an appreciation of what God is in Himself apart from His gifts. Thus the simple love which arises from gratitude, when expressed in any act or conscious utterance, is undoubtedly worship.
But the quality of our worship is stepped up as we move away from the thought of what God has done for us and nearer the thought of the excellence of His holy nature. This leads us to admiration.
verse
Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker
— Psalm 95:6
thought
What do we know of worship ? worship true and pure? We give God thanks for what He does and what He gives but seldom for who He is.
prayer
Thank You, Lord, for the gifts I receive from You. But I want to worship You, the Giver. Apart from any gifts You give, You are worthy to be worshiped.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
In worship several elements may be distinguished, among them love, admiration, wonder and adoration.
Though they may not be experienced in that order, a little thought will reveal those elements as being present wherever true worship is found. Both the Old and the New Testament teach that the essence of true worship is the love of God. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. Our Lord declared this to be the sum of the Law and the Prophets. Now, love is both a principle and an emotion; it is something both felt and willed. It is capable of almost infinite degrees.
Love in the human heart may begin so modestly as to be hardly perceptible and go on to become a raging torrent that sweeps its possessor before it in total helplessness. Something like this must have been the experience of the apostle Paul, for he felt it necessary to explain to his critics that his apparent madness was actually the love of God ravishing his willing heart. It is quite impossible to worship God without loving Him. Scripture and reason agree to declare this. And God is never satisfied with anything less than all: all thy heart . . . all thy soul . . . all thy might.
This may not at first be possible, but deeper experience with God will prepare us for it, and the inward operations of the Holy Spirit will enable us after a while to offer Him such a poured-out fullness of love.
verse
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." The second is this: "Love your neighbor as yourself." There is no commandment greater than these.
— Mark 12:30-31
thought
God has designed us to be loving worshipers ? to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Only by His Spirit within can we grow to love Him and people with all we are.
prayer
O God, fill me with Your love. My love is so superficial. Teach me to love with all I am.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Philosophers have noted the vast difference between men and beasts and have tried to find that difference in one or another distinguishing characteristic. They have said, for instance, that man is the thinking animal, or that he is the laughing animal, or that he is the only animal with a conscience.
The one mark, however, which forever distinguishes man from all other forms of life on earth is that he is a worshiper; he has a bent toward and a capacity for worship.
Apart from his position as a worshiper of God, man has no sure key to his own being; he is but a higher animal, being born much as any other animal, going through the cycle of his life here on earth and dying at last without knowing what the whole thing is about. If that is all for him, if he has no more reason than the beast for living, then it is an odd thing indeed that he is the only one of the animals that worries about himself, that wonders, that asks questions of the universe.
The very fact that he does these things tells the wise man that somewhere there is One to whom he owes allegiance, One before whom he should kneel and do homage. The Christian revelation tells us that that One is God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, who is to be worshiped in the Spirit in the name of Jesus Christ Our Lord.
That is enough for us. Without trying to reason it out we may proceed from there. All our doubts we meet with faith?s wondering affirmation: O Lord God, thou knowest, an utterance which Samuel Taylor Coleridge declared to be the profoundest in human speech.
verse
. . . Bring back my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth ? everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.
— Isaiah 43:6b-7
thought
Unique among creation, we are made to worship God to His glory. The more we come to experientially know God, the more we shall worship Him. We shall increasingly know who He is and, in heart, bow before Him.
prayer
Triune God, I want to glorify You, to worship You. You have created me for Your glory.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Slowly you will discover Gods love in your suffering. Your heart will begin to approve the whole thing. You will learn from yourself what all the schools in the world could not teach you the healing action of faith without supporting pleasure.
You will feel and understand the ministry of the night; its power to purify, to detach, to humble, to destroy the fear of death and, what is more important to you at the moment, the fear of life.
And you will learn that sometimes pain can do what even joy cannot, such as exposing the vanity of earths trifles and filling your heart with longing for the peace of heaven.
What I write here is in no way original. This has been discovered anew by each generation of Christian seekers and is almost a clich of the deeper life.
Yet it needs to be said to this generation of believers often and with emphasis, for the type of Christianity now in vogue does not include anything as serious and as difficult as this.
