Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
— Philippians 4:6
Many Christians live like a man driving with his brakes on. It is, of course, friction that retards the car's progress, for all brakes work by friction. The car is temporarily at odds with itself; one surface wants to revolve and another surface in contact with it wants to stand still. This clash of purposes sets up friction; and friction always wins at last. Nothing can continue to move if it is opposed by enough friction. Even the most perfectly operated car cannot escape some resistance to its forward motion.
There will always be gravity, air pressure and the unavoidable pressures of working parts that will tend to slow it down. But these are figured in and overcome by the steady application of energy to the wheels. It's the brakes that give a car a hard time. Now all this would seem to be a parable of some kind. The Christian need not expect to escape opposition. As long as Satan stands to resist the sons of God, as long as the world and the flesh remain, the believing man will meet opposition. Sometimes it will be sharp and obvious, but mostly it will be just the hidden and unsuspected friction set up by circumstances. No one need be anxious about this, however, for God has figured it in and made allowance for it. That kind of friction does little real harm. It will not retard progress much, and the very necessity of overcoming opposition will but add strength to the Christian's moral muscles.
thought
There are circumstances that we feel we can control yet fail to do so. Then there are the circumstances beyond our control. It is that circumstantial friction that slows spiritual progress, causes us to veer off the path or detracts our attention from th
prayer
Forgive me, Father, for falling into anxiety when You invite me to throw all my cares on You.
The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.
— Romans 8:16
However we may explain this mysterious "ground" within us, we will not have been long in the Christian way until we begin to experience it. We will find that we have within us a secret garden where no one can enter except ourself and God. Not only does no one else enter, no one else can enter. This secret inner chamber is the sacred trysting place for Christ and the believing soul; no one among all our dearest friends has the open sesame that will permit him to enter there.
If God is shut out, then there can be only everlasting loneliness and numb despair. Where God is not known in the inner shrine, the individual must try to compensate for his sense of aloneness in whatever way he can. Most persons run away to the world to find companionship and surround themselves with every kind of diversionary activity. All devices for killing time, every shallow scheme for entertainment, are born out of this inner loneliness. It is a significant and revealing fact that such things have in these last days grown into billion dollar enterprises! So much will men pay to forget that they are a temple without a God, a garden where no voice is heard in the cool of the day.
The better minds among us, goaded by this subconscious loneliness, may, as Schopenhauer, become philosophers of despair or, as Byron and Hardy, poets of desperation and hopelessness. But no matter how brilliant the intellect, the lonely heart can never know peace. Until we find God through Christ, that inner "ground" will remain a kind of eternal thirst inside of us, and its voice, where that voice is recognized, will be a plea, an accusation, a thin plaintive cry deep within us asking for eternal life and restoration and God.
thought
That inner chamber of our being is our spirit. It is with our spirit that the Holy Spirit communes. He assures us that we are God's children. He witnesses to us of Christ and eternal realities.
prayer
You stoop to commune with me, O God. Your Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I am Your child. Thank You for that holy communion.
I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me.
— John 10:14
The Holy Spirit never differs from Himself, and wherever He touches a human mind His sure marks are always present so plainly that there can be no mistaking them. Anyone familiar with the work of the French artist Millet will notice a similarity in everything he painted, as if the very breathing personality of the man had somehow gotten into the paint and onto the canvas. So the Holy Spirit teaches the same thing to everyone; however different the subjects may be from each other, the fine touch of the Spirit's hand may be detected on each one.
For this reason, Christian devotional books are very much alike no matter who may have written them or how widely divergent may have been the religious views of the authors. The masters of the inner life may at first appear to be far apart in some of their theological positions, but before he has read long, the delighted reader will discover the likenesses in the spirit of their teachings. They are talking about the same thing in their several ways and are as alike as various paintings by the same artist. The fragrance of the Rose of Sharon lingers over their pages; one face looks forth from the lattice and one voice is heard in the garden. Because this is true, Eckhart's doctrine of "the ground of the soul" will be recognized as an old friend by the Spirit-taught Christian even though he had never before heard of Eckhart. He will find himself in familiar surroundings because he has walked there himself at other times and in different company.
thought
We recognize brothers and sisters in Christ even when they speak a different theological and experiential language. As we draw near we perceive their love for Christ, their family likeness, the fragrance of the Rose of Sharon.
prayer
Beyond what seems correct theological language and form, Lord, may there exude from me the fragrance of Your presence.
