We are sent to bless the world, but never are we told to compromise with it.
Our glory lies in a spiritual withdrawal from all that builds on dust.
The bee finds no honey while crawling around the hive. Honey is in the flower far away, where there is quiet and peace and the sun and the flowing stream; there the bee must go to find it.
The Christian will find slim pickings where professed believers play and pray all in one breath.
He may be compelled sometimes to travel alone or at least to go with the ostracized few.
To belong to the despised minority may be the price he must pay for power. But power is cheap at any price.
verse
I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.
— John 17:14-16
thought
In the world but not of the world?a distinction often difficult to maintain. God's enablement is the only means.
prayer
Oh Lord, may I experience Your power to be in the world but not of it. May I be light to it. For Jesus' sake.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
History shows clearly enough that true spirituality has never at any time been the possession of the masses.
In any given period since the fall of the human race, only a few persons ever discerned the right way or walked in God's law.
God's truth has never been popular.
Wherever Christianity becomes popular, it is not on its way to die?it has already died.
Popular Judaism slew the prophets and crucified Christ.
Popular Christianity killed the Reformers, jailed the Quakers and drove John Wesley into the streets.
When it comes to religion, the crowds are always wrong.
At any time there are a few who see, and the rest are blinded.
To stand by the truth of God against the current religious vogue is always unpopular and may be downright dangerous.
The historic church, while she was a hated minority group, had a moral power that made her terrible to evil and invincible before her foes. When the Roman masses, without change of heart, were made Christian by baptism, Christianity gained popularity and lost her spiritual glow.
From there she went on to adopt the ways of Rome and to follow her pagan religions.
The fish caught the fisherman, and what started out to be the conversion of Rome became finally the conversion of the church.
From that ignominious captivity, the church has never been fully delivered.
verse
If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
— John 15:19
thought
That the world hates us because we are disciples of Christ is a positive indication that we are indeed following Him. If the world welcomes us as disciples of Christ, alarms go off. How closely are we walking with Him?
prayer
Lord, help me to express Your love to the people of the world without conforming to the world.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice.
— Isaiah 59:15
We have developed in recent times a peace-loving, soft-spoken, tame and harmless brand of Christian of whom the world has no fear and for whom it has little respect. We are careful, for instance, never to speak in public against any of the false cults lest we be thought intolerant. We fear to talk against the destructive sins of modern civilization for fear someone will brand us as bigoted and narrow. Little by little we have been forced off the hard earth into a religious cloud-land where we are permitted to wing our harmless way around, like swallows at sundown, saying nothing that might stir the ire of the sons of this world.
That Neo-Christianity, which seems for the time to be the most popular (and is certainly the most aggressive), is very careful not to oppose sin. It wins its crowds by amusing them and its converts by hiding from them the full implications of the Christian message. It carries on its projects after the ballyhoo methods of American business. Well might we paraphrase Wordsworth and cry, "Elijah, thou shouldst be living at this hour; America has need of thee." We stand in desperate need of a few men like Elijah who will dare to face up to the brazen sinners who dictate our every way of life. Sin in the full proportions of a revolution or a plague has all but destroyed our civilization while church people have played like children in the marketplace. What has happened to the spirit of the American Christian? Has our gold become dim? Have we lost the spirit of discernment till we can no longer recognize our captors? How much longer will we hide in caves while Ahab and Jezebel continue to pollute the temple and ravage the land? Surely we should give this some serious thought and prayer before it is too late? f indeed it is not too late already.
thought
In our culture today there seem to be only two absolutes: (1) that there are no absolutes except that there are no absolutes; and (2) everything must be tolerated, since there is no absolute truth. As painful and uncomfortable as it is, we must stand up for God’s truth.
prayer
Father, give me courage and boldness to lovingly and graciously stand for You in my sphere of influence. May I be Your ambassador.
So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter.
— 2 Thessalonians 2:15
The nearer we draw to the heart of God the less taste we will have for controversy. The peace we know in God's bosom is so sweet that it is but natural that we want to keep it unbroken to enjoy as fully and as long as possible. The Spirit-filled Christian is never a good fighter. He is at too many disadvantages. The enemy is always better at invective than he will allow himself to be. The devil has all the picturesque epithets, and his followers have no conscience about using them. The Christian is always more at home blessing than he is opposing. He is, moreover, much thinner-skinned than his adversaries. He shrinks from an angry countenance and draws back from bitter words.
