The success of an illegitimate coiner depends largely upon how closely the counterfeit resembles the genuine article. Heresy is not so much the total denial of the truth as a perversion of it. That is why half a lie is always more dangerous than a complete repudiation. Hence when the Father of Lies enters the pulpit it is not his custom to flatly deny the fundamental truths of Christianity, rather does he tacitly acknowledge them, and then proceed to give an erroneous interpretation and a false application.
When once you are rooted in Reality, nothing can shake you. If your faith is in experiences, anything that happens is likely to upset that faith; but nothing can ever upset God or the almighty Reality of Redemption; base your faith on that and you are as eternally secure as God. When once you get into personal contact with Jesus Christ, you will never be moved again.
Reference: My Utmost for His Highest, 1935, December 3 Reading.
This Book contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners and the happiness of believers. Its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you. It is the traveler’s map, the pilgrim’s staff, the pilot’s compass, the soldier’s sword, and the Christian’s character. Here paradise is restored, Heaven opened, and the gates of hell disclosed. Christ is its grand object; our good is its design, and the glory of God its end. It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet. Read it slowly, frequently, and prayerfully. It is given you in life and will be opened in the judgment and will be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility, will reward the greatest labor, and will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contents.
Be patient. Is God not fast enough? Are His answers too tough? A quick sympathy from a friend may suggest that you simply drop out, be good to yourself, get away from it all. Someone else will be sure to say, “You need counsel.” Are you sure? One hour at the foot of the Cross may obviate the necessity of professional counseling (no such thing existed until the twentieth century – what did folks do before then?).
Reference: Secure in the Everlasting Arms, Revell, 2002, p. 127.
Christian civility does not commit us to a relativistic perspective. Being civil doesn't mean that we cannot criticize what goes on around us. Civility doesn't require us to approve of what other people believe and do. It is one thing to insist that other people have the right to express their basic convictions; it is another thing to say that they are right in doing so. Civility requires us to live by the first of these principles. But it does not commit us to the second formula. To say that all beliefs and values deserve to be treated as if they were on a par is to endorse relativism – a perspective that is incompatible with Christian faith and practice. Christian civility does not mean refusing to make judgments about what is good and true. For one thing, it really isn’t possible to be completely nonjudgmental. Even telling someone else that she is being judgmental is a rather judgmental thing to do!
"You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion does not come from Him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump." Galatians 5:7-9
"An undertow is an undercurrent flowing in a different direction from the water at the surface. It is the undercurrent that drowns; a swimmer will never plunge into an undercurrent, a fool will.
The spiritual undertow that switched away the Galatians was Judaism, formalism. It was not dominant, but hidden; it ran in exactly the opposite direction to the current of liberty into which they were being brought by Christ. Instead of going out to sea, out into the glorious liberty of the children of God, they were being switched away.
"You ran well..." They had been heading straight for the ocean, but the undercurrent of ritualism bewitched them, hindering them from obeying the truth." (page 904)
Note: This "undercurrent" illustrates the postmodern transformation of churches around the world. On the surface it looks good. Leaders quote Bible verses and point to the gospel. They tell us that their message of hope is based on the redemption. But then their message strays off course, drawing members and churches into an undercurrent that chokes out the truths that set us free.
The new church leaders and managers will tell us the opposite: that their psycho-social strategies and ground rules for group discussion free people from the burdens of shame and the pangs of guilt. But by presenting a feel-good universal gospel that rationalizes sin and shields the suffering sinner from genuine conviction can only bring an illusion of salvation.
For the person who believes in Christ without coming broken and contrite to the cross will not be
cleansed by the shed blood of Jesus nor
freed from bondage to sin nor
filled with the Spirit that enables us to walk in the new life of joy, peace and victory.
Always striving to follow the new vision and social rules for "spiritual community," such seekers are hindered from the very Life of Jesus, the Shepherd that at first put the hunger for truth and God in their hearts.
"You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life." John 5:39-40
Self Does Not Die Without Our Full Consent by A.W. Tozer, Renewed Day By Day, July 11
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. Galatians 5:17
The Holy Spirit and the fallen human self are diametrically opposed to each other, for, as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Roman church, "because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."
