Wednesday Devotional
September 6, 2023
SINNING WITH SILENCE?
He was in the world … and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. — John 1:10–11
A. W. Tozer
At this hour in world history the state of religion is such that the Church is in grave danger of losing [the spiritual treasures of God’s wisdom]. Her gold is being turned to copper and her diamonds to glass. The religion of Cain is now in the ascendency—and marching under the banner of the cross.
Even among those who make a great noise about believing the Bible, that Bible has virtually no practical influence left. Fiction, films, fun, frolic, religious entertainment, Hollywood ideals, big business techniques and cheap, worldly philosophies now overrun the sanctuary. The grieved Holy Spirit broods over the chaos but no light breaks forth. “Revivals” come without rousing the hostility of organized sin and pass without raising the moral level of the community or purifying the lives of professing Christians. Why?
Could it be that too many of God’s true children … are sinning against God by guilty silence? When those whose eyes are opened by the touch of Christ become vocal and active God may begin to fight again on the side of truth.
August 30, 2023
THE WAR NEVER ENDS
Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. — Mark 1:11
W. Tozer
It is the Spirit of Christ in us that will draw Satan’s fire. The people of the world will not much care what we believe and they will stare vacantly at our religious forms, but there is one thing they will never forgive us—the presence of God’s Spirit in our hearts.
They may not know the cause of that strange feeling of antagonism which rises within them, but it will be nonetheless real and dangerous. Satan will never cease to make war on the Man-child, and the soul in which dwells the Spirit of Christ will continue to be the target for his attacks.
Immediately after a person has received the witness of the Spirit, … the adversary charges down upon the soul.… It is well for all such assaulted individuals to remember that just as soon as the Son of God received the … baptism of the Holy Ghost on the banks of the Jordan, that He was immediately afterwards driven into the wilderness and there tempted forty days by the devil. He conquered by faith and in the use of the Word of God. We can do the same.
August 2, 2023
WALK AS CHILDREN OF LIGHT
Now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light
Eph. 5:8 — J. R. Miller
We do not realize the importance of the unconscious part of our life ministry. It goes on continually. In every greeting we give to another on the street, in every moment’s conversation, in every letter we write, in every contact with other lives, there is a subtle influence that goes from us that often reaches further and leaves a deeper impression than the things themselves that we are doing at the time.
It is not so much what we do in this world as what we are, that tells in spiritual results and impressions.
July 26, 2023
GOD’S GRACE AND ANSWERED PRAYER
My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength
is made perfect in weakness --- 2 Cor. 12:9
(F. WHITFIELD) --- God’s way of answering His people’s prayers is not by removing the pressure, but by increasing their strength to bear it. The pressure is often the fence between the narrow way of life and the broad road to ruin; and if our Heavenly Father were to remove it, it might be at the sacrifice of Heaven. Oh, if God had removed that thorny fence in answer, often to earnest prayers, how many of us would now be castaways! How the song of many a saint now in glory would be hushed! How many a harp would be unstrung! How many a place in the mansions of the redeemed would be unfilled! If God answered all the prayers we put up to Heaven, we should need no other scourge. Blessed it is that we have One who is too loving to grant what we too often so rashly ask.
July 19, 2023
PLEASURES AND TREASURES
Set
your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. — Colossians 3:2
A.
W. Tozer
Let the Bible experts split it up however they will, let them divide
and subdivide it, then tack on a couple of Greek verbs. But when they are
through, I will still believe that the kingdom of God is the realm of the Holy
Spirit into which men and women enter when they are born from above.
Yes, that invisible world that God has revealed is more real, more
lasting, more eternal than this world we are in now. That is why God has given
us the prophets and His revelation in His Word. He wants us to be able to look
in on the coming world.
Of all the calamities that have been visited upon this world and its
inhabitants, the willing surrender of the human spirit to materialistic values
is the worst!
We who were made for higher worlds are accepting the ways of this world
as the ultimate. That is a tragedy of staggering proportions.
Moses turned his back on the
pleasures and treasures of Egypt. Would we, could we turn our backs on the
cash, the comforts, the conveniences we have in order to be the people of God?
June 28, 2023
THE HABITS OF A HOLY LIFE — A. W. Tozer
Bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable
unto all things. — 1 Timothy 4:8
Let me return to the root of this whole matter—are we Christians willing to be regular in the habits of a holy life, thus learning from the Holy Spirit how to be dependable and faithful, unselfish, and Christlike?
The crops in the field are regular, and the birds and the animals have a regularity of life. We see it in the rising and the setting of the sun, and in the regularity of the phases of the moon.
The Old Testament revelation itself was built around regularity. It is said of the old man of God that he went into the temple of God in the order of his course and everything in the temple was laid out in order.
God has ordained, as well, that order and regularity may be of immense value to the Christian life.
Learn to be regular in your prayer life, in your giving to God and His work and in your church attendance.
God would have His people learn regular holy habits and follow them right along day by day. He doesn’t ask us to become slaves to habits, but He does insist that our holy habits of life should become servants of His grace and glory.
June 21, 2023
LOVE GOD, HATE SIN
He that followeth after righteousness and mercy findeth life, righteousness,
and honour. — —Proverbs 21:21 — A. W. Tozer
People remark how favored the church is in this country. It does not have to face persecution and rejection. If the truth were known, our freedom from persecution is because we have taken the easy, the popular way.
If we would love righteousness until it became an overpowering passion, if we would renounce everything that is evil, our day of popularity and pleasantness would quickly end. The world would soon turn on us.
We are too nice! We are too tolerant! We are too anxious to be popular! We are too quick to make excuses for sin in its many forms! If I could stir Christians around me to love God and hate sin, even to the point of being a bit of a nuisance, I would rejoice.… Vance Havner used to remark that too many are running for something when they ought to be standing for something. God’s people should be willing to stand!
We Christians must stop apologizing for our moral position and start making our voices heard, exposing sin for the enemy of the human race which it surely is, and setting forth righteousness and true holiness as the only worthy pursuits for moral beings.
June 14, 2023
TRANSFORMED TO HIS IMAGE
Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may
prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. --- Romans 12:2
A. W. Tozer
Some people seem to think that Jesus came only to reclaim us or restore us so that we could regain the original image of Adam.… Christ did infinitely more in His death and resurrection than just undoing the damage of the fall. He came to raise us into the image of Jesus Christ.… The first man Adam was a living soul, the second man Adam was a life-giving Spirit. The first man Adam was made of the earth earthy, but the second man is the Lord from heaven!
Redemption in Christ, then, is not to pay back dollar-for-dollar or to straighten man out and restore him into Adamic grace. The purpose and work of redemption in Christ Jesus is to raise man as much above the level of Adam as Christ Himself is above the level of Adam. We are to gaze upon Christ, not Adam, and in so doing are being transformed by the Spirit of God into Christ’s image.
We choose to be transformed to His image, but we cannot create that image by our own morality or struggles after righteousness. We must be created anew in His likeness by His own Spirit, and stamped with His resemblance by His heavenly seal impressed directly upon our hearts from His hand.