It is unfortunate for the cause of truth that the thinnest skin in the world is that which wraps the saints. God's children are as easily injured as new-hatched hummingbirds, and worst of all, they do not heal readily. I was reminded of this some time ago when I wrote what was meant to be a good-natured, if realistic, appraisal of a bad book. Not morally bad, understand, but just bad as a book. I was not mad at anybody, and I even tried to soften my review with a bit of what I supposed was recognizable humor.
To the credit of the books author, he simply ignored me and my review; but a few of my friends were appalled by what I had written. They felt that I had, by my frankness, hurt my Christian testimony and sinned against the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. Had I actually been living the victorious life, they reasoned, I would never have expressed myself so bluntly about a book written by another Christian. I suppose there will always be sensitive souls who think that the only way to keep sweet is to keep quiet, and who mistake honesty for carnality.
These tender-minded saints confuse humility with timidity and believe that credulity and sanctification are synonymous. As they see it, every book written by an evangelical, no matter how sub-standard it may be, should have the wholehearted endorsement of all other evangelicals.
Anything less is uncharitable and un-Christian. One result of this weak attitude is that mediocrity has become normal in the field of evangelical literature. Shoddy thinking and shoddier writing are accepted as earmarks of orthodoxy, to the grief of all better minds and to the delight of the enemies of Christ.
verse
Each one should test his own actions. . . .
— Galatians 6:4a
thought
There are times when our honest expression of an opinion will be misinterpreted, our motive and heart misread. It is well, at such times, to examine our heart and review the form of our expression to insure that we have spoken or written in love.
prayer
Father, keep me from mediocrity but remind me, too, to test my actions, my words, my attitudes. For Jesus' sake.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
It has been the experience of some great souls that the Spirit actually rests the human organism into which He enters.
The Bible would seem to support this belief.
Could this be what Isaiah had in mind when he wrote, till the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the desert becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field seems like a forest. Justice will dwell in the desert and righteousness live in the fertile field.
The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever.
My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest. Though hail flattens the forest and the city is leveled completely, how blessed you will be, sowing your seed by every stream, and letting your oxen and donkeys range free (32:15-20).
Maybe we have been missing something very wonderful and very necessary. It might be well if we gave the matter some prayerful attention.
Who knows but we may discover a secret of health long hidden from the rank and file of Christians. And God knows we need it.
verse
'Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.' By this he meant the Spirit . . .
— John 7:38-39b
thought
By "streams of living water" Jesus meant the Spirit. We have received the Spirit. He dwells within. By submitting to His control we may experience those "streams of living water."
prayer
Lord, I want to fully yield to the Spirit's control. In Jesus' name.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
It is possible to work far beyond the normal strength of the human constitution and yet experience little or no fatigue because the energy for the work has been provided, not by the burning up of human tissue, but by the indwelling Spirit of power.
This has been realized by a few unusual souls, and the pity is that they are unusual.
Attention has recently been focused upon the fact that ministers suffer a disproportionately high number of nervous breakdowns compared with other men.
The reasons are many, and for the most part they reflect credit on the men of God.
Still I wonder if it is all necessary.
I wonder whether we who claim to be sons of the new creation are not allowing ourselves to be cheated out of our heritage. Surely it should not be necessary to do spiritual work in the strength of our natural talents. God has provided supernatural energies for supernatural tasks.
The attempt to do the work of the Spirit without the Spirit's enabling may explain the propensity to nervous collapse on the part of Christian ministers.
verse
. . . Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.
— Second Corinthians 12:9c
thought
Are we praying that our pastors and leaders will know supernatural energy for spiritual ministry? Let's cultivate the heart habit of praying that they will experience the Spirit's empowerment.
prayer
So easy is it to lapse into ministry in my own strength, Lord. It is Satan's great deception. Deliver me, I pray.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Apart from a few brief experiences when the pressure of the world's woes seemed about to crush Him, our Lord while on earth lived a life of relative tranquillity.