Before the Spirit of God can work creatively in our hearts, He must condemn and slay the "flesh" within us; that is, He must have our full consent to displace our natural self with the Person of Christ! This displacement is carefully explained in Romans 6, 7 and 8. When the seeking Christian has gone through the crucifying experience described in chapters 6 and 7 he enters into the broad, free regions of chapter 8. There self is dethroned and Christ is enthroned forever!
In the light of this it is not hard to see why the Christian's attitude toward self is such an excellent test of the validity of his religious experiences. ...
A good rule is this: Nothing that comes from God will minister to my pride or self-congratulation. If I am tempted to be complacent and to feel superior because of an advanced spiritual experience, I should go at once to my knees and repent of the whole thing. I have fallen a victim to the enemy! A.W. TOZER
Wherever the Word comes without power its essential content is missed. For there is in divine truth an imperious note, there is about the gospel an urgency, a finality that will not be heard or felt except by the enabling of the Spirit. We must constantly keep in mind that the gospel is not good news only, but a judgment as well upon everyone that hears it. The message of the Cross is good news indeed for the penitent, but to those who "obey not the gospel" it carries an overtone of warning. The Spirit's ministry to the impenitent world is to tell of sin and righteousness and judgment. For sinners who want to cease being willful sinners and become obedient children of God, the gospel message is one of unqualified peace, but it is by its very nature also an arbiter of the future destinies of men.
This secondary aspect is almost wholly overlooked in our day. The gift element in the gospel is held to be its exclusive content, and the shift element is accordingly ignored. Theological assent is all that is required to make Christians. This assent is called faith, and is thought to be the only difference between the saved and the lost. Faith is thus conceived as a kind of religious magic, bringing to the Lord great delight, and possessing mysterious power to open the kingdom of heaven.
Verse
But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.Jonah 3:8
Thought
The gift element in the gospel is held to be its exclusive content, and the shift element is accordingly ignored.
Prayer
We don't desire religious magic, Gracious Father, but Your Self as our hope and salvation.
The truth received in power shifts the bases of life from Adam to Christ and a new set of motives goes to work within the soul. A new and different Spirit enters the personality and makes the believing man new in every department of his being. His interests shift from things external to things internal, from things on earth to things in heaven. He loses faith in the soundness of external values, he sees clearly the deceptiveness of outward appearances and his love for and confidence in the unseen and eternal world become stronger as his experience widens.
With the ideas here expressed most Christians will agree, but the gulf between theory and practice is so great as to be terrifying. For the gospel is too often preached and accepted without power, and the radical shift that the truth demands is never made. There may be, it is true, a change of some kind; an intellectual and emotional bargain may be struck with the truth, but whatever happens is not enough, not deep enough, not radical enough. The "creature" is changed, but he is not "new." And right there is the tragedy of it. The gospel is concerned with a new life, with a birth upward onto a new level of being, and until it has effected such a re-birth, it has not done a saving work within the soul.
Verse
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!2 Corinthians 5:17
Thought
For the gospel is too often preached and accepted without power, and the radical shift that the truth demands is never made.
Prayer
Lord, we long to made new in You, new creations in Christ Jesus
I have not said that religion without power makes no changes in a man's life, only that it makes no fundamental difference. Water may change from liquid to vapor, from vapor to snow and back to liquid again, and still be fundamentally the same. So powerless religion may put a man through many surface changes and leave him exactly what he was before. Right there is where the snare lies. The changes are in form only, they are not in kind. Behind the activities of the nonreligious man and the man who has received the gospel without power lie the very same motives. An unblessed ego lies at the bottom of both lives, the difference being that the religious man has learned better to disguise his vice. His sins are refined and less offensive than before he took up religion, but the man himself is not a better man in the sight of God. He may indeed be a worse one, for always God hates artificiality and pretense. Selfishness still throbs like an engine at the center of the man's life. True he may learn to "redirect" his selfish impulses, but his woe is that self still lives unrebuked and even unsuspected within his deep heart. He is a victim of religion without power.
The man who has received the Word without power has trimmed his hedge, but it is a thorn hedge still and can never bring forth the fruits of the new life. Men do not gather grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles. Yet such a man may be a leader in the Church, and his influence and his vote may go far to determine what religion shall be in his generation.
