One thing must be kept in mind: We Christians are Christians first and everything else after that.
Our first allegiance is to the kingdom of God. Our citizenship is in heaven. We are grateful for political freedom. We thank God for democracy as a way of life. But we never forget that we are sons of God and citizens of another city whose builder and maker is God.
For this reason, we must not identify the gospel with any political system or make Christianity to be synonymous with any form of government, however noble.
Christ stands alone, above and outside of every ideology devised by man. He does not join any of our parties or take sides with any of our great men except as they may come over on His side and try to follow Him in righteousness and true holiness. Then He is for them, but only as individuals, never as leaders of some political faction.
The true Christian will be loyal to his country and obedient to those in authority, but he will never fall into the error of confusing his own national culture with Christianity.
Christianity is bigger than any country, loftier than any civilization, broader than any human ideology.
verse
Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."
— Matthew 22:21b
thought
We have dual citizenship?God's kingdom and a nation of the world. To that country's government we have responsibility?laws to follow, taxes to pay, duties inherent in citizenship. Being good citizens will mean working to change what needs to be changed while remaining true to our King Jesus.
prayer
Your kingdom, Lord, includes followers of Christ from differing ethnic groups, social classes, political persuasions. Oh God, help me to accept the diversity while rejoicing in family. For Jesus' sake.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
"I'm sorry. ... I'm a stranger here myself."
That is the only honest answer. Others are sometimes given, but they are never valid answers.
They spring out of pride or error or uncritical and wishful thinking, and they are not to be trusted. It is no good asking for information of another who is as ignorant as ourselves. We are all strangers in a strange world. Is our state hopeless then?
Is no answer to be had?
Must we live in a world we do not understand and go out into a future of dark uncertainty?
No, thank God, things are not as bad as that. There is an answer. We can find light. Our questions have been answered. "From a child," wrote Paul to Timothy, "thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." It is the universal testimony of the saints of the ages that when the light of the Scriptures enters, the darkness of spiritual ignorance vanishes. God's Word giveth light. It has an answer for every question that matters. The merely curious question it ignores, but every real inquiry made by the sincere heart is met with full light.
It is important that we search the Scriptures daily, and more important still that we approach them with faith and humility, bowing our hearts to their instructions and commands. Then through faith in Christ we cease to be strangers and become sons of God.
verse
The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.
— Psalm 119:130
thought
God's words give light to those most difficult of life issues. That light does not necessarily illuminate quickly nor to our full satisfaction. Imperative is careful searching of God's Word and serious listening to His voice. But God does give light!
prayer
Father, You are God. You know all things. You are from forever to forever. To You I come with those burning questions. Your answers to some I cannot yet understand. My mind is restricted and my experience limited. Yet in You I find light and peace.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
All of us at some time in our life become suddenly aware that we are in a strange place called the world.
We do not remember coming here and we are not sure when or how we are going to leave.
A score of pressing questions fill our minds. We must have the answers.
Where did we come from?
What are we?
Why are we here?
Where do we go next?
What does God require of us?
How can we find the heaven of peace?
Such questions as these insist upon an answer. But we have no answer.
Then we approach someone who looks as if he might know. We eagerly put our question, but we get only a shake of the head and the usual, "I'm sorry. I'm a stranger here myself." At first we are frightfully disappointed, for we had hoped someone might know.
There are the great stone buildings covered with ivy where the best brains of the world hold forth day after day.
There are the great libraries piled with solemn books, each filled with learned words.
But the desired answer is nowhere.
A few attempt to direct us, but prove by their own bewilderment that they know as little as we do about the whole thing.
The philosopher seeks, but never finds.
The scientist searches, but finds no data to help us beyond the last hour and the narrow house and the shroud.
The poet soars on stubby wings, but soon comes down again, tired and confused. Each one has the same answer: "I'm sorry. . . . I'm a stranger here myself."
verse
Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.
— Psalm 147:5
thought
God's understanding has no limit, but ours does. He is God. We are created humans. There is so much we do not understand, have not experienced, and cannot comprehend. Some of our questions will never be answered in this life. Others will not need to be. But we can trust God's sovereign plan.
prayer
Father, those burning questions for which I have found no answer I bring to You. Into Your arms I place them and I place myself. You are my Abba.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The testimony of the true follower of Christ might well be something like this: The world's pleasures and the world's treasures henceforth have no appeal for me.
I reckon myself crucified to the world and the world crucified to me.