So at least we would gather from such sketchy biographical material as God has been pleased to furnish us in the four Gospels.
Though Christ was a man of sorrows and though His purity, honesty and penetrating moral insight brought Him into sharp conflict with the hollow religious world around Him, still He maintained a certain quiet poise and freedom from strain throughout His earthly sojourn.
Only when He entered purposefully into the dark regions of death to bear the sins of man did He show evidence of exhaustion. But then He was a victim, the Victim, and the normal order of His life was deliberately forsaken for the tears and blood and dying that rightfully belonged to those for whom He was vicariously suffering.
Our Lord was able to work with a minimum of weariness because He was a man completely possessed by the Holy Spirit.
As a man He did grow tired and had to sleep and rest to refresh Himself, but the strain and the exhaustion that He would otherwise have suffered were spared Him by the constant quickening of the Holy Spirit.
Peter explained that Christ went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil,after God had anointed [Him] with the Holy Spirit and power(Acts 10:38).
verse
You know . . . how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
— Acts 10:37a-38
thought
For our Lord the anointing of the Holy Spirit meant the availability of power. Ministry can be powerless without the anointing of the Spirit. But even with the anointing there is necessary appropriation by faith of the power He provides. May we minister by His power!
prayer
O Lord, may I know the Spirit's anointing and exercise Your power. And may I remember that it is by Your power and not my own.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The prophet had said before that His name should be called Wonderful; and His very first wonder was to be born above nature.
We do not wish to read into Isaiah's strangely beautiful words meanings that are not there; but the believing heart that sees the Bible an organic spiritual unit will have no trouble finding here the truth long held sacred by all Christians, the truth of the virgin birth.
Had Israel been like a young woman at the peak of her reproductive powers, the rising of such a prodigy as Jesus from within her might have had some logic in it; but He was born of Israel when her powers had waned and her strength had withered.
By no stretch of fancy could anyone who knew Israel in that day have visioned Jesus as her offspring. Israel was dry ground politically, morally and spiritually effete. Only the few old saints who still remembered the story of Sarah and Isaac could yet hope. And perhaps even they laughed as Sarah had laughed, half in unbelief and half in expectation. Whatever Christmas may be today, that first Christmas was the celebration of a miracle. A root had come up out of a dry ground.
verse
On coming to the house, they [the Magi] saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him.
Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.
— Matthew 2:11
thought
Born of a relatively unknown young woman in a stable in a small village, a helpless baby enters the world. But He is the Son of God, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. The miracle of Christmas!
prayer
May I not be distracted by the gaily wrapped packages, the tinsel, the modern commercialization, Lord, and miss the utter miracle of Christmas. I, too, would worship You.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Now everyone knows that moisture is necessary to the germination of seeds, to the swelling of buds and to the sprouting of the root buried there in the ground.
Where there is no water, life lies suspended in sleepy inaction. Even the desert plant must have a minimal quantity of moisture before there can be any growth at all. No slip of vegetable life has yet pushed up out of soil that was totally arid.
No root has yet sprung out of the dry ground. Yet Isaiah saw a tender plant grow out of ground where no moisture was; that is, he saw it in prophetic vision, and he knew a miracle was at work.
Nature could not have wrought this wonder by herself.
The arm of the Lord had done this, and let all the world marvel and be still. As certainly as the dry soil must remain barren, so must apostate Israel be fruitless, so must a virgin maid be childless. No root could grow out of a dry ground. The prophet had said before that His name should be called Wonderful; and His very first wonder was to be born above nature. We do not wish to read into Isaiah's strangely beautiful words meanings that are not there; but the believing heart that sees the Bible an organic spiritual unit will have no trouble finding here the truth long held sacred by all Christians, the truth of the virgin birth.
verse
'How will this be,' Mary asked the angel, 'since I am a virgin?' The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.'