Verse
The best of them is like a brier, / the most upright worse than a thorn hedge.Micah 7:4
Thought
The man who has received the Word without power has trimmed his hedge, but it is a thorn hedge still and can never bring forth the fruits of the new life.
Prayer
Lord, give us religion based on Your power. Help us to live a live of power in You.
If the conditions we describe were confined to the ball park, we might pass it over without further thought, but what are we to say when this same spirit enters the sanctuary and decides the attitude of men toward God and religion? For the Church has also its fields and its rules and its equipment for playing the game of pious words. It has its devotees, both laymen and professionals, who support the game with their money and encourage it with their presence, but who are no different in life or character from many who take in religion no interest at all.
As an athlete uses a ball so do many of us use words: words spoken and words sung, words written and words uttered in prayer. We throw them swiftly across the field; we learn to handle them with dexterity and grace; we build reputations upon our word-skill and gain as our reward the applause of those who have enjoyed the game. But the emptiness of it is apparent from the fact that after the pleasant religious game, no one is basically any different from what he had been before. The bases of life remain unchanged, the same old principles govern, the same old Adam rules.
Verse
Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those how did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.Romans 5:14
Thought
For the Church has also its fields and its rules and its equipment for playing the game of pious words. It has its devotees, both laymen and professionals, who support the game with their money and encourage it with their presence, but who are no different in life or character from many who take in religion no interest at all.
Prayer
Change our hearts, Father God, mold us into Your image
"Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ!" Galatians 1:10
This is one of the marks of our modern time — that many are guilty of merely "nibbling" at the truth of the Christian gospel.
In many ways, the preaching of the Word of God is being pulled down to the level of the ignorant and spiritually obtuse. We must tell stories and jokes and entertain and amuse — in order to have a few people in the audience. We do these things that we may have some reputation and that there may be money in the treasury to meet the church bills.
In many churches, Christianity has been watered down until the solution is so weak, that if it were poison it would not hurt anyone — and if it were medicine it would not cure anyone!
"Because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction" (Thessalonians 1:5).
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation" (2 Corinthians 5:17).
"You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead" (Revelation 3:1).
To one who is a student merely, these verses might be interesting, but to a serious man intent upon gaining eternal, life they might well prove more than a little disturbing. For they evidently teach that the message of the gospel may be received in either of two ways: in word only, without power, or in word with power. Yet it is the same message whether it comes in word or in power. And these verses teach also that when the message is received in power it effects a change so radical as to be called a new creation. But the message may be received without power, and apparently some have so received it, for they have a name to live, and are dead. All this is present in these texts.
By observing the ways of men at play I have been able to understand better the ways of men at prayer. Most men, indeed, play at religion as they play at games, religion itself being of all games the one most universally played. The various sports have their rules and their balls and their players; the game excites interest, gives pleasure and consumes time, and when it is over the competing teams laugh and leave the field. It is common to see a player leave one team and join another and a few days later play against his old mates with as great zest as he formerly displayed when playing for them. The whole thing is arbitrary. It consists in solving artificial problems and attacking difficulties that have been deliberately created for the sake of the game. It has no moral roots and is not supposed to have. No one is the better for his self-imposed toil. It is all but a pleasant activity that changes nothing and settles nothing at last.
Verse
"These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead."Revelation 3:1
Thought
Most men, indeed, play at religion as they play at games, religion itself being of all games the one most universally played.
Prayer
Father, forgive us for playing at religion and for failing to take seriously Your Word.
. . . No man is ever the same after God has laid His hand upon him. He will have certain marks, and though they are not easy to detect perhaps we may cautiously name a few. One mark is a deep reverence for divine things. A sense of the sacred must be present or there can be no receptivity to God and truth. This mysterious feeling of awe precedes repentance and faith and is nothing else but a gift from heaven. Millions go through life unaffected by the presence of God in His world. Good they may be and honest, but they are nevertheless men of earth, ''finished and finite clods,'' and proof against every call of the Spirit. Another mark is a great moral sensitivity. Most persons are apathetic, insensitive to matters of the heart and the conscience, and so are not salvable, at least not in their present condition. But when God begins to work in a man to bring him to salvation He makes him acutely sensitive to evil. Inward repulsion toward the swine pen that rouses the prodigal and starts him back home is a gift of God to His chosen. ~A.W. Tozer~
But even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict. --1 Thessalonians 2:2
It is good for us to remember how strong He is--and how weak we are. I settled this issue a long time ago. I tell you I have talked to God more than I have talked to anyone else. I have reasoned more with God and had longer conferences with God than with anybody else.