It is the teaching of Meister Eckhart that there is something far inside the mysterious depths of a human life which is unknown except as God and the individual know it.
This he called the "ground" of the soul.
This "ground" is, according to Eckhart, the stuff which once received the image of God at creation.
The lesser powers of the soul are the instruments through which this mysterious primal stuff makes itself felt in the world.
These powers are imagination, reason, the faculty of speech and the creative powers which appear at full bloom in the artist and the poet and in varying degrees of brilliance in the commonality of mankind. In this far-in secret sanctuary, God reveals Himself to the individual as a "birth," bringing forth a new creation by the regenerating act of the Holy Spirit.
Thus we receive from Christ the very nature of God (2 Peter 1:4) and are spiritually prepared for the full revelation of Christ in us, the hope of glory.
This would seem to be but a slightly different way of stating the truths taught by Paul in his inspired epistles.
The apostle used the language of theology, or better still, he used the language of the Bible, but what he taught was not different from that taught by the man Eckhart.
This great mystic theologian thought in terms of the psychology of his times, but when we make allowance for the difference of approach, the substance is the same.
And a thoroughly Christian heart will understand the language of both.
verse
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate.
— 2 Peter 1:3-4
thought
God equips us for high level living. His divine power enables us to participate in the divine nature. Why, then, do we live as spiritual paupers?
prayer
Lord, I want to soar as an eagle into the heights of spiritual reality. Show me what it means to participate in the divine nature. For Jesus' sake.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
We might well spend the rest of the year reverently inquiring into the meanings of the resurrection.
And probably the best method to pursue is to search for those meanings that touch us as individual Christians here and now.
It is, of course, necessary to preserve the theology of the resurrection and to guard the truth well and carefully; but that is not enough.
We must know what it means to us as pilgrims and strangers.
That He "rose again the third day according to the Scriptures" is the biblical foundation for our faith in a risen Lord.
But love and faith would go further; they would devoutly seek to experience the present riches of His Easter triumph.
Jesus is Victor! That is the truth His resurrection proclaims.
Now it remains for us to allow Him to be Victor in us, thus multiplying the glory of His triumph in the hearts of His trusting people.
verse
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
— Romans 6:11
thought
Are we living in the shadows of Friday and Saturday or in the triumph of Easter Sunday resurrection? Too often we live as if unrelated to the Risen Christ rather counting ourselves dead to sin and alive to God.
prayer
Your death and resurrection, Lord, I see as not merely historical events of the past. Thank You that through faith in You I may experience the effects of those events in daily life.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The two major elements present in the Easter story are the fact and the meaning of the fact.
That Christ arose after He had been put to death by crucifixion is the fact; the true historicity of the event is too well established to require proof or even comment today.
The meaning of that resurrection, however, must be rediscovered by each believing soul and by the church age after age till our Lord returns to earth again.
One meaning attached to the resurrection is that Christ has conquered the enemies of mankind and guaranteed the final triumph of all true believers over every power of the devil. For the rescue of the lost race was effected only after a fight.
Let us not allow our poetic imagination to run away with us. Easter is more than sunshine and lilies.
It signifies the appearance again of our David who went into the field to meet the Goliath of sin and death in mortal combat.
Christ came back to assure us that the victory had been won.
Death and the devil had been done in by the only One who was capable of such a mighty act, Jesus the Son of God.
An old hymn states this for us in ecstatic language:
The strife is o'er, the battle done; The victory of life is won;
The Song of triumph has begun Hallelujah!
The powers of death have done their worst, But Christ their legions hath dispersed;
Let shouts of holy joy outburst Hallelujah!
He brake the age-bound chains of hell;
The bars from heaven's high portals fell;
Let hymns of praise His triumph tell: Hallelujah!
verse
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
— 1 Corinthians 15:56-57
thought
Not only has Christ won the victory over sin, death and Satan, we may share in that victory. We can't win it ourselves but we can participate in it by faith identification with the Victor.
prayer
Thank You, Father, for victory through the Lord Jesus Christ. I stand with Christ in His victory.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Everything that God does is done without effort or strain.
He does all his acts with equal ease and tranquillity.
We are often tempted to wonder how God could love us, but honest as this feeling is, it is nevertheless the result of a wrong way of looking at things.
