. . . Well, here are some suggestions which anyone can follow and which, I am convinced, will result in a wonderfully improved Christian life. . . .
3. Put yourself in the way of the blessing.
It is a mistake to look for grace to visit us as a kind of benign magic, or to expect God's help to come as a windfall apart from conditions known and met.
There are plainly marked paths which lead straight to the green pastures; let us walk in them.
To desire revival, for instance, and at the same time to neglect prayer and devotion is to wish one way and walk another.
4. Do a thorough job of repenting.
Do not hurry to get it over with.
Hasty repentance means shallow spiritual experience and lack of certainty in the whole life.
Let godly sorrow do her healing work. Until we allow the consciousness of sin to wound us, we will never develop a fear of evil. It is our wretched habit of tolerating sin that keeps us in our half-dead condition.
5. Make restitution whenever possible.
If you owe a debt, pay it, or at least have a frank understanding with your creditor about your intention to pay, so your honesty will be above question.
If you have quarreled with anyone, go as far as you can in an effort to achieve reconciliation.
As fully as possible make the crooked things straight.
verse
Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.
— Matthew 3:8
thought
Repentance and restitution result when we seriously reflect on what God shows us in His Word. What is it of which we need to repent and is there restitution to be made?
prayer
My tendency, Lord, is not to take seriously my sin that hurts other people and to leave unrepaired the damage I have left in the lives of others. Make me sensitive, Lord!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
I have previously shown that any Christian who desires to may at any time experience a radical spiritual renaissance, and this altogether independent of the attitude of his fellow Christians.
The important question now is, How?.
Well, here are some suggestions which anyone can follow and which, I am convinced, will result in a wonderfully improved Christian life.
1. Get thoroughly dissatisfied with yourself.
Complacency is the deadly enemy of spiritual progress.
The contented soul is the stagnant soul.
When speaking of earthly goods Paul could say, "I have learned to be content" (Philippians 4:11); but when referring to his spiritual life he testified, "I press on toward the goal" (3:14). "So stir up the gift of God that is in thee" (2 Timothy 1:6, KJV).
2. Set your face like a flint toward a sweeping transformation of your life.
Timid experimenters are tagged for failure before they start.
We must throw our whole soul into our desire for God. "The kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it" (Matthew 11:12).
verse
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
— Jeremiah 29:13
thought
A holy dissatisfaction arises when we look in the mirror of God's Word. What He has for us is far beyond what we have so far experienced. But when we seek to know God with all our heart, He will be found.
prayer
Lord, I want to grow not just tomorrow or in the the years ahead but now, today. Show me what it means to seek You with all my heart.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
No matter what I write here, thousands of pastors will continue to call their people to prayer in the forlorn hope that God will finally relent and send revival if only His people wear themselves out in intercession.
To such people God must indeed appear to be a hard taskmaster, for the years pass and the young get old and the aged die and still no help comes.
The prayer meeting room becomes a wailing wall and the lights burn long, and still the rains tarry.
Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Let any reader begin to obey and he will have the answer. "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him" (John 14:21).
Isn't that what we want after all?
verse
Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.
— John 14:21
thought
Obedience is the truest expression of our love to Christ. Not our emotional bursts of "worship" or our tears or solemn promises or extended hours of prayer. No, love expressed is obedience to His will as He has revealed it to us.
prayer
O Christ, Your will for me personally You have revealed. I rise up to lovingly obey You.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
It is almost unbelievable how far we will go to avoid obeying God.
We call Jesus "Lord" and beg Him to rejuvenate our souls, but we are careful to do not the things He says.
When faced with a sin, a confession or a moral alteration in our life, we find it much easier to pray half a night than to obey God.
Intensity of prayer is no criterion of its effectiveness.
A man may throw himself on his face and sob out his troubles to the Lord and yet have no intention to obey the commandments of Christ.
Strong emotion and tears may be no more than the outcropping of a vexed spirit, evidence of stubborn resistance to God's known will.
Jacob wrestled against the angel through one whole night. It was only after he had been defeated that he became the aggressor and refused to let go of God.
Why did Jacob resist so long?
Because he was ashamed to confess his name to the angel.
When he finally broke down and admitted that he was the supplanter, the victory was won. He triumphed in defeat.
verse
But Samuel replied: 'Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.'
— First Samuel 15:22
thought
Extended prayer, material sacrifice, devoted service we may offer as substitutes for simple obedience. But there is no substitute for obedience.
prayer
O God, You have made it clear and simple that what You ask of me is obedience, full obedience. That is what opens me to the blowing of Your Spirit.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Granted that the man who seeks revival has stopped thinking in plurals and has narrowed his faith down to one single individual, himself, what then?
How can he find that after which his soul is yearning?
How can he cooperate with his hungers to the end that he may indeed be filled?
He must rid his mind of the false notion that prayer alone will bring the blessing.
Normally all transactions between the soul and God are carried on by prayer. It is right and scriptural and according to the testimony of all the saints that any spiritual advance on any front, any deliverance, any purification, any enduement of power, comes by the prayer of faith.
Our error is that we try to secure these benefits by prayer alone.
The correction of this error is extremely difficult for it entails more than a mere adjustment of our doctrinal beliefs; it strikes at the whole Adam-life and requires self-abnegation, humility and cross-carrying.
In short it requires obedience.
And that we will do anything to escape.
verse
He replied, 'Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.'
