Let a man but become, as the early Methodists would have said, soundly converted, and certain things will begin to happen in his life.
He will experience a wonderful unification of personality and a turning about of the whole life toward God and heavenly things.
Though he will undoubtedly suffer from the inward struggle described in the seventh chapter of Romans, yet his direction will be established beyond any doubt and his face will remain turned toward the City of God.
That word direction should have more emphasis these days, for the most important thing about a life is its direction. David hardly said anything more significant than this: I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. And the Hebrews' writer summed it all up in one sentence, Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. An emotional conversion which stops short of Christ-orientation is inadequate for life and death, and, unless new help comes from some quarter, it may easily be worse than no religious experience at all.
And just this would appear to be the source of our bad orientation.
The original experience of conversion was not sufficiently radical to turn the life wholly to God and things eternal.
Then when religious leaders found that they had on their hands half-converted persons who wanted to be saved but would not turn fully to God, they tried to meet the situation by providing a twilight-zone religion which did not demand too much and which did offer something. Better have them halfway in, they reasoned, than all the way out.
We know now how bad that reasoning was.
verse
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
— Hebrews 12:2
thought
We can't run the Christian race without fixing our eyes on Jesus. That involves taking our eyes off all else.
prayer
Lord Jesus, You are the author and perfecter of my faith. I focus my heart eyes on You. By Your Spirit I want to run this life marathon with perseverance.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
— Hebrews 12:1
Like a doctor with a sick patient whose disease eludes diagnosis, religious leaders have for some years been aware that there is something seriously wrong with evangelicalism and have yet been unable to lay their finger upon the precise trouble. The symptoms they have discovered in abundance, but the cause back of them has been hard to locate. Mostly we have spent our time correcting symptoms, having all the while an uneasy feeling that our remedies did not go deep enough. Knowing that a disease that cannot be identified invariably calls out a flock of untrained experts to analyze and prescribe, we yet risk a pronouncement upon the condition of evangelical Christianity in our day, and we believe we may not be too far from the truth.
The trouble seems to be a disorder of the spiritual nerve system which we might, for the lack of a proper term, call dual orientation. Its dominant characteristic appears to be a cross up among the nerve ganglia of the soul resulting in an inability to control the direction of the life. The patient starts one direction and before he knows it he is going another. His inward eyes do not coordinate; each one sees a different object and seeks to lead the steps toward it. The individual is caught in the middle, trying to be true to both foci of the heart, and never knowing which he would rather follow. Evangelicalism (at least in many circles) is suffering from this strange division of life-purpose. Its theology faces toward the East and the sacred Temple of Jehovah. Its active interests face toward the world and the temple of Dagon. Doctrinally it is Christian, but actually it is pagan mentality, pagan scale of values and pagan religious principles.
thought
We seem to have forgotten that we are to throw off the hindrances (not sins) and the sin that so easily entangles us, if we are to run the race. Why do we try to run the Christian life marathon with a refrigerator strapped to our back?
prayer
O Spirit of God, awaken me once again to those hindrances and that entangling sin that seriously impedes my progress in the race of life.
Do not put out the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good.
— 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21
The tests for spiritual genuineness are two: First, the leader must be a good man and full of the Holy Ghost. Christianity is nothing if not moral. . . . But the test of moral goodness is not enough. Every man must submit his work to the scriptural test. It is not enough that he be able to quote from the Bible at great length or that he claim for himself great and startling experiences with God. Go back to the law and to the testimony. If he speak not according to the Word it is because there is no light in him. We who are invited to follow him have every right, as well as a solemn obligation, to test his work according to the Word of God.
