While it is true that theological truth is modified by its passage through the individual mind, it is also true that there is an anointing which teaches us about all things (1 John 2:27). It is the Holy Spirit, poured out into our hearts (Romans 5:5).
There is no danger that we go seriously astray from the truth if we walk humbly, trust completely, search the Scriptures daily, expect divine illumination and lean not on our own understanding.
Most assuredly the Holy Spirit will take control of our minds and help us to think like God.
Then will be fulfilled the Scripture which says, But we have the mind of Christ(1 Corinthians 2:16).
verse
'But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.'
— John 16:13-14
thought
Ultimately it is the Holy Spirit who takes what is Christ's and makes it known to us.
He may use human teachers or our own disciplined study but He, the Spirit, is the "Truth Guide."
prayer
Thank You, Lord, for the human teachers You have used to open Your Word to me.
But far greater thanks I give for the Holy Spirit who takes what is Christ's and makes it known to me.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
That we must often receive new truth into minds already cluttered up with old truths, half-truths and scraps of downright error, and fit it into the total in such a way that it will appear right and feel?right to the heart, makes it extremely difficult for us to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The camel may squeeze through the eye of the needle and be well on his way before some of us can rid ourselves of our hindrances and get our minds clear for the free reception of God's unadulterated truth.
Lest the bare statement of the facts tend to discourage someone, let us look at the other side of the question.
Undoubtedly God knows our frame and remembers that we are dust.
We should not berate ourselves too much for this weakness. Even an apostle had to have a vision from heaven to free him from some of his old misconceptions and open his heart to a new order of truth (Acts 10:9-16).
And we should remember that it does not take a perfect understanding of all truth to save a man and bring him into communion with God.
Furthermore, God has sent us a Teacher in the person of the Holy Spirit (John 16:12-15).
f we humble ourselves and come to God as little children, He will reveal His Son in us and favor us with revelations of spiritual truth unknown to the wise and the prudent (Matthew 11:25-27).
verse
They asked each other, 'Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?'
— Luke 24:32
thought
What a difference it makes when God opens the Scriptures to us. A light goes on. Understanding is birthed. Prayerful study is our part. Illumination is His.
prayer
O Lord, that I may disciplined in the study of Your Word, not merely to achieve intellectual understanding but heart enlightenment.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
When we think about spiritual things there is always danger that we think like men instead of like God.
Theological truth cannot enter the mind as a separate substance or as an experience complete in itself. I
t must be grasped by the mind in an act of response; and the response is conditioned by everything that has gone before in the learner's life. Whether or not we are conscious of doing so, we invariably add something to the truth as it enters (or take something away) to make it fit into the total body of ideas we hold and call Truth.
To show how this works let us imagine two men reading the same passage of Scripture, one a Calvinist who has been brought up on Calvinistic theology from his youth, the other reared in the Arminian tradition and thoroughly indoctrinated in Arminianism.
The passage they read is Hebrews 6:4-6, It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance.
The impressions the Calvinist receives from these words will differ radically from those received by the Arminian, yet neither one will be conscious of adding to, subtracting from or otherwise altering the passage in any way.
Each will understand the words to mean exactly what he has been taught that they mean.
The meaning he sees there will appear to him so natural, so logical and right that he will wonder how anyone can see any other. (And sadly enough each will more than likely think the other a hypocrite who receives his teaching from the devil. But that is not pertinent to this particular argument.)
verse
Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
— Acts 17:11
thought
Surely respect is owed to those who faithfully teach us God's Word. But it is our personal responsibility to regularly examine the Scriptures to see if what we are being taught is true. The Spirit is our Ultimate Teacher and He will teach us through the Scriptures as we submit to Him.
prayer
Open my mind-eyes, Lord, so see and to grasp truth revealed in Your Word.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
. . . All these examples point up to a grave modern evil, permitting temporal consequences to decide eternal issues.
A word of caution should be added.
Sometimes an act, though good in itself, may, in a given set of circumstances, be better held in abeyance.
Only be sure the reason for waiting is the desire to promote the glory of God and bless mankind.
Sometimes a word, though true, would be out of season and injurious to someone. Better be silent than to speak a harmful word.
Only let the reason for silence be love and not fear. To sum up: no act, however noble it may seem to be, done from fear of consequences can be good in itself. A good deed done for earthly gain is an evil deed at bottom.
Motive imparts moral quality, and without a holy motive there cannot be a holy act.
.
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
— Psalm 51:10
thought
How clever is the god of this world into deceiving us into thinking that bowing to temporal consequences can be clothed in moral quality. God knows our hearts. We had better know them, too.
prayer
O Father, give me clear understanding of consequences. May I discern the eternal from the temporal and not compromise.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The temptation to gear our lives to social consequences is frightfully strong in a world like ours, but it must be overcome all the way down the line.
The Christian businessman when faced with a moral choice must never ask, How much will this cost me? The moment he regards consequences, he dethrones Christ as Lord of his life. His only concern should be with the will of God and the moral quality of the proposed act. To consult anything else is to sin against his own soul.
Again, the pastor when facing his congregation on Sunday morning, dare not think of the effect his sermon may have on his job, his salary or his future relation to the church.
Let him but worry about tomorrow and he becomes a hireling and no true shepherd of the sheep. No man is a good preacher who is not willing to lay his future on the line every time he expounds the Word.
He must let his job and his reputation ride on each and every sermon or he has no right to think that he stands in the prophetic tradition.
And the same principle is binding upon the religious writer and editor.
The scribe who will trim his copy to hold his job is unworthy of public confidence.
The editor who will reject an article or a paragraph of an article because he is afraid to accept it is standing in the shadow of the fear of consequences.
The publisher who allows desire for profit or the fear of losing sales to decide what books he shall print is on a moral level not too far above the money-changers Christ drove out of the Temple.
All these examples point to a grave modern evil, permitting temporal consequences to decide eternal issues.
verse
Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.
— 1 Peter 4:1-2
thought
God's will extends into every area of life public and private, secular and sacred, temporal and eternal.
There can be no compromise when it comes to the clear will of God. We obey it or we disobey it.
prayer
"I choose Thee, blessed will of God! In Thee alone my heart can rest." Those words of May Stephens are my prayer, Father.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Moral decisions should be made in view of moral consequences, never in fear of the effect such decisions may have upon our economic or social future.
The wisest of the Greeks said, A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong.
It is more than a little embarrassing that an uninspired Stoic should see what so few of us Christians, with all our claims to superior religious experience, seem unable to understand.
It is doubtful whether we can be Christian in anything unless we are Christian in everything.
To obey Christ in one or two or ten instances and then in fear of consequences to back away and refuse to obey in another is to cloud our life with the suspicion that we are only fair-weather followers and not true believers at all.
To obey when it costs us nothing and refuse when the results are costly is to convict ourselves of moral trifling and gross insincerity.
verse
And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.
— Second John 1:6
thought
Obedience to God, whatever the cost, is nonnegotiable. It is an expression of our faith, our trust in Him. Selective obedience, based on earthly consequences, is an expression of moral trifling.
prayer
Forgive me, Lord, for sometimes compromising full obedience to You. It is You who know what is best for me.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
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/