And what did I tell Him? Among other things, I told Him, "Now, Lord, if I do the things I know I should do, and if I say what I know in my heart I should say, I will be in trouble with people and with groups--there is no other way!
"Not only will I be in trouble for taking my stand in faith and honesty, but I will certainly be in a situation where I will be seriously tempted of the devil!"
Then, after praying more and talking to the Lord, I have said, "Almighty Lord, I accept this with my eyes open! I know the facts and I know what may happen, but I accept it. I will not run. I will not hide. I will not crawl under a rug. I will dare to stand up and fight because I am on your side--and I know that when I am weak, then I am strong!" I Talk Back to the Devil, 146. ~A. W. Tozer~
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The success of an illegitimate coiner depends largely upon how closely the counterfeit resembles the genuine article. Heresy is not so much the total denial of the truth as a perversion of it. That is why half a lie is always more dangerous than a complete repudiation. Hence when the Father of Lies enters the pulpit it is not his custom to flatly deny the fundamental truths of Christianity, rather does he tacitly acknowledge them, and then proceed to give an erroneous interpretation and a false application.
Psalm 119
8 I will keep thy statutes: O forsake me not utterly.
9 Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.
10 With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.
11 Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.
12 Blessed art thou, O Lord: teach me thy statutes.
Amen
Psalm 119
119 Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.
2 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.
3 They also do no iniquity: they walk in his ways.
4 Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently.
5 O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!
6 Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all thy commandments.
7 I will praise thee with uprightness of heart, when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.
Self pity is the response of pride to suffering.
Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still.
Christian civility does not commit us to a relativistic perspective. Being civil doesn't mean that we cannot criticize what goes on around us. Civility doesn't require us to approve of what other people believe and do. It is one thing to insist that other people have the right to express their basic convictions; it is another thing to say that they are right in doing so. Civility requires us to live by the first of these principles. But it does not commit us to the second formula. To say that all beliefs and values deserve to be treated as if they were on a par is to endorse relativism – a perspective that is incompatible with Christian faith and practice. Christian civility does not mean refusing to make judgments about what is good and true. For one thing, it really isn’t possible to be completely nonjudgmental. Even telling someone else that she is being judgmental is a rather judgmental thing to do!
Self Does Not Die Without Our Full Consent
by A.W. Tozer, Renewed Day By Day, July 11
For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. Galatians 5:17
The Holy Spirit and the fallen human self are diametrically opposed to each other, for, as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Roman church, "because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."
Before the Spirit of God can work creatively in our hearts, He must condemn and slay the "flesh" within us; that is, He must have our full consent to displace our natural self with the Person of Christ! This displacement is carefully explained in Romans 6, 7 and 8. When the seeking Christian has gone through the crucifying experience described in chapters 6 and 7 he enters into the broad, free regions of chapter 8. There self is dethroned and Christ is enthroned forever!
In the light of this it is not hard to see why the Christian's attitude toward self is such an excellent test of the validity of his religious experiences. ...
A good rule is this: Nothing that comes from God will minister to my pride or self-congratulation. If I am tempted to be complacent and to feel superior because of an advanced spiritual experience, I should go at once to my knees and repent of the whole thing. I have fallen a victim to the enemy! A.W. TOZER
http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/tozer4.html
The best part of all Christian work is that part which only God sees.” ~Andrew Bonar~
Good News and Judgment
Wherever the Word comes without power its essential content is missed. For there is in divine truth an imperious note, there is about the gospel an urgency, a finality that will not be heard or felt except by the enabling of the Spirit. We must constantly keep in mind that the gospel is not good news only, but a judgment as well upon everyone that hears it. The message of the Cross is good news indeed for the penitent, but to those who "obey not the gospel" it carries an overtone of warning. The Spirit's ministry to the impenitent world is to tell of sin and righteousness and judgment. For sinners who want to cease being willful sinners and become obedient children of God, the gospel message is one of unqualified peace, but it is by its very nature also an arbiter of the future destinies of men.
