There is a close cause-and-effect relationship between deeds and consequences.
No right-thinking person would try to deny this.
The whole scheme of rewards and punishment is a solid and substantial part of the belief of both Jews and Christians, as well as of many moral philosophers and of religions other than the Judeo-Christian.
The human race at first was put on probation with the words, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die(Genesis 2:17).
This is truth so generally accepted by Christians everywhere as to call for no further comment here. To live our lives reverently in the fear of God and in view of eternal consequences is right and good, but to live our moral lives in fear of temporal consequences is an evil, a great and injurious evil for which not one shred of justification can be found.
Yet the shadow of the fear of consequences lies dark across the church today and its blight is seen almost everywhere.
verse
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
— Second Corinthians 4:18
thought
Living with unseen eternal consequences in mind enables us to more accurately understand temporal consequences.
Temporal consequences are relatively momentary.
Eternal consequences affect eternal living.
prayer
Lord, help me to live with eternal consequences in mind rather than temporal ones. It is the eternal that counts.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
However unpopular we may become as a result, we must cling to the knowledge that all men are heretics by nature and can never know redeeming truth till they are enlightened from above by and through the inspired revelation we call the Scriptures.
We are never kind to our neighbor when for the sake of sweet charity we smile away his perilous error and let him go unrebuked and uncorrected.
The sons of light have an overwhelming obligation to the children of darkness.
The lighthouse keeper dare not compromise with the storm; neither dare the light become friendly with the darkness.
The temptation to create our own creed and settle religious questions out of our own heads is as great in the pastor's study as in the corner tavern. 'No man knows enough to be sure he is right about divine things until he has submitted his ideas to the test of the Scriptures.
Intelligence is not enough, nor experience nor brilliance. The Word of God is the final court of appeal. I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path (Psalm 119:104).
verse
The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
— First Corinthians 2:14
thought
Access to the Scriptures does not insure encounter with God. One may commit the entire contents of Scripture to memory and continually meditate upon it without personally experiencing God. Imperative to any divine encounter is the illumination of the Holy Spirit.
prayer
O God, forgive me for trying to share the Good News with others while losing sight of the fact that only the Holy Spirit can illuminate that truth and open the minds of people to understand it.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
It is more than a little strange that persons who modestly decline to risk an opinion on matters that do not touch them at all closely, such as philosophy or science for instance, are often ready and eager to pronounce with finality on religion which above all else is vital to their welfare for this world and that which is to come.
This follows the popular notion that everyone is capable of discovering for himself the true way to heaven and that one man's belief is as good as anothers in any kind of weather.
A second tenet in this creed is that no one has the right to question the belief of anyone else or to try to influence him in any way in religious matters.
This leads naturally to the third tenet which is that we should practice complete tolerance toward every expression of religious belief, however base or ill-founded it may be, and accept it as someone's way of worshiping God even if it isn't ours.
All this has about it a certain savor of charity and slips well off the lips of politicians, who are forced to try to please everyone, and liberal ministers who find it profitable to do so.
But the man who has knelt before the burning bush or heard the sound of thunder on the mount can never bring himself to sell out his soul in that manner.
The man who has walked beside the sea and has heard the voice of Jesus saying No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6), can ever get the consent of his heart thus to trifle with religion.
He has been smitten with the love of God and the wonder of the cross and he can never again be tolerant in things that touch his soul and the souls of his fellow men.
He will live beside, be patient with, minister to, pray for and love any religionist of whatever color or creed from a cardinal to a medicine man from the long grass, but never will he compromise the truth to stay on good terms with anyone.
He may die for men, but he will never trifle with them.
verse
Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'
— John 14:6
thought
No one comes to the Father except through Jesus Christ.
No one! No one!
Because only Christ has paid the sin-debt for humankind.
We cannot acknowledge as a way to the Father anything except the only way.
prayer
Father, enable me to graciously, patiently, lovingly share with others the only way.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Until the full light of God's inspired Word floods down upon the religious landscape, almost everything is obscure and indistinct.
The finest minds see things that are not there and fail to see the things that are.
This inability to make out the details is a frustrating thing to persons of a strong religious bent and results in a lot of guessing and theological improvising.