We must demand that every claimant for our confidence present a clean bill of health from the Holy Scriptures; that he do more than weave in a text occasionally, or hold up the Bible dramatically before the eyes of his hearers. His doctrines must be those of the Scriptures. The Bible must dominate his preaching. He must preach according to the Word of God. The price of following a false guide on the desert may be death. The price of heeding wrong advice in business may be bankruptcy. The price of trusting to a quack doctor may be permanent loss of health. The price of putting confidence in a pseudo-prophet may be moral and spiritual tragedy. Let us take heed that no man deceive us.
thought
Applying the biblical test will mean accepting what is scripturally accurate and is from the Spirit and rejecting what is not. Needed is a growing knowledge of the Word and increasing sensitivity to the Spirit.
prayer
Equip me to be a tester, Lord, to accurately yet graciously test what is taught in Your name.
He [Barnabas] was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.
— Acts 11:24
How can we tell whether or not a man or a religious demonstration is of God? The answer is easy to find, but it will take courage to follow the facts as God reveals them to us. The tests for spiritual genuineness are two: First, the leader must be a good man and full of the Holy Ghost. Christianity is nothing if not moral. No tricks of theology, no demonstrations of supernatural wonders, no evidences of blind devotion on the part of the public can decide whether or not God is in the man or the movement. Every servant of Christ must be pure of heart and holy of life.
While sinless perfection is not likely to be found among even the best of men, still the leader to be trusted is the one who lives as near like Christ as possible and who knows how to repent in sorrow of heart when he sins against his Lord by any act or word. The man God honors will be humble, self-effacing, self-sacrificing, modest, clean living, free from the love of money, eager to promote the honor of God and just as eager to disclaim any credit or praise on his own part. His financial accounts will bear inspection, his ethical standards will be high and his personal life above reproach.
thought
Barnabas was an unusual encourager to the newly converted Paul, to John Mark and to the new believers in Antioch. He was, after all, a good person, full of the Holy Spirit and faith.
prayer
Father, may I, too, be a good person, full of the Holy Spirit and faith.
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
— 1 John 4:1
Many tender-minded Christians fear to sin against love by daring to inquire into anything that comes wearing the cloak of Christianity and breathing the name of Jesus. They dare not examine the credentials of the latest prophet to hit their town lest they be guilty of rejecting something which may be of God. They timidly remember how the Pharisees refused to accept Christ when He came, and they do not want to be caught in the same snare, so they either reserve judgment or shut their eyes and accept everything without question. This is supposed to indicate a high degree of spirituality. But in sober fact it indicates no such thing.
It may indeed be evidence of the absence of the Holy Spirit. Gullibility is not synonymous with spirituality. Faith is not a mental habit leading its possessor to open his mouth and swallow everything that has about it the color of the supernatural. Faith keeps its heart open to whatever is of God, and rejects everything that is not of God, however wonderful it may be. Try the spirits is a command of the Holy Spirit to the Church. We may sin as certainly by approving the spurious as by rejecting the genuine. And the current habit of refusing to take sides is not the way to avoid the question. To appraise things with a heart of love and then to act on the results is an obligation resting upon every Christian in the world. And the more as we see the day approaching.
thought
Satan is clever in the use of disguise and deception. Denial that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is the major indicator that the spirits are not from God. Yet we must be on guard for lower level deception.
prayer
Lord, give discernment and boldness lest I be derailed from truth and mired in error.
These are times of moral and religious confusion and it is sometimes hard to distinguish the false from the true.
Our faithful Lord has tried to save us from the consequences of our own blindness by repeated warnings and many careful instructions.
It will pay us to give close attention to His words.
Toward the end of the age, we are told, there shall be a time of stepped-up religious activity and frenzied expectation, growing out of the turbulent conditions prevailing among nations.
The language is familiar to most Christians: Wars and rumors of wars . . . nation shall rise against nation . . famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. . . . Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations . . and then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
Concurrent with this state of affairs will be a great increase in religious excitement and supernatural happenings generally. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. . . . And many false prophets shall rise. . . . Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.
For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
verse
. . . remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, 'In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.' These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not hav
— Jude 17-19
thought
Our best defense against false teaching is the personal, systematic study of Scripture. We have access to the Word of God and the ministry of the indwelling Spirit. Let's exercise our privileges.
prayer
O Lord, teach me from Your Word in these days of erroneous interpretation, mistaken contextualization and misapplication.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Treat everyone you meet with dignity. Love your spiritual family. Revere God. Respect the government (The Message).