God does not love us because we are hard or easy to love; He loves us because He is God, not because we are good or bad or more attractive or less so.
God's love is not drawn out of Him by its object; it flows out from God in a steady stream because He is love. "God so loved the world," not because the world was lovable but because God is love.
Christ did not die for us that God might love us; He died for us because God already loved us from everlasting.
Love is not the result of redemption; it is the cause of it.
One question may demand to be answered: Does God love some people more than others?
If not, what was meant by calling John "the disciple Jesus loved," as if to say that He loved John more than the rest?
The answer is simple. John was more responsive to the love of Christ and could receive and enjoy it to a greater fullness. The divine love could operate toward this loving man with a joyous freedom not possible with others who had not his simplicity and faith.
The sunflower that turns its face to the sky all day long gets more sun than the violet that hides among the leaves.
But the same sun shines in fullness upon both.
God has no favorites, except as some of His children by their loving response make it possible for Him to shower more love upon them.
verse
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
— John 3:16
thought
God loves us because He is God. He does not love some of us more or less than others. He loves each one. Out of His love He has provided redemption. Are we running to His love or running from it?
prayer
Father, You so love me that You gave Christ for me. He so loved me that He paid the penalty of my sin by dying for me. In thanks and worship I bow before You.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Meister Eckhart said that God must love if He is to remain God.
Were He to stop loving us He would lose His Godhead.
Such expressions as "if God is to remain God" and all others like them are in one sense ridiculous, for God can never cease to be God, nor can He lose anything that is Himself.
The human mind, however, in its struggle to understand the impenetrable mysteries that surround the Person of God, is forced to think according to its own laws and to express itself in language that is in itself inaccurate, but which nevertheless represents an honest effort of the human heart to grasp the inconceivable.
In saying that God must love us if He is to remain God, we are simply thinking human thoughts about God.
It is the effort of the finite to contain the infinite, and while the thoughts are short of the mark, they are the best we are able to produce, we being what we are.
Eckhart was right in saying that God must love us.
God being what He is, He has no choice.
His love falls upon everything and everyone as the sun's rays light upon all the ten thousand objects on the face of the earth.
The sun has no choice; it must shine on, whether it is shining upon a beautiful forest or a rubbish heap.
The object upon which it shines has nothing to do with its shining. It shines because it is the sun.
God is love, so His loving is not something He may do nor not do at His will.
Loving us is not an intermittent act or series of acts which God does in between other acts.
His love flows steadily out upon the whole human race in an unbroken and continuous fullness.
There is not a time, not a fraction of time, when God's love is not active toward us.
It is as constant as the being of God, for it is the being of God in unforced, normal expression.
verse
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
— 1 John 4:8
thought
God is love. He eternally loves others. "Love is the being of God in unforced, normal expression." What release to know that God does not stop loving me when I fail Him. His love is as eternal as He is, because God is love.
prayer
O God, I will never understand the quality, the depth, the eternalness of Your love. But thank You, thank You. You love me!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Was it not Voltaire who said that some people were like insects, they would never be noticed except that they sting?
A traveler must make up his mind to go on regardless of the insects that make his trip miserable. They cannot stop a determined man; they can only make his journey unpleasant.
So it is with the people who delight to swarm around the ears of God's servants as they move onward toward their appointed goal.
We may all expect to be stung by our many fellow humans who appear to have dedicated themselves to the task of causing minor heartaches wherever they can as long as they can to as many people as possible. These misguided people cannot be escaped, they can only be endured.
One thing is certain, a Christian's standing before God does not depend upon his standing before men.
A high reputation does not make a man dearer to God, nor does the tongue of the slanderer influence God's attitude toward His people in any way. He knows us each one, and we stand or fall in the light of His perfect knowledge.
Let us be sure that we are right with God and with men; after that there is nothing we can do except to "both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord."
And by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, we may do our hoping and waiting in such a way that our enemies will be forced to admit that we have been with Jesus and learned of Him.
verse
You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's judgment seat.
— Romans 14:10
thought
It is to God we are responsible. We can sometimes learn from our critics. But we serve God. He is our judge. Remembering that can help us to go on despite criticism and also save us from becoming critics of others.
prayer
Forgive me, Lord, for judging my brothers and sisters. And forgive them for unjustly judging me. Help me to discern the difference between evil criticism and that which is for my good.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/