Whatever keeps me from the Bible is my enemy, however harmless it may appear to be.
Whatever engages my attention when I should be meditating on God and things eternal does injury to my soul.
Let the cares of life crowd out the Scriptures from my mind and I have suffered loss where I can least afford it.
Let me accept anything else instead of the Scriptures and I have been cheated and robbed to my eternal confusion.
The secret of life is theological and the key to heaven as well.
We learn with difficulty, forget easily and suffer many distractions.
Therefore we should set our hearts to study theology.
We should preach it from our pulpits, sing it in our hymns, teach it to our children and make it the subject of conversation when we meet with Christian friends.
verse
Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
— John 17:3
thought
The secret of life is not only knowing about God but knowing Him. Life in its fullest is knowing Him! That is life today and life eternal.
prayer
Thank You, Father, for the Bible in my language. Through it I hear Your voice and know Your will because of Your Spirit who illumines me.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
— Colossians 3:2-3
It is precisely because God is, and because man is made in His image and is accountable to Him, that theology is so critically important. Christian revelation alone has the answer to life?s unanswered questions about God and human destiny. To let these authoritative answers lie neglected while we search everywhere else for answers and find none is, it seems to me, nothing less than folly. No motorist would be excused if he neglected to consult his road map and tried instead to find his way across the country by looking for moss on logs, or by observing the flight of wild bees or watching the movements of the heavenly bodies.
If there were no map a man might find his way by the stars; but for a traveler trying to get home the stars would be a poor substitute for a map. Without a map the Greeks did an admirable piece of navigating; but the Hebrews possessed the map and so had no need of human philosophy. As one not wholly unacquainted with Greek thought I state it is my belief that but one of Isaiah?s eloquent chapters or David?s inspired psalms contains more real help for mankind than all the output of the finest minds of Greece during the centuries of her glory.
thought
Theology is the study of God. It reveals who I am and who I can become because of who God is, what He has done and what He continues to do.
prayer
Open my eyes, Lord, open my mind to grasp more of who You are and who I am in You. In Jesus' name.
The fool says in his heart, 'there is no God.' . . .
— Psalm 14:1
It has always seemed to me completely inconsistent that existentialism should deny the existence of God and then proceed to use the language of theism to persuade men to live right. The French writer, Jean-Paul Sartre, for instance, states frankly that he represents atheistic existentialism. ?If God does not exist,? he says, ?we find no values or commands to turn to which legitimize our conduct. So in the bright realm of values, we have no excuse behind us, nor justification before us.
We are all alone, with no excuses.? Yet in the next paragraph he states bluntly, ?Man is responsible for his passion,? and further on, ?A coward is responsible for his cowardice.? And such considerations as these, he says, fill the existentialist with ?anguish, forlornness and despair.? It seems to me that such reasoning must assume the truth of everything it seeks to deny. If there were no God there would be no such words as ?responsible.? No criminal need fear a judge who does not exist; nor would he need to worry about breaking a law that had not been passed. It is the knowledge that the law and the judge do in fact exist that strikes fear to the lawbreaker?s heart. There is someone to whom he is accountable; otherwise the concept of responsibility could have no meaning.
thought
Without God there is no right or wrong, good or bad. Somehow we have evolved from something causeless. Why are we here and for what purpose? There is no answer for the one who has said in his or her heart, "There is no God."
prayer
O God, You are! Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I worship You and give thanks to You.
I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.
— John 17:26
We being what we are and all things else being what they are, the most important and profitable study any of us can engage in is without question the study of theology. That theology probably receives less attention than any other subject tells us nothing about its importance or lack of it. It indicates rather that men are still hiding from the presence of God among the trees of the garden and feel acutely uncomfortable when the matter of their relation to God is brought up. They sense their deep alienation from God and only manage to live at peace with themselves by forgetting that they are not at peace with God. If there were no God, things would be quite otherwise with us. Were there no one to whom we must finally render up account, at least one big load would be gone from our minds. We would only need to live within the law, not too hard a task in most countries, and there would be nothing to fear. But if God indeed created the earth and placed man upon it in a state of moral probation, then the heavy obligation lies upon us to learn the will of thought
If God is, who is He? What is He like? How do I relate to Him? What is His will? Foolish questions if God isn't. But if He is I must know all I can about Him ? that becomes my theology.
prayer
Lord, without You there is no reason for me to be and nothing for me beyond death. But You are! Through Your Son, You and Your love are made known. Thank You!God and do it.
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all?how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
— Romans 8:32
To receive in a measure more in keeping with God's liberality five things are necessary. The third is receptivity, and one factor always present in receptivity is interest. It is virtually impossible to receive into our minds anything in which we have no interest. A man of ordinary mind may go on to do marvels in a given field if he has keen enough interest in it, and leave behind many men of finer minds who lack the necessary interest. Sometimes one interest may crowd out another. I wonder how many potential Rubensteins or Heifetzes may have gotten lost in obscurity simply because they could not as boys bring themselves to practice when a ball game was in progress on a corner lot nearby. So worldly interests often crowd out heavenly ones and spiritual receptivity is destroyed as a result.
