Surely we need a baptism of clear seeing if we are to escape the fate of Israel (and of every other religious body in history that forsook God).
If not the greatest need, then surely one of the greatest is for the appearance of Christian leaders with prophetic vision.
We desperately need seers who can see through the mist. Unless they come soon, it will be too late for this generation.
And if they do come, we will no doubt crucify a few of them in the name of our worldly orthodoxy. But the cross is always the harbinger of the resurrection.
Mere evangelism is not our present need. Evangelism does no more than extend religion, of whatever kind it may be.
It gains acceptance for religion among larger numbers of people without giving much thought to the quality of that religion. The tragedy is that present-day evangelism accepts the degenerate form of Christianity now current as the very religion of the apostles and busies itself with making converts to it with no questions asked.
And all the time we are moving farther and farther from the New Testament pattern.
We must have a new reformation.
There must come a violent break with that irresponsible, amusement-mad, paganized pseudo-religion which passes today for the faith of Christ and which is being spread all over the world by unspiritual men employing unscriptural methods to achieve their ends.
When the Roman church apostatized, God brought about the Reformation.
When the Reformation declined, God raised up the Moravians and the Wesleys.
When these movements began to die, God raised up fundamentalism and the "deeper life" groups.
Now that these have almost without exception sold out to the world ?
What next?
verse
Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly ? mere infants in Christ.
— 1 Corinthians 3:1
thought
Have we made the church a gigantic nursery full of spiritual infants, some of whom are well into their senior years? May God raise up those who can lead us out of infancy into maturity!
prayer
O God, open my eyes that I may see clearly what is of You and what is not, that I may grow into maturity. In Jesus' name.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The great deficiency to which I refer is the lack of spiritual discernment, especially among our leaders.
How there can be so much Bible knowledge and so little insight, so little moral penetration, is one of the enigmas of the religious world today.
I think it is altogether accurate to say that there has never before been a time in the history of the church when so many people were engaged in Bible study as are so engaged today.
If the knowledge of Bible doctrine were any guarantee of godliness, this would without doubt be known in history as the age of sanctity.
nstead, it may well be known as the age of the church's Babylonish captivity, or the age of worldliness, when the professed Bride of Christ allowed herself to be successfully courted by the fallen sons of men in unbelievable numbers. The body of evangelical believers, under evil influences, has . . . gone over to the world in complete and abject surrender, avoiding only a few of the grosser sins such as drunkenness and sexual promiscuity.
That this disgraceful betrayal has taken place in broad daylight with full consent of our Bible teachers and evangelists is one of the most terrible affairs in the spiritual history of the world. Yet I for one cannot believe that the great surrender was negotiated by men of evil heart who set out deliberately to destroy the faith of our fathers.
Many good and clean-living people have collaborated with the quislings who betrayed us. Why? The answer can only be, from lack of spiritual vision.
Something like a mist has settled over the church as "the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations" (Isaiah 25:7).
Such a veil once descended upon Israel: "For their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read.
It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts" (2 Corinthians 3:14-15).
That was Israel's tragic hour.
God raised up the church and temporarily disfranchised His ancient people.
He could not trust His work to blind men.
verse
My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.
— First Corinthians 2:4-5
thought
Our great need in the church today is to see the demonstration of the Spirit's power. Then our faith can rest on God's power not on human wisdom, entertaining preaching and worship-team creativity.
prayer
Lord, raise up leaders who are God seers and grant to Your people once again the clear demonstration of Your Spirit's power.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
When viewing the religious scene today, we are tempted to fix on one or another weakness and say, "This is what is wrong with the church. If this were corrected, we could recapture the glory of the early church and have pentecostal times back with us again."
This tendency to oversimplification is itself a weakness and should be guarded against always, especially when dealing with anything as complex as religion as it occurs in modern times.
It takes a very young man to reduce all our present woes to a single disease and cure the whole thing with one simple remedy. Older and wiser heads will be more cautious, having learned that the prescribed nostrum seldom works for the reason that the diagnosis has not been correct. Nothing is that simple.
Few spiritual diseases occur alone. Almost all are complicated by the presence of others and are so vitally interrelated as they spread over the whole religious body that it would take the wisdom of a Solomon to find a single cure.
