The emphasis today in Christian circles appears to be on quantity, with a corresponding lack of emphasis on quality. Numbers, size and amount seem to be very nearly all that matters even among evangelicals. The size of the crowd, the number of converts, the size of the budget, the amount of the weekly collections: if these look good the church is prospering and the pastor is thought to be a success. The church that can show an impressive quantitative growth is frankly envied and imitated by other ambitious churches.
This is the age of the Laodiceans. The great goddess Numbers is worshiped with fervent devotion and all things religious are brought before her for examination. Her Old Testament is the financial report and her New Testament is the membership roll. To these she appeals as arbiters of all questions, the test of spiritual growth and the proof of success or failure in every Christian endeavor.
A little acquaintance with the Bible should show this up for the heresy it is. To judge anything spiritual by statistics is to judge by another than scriptural judgment. It is to admit the validity of externalism and to deny the value our Lord places upon the soul as over against the body. It is to mistake the old creation for the new and to confuse things eternal with things temporal. Yet it is being done every day by ministers, church boards and denominational leaders. And hardly anyone notices the deep and dangerous error.
verse
''His work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work.''
— First Corinthians 3:13
thought
It is the quality of one's work that will be tested. Nothing is said of quantity. There can be qualitative quantity but quantity without quality is of little worth.
prayer
Lord, I want to strive for quality in service for You. May I do my very best regardless of quantity.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
. . . The Advent established:. . .
Fifth, the human race will not be exterminated. That which was God seized upon that which was man. ''God of the substance of His Father, begotten before all ages; Man of the substance of His mother, born in the world. Perfect God and perfect Man . . . who, although He be God and man, yet He is not two but one Christ.'' God did not visit the race to rescue it; in Christ He took human nature unto Himself, and now He is one of us.
For this reason we may be certain that mankind will not be wiped out by a nuclear explosion or turned into subhuman monsters by the effects of radiation on the human genetic processes. Christ did not take upon Himself the nature of a race soon to be extinct.
Sixth, this world is not the end. Christ spoke with cheerful certainty of the world to come. He reported on things He had seen and heard in heaven and told of the many mansions awaiting us. We are made for two worlds and as surely as we now inhabit the one we shall also inhabit the other.
Seventh, death will some day be abolished and life and immortality hold sway. ''For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil,'' and what more terrible work has the devil accomplished than to bring sin to the world and death by sin? But life is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
verse
''He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.''
— Revelation 21:4
thought
Bernard of Cluny wrote of the world to come: ''I know not, oh, I know not what joys await us there; what radiancy of glory, what bliss beyond compare.'' The end of sin and death. Life in Christ. All because Christ came that first Christmas morning!
prayer
In one world and made for another one. Father, now I can see that other world but dimly but by faith I know that it is coming. Thank You!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
. . . The Advent established:. . .
Third, God indeed spoke by the prophets. The priests and scribes who were versed in the Scriptures could inform the troubled Herod that the Christ was to be born in Bethlehem of Judaea. And thereafter the Old Testament came alive in Christ. It was as if Moses and David and Isaiah and Jeremiah and all the minor prophets hovered around Him, guiding His footsteps into the way of the prophetic Scriptures.
So difficult was the Old Testament gamut the Messiah must run to validate His claims that the possibility of anyone's being able to do it seemed utterly remote; yet Jesus did it, as a comparison of the Old Testament with the New will demonstrate. His coming confirmed the veracity of the Old Testament Scriptures, even as those Scriptures confirmed the soundness of His own claims.
Fourth, man is lost but not abandoned. The coming of Christ to the world tells us both of these things.
Had men not been lost no Savior would have been required. Had they been abandoned no Savior would have come. But He came, and it is now established that God has a concern for men. Though we have sinned away every shred of merit, still He has not forsaken us. ''For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.''
verse
''For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.''
— Luke 19:10
thought
The Son of Man seeks the lost. He does not toss them into hell's garbage or totally ignore them. Christ seeks the lost. But He will not force us to leave our lostness to follow Him. To us belongs that choice.
prayer
Lord, I am a lost sheep whom You sought and found. I want to follow You wherever You lead.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The birth of Christ told the world something. . . . His coming, I repeat, told the world something; it declared something, established something. What was it?
That something was several things, and as Christ broke the loaves into pieces for greater convenience in eating, let me divide the message into parts the easier to understand it. The Advent established:
First, that God is real. The heavens were opened and another world than this came into view. A message came from beyond the familiar world of nature. ''Glory to God in the highest,'' chanted the celestial host, ''and on earth peace, good will.'' Earth the shepherds know too well; now they hear from God and heaven above. Our earthly world and the world above blend into one scene and in their joyous excitement the shepherds can but imperfectly distinguish the one from the other.
It is little wonder that they went in haste to see Him who had come from above. To them God was no longer a hope, a desire that He might be. He was real. Second, human life is essentially spiritual. With the emergence into human flesh of the Eternal Word of the Father the fact of man's divine origin is confirmed. God could not incarnate Himself in a being wholly flesh or even essentially flesh. For God and man to unite they must be to some degree like each other. It had to be so.
The Incarnation may indeed raise some questions, but it answers many more. The ones it raises are speculative; the ones it settles are deeply moral and vastly important to the souls of men. Man's creation in the image and likeness of God is one question it settles by affirming it positively. The Advent proves it to be a literal fact.
verse
"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."