The fourth is responsibility. The gifts of God are given to us to use. When they are not used they atrophy. The story of the ten talents should be a warning to all of us. When writing about the gifts of the Spirit the apostle Paul explained that these manifestations of the Spirit were given to everyone for the profit of all. Selfish attitudes toward the blessings of God can destroy their usefulness. We have a serious responsibility in this matter. The fifth is gratitude. It is impossible to be too thankful to God, but it might be good to try it. Our wise Father does not usually give a second gift until we properly praise Him for the first.
thought
He gives abundantly. Let's receive with thanksgiving and use what He gives for His glory.
prayer
Forgive me, Father, for my frequent thanklessness. I want to receive all that You graciously give. And I want to use it for Your glory!
The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!"
— Luke 17:5
o receive in a measure more in keeping with God's liberality five things are necessary. The first is faith. We must be convinced that God is kind, generous, goodhearted and ready to bestow His blessings upon His people with the bounty of a king. To have faith we must immerse ourselves in the Scriptures. And faith must be exercised if it is to be effective. Faith, like a muscle, grows by stretching. The second is capacity.
That we differ from each other in spiritual capacity is too evident to need proof; but the reason is a great mystery and lies too deep for our understanding, certainly too deep for discussion here. It is enough to say that whatever his capacity each man can increase it if he will. The human soul is not a hard-baked vessel with a fixed size; it is a living thing capable of growth and expansion as it interacts with the gracious actions of the Holy Spirit.
thought
Exercising faith increases it. Exercising faith opens our soul's door to receive from God and increases our capacity to receive.
prayer
Lord, I can't ask You to increase my faith until I am ready to exercise what faith I already have.
Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
— Luke 6:38-39
Since God is infinite, whatever He is must be infinite also; that is, it must be without any actual or conceivable limits. The moment we allow ourselves to think of God as having limits, the one of whom we are thinking is not God but someone or something less than and different from Him. To think rightly of God we must conceive of Him as being altogether boundless in His goodness, mercy, love, grace and in whatever else we may properly attribute to the Deity. It is not enough that we acknowledge God's infinite resources; we must believe also that He is infinitely generous to bestow them. The first is not too great a strain on our faith. Even the deist will admit that the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth, must be rich beyond the power of man to conceive.
But to believe that God is a giver as well as a possessor takes an advanced faith and presupposes that there has been a divine revelation to that effect which gives validity to our expectations. Which indeed there has been. We call this revelation the Bible. Believing all this, why are we Christians so poverty stricken? I think it is because we have not learned that God's gifts are meted out according to the taker, not according to the giver. Though almighty and all-wise, God yet cannot pour a great gift into a small receptacle.
thought
God gives and gives and gives. No matter how much we receive there is still more to be received. If we would only give and empty ourselves of the junk that clutters, we may reach out to take more from Him.
prayer
Oh to be an empty vessel to aggressively receive all that You, O Lord, give.
If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
— Luke 9:23
Our Lord called men to follow Him but He never made the way look easy. Indeed one gets the distinct impression that He made it appear extremely hard. Sometimes He said things to disciples or prospective disciples that we today discreetly avoid repeating when we are trying to win men to Him. What present-day evangelist would have the courage to tell an inquirer, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it" (Matt. 16:24-25)? And do not we do some tall explaining when someone asks us what Jesus meant when He said, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law" (Matt. 10:34-35)? That kind of rugged, sinewy Christianity is left for an occasional missionary or for some believer behind one of the various curtains in the world. The masses of professed Christians simply do not have the moral muscle to enable them to take a path so downright and final as this. When will Christians learn that to love righteousness it is necessary to hate sin? that to accept Christ it is necessary to reject self? that to follow the good way we must flee from evil? that a friend of the world is an enemy of God? that God allows no twilight zone between two altogethers where the fearful and the doubting may take refuge at once from hell to come and the rigors of present discipline?
thought
Ever wonder why we experience such difficulty in trying to follow Christ? Perhaps we have neglected to take up our cross daily?that cross which is the instrument of death to self.
prayer
By Your Spirit, Lord, remind me to carry my cross today. I want to follow Christ.
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 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.
— 2 Corinthians 4:17-18
Let us not be shocked by the suggestion that there are disadvantages to the life in Christ. There most certainly are. Abel was murdered. Joseph was sold into slavery, Daniel was thrown into the den of lions, Stephen was stoned to death, Paul was beheaded, and a noble army of martyrs was put to death by various painful methods down the long centuries. And where the hostility did not lead to such violence (and mostly it did not and does not) the sons of this world nevertheless managed to make it tough for the children of God in a thousand cruel ways.
Everyone who has lived for Christ in a Christless world has suffered some losses and endured some pains that he could have avoided by the simple expedient of laying down his cross. However, the pains are short and the losses inconsequential compared with the glory that will follow, "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. 4:17). But while we are here among men with our sensitive hearts exposed to the chilly blasts of the unbelieving and uncomprehending world it is imperative that we take a realistic view of things and learn how to deal with disadvantages. And it is important that we tell the whole truth to those we are endeavoring to win.
thought
Our present troubles are light and temporary when compared to the glory eternal and as yet unseen. In the momentary in which we are now living let's fix our eyes on the unseen. It is the unseen that is far more real than that which is now seen.
prayer
Lord, help me develop the discipline to look up from present pain and suffering which shall pass to the coming glory which is eternal.