This secondary aspect is almost wholly overlooked in our day. The gift element in the gospel is held to be its exclusive content, and the shift element is accordingly ignored. Theological assent is all that is required to make Christians. This assent is called faith, and is thought to be the only difference between the saved and the lost. Faith is thus conceived as a kind of religious magic, bringing to the Lord great delight, and possessing mysterious power to open the kingdom of heaven.
Verse
But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.Jonah 3:8
Thought
The gift element in the gospel is held to be its exclusive content, and the shift element is accordingly ignored.
Prayer
We don't desire religious magic, Gracious Father, but Your Self as our hope and salvation.
https://www.cmalliance.org/devotions/tozer
The truth received in power shifts the bases of life from Adam to Christ and a new set of motives goes to work within the soul. A new and different Spirit enters the personality and makes the believing man new in every department of his being. His interests shift from things external to things internal, from things on earth to things in heaven. He loses faith in the soundness of external values, he sees clearly the deceptiveness of outward appearances and his love for and confidence in the unseen and eternal world become stronger as his experience widens.
With the ideas here expressed most Christians will agree, but the gulf between theory and practice is so great as to be terrifying. For the gospel is too often preached and accepted without power, and the radical shift that the truth demands is never made. There may be, it is true, a change of some kind; an intellectual and emotional bargain may be struck with the truth, but whatever happens is not enough, not deep enough, not radical enough. The "creature" is changed, but he is not "new." And right there is the tragedy of it. The gospel is concerned with a new life, with a birth upward onto a new level of being, and until it has effected such a re-birth, it has not done a saving work within the soul.
Verse
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!2 Corinthians 5:17
Thought
For the gospel is too often preached and accepted without power, and the radical shift that the truth demands is never made.
Prayer
Lord, we long to made new in You, new creations in Christ Jesus
https://www.cmalliance.org/devotions/tozer
Unblessed Ego
I have not said that religion without power makes no changes in a man's life, only that it makes no fundamental difference. Water may change from liquid to vapor, from vapor to snow and back to liquid again, and still be fundamentally the same. So powerless religion may put a man through many surface changes and leave him exactly what he was before. Right there is where the snare lies. The changes are in form only, they are not in kind. Behind the activities of the nonreligious man and the man who has received the gospel without power lie the very same motives. An unblessed ego lies at the bottom of both lives, the difference being that the religious man has learned better to disguise his vice. His sins are refined and less offensive than before he took up religion, but the man himself is not a better man in the sight of God. He may indeed be a worse one, for always God hates artificiality and pretense. Selfishness still throbs like an engine at the center of the man's life. True he may learn to "redirect" his selfish impulses, but his woe is that self still lives unrebuked and even unsuspected within his deep heart. He is a victim of religion without power.
The man who has received the Word without power has trimmed his hedge, but it is a thorn hedge still and can never bring forth the fruits of the new life. Men do not gather grapes of thorns nor figs of thistles. Yet such a man may be a leader in the Church, and his influence and his vote may go far to determine what religion shall be in his generation.
Verse
The best of them is like a brier, / the most upright worse than a thorn hedge.Micah 7:4
Thought
The man who has received the Word without power has trimmed his hedge, but it is a thorn hedge still and can never bring forth the fruits of the new life.
Prayer
Lord, give us religion based on Your power. Help us to live a live of power in You.
https://www.cmalliance.org/devotions/tozer
Religious Game
If the conditions we describe were confined to the ball park, we might pass it over without further thought, but what are we to say when this same spirit enters the sanctuary and decides the attitude of men toward God and religion? For the Church has also its fields and its rules and its equipment for playing the game of pious words. It has its devotees, both laymen and professionals, who support the game with their money and encourage it with their presence, but who are no different in life or character from many who take in religion no interest at all.
As an athlete uses a ball so do many of us use words: words spoken and words sung, words written and words uttered in prayer. We throw them swiftly across the field; we learn to handle them with dexterity and grace; we build reputations upon our word-skill and gain as our reward the applause of those who have enjoyed the game. But the emptiness of it is apparent from the fact that after the pleasant religious game, no one is basically any different from what he had been before. The bases of life remain unchanged, the same old principles govern, the same old Adam rules.