For this reason, I am hesitant to point to any one defect in present-day Christianity and make all our troubles to stem from it alone.
That so-called Bible religion in our times is suffering rapid decline is so evident as to need no proof, but just what has brought about this decline is not so easy to discover.
I can only say that I have observed one significant lack among evangelical Christians which might turn out to be the real cause of most of our spiritual troubles.
Of course, if that were true, then the supplying of that lack would be our most critical need.
The great deficiency to which I refer is the lack of spiritual discernment, especially among our leaders. . . .
verse
Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law. Turn my eyes from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word.
— Psalm 119:18,37
thought
Are we sufficiently tuned into God to distinguish spiritual reality from that which falls short of it? Are our spiritual eyes fixed on Him?
prayer
O Lord, help me to fix my eyes on You and away from worthless things.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer
This need for external support for our sagging faith accounts for the introduction into religious activities of that welter of shoddy claptrap that has become the characteristic mark of modern Christianity. . . . To guarantee immunity to this disease of the heart, we must cultivate a spirit of faith and humility.
This works as an antibody to destroy the moral bacteria that cause bloat and distention.
If we have faith, we will be concerned only with what God thinks of us. We can smile off man's opinion, whether it be favorable or unfavorable, and go our God-appointed way in complete confidence.
The excited devotees of the twin gods Publicity and Reputation will race past us with no more than a pitying glance.
The self-acknowledged Great of the kingdom, the Eminent, the Outstanding will ignore us or patronize us or perhaps seek to cultivate us for their ends.
We in the meantime will step neither to the right hand nor to the left. We will honor all men, be courteous to everyone, love our Christian brothers, glorify God and fear nobody.
It takes a lot of courage and independence of mind to insist upon being just what we are, and no more.
But when the Lord comes, we will not have cause to regret that we did.
verse
May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
— Galatians 6:14
thought
Doingcan never substitute for being. Worthwhile doing flows out of wholesome being.
prayer
Help me to be realistic, Lord, in understanding who I am in myself and who I am in You!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
We may need to look closely to discover the relation between inflation and unbelief, but such a relation does nevertheless exist.
The man of faith is so sure of his position before God that he can quietly allow himself to be overlooked, discredited, deflated, without a tremor of anxiety.
He is willing to wait out God's own good time and let the wisdom of the future judgment reveal his true size and worth.
The man of unbelief dare not do this.
He is so unsure of himself that he demands immediate and visible proof of his success. His deep unbelief must have the support of present judgment. He looks eagerly for evidence to assure him that he is indeed somebody. And of course this hunger for present approval throws him open to the temptation to inflate his work for the sake of appearances.
This need for external support for our sagging faith accounts for the introduction into religious activities of that welter of shoddy claptrap that has become the characteristic mark of modern Christianity.
The church and the minister must make a showing, and nothing would seem to be ruled out that will add to the illusion of success.
At the root of this is plain unbelief.
Religious people are simply not willing to wait till the Lord comes to receive their reward.
They demand it now, and they get it, a circumstance over which they will shed bitter tears in the day of Christ.
verse
That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
— Second Corinthians 12:10
thought
Paul delighted in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, difficulties. Delighted in them! Why? Because he knew that when he was weak, precisely then he was strong.
prayer
May I desire Your approval and Your strength, Lord, only Yours.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The Bible warns against inflation, only it says it another way; it calls it being "puffed up."
There are two ways to increase size: one is to grow normally, the other to become artificially distended.
The first indicates health, the second, disease.
The well-fed child grows larger each year; only the abdomen of the tiny famine victim grows, and that by a pathological distention that tells of approaching death.
In the realm of the spiritual, there is real danger that we may mistake unhealthy bloat for true growth. Paul dealt frankly with this danger and pointed out that being puffed up and being built up are two different things.
We all know how prone we are to find what we are looking for in the Scriptures and in our own lives. When appraising ourselves, we sometimes unconsciously adopt the technique of the defense attorney, that of playing up everything favorable to us and conversely playing down whatever would put us in an unfavorable light.
While considering my own ministry, I have often caught myself magnifying every small victory out of all fair proportion and at the same time alibiing my failures and weaknesses.
It is the old trick of seeing what we want to see and closing our eyes to the things we would rather forget.