But the multitudes that were so dear to Christ shall not be less dear to me.
If I cannot prevent their moral suicide, I shall at least baptize them with my human tears.
I want no blessing that I cannot share.
I seek no spirituality that I must win at the cost of forgetting that men and women are lost and without hope.
If in spite of all I can do they will sin against light and bring upon themselves the displeasure of a holy God, then I must not let them go their sad way unwept.
I scorn a happiness that I must purchase with ignorance.
I reject a heaven that I must enter by shutting my eyes to the sufferings of my fellow men.
I choose a broken heart rather than any happiness that ignores the tragedy of human life and human death.
Though I, through the grace of God in Christ, no longer lie under Adam's sin, I would still feel a bond of compassion for all of Adam's tragic race, and I am determined that I shall go down to the grave or up into God's heaven mourning for the lost and the perishing.
And thus and thus will I do as God enables me. Amen
verse
"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."
— Luke 10:36-37
thought
Good Samaritan living does not come naturally. We are afraid of rejection, of being robbed ourselves, of being taken advantage of. But intercession for those around us will eventually result in reaching out to them in Christ's name.
prayer
O Lord, help me to see people, people around me, as You see them. To pray for them. To reach out to them. To be a "Good Samaritan" to them. I can't do it myself, I've tried. Change me, for Christ's sake.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
We human beings were made for each other, and what any of us is doing at any time cannot be a matter of indifference to the rest of us.
On the human plane all men are brothers. The Son of Man never denied this sweet tie with humankind.
Over a stubborn and sinful Jerusalem He frankly shed tears and, in the hour of death, prayed for men who were so blind as to nail their God on a tree.
And Paul, who burned always to be like his Lord, wept over the unbelieving Israel with an anguish that goaded him to an utterance so daring as to cause the ages to wonder:
"I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh."
Peace of heart that is won by refusing to bear the common yoke of human sympathy is a peace unworthy of a Christian. To seek tranquility by stopping our ears to the cries of human pain is to make ourselves not Christians but a kind of degenerate stoic having no relation either to stoicism or Christianity.
We Christians should never try to escape from the burdens and woes of life among men.
The hermit and the anchorite sound good in poetry, but stripped of their artificial romance, they are not good examples of what the followers of Christ should be.
True peace comes not by a retreat from the world but by the overpowering presence of Christ in the heart.
"Christ in you" is the answer to our cry for peace.
The Salvation Army lassie distributing gospel literature in a saloon is a better example of the separated life than a prim and cold-faced saint who has long ago fled the world to take refuge in the barren caverns of her soul.
verse
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
— 2 Peter 3:9
thought
The Lord does not want anyone to perish. Do I? Do I care enough to pray and to reach out in His name?
prayer
Father, to the extent I can bear it, will you enable me to see people as You see them?
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Whether or not the Christian should separate himself from the world is not open to debate; the question was settled by the sacred Scriptures, an authority from which there can be no appeal.
The New Testament is very plain: They are not of the world, said our Lord, even as I am not of the world.
James wrote, Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?
Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
John said, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
Such teaching as this would appear to be plain enough, and there should be no doubt about what is intended. But we must never underestimate the ability of the human mind to get lost on a paved highway in broad daylight.
Some well-intentioned souls have managed to get themselves confused about their relation to the world and have sought to escape it by hiding from it.
They read into the biblical command to separate from the world the idea of complete withdrawal from all human activities and seek peace of heart by cutting themselves off, as far as possible, from the great stream of human life and thought.
And that is not good.
verse
You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
— Matthew 5:14-16
thought
If God had wanted us completely out of the world He could have taken us home to heaven at the time of our spiritual birth. No, we are to be in the world but not of it. We are to shine as light in world-system darkness.
prayer
Forgive me, Lord, for unhealthy accommodation to the world in which I live. May I not forget that I am a stranger here with citizenship in heaven?but a stranger ablaze with the light of Christ.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The human heart can love the human Jesus as it can love the human Lincoln, but the spiritual love of Jesus is something altogether different from and infinitely superior to the purest love the human heart can know.
Indeed, it is not possible to love Jesus rightly except by the Holy Spirit.
Only the third Person of the Trinity can love the second Person in a manner pleasing to the Father.
The spiritual love of Jesus is nothing else but the Spirit in us loving Christ the Eternal Son.