— Luke 11:28
thought
Prayerful Bible study exposes us to God's will for us. Knowing His will, praying about it, is not enough. Personal revival comes as we obey His will.
prayer
Forgive me, Lord, for trying to substitute prayer and other religious activity for simple obedience to your will as You reveal it to me.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
In nature everything moves in the direction of its hungers.
In the spiritual world it is not otherwise.
We gravitate toward our inward longings, provided of course that those longings are strong enough to move us. I
Impotent dreaming will not do. The religious urge that is not followed by a corresponding act of the will in the direction of that urge is a waste of emotion.
The awe-inspiring power of a discharge of lightning may dissipate itself in the atmosphere and accomplish nothing, while a flashlight battery may provide illumination for a miner hours on end.
One is a dramatic display of immense power without direction and the other a quiet application of modest energy to an intelligent purpose.
It is my conviction that much, very much, prayer for and talk about revival these days is wasted energy. Ignoring the confusion of figures, I might say that it is hunger that appears to have no object; it is dreamy wishing that is too weak to produce moral action.
It is fanaticism on a high level for, according to John Wesley, "a fanatic is one who seeks desired ends while ignoring the constituted means to reach those ends."
verse
For he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.
— Psalm 107:9
thought
God satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. Are we really heart hungry and thirsty for Him or is ours a mere superficicial desire to be filled without obedience commitment?
prayer
Lord, I do want to be satisfied by You but I seem to lack intensity of hunger and thirst for You. Help me, Lord!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
These words are addressed to those of God's children who have been pierced with the arrow of infinite desire, who yearn for God with a yearning that has overcome them, who long with a longing that has become pain
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled" (Matthew 5:6).
Hunger is a pain.
It is God's merciful provision, a divinely sent stimulus to propel us in the direction of food.
If food-hunger is a pain, thirst, which is water-hunger, is a hundredfold worse, and the more critical the need becomes within the living organism the more acute the pain.
It is nature's last drastic effort to rouse the imperiled life to seek to renew itself.
A dead body feels no hunger and the dead soul knows not the pangs of holy desire. "If you want God," said the old saint, "you have already found Him."
Our desire for fuller life is proof that some life must be there already.
Our very dissatisfactions should encourage us, our yet unfulfilled aspirations should give us hope. "What I aspired to be, and was not, comforts me," wrote Browning with true spiritual insight.
The dead heart cannot aspire.
verse
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.
— Matthew 5:6
thought
Few of us seem to suffer from intensity of hunger and thirst for God. We regularly endure long "spiritual fasts." We won't be filled if we do not hunger and thirst. Rather we will become victims of spiritual malnutrion without hardly being aware of it.
prayer
As the deer pants for for streams of water so may my soul pants for you, O God. Only You can satisfy.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The man that will have God's best becomes at once the object of the personal attention of the Holy Spirit.
Such a man will not be required to wait for the rest of the church to come alive.
He will not be penalized for the failures of his fellow Christians, nor be asked to forego the blessing till his sleepy brethren catch up.
God deals with the individual heart as exclusively as if only one existed.
If this should seem to be an unduly individualistic approach to revival, let it be remembered that religion is personal before it can be social.
Every prophet, every reformer, every revivalist had to meet God alone before he could help the multitudes.
The great leaders who went on to turn thousands to Christ had to begin with God and their own soul.
The plain Christian of today must experience personal revival before he can hope to bring renewed spiritual life to his church.
verse
. . . Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, 'If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.' By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. . . .
— John 7:37-39
thought
Any one of us may experience personal revival whether or not anyone else does. How intense is our thirst for God? Are we willing to wholly surrender ourselves to God no matter what others do? Then, let's begin today!
prayer
Teach me what it means, Lord, to be wholly surrendered to You that I might know the filling of Your Spirit.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
One consequence of our failure to see clearly the true nature of revival is that we wait for years for some supernatural manifestation that never comes, overlooking completely our own individual place in the desired awakening.
Whatever God may do for a church must be done in the single unit, the one certain man or woman.
Some things can happen only to the isolated, single person; they cannot be experienced en masse.
Statistics show, for instance, that 100 babies are born in a certain city on a given day. Yet the birth of each baby is for that baby a unique experience, an isolated, personal thing.
Fifty people die in a plane crash; while they die together they die separately, one at a time, each one undergoing the act of death in a loneliness of soul as utter as if he alone had died.
Both birth and death are experienced by the individual in a loneness as complete as if only that one person had ever known them.
Three thousand persons were converted at Pentecost, but each one met his sin and his Savior alone.
The spiritual birth, like the natural one, is for each one a unique, separate experience shared in by no one.
And so with that uprush of resurgent life we call revival. It can come to the individual only. Though a visitation of divine life reaches seventy five persons at once (as among the Moravian Brethren at Dusseldorf), yet it comes to each one singly.
There can exist no collective body of believers that can be revived apart from the units that compose the body.
Understood aright these are truths full of great encouragement and good hope. Nothing can hinder you or me from experiencing the revival we need. It is a matter for God and the solitary heart.
Nothing can prevent the spiritual rejuvenation of the soul that insists upon having it.
Though that solitary man must live and walk among persons religiously dead, he may experience the great transformation
as certainly and as quickly as if he were in the most spiritual church in the world.
verse
. . . And I pray that you . . . may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
— Ephesians 3:17, 19
thought
Today can be the beginning of personal revival whether or not it is for anyone else. We can open ourselves to the Spirit of God. We can make the changes He indicates and do it by His enablement. We can live by the Spirit!
prayer
This day take full control, Lord. Show me what needs to be confessed and discarded. Fill me and change me, Spirit of God!