The quest of the modern Christian is likely to be for peace of mind and spiritual joy, with a good degree of material prosperity thrown in as an external proof of the divine favor.
Some will understand this, however, even if the number is relatively small, and they will constitute the hard core of practicing saints so badly needed at this serious hour if New Testament Christianity is to survive to the next generation.
verse
But if I go to the east, he is not here; if I go to the west, I do not find him. When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him. But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come out as gold.
— Job 23:8-10
thought
Wrote Marcus Rainsford: "It is not when we are enjoying Christ most that we glorify him best; It is when . . . our hearts are consciously cold and dead, when our feelings are all distressing . . . when we walk in darkness and have no light . . . then to
prayer
You know the way I take and why. Refine me, O God, refine me.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
How long you continue in this night of the soul will depend upon a number of factors, some of which you may be able later to identify, while others will remain with God, completely hidden from you.
The words The day is thine, the night also is thine will now be interpreted for you by the best of all teachers, the Holy Spirit; and you will know by personal experience what a blessed thing is the ministry of the night.
But there is a limit to mans ability to live without joy. Even Christ could endure the cross only because of the joy set before Him.
The strongest steel breaks if kept too long under unrelieved tension.
God knows exactly how much pressure each one of us can take.
He knows how long we can endure the night, so He gives the soul relief, first by welcome glimpses of the morning star and then by the fuller light that harbingers the morning.
verse
How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? . . . But I trust in your unfailing love . . .
— Psalm 13:1,5a
thought
There are times when we pray by faith with no sense of His presence; witness and there is no response; serve without joy or recognition. In those times our prayer, witness and service are more precious in God's sight because they are done for Him alone.
prayer
Forgive me, Lord, for trying to flee the night as if You were not as much there as in the blazing sunlight. You are with me and it is you I serve.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
To do His supreme work of grace within you He will take from your heart everything you love most.
Everything you trust in will go from you.
Piles of ashes will lie where your most precious treasures used to be. . . . All this God will accomplish at the expense of the common pleasures that have up to that time supported your life and made it zestful.
Now under the careful treatment of the Holy Spirit your life may become dry, tasteless and to some degree a burden to you. While in this state you will exist by a kind of blind will to live; you will find none of the inward sweetness you had enjoyed before.
The smile of God will be for the time withdrawn, or at least hidden from your eyes. Then you will learn what faith is; you will find out the hard way, but the only way open to you, that true faith lies in the will, that the joy unspeakable of which the apostle speaks is not itself faith but a slow-ripening fruit of faith; and you will learn that present spiritual joys may come and go as they will without altering your spiritual status or in any way affecting your position as a true child of the Heavenly Father.
And you will also learn, probably to your astonishment, that it is possible to live in all good conscience before God and men and still feel nothing of the peace and joy you hear talked about so much by immature Christians.
verse
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
— Psalm 42:11
thought
When the sense of His presense is withdrawn and your life seems to shatter; when you feel cold and dull spiritually, keep praying. Keep feeding on His Word. Keep walking by faith ? naked faith. He is there. Trust Him.
prayer
Lord, I find it difficult to walk by faith in the night. But You are teaching me. I can't see You but Your Spirit assures me You are there. Thank You.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
If God sets out to make you an unusual Christian He is not likely to be as gentle as He is usually pictured by the popular teachers.
A sculptor does not use a manicure set to reduce the rude, unshapely marble to a thing of beauty. The saw, the hammer and the chisel are cruel tools, but without them the rough stone must remain forever formless and unbeautiful.
To do His supreme work of grace within you He will take from your heart everything you love most. Everything you trust in will go from you. Piles of ashes will lie where your most precious treasures used to be.
This is not to teach the sanctifying power of poverty. If to be poor made men holy every tramp on park bench would be a saint.
But God knows the secret of removing things from our hearts while they still remain to us.
What He does is to restrain us from enjoying them.
He lets us have them but makes us psychologically unable to let our hearts go out to them. Thus they are useful without being harmful.
verse
For our God is a consuming fire.
— Hebrews 12:29
thought
The old hymn put it well: "When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, my grace all sufficient shall be thy supply. The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine."
prayer
Remove the dross, O Lord, even though I whimper and moan. Purify me. In it all I know Your grace will be sufficient.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/