— John 1:14
thought
Christ comes in the image of man ? fully human and fully God. And believing man and woman created in the image of God may become godly in Christ. Amazing!
prayer
O Christ, You God-Man are and You call me to experience the spiritual while yet in the earthly.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The announcement of the birth of Christ came as a sunburst of joy to a world where grief and pain are known to all and joy comes rarely and never tarries long.
The joy the angel brought to the awe-struck shepherds was not to be a disembodied wisp of religious emotion, swelling and ebbing like the sound of an aeolian harp in the rising and falling of the wind. Rather it was and is a state of lasting gladness resulting from tidings that there was born in the city of David a Savior which is Christ the Lord. It was an overflowing sense of well-being that had every right to be there.
The birth of Christ told the world something. That He should come to be born of a woman, to make Himself of no reputation and, being found in fashion as a man, to humble Himself even to death on a cross this is a fact so meaningful, so eloquent as to elude even the power of a David or an Isaiah fully to celebrate. His coming, I repeat, told the world something; it declared something, established something. What was it?
verse
"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich."
— 2 Corinthians 8:9
thought
Incomprehensible the sacrifice Christ made for us. He laid aside His glory as the Son of God to enter this world as a weak human baby. He voluntarily became poor with the purpose that we might become rich. Are we living in the experience of that richn...
prayer
Lord, You have made me a spiritual billionaire. May I so live.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Every local church is a microcosm, having all the qualities of the macrocosm, the church universal.
Each local company is ideally and should be actually equipped to do anything that the Head of the church wills to accomplish.
Wherever such a company is found, there is the true church, the complete church, so complete that if all the believers in the world were to be gathered in one place it would not add anything to the perfection of the smaller assembly.
Each local church is a fellowship in the deepest spiritual meaning of that word. It comes into being by an afflatus of power and a bestowment of life. It cannot be produced by organization, though after it is there it may be strengthened and improved by a wise and Spirit-led organization.
A true church existed in Crete before Titus was left there to set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city. Organization did not create the church; it was imposed upon a church already present, a church which had been born out of the preaching of the gospel.
For it is always the gospel that produces the church; there can be no church apart from the gospel.
verse
''The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.''
— 1 Corinthians 12:12, 27
thought
Every local church is an expression of Church because as believers we are members of Christ's body through whom He seeks to reach out to people around us.
prayer
I am part of Your Church in this world, Lord. May I recognize my brothers and sisters and with them be a body member through whom You can reach out to people.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The Church as announced by Christ, seen in the book of Acts and explained by Paul is a thing of great simplicity and rare beauty.
The church as we see it today is unsymmetrical, highly complex and anything but beautiful. Indeed I think that if some angel of God were made familiar with the church as it appears in the New Testament and then sent to the earth to try to locate it, it would be extremely doubtful whether the heavenly messenger would recognize anything now existing in the field of religion as the church he was looking for. So far have we departed from the pattern shown us in the mount.
The church as the New Testament pictures it is any company of regenerate believers met in the name of Jesus Christ. Such a company is called out from the world and gathered to Christ as a flock of sheep is gathered to the shepherd. The members of this company constitute a despised minority group standing in bold moral contradiction to the world. Their witness is Christ: His person, work, office and present position at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. They carry His gospel to the world and plead ''Be ye reconciled to God,'' then they return to their own company to worship, pray, teach and listen to the Word of the Lord as it is expounded by men of God. They also exhort, testify and exercise for the good of all such spiritual gifts as each one may possess from the Spirit.
verse
They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.
— Acts 2:42-43
thought
Devotion to apostolic teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Awesome wonders and miraculous signs by the apostles. At personal sacrifice helping other believers in need. Praising God. But no church buildings, no extensive organization, no worship teams, no multi media, no seminars. Did the early church realize what they were missing?
prayer
O Lord, may we rediscover Churchness in its simplicity and awe with manifestations of Your power and presence. In Jesus' name.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
. . . 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. . .
Another mark of the Spirit's working is a mighty moral discontent. In spite of our effort to make sinners think they are unhappy the fact is that wherever social and health conditions permit the masses of mankind enjoy themselves very much. Sin has its pleasures (Hebrews 12:25) and the vast majority of human beings have a whale of a time living. The conscience is a bit of a pest but most persons manage to strike a truce with it quite early in life and are not troubled much by it thereafter.
It takes a work of God in a man to sour him on the world and to turn him against himself; yet until this has happened to him he is psychologically unable to repent and believe. Any degree of contentment with the world's moral standards or his own lack of holiness successfully blocks off the flow of faith into the man's heart. Esau's fatal flaw was moral complacency; Jacob's only virtue was his bitter discontent.
Again before a man can be saved he must feel a consuming spiritual hunger. Anyone who lives close to the hearts of men knows that there is little spiritual hunger among them. Religion, pious talk, yes; but not real hunger. Where a hungry heart is found we may be sure that God was there first. ''Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you . . .'' (John 15:16)
verse
You did not chose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit ? fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.
— John 15:16
thought
Moral discontent and spiritual hunger make us terribly uncomfortable in this world. Yet they mark us as appointed to be fruit-bearers. Is the fruit evident to those around us?
prayer
This world is not my home. Thank You, Father, for moral discontent and spiritual hunger for You. It is inconceivable that You should have chosen me but You have! Hallelujah!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
. . . 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.
verse
He went on to say, This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him.
— John 6:65
thought
''Finished and finite clods'' can, by God's enablement, become sensitive to spiritual reality and the sinfulness of sin. Amazing how God works in the human heart!
prayer
O Lord, Your people are miracles of Your grace. Thank You for changing me. In Jesus' name, continue that transformation!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/