Such persons demand to know, and though they neglect or reject the holy Scriptures they will know, regardless, in some manner satisfying to themselves.
Bible lovers have been blamed for being excessively dogmatic and it may be that they sometimes are.
I do not wish to justify a spirit of cocksureness wherever it may be found, but the certainty of the believer may be understood when it is remembered that it springs from his faith in the Scriptures as the full and true revelation of the mind of God to men.
His dogmatism has back of it the strong thus saith the Lord of prophet and apostle.
My own experience has taught me, however, that the most stubborn dogmatism is found not among those who quote the Bible to support their convictions, but among those who quote no one and claim for their spiritual authority nothing higher than their own opinions.
verse
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
— 2 Corinthians 4:4
thought
Satan, the great Blinder, has closed the minds of humankind through sin. God, by His Spirit, opens minds so that people may understand the scriptures and encounter God.
prayer
O God, You are the Great Mind Opener! May I be faithful in praying for those whose minds are blinded rather than treating them as if they could see.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
We are all heretics by nature and take to error as instinctively as ducks take to water.
This does not mean that natural theology is wholly false, for the heavens declare the glory of God and the visible universe shows His eternal power and Godhead.
Add to these the presence in the human heart of that light that lights every man that comes into the world, and you have the source of a certain body of truth known more or less clearly by the whole human race.
The knowledge thus received, however, is inadequate; it forms little more than a frame for the total picture.
The details are all unknown and undiscoverable, so that we must depend upon divine revelation as given in the holy Scriptures to fill in the particulars and render the picture intelligible.
The brush of the Holy Spirit labors to complete the work and to show every hill and rock and tree and blade of grass, each in its proper relation to everything else.
verse
For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualitities his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
— Romans 1:20-21
thought
There is a universal self-disclosure of God addressed to all people at all times in all places those footprints of God visible in the world in which we live. However, humankind's ability to read God in His natural revelation has been impaired by sin. As a result, humankind misreads it.
prayer
Thank You, Lord, for the Holy Spirit who illumines my mind to understand Your Word and to recognize Your footprints in all of nature.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The notion that Christians should always be optimistic and congenial is heresy pure and simple.
An ill-founded optimism may, under certain conditions, be extremely harmful.
A Christian is not obliged to be either pessimistic or optimistic or glad or sad or positive or negative after a preconceived rule of philosophy. He should (and will if he is Spirit-taught) reflect the will of God in any given situation. His one concern is with God's will. His one question in any set of circumstances is What does God think of this? To him nothing else matters.
What the current popular attitude may be is of no importance to him.
He will approve or disapprove altogether as the written Word and the indwelling Spirit indicate. Religious vogues, passing moods or popular notions will affect him not at all. His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. This rather rigid attitude will, in a world like ours, quite naturally work against the one who holds it and earn him a reputation as a pessimist.
People like the man who agrees with them, even if a day later they change their minds and require him to change his, too.
This inconsistency they laugh off as an amiable weakness, and why be so pious about it anyway?
Well, the sons and daughters of eternity care very little about this maypole dance of popular favor.
Like the water bird on the shore of the lake at the approach of winter, they feel within them a strong instinct to migrate.
They expect before long to take off on a journey and they're not coming back soon. So whether they leave behind them a reputation for pessimism or optimism is of little consequence to them.
They are, however, eager to be remembered as children of God and followers of the Lamb. That's all that matters to them.
verse
Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
— Colossians 3:2
thought
Setting our minds on things above rather than on earthly things put us in tune with eternal reality. Then with the mind of Christ we can understand more accurately what is going on around us.
prayer
Forgive me, Lord, for undue preoccupation with earthly things. Only with my eyes on You can I keep to the road through the confusion of this world.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The close of World War II saw a radical change in the religious mood, especially on the part of the masses.
It was a complete reversal.
Religion came into its own.
Faith became once more intellectually respectable and people stopped being ashamed to admit that they believed in God.
Evangelicalism and the world wept briefly on each other's shoulders, kissed, shook hands and became friends. '
The church discovered that she could use a good many of the world's ideas and the world found that religion was a useful technique for achieving desired ends. The ox and the ass, as well as the lion and the lamb, romped together as they had not done since Luther nailed his theses on the door of the church at Wittenberg and launched the Reformation.