Verse
Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those how did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.Romans 5:14
Thought
For the Church has also its fields and its rules and its equipment for playing the game of pious words. It has its devotees, both laymen and professionals, who support the game with their money and encourage it with their presence, but who are no different in life or character from many who take in religion no interest at all.
Prayer
Change our hearts, Father God, mold us into Your image
https://www.cmalliance.org/devotions/tozer
"Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ!" Galatians 1:10
This is one of the marks of our modern time — that many are guilty of merely "nibbling" at the truth of the Christian gospel.
In many ways, the preaching of the Word of God is being pulled down to the level of the ignorant and spiritually obtuse. We must tell stories and jokes and entertain and amuse — in order to have a few people in the audience. We do these things that we may have some reputation and that there may be money in the treasury to meet the church bills.
In many churches, Christianity has been watered down until the solution is so weak, that if it were poison it would not hurt anyone — and if it were medicine it would not cure anyone!
http://www.gracegems.org/29/treasures_from_tozer.htm
A New Creation
"Because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction" (Thessalonians 1:5).
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation" (2 Corinthians 5:17).
"You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead" (Revelation 3:1).
To one who is a student merely, these verses might be interesting, but to a serious man intent upon gaining eternal, life they might well prove more than a little disturbing. For they evidently teach that the message of the gospel may be received in either of two ways: in word only, without power, or in word with power. Yet it is the same message whether it comes in word or in power. And these verses teach also that when the message is received in power it effects a change so radical as to be called a new creation. But the message may be received without power, and apparently some have so received it, for they have a name to live, and are dead. All this is present in these texts.
By observing the ways of men at play I have been able to understand better the ways of men at prayer. Most men, indeed, play at religion as they play at games, religion itself being of all games the one most universally played. The various sports have their rules and their balls and their players; the game excites interest, gives pleasure and consumes time, and when it is over the competing teams laugh and leave the field. It is common to see a player leave one team and join another and a few days later play against his old mates with as great zest as he formerly displayed when playing for them. The whole thing is arbitrary. It consists in solving artificial problems and attacking difficulties that have been deliberately created for the sake of the game. It has no moral roots and is not supposed to have. No one is the better for his self-imposed toil. It is all but a pleasant activity that changes nothing and settles nothing at last.
Verse
"These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead."Revelation 3:1
Thought
Most men, indeed, play at religion as they play at games, religion itself being of all games the one most universally played.
Prayer
Father, forgive us for playing at religion and for failing to take seriously Your Word.
https://www.cmalliance.org/devotions/tozer?id=1454
. . . No man is ever the same after God has laid His hand upon him. He will have certain marks, and though they are not easy to detect perhaps we may cautiously name a few. One mark is a deep reverence for divine things. A sense of the sacred must be present or there can be no receptivity to God and truth. This mysterious feeling of awe precedes repentance and faith and is nothing else but a gift from heaven. Millions go through life unaffected by the presence of God in His world. Good they may be and honest, but they are nevertheless men of earth, ''finished and finite clods,'' and proof against every call of the Spirit. Another mark is a great moral sensitivity. Most persons are apathetic, insensitive to matters of the heart and the conscience, and so are not salvable, at least not in their present condition. But when God begins to work in a man to bring him to salvation He makes him acutely sensitive to evil. Inward repulsion toward the swine pen that rouses the prodigal and starts him back home is a gift of God to His chosen. ~A.W. Tozer~
http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=article&aid=5420
But even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict. --1 Thessalonians 2:2
It is good for us to remember how strong He is--and how weak we are. I settled this issue a long time ago. I tell you I have talked to God more than I have talked to anyone else. I have reasoned more with God and had longer conferences with God than with anybody else.
And what did I tell Him? Among other things, I told Him, "Now, Lord, if I do the things I know I should do, and if I say what I know in my heart I should say, I will be in trouble with people and with groups--there is no other way!
"Not only will I be in trouble for taking my stand in faith and honesty, but I will certainly be in a situation where I will be seriously tempted of the devil!"
Then, after praying more and talking to the Lord, I have said, "Almighty Lord, I accept this with my eyes open! I know the facts and I know what may happen, but I accept it. I will not run. I will not hide. I will not crawl under a rug. I will dare to stand up and fight because I am on your side--and I know that when I am weak, then I am strong!" I Talk Back to the Devil, 146. ~A. W. Tozer~
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