— Luke 1:34-35
thought
Mary, by a miracle, births the Son of God. She will mother Him through the growing-up years. And He becomes her Savior as well as the Savior of all the world. Amazing!
prayer
Astonishing, Lord, is Your means of becoming human. Out of the dry ground You appear.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
It is quite in keeping with the ways of God that He should make the hope of the world to hang upon something as weak as a new baby.
A slip of the hand could have ended the newborn life.
All around the Bethlehem manger flowed dark, destructive forces urged on by that ancient and unbelievably cruel dragon called the devil and Satan.
All were in black conspiracy to destroy the tender Man-child before He could offer Himself on an altar for the redemption of the world. From the natural viewpoint nothing could have been easier than to kill the Babe before He had learned to say Father or Mother.
No bodyguard had He, and the very soldiers that should have protected Him were sent to murder Him.
The quiet and harmless Joseph could not save Him from the cold ferocity of the dragon, nor could the sweet young mother afford Him shelter from the destructive power of an iron empire. Yet He lay in complete security, safer in His frailty than if He had been surrounded by an army of a million men; safer than if He had been another Samson, able to slay at one blow a thousand Philistines.
The prophet, with anointed foresight, saw our Lord as He was after He had emerged into human nature and called Him a tender plant; but he saw also His human origin, and this appeared to him, or at least appears to us, more wonderful still: a root out of a dry ground.
verse
As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
— Isaiah 55:9
thought
The incarnation plan is uniquely divine. Had we been designing the script, never would we have chosen the God way. Ours would have been a measureless tree in full grown splendor dropped down from heaven. He chose "a root out of the dry ground."
prayer
Your ways are far beyond my comprehension, Father, because You are Almighty God.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
One of the most beautiful descriptions of our Savior to be found anywhere is that given by Isaiah in the 53rd chapter of his prophecy:
He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground(verse 2). Those who have at any time been close to the soil will see at once a young shoot just pushing through the ground and will feel the exquisite precision of the word tender when applied to it.
The delicate sprout appears to be mostly water, held together one scarcely knows how, and so brittle that it will snap asunder at the slightest touch.
Only after the passing of several days does it toughen up enough to endure external pressure without damage.
While a newborn babe is not as fragile as the tender plant just emerged from the soil, the likeness is too plain to miss, and the prophet spoke well when he compared the one to the other. The helpless, crying human thing is vulnerable from a thousand directions and is wholly dependent for its very life upon parents, neighbors and friends.
No one can pick up a day-old baby and not sense the pathetic frailty of it a barely conscious blob of sweet, perishable life only now arrived from the ancient void of nonexistence. So our Lord came to the manger in Bethlehem that first Christmas morning, not out of nonexistence, but from eternal pre-existence; not as a son of man only but as Son of Man and Son of God in the fullest sense of both terms; a tender plant and a root out of a dry ground.
verse
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
— Philippians 2:6-7
thought
What utter condescension on Christ's part! From eternal pre-existence as God, He empties Himself and enters human existence as a poor, helpless new-born baby. He does it all for you and me!
prayer
For me, Lord, You emptied yourself of the exercise of Your divine prerogatives. You showed me the meaning of complete humility.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
. . . If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters yes, even his own life he cannot be my disciple.
And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple (14:26-27).
What Christ is saying here is that faith in Him immediately introduces another and a higher loyalty into the life.
He demands and must have first place. For the true disciple it is Christ before family, Christ before country, Christ before life itself.
The flesh must always be sacrificed to the spirit and the heavenly placed ahead of the earthly, and that at any cost.
When we take up the cross, we become expendable, along with all natural friendships and all previous loyalties, and Christ becomes all in all.
In these days of sweet and easy Christianity, it requires inward illumination to see this truth and real faith to accept it. We had better pray for both before time runs out on us.
verse
Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
— Matthew 10:37-38
thought
Christ precedes all else in our lives as believers. He is our Savior and our Lord. When He is given precedence all else eventually falls into proper order.
prayer
O Christ, You are first in my heart and life.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/