Christ, after the flesh, receives a great deal of fawning attention from the liberal and the modernist, but love that is not the outflow of the indwelling Holy Spirit is not true spiritual love and cannot be acceptable to God. We do Christ no honor when we do no more than to give Him the best of our human love. Even though we love Him better than we love any other man, still it is not enough if He merely wins first place in competition with Socrates or Walt Whitman.
He is not rightly loved until He is loved as very God of very God, and the Spirit within us does the loving.
There is much in present-day gospel circles that illustrates the distinction we are pointing out. A great many loud protestations of love for Christ leave the discerning heart with the impression that they are but sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. Innumerable sweet love ballads are sung to Jesus by persons who have never known the inward illumination of the Holy Spirit or felt the shock that comes with a true sight of the sinful pollution of nature.
verse
Again Jesus said, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me?" He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep."
— John 21:16
thought
The love Christ asks of us is not the sentimental kind with emotional outbursts tearfully expressed. Love for Him is expressed in loving His sheep?releasing to people the love of Christ produced by the indwelling Spirit.
prayer
Father, teach me to love with that love which is part of the Fruit of the Spirit produced in me as I walk daily by the Spirit. That is spiritual love.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The whole of true religion can be summed up in the spiritual love of Jesus.
To love God and to love our neighbor was said by our Lord to be the fulfilling of the law and the prophets.
All Christians believe that God reveals Himself as Christ; so the love of Jesus is in truth the love of God.
Love as experienced by human beings may be on either of two levels, the human or the divine.
These are not the same.
They differ not only in intensity and elevation but in kind.
Human love is undoubtedly the best thing left to the human race. Though it is often perverted and sometimes degraded, it is still Adam's best product, and without it, life on earth would be unendurable. Let us imagine what the world would be like if every trace of human love were suddenly removed. The heart recoils from the contemplation of such a horror. Without love, earth would not differ from hell except for the difference of location.
Let us treasure what is left of love among the sons of men. It is not perfect, but it makes life bearable and even sweet here below.
But human love is not divine love and should never be confused with it.
Among the sentimental religionists, the two are accepted as being the very same and no distinctions are made.
This is a great moral blunder and one that leads to spiritual frustration and disappointment.
If we are to think clearly and pray rightly, we must recognize the difference between love that is merely human and that other love which cometh down from above.
Charles Wesley knew the difference and made it clear in his famous lines: Love divine, all loves excelling, Joy of heaven, to earth come down.
Here all grades and degrees of human love are acknowledged, and the true love which comes down from heaven is placed above them as far as the heaven is above the earth.
This is not only good poetry, it is good theology as well.
verse
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
— 1 John 4:10-11
thought
God's love for us is John 3:16 kind of love.
It is only with God's love that we can love one another,love not only the lovable but the terribly unlovable.
prayer
Your love, O God, is so deep, so wide. Grant increased understanding of it so that I may love others with Your love. In Christ's name.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
To read the Bible well in public we must first love it.
The voice, if it is free, unconsciously follows the emotional tone.
Reverence cannot be simulated.
No one who does not feel the deep solemnity of the Holy Word can properly express it.
God will not allow His Book to become the plaything of the rhetorician.
That is why we instinctively draw back from every simulated tone in the reading of the Scriptures. The radio announcer's artificial unction cannot hide the absence of the real thing. The man who stands to declaim the Scriptures like a schoolboy reciting a passage from Hamlet can only leave his hearers with a feeling of disappointment. They know they have been cheated, though most of them could not tell just how.
Again, to read the Bible well, one must know what the words mean and allow them to mean just that, without putting any body English on the passage to make it take a turn of meaning not found in the text.
Probably the hardest part of learning to read well is eliminating ourselves.
We read best when we get ourselves out of the transaction and let God talk through the imperfect medium of our voice.
The beginner should read aloud whole books of the Bible in the privacy of his own room. In that way he can learn to hear his own voice and will know how he sounds to others.
Let him consult a pronouncing Bible to learn the correct pronunciations of the names and places of the Bible.
Let him cultivate the habit of reading slowly and distinctly with the reverence and dignity proper to the subject matter.
Surely Protestants deserve a better sort of Scripture reading than they are now getting in our churches. And we who do the reading are the only ones who can give it to them.
verse
Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching.
— 1 Timothy 4:13
thought
Public reading of the Scripture is closely related to preaching and teaching. Certainly preaching and teaching need to be done well but so does the public reading of the Scripture. All are part of corporate church worship.
prayer
May we read Your Word from our hearts, Father, and may we listen with our hearts when we hear it read.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/