— First Peter 2:17
he elements of a true church are few and easy to possess. They are a company of believers, the Lord, the Spirit and the Word of the Living God. Let the Lord be worshiped, the Spirit be obeyed, the Word be expounded and followed as the only rule for faith and conduct, and the power of God will begin to show itself as it did to Samson in the camp of Dan. The church will produce a spiritual culture all its own, wholly unlike anything created by the mind of man and superior to any culture known on earth, ancient or modern. God is getting His people ready for another world, and He uses the local church as a workshop in which to carry on His blessed work.
That Christian is a happy one who has found a company of true believers in whose heavenly fellowship he can live and love and labor. And nothing else on earth should be as dear to him nor command from him such a degree of loyalty and devotion.
thought
Have we made the church just another social club? Do we sample selected ministries without submerging ourselves in the whole? Easy to do in a large church. But the church is our spiritual family.
prayer
Forgive me, Lord, for judging my local church on the basis of what it contributes to me rather becoming fully a part. It is my spiritual family.
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
— 1 Corinthians 12:27
The Christian life begins with the individual; a soul has a saving encounter with God and the new life is born. Not all the pooled efforts of any church can make a Christian out of a lost man. But once the great transaction's done the communion of believers will be found to be the best environment for the new life. Men are made for each other, and this is never more apparent than in the church. All else being equal, the individual Christian will find in the communion of a local church the most perfect atmosphere for the fullest development of his spiritual life.
There also he will find the best arena for the largest exercise of those gifts and powers with which God may have endowed him. The religious solitary may gain on a few points, and he may escape some of the irritations of the crowd, but he is a half-man, nevertheless, and worse, he is a half-Christian. Every solitary experience, if we would realize its beneficial effects, should be followed immediately by a return to our own company. There will be found the faith of Christ in its most perfect present manifestation. But one thing must be kept in mind: these things are true only where the local church is a church indeed, where the communion of saints is more than a phrase from the Creed but is realized and practiced in faith and love. Those religio-social institutions, with which we are all too familiar, where worship is a form, the sermon an essay and the prayer an embarrassed address to someone who isn't there, certainly do not qualify as churches under any scriptural terms with which we are acquainted
thought
As believers we are interrelated and interdependent. Christ ministers to us through other believers and to other believers through us. He has gifted each of us to that end. We are members of Christ's body, the Church.
prayer
Amazing, Lord, that I am part of Your body, the Church! Thank You for ministering to me through other body members. May You minister to others through me. In Jesus' name.
And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
— Ephesians 1:22-23
he universal Church is the body of Christ, the bride of the Lamb, the habitation of God through the Spirit, the pillar and ground of the truth. The local church is a community of ransomed men, a minority group, a colony of heavenly souls dwelling apart on the earth, a division of soldiers on a foreign soil, a band of reapers, working under the direction of the Lord of the harvest, a flock of sheep following the Good Shepherd, a brotherhood of like-minded men, a visible representative of the Invisible God.
It is most undesirable to conceive of our churches as Works, or Projects. If such words must be used, then let them be understood as referring to the earthly and legal aspect of things only. A true church is something supernatural and divine, and is in direct lineal descent from that first church at Jerusalem. Insofar as it is a church it is spiritual; its social aspect is secondary and may be imitated by any group regardless of its religious qualities or lack of them. The spiritual essence of a true church cannot be reproduced anywhere but in a company of renewed and inwardly united believers.
hought
That local church of which you are a part is one expression of the Church, the body of Christ. You cannot demand of other believers levels of Christlikeness and spiritual maturity that you yourself are not modeling. You are as much Church as are they.
prayer
Father, thank You for the Church. Weak as I am and as my brothers and sisters are, we are members of the body of Christ. Your Spirit lives in us!