This is inflation, and unless it is judged and forsaken, it can result in a completely false estimate of our life and work.
verse
. . . We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
— First Corinthians 8:1
thought
Knowledge puffs up. Love builds up. Knowledge puffs us up. Love builds others up. Knowledge, unless tempered by love and understanding, can produce ego obesity.
prayer
Deliver me, Lord, from ego inflation. But please don't show me all at oncehow weak and unloving I really am.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
For all his faults, or perhaps because of them, Peter could do one thing superbly: he could shed tears of grief when he had offended his Savior.
The ability to repent is a sweet treasure, and one that is rare among us these days.
If we had Peter's penitent heart, we might go on to have his purity and his power.
Should the contemplation of Peter's faults give aid and comfort to an impenitent heart, then that heart has only itself to blame.
God never intended that we should hide our unconfessed sins behind the confessed faults of a saint. Peter's contrary nature drove him to God.
Unless ours does the same, Peter will have lived in vain for us.
Anyway, we are glad Peter lived, and we are glad Christ found him.
He is so much like so many of us, at least in his weaknesses. It only remains for us to learn also the secret of his strength.
verse
The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered . . . And he went outside and wept bitterly.
— Luke 22:61-62
thought
Judas Iscariot and Peter tragically failed their Lord. They staggered in dark Saturday and in that darkness Judas sank. Peter stumbled through it to the brightness of Resurrection morning and beyond to the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. So can we!
prayer
Thank You, Lord. I don't have to sink endlessly in failure. There is forgiveness and enablement in You.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
By a kind of poetic justice, Peter has been the center of a number of historical contradictions, or perhaps we should say traditional,
for many of them lack the dignity of authentic history.
They are the fabrications of the Roman special pleaders who will make a case for themselves even if they must assassinate truth to do it.
Peter is, for instance, the only man in the world who was never married and yet had a mother-in-law; for the Bible says Peter's wife's mother lay sick of a fever, and Rome says he was not married.
He was, according to legend, the first pope, yet Paul crowded him out of first place and eclipsed him easily.
That first pope took a position of meek deference before Paul, a position so definitely below him that one wonders how things got that way. If Peter was pope and not Paul, why did the great official pronouncements issue from Paul and not from Peter?
It is all very confusing, but not much more so than Peter himself.
Well, the good old man of God cannot be blamed for the position Rome has given him. He was long gone from the hustle and bustle of the world before anyone thought of making him a lifelong bachelor and the vicegerent of Christ on earth.
Such doubtful honors he shares with Mary the mother of Christ, who in her simple modesty would be shocked speechless if she could know what manufactured glories are being accorded her now by purblind leaders of the blind.
verse
But Peter and John replied, 'Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.'
— Acts 4:19-20
thought
A certain tradition has been attached to Peter over the years. But the Peter of Scripture is one who, having miserably failed his Lord, experienced radical transformation to become a fearless proclaimer of Christ. A lesson for us all.
prayer
Lord, help me to accurately sift through tradition woven into biblical fact. Your Word is powerful without the taint of tradition..
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Peter contained or has been accidentally associated with more contradictions than almost any other Bible character.
He appeared to be a combination of courage and cowardice, reverence and disrespect, selfless devotion and dangerous self-love.
Only Peter could solemnly swear that he would never desert Christ and then turn around and deny Him the first time he got in a tight place.
Only Peter could fall at Jesus' feet and acknowledge his own sinfulness and then rebuke his Lord for suggesting something with which he did not agree.
The two natures that strove within him made him say and do things that appeared to be in direct contradiction to each other and all within a matter of hours.
Peter was a "rock," yet he wavered, and so, I suppose, managed to become the only wavering rock in history.
And he surely was the only man in the world who had faith enough to walk on water but not enough faith to continue to do so when the wind blew.
For better or for worse, that was Peter, and it took God a long time to unify his nature so that the strife within him ceased.
And he had to learn some things the hard way even after Pentecost.
verse
But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, 'Lord, save me!'
— Matthew 14:30
thought
It is true that after walking on the water, Peter the Rock sank. Rocks do sink on water. Yet of all the disciples only Peter is reported to have walked on water. If only he had kept his eyes on Jesus!
prayer
Lord, remind me to keep my eyes fixed on You this day.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/