Over the last few years the world has gone on to woo the Church (about like water woos a duck!) and has won her heart and hand in what seems to be a case of true love.
The honeymoon is still on and the church is now the pampered bride of the world. And what a dowry she has brought to her sensuous and drooling lover! A
n impenitent and unregenerate populace buys religious books by the millions, to the delight of the profit-hungry publishers. Movie stars now write our hymns; the holy name of Christ sounds out from the gaudy jukebox at the corner pool hall, and in all-night stomp sessions hysterical young people rock and roll to the glory of the Lord.
Today dark-browed Pessimism has gone out of vogue and her happy and responsible sister Optimism has come in to take her place. Christianity is now conceived as fun and the only cross is the one on which Jesus died several hundred years ago. Christ's yoke is not only easy, it is downright thrilling.
His burden is not only light, it is jaunty. The church goes along with everything and stands against nothing until she is convinced that it is the safe and popular thing to do; then she passes her courageous resolutions and issues her world-shaking manifestoes all in accord with the world's newest social venture, whatever it may be.
verse
You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.
— Galatians 3:1
thought
Though for different reasons, we are as foolish as the Galatians and bewitched. All is not well. As the Church, have we borrowed too much from the world?
prayer
O Lord, give me accurate perception that I may discern what is of You and what is not.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Immediately following the first World War, a wave of pessimism swept over the literate world.
What the cause was I shall not go into here but, whatever it was, the intellectual mood of the 20s and 30s was thoroughly despondent.
Materialism, pessimism, cynicism and skepticism were the four horsemen of those gloomy decades and they rode forth conquering and to conquer.
The scientists were materialistic, the philosophers skeptical, the novelists and biographers cynical and almost everyone pessimistic.
Even the interpreters of prophecy were apprehensive, for they saw in the capture of Jerusalem by the British and the rise of the Roman Empire under Mussolini evidence of the nearness of the tribulation days, the coming of Antichrist and the collapse of civilization.
About the only religionists on the Protestant side who managed to retain a little optimism were the liberals (modernists they were called in those days), and they were cheerful for a wrong reason.
Out of the poetic passages of a Bible, in which they no longer believed, they wove delicate daisy chains, which have long since withered, and crocheted pretty religious doilies of which they are not now exactly proud and which they would willingly forget but cannot because their handiwork is still to be found among us on the seventeen cent bargain table of the second-hand bookstores.
verse
'Meaningless! Meaningless!' says the Teacher, 'Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.'
— Ecclesiastes 1:2
thought
Meaninglessness and pessimism confront us in almost every corner depending on the perspective from which we perceive ? wholly humanistic or divine. Only with the eye of faith fixed on Christ can we pierce the dark clouds of gloom
prayer
Thank You, Lord, that Christ is still the Light of the world in the midst of gloom.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Christ told His disciples to tarry in Jerusalem until they had been endued with power from on high.
This can only mean that He will not entrust His work to the unready and the unqualified.
It is infinitely more important that we should be prepared for service than that we should win someone else to our subnormal spiritual condition.
Soul-winning by persons who have not met the test of obedience to the Word of Christ must inevitably produce other professing Christians of the same spiritual stripe.
Missions carried on by persons not spiritually endued can but transplant an effete Christianity on a foreign shore, for be sure that no church founded in a heathen land will be any better than the spiritual lives of those who founded it.
Real repentance will result in purified hearts and sanctified lives. A hard and determined return to the pattern shown us in the mount will bring the smile of God upon our efforts.
Then we shall experience not less soul-winning, but more.
Then we shall have not fewer missionary activities, but more.
Then whatever we do shall prosper (Psalm 1:3), and God shall be glorified in everything at home and abroad.
verse
I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.
— Luke 24:49
thought
Some of us have been in the city a long time or left it too soon. Have we been clothed with power from on high? The Spirit indeed has come. Have we fully opened our hearts to Him? Attempting to disciple the peoples of the world without that power invites disaster.
prayer
In reaching out to people in Your name, Lord, may I continually trust Your Spirit's enablement not mine.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/