They are symbols of a world he has long ago forsaken for the quiet of the kingdom of God where love and good will prevail. All this is in his favor, for it marks him out as a man in whom there is no hate and who earnestly desires to live at peace with all men. In spite of his sincere longing for peace, however, there will be times when he dare not allow himself to enjoy it. There are times when it is a sin to be at peace. There are circumstances when there is nothing to do but to stand up and vigorously oppose. To wink at iniquity for the sake of peace is not a proof of superior spirituality; it is rather a sign of a reprehensible timidity which dare not oppose sin for fear of the consequences. For it will cost us heavily to stand for the right when the wrong is in the majority, which is 100 percent of the time.
thought
It is easier to excuse ourselves from religious conflict than to assert the truth in a Spirit-emboldened manner. But there are times when we are God's strategically-placed person. We speak and live as His representatives.
prayer
Lord, You know that my inclination is to flee from controversy and confrontation. O Lord, show me when to confront and enable me to do it for Christ's sake.
Korah son of Izhar, the sons of Kohath, . . . and certain Reubenites . . . became insolent and rose up against Moses. With them were 250 Israelite men, well-known community leaders who had been appointed members of the council.
Numbers 16:1-2
The complainer is further embarrassed by the moral company in which he finds himself. His is a spiritual affinity with some pretty shady characters: Cain, Korah, the sulky elder brother, the petulant Jews of the Book of Malachi who answered every fatherly admonition of God with an ill-humored "Wherefore have we? Wherein have we?" These are but a few faces that stand out in the picture of the disgruntled followers of the religious way. And the complaining Christian, if he but looks closely, will see his own face peering out at him from the background. Lastly, the believer who complains against the difficulties of the way proves that he has never felt or known the sorrows which broke over the head of Christ when He was here among men. After one look at Gethsemane or Calvary, the Christian can never again believe that his own path is a hard one. We dare not compare our trifling pains with the sublime passion endured for our salvation. Any comparison would itself be the supreme argument against our complaints, for what sorrow is like unto His? After saying all this we are yet sure that no one can be reasoned out of the habit of complaining. That habit is more than a habit?it is a disease of the soul, and as such, it will never yield to mere logic. The only cure is cleansing in the blood of the Lamb.
thought
Korah and members of the council challenged Moses’ leadership. They experienced God’s judgment as a result. Are there churches experiencing God’s judgment because of grumbling and complaint against God-appointed leaders?
prayer
Lord, I find it far easier to grumble and complain against leaders than to graciously submit to them. May I faithfully pray for my leaders.
Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation.
— Philippians 2:14-15
Among those sins most exquisitely fitted to injure the soul and destroy the testimony, few can equal the sin of complaining. Yet the habit is so widespread that we hardly notice it among us. The complaining heart never lacks for occasion. It can always find reason enough to be unhappy. The object of its censure may be almost anything: the weather, the church, the difficulties of the way, other Christians or even God Himself. A complaining Christian puts himself in a position morally untenable.
The simple logic of his professed discipleship is against him with an unanswerable argument. Its reasoning runs like this: First, he is a Christian because he chose to be. There are no conscripts in the army of God. He is, therefore, in the awkward position of complaining against the very conditions he brought himself into by his own free choice. Secondly, he can quit any time he desires. No Christian wears a chain on his leg. Yet he still continues on, grumbling as he goes, and for such conduct he has no defense.
thought
The cause for complaint is often a God-given opportunity for growth and praise. What at first appear to be thorns may prove to be divine prods that move us closer to God.
prayer
Deliver me from complaining, Lord. Rather, teach me to praise You and thank You for the opportunities to grow.
Now, brothers, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, "Do not go beyond what is written." Then you will not take pride in one man over against another.
— 1 Corinthians 4:6
Every believer as well as every minister of Christ must decide whether he will put his emphasis upon the majors or the minors. He must decide whether he will stay by the sober truths which constitute the beating heart of the Scriptures or turn his attention to those marginal doctrines which always bring division and which, at their best, could not help us much on our way to the Celestial City. No man has any moral right to propound any teaching about which there is not full agreement among Bible Christians until he has made himself familiar with church history and with the development of Christian doctrine through the centuries.
The historic approach is best. After we have discovered what holy men believed, what great reformers and saints taught, what the purest souls and mightiest workers held to be important for holy living and dying?then we are in a fair position to appraise our own teaching. Humility is the only state of mind in which to approach the Scriptures. The Spirit will teach the humble soul those things that make for his salvation and for a holy walk and fruitful service here below. And little else matters.
thought
There is the danger of embellishing the written, even ranging beyond it, in order to serve up the new, the exotic, the innovative. Oh, for preachers who open to us the meat of God’s Word with contextual accuracy, clarity, sound exegesis, and meaningful application.
prayer
Thank You for access to Your Word, Lord. There are many in the world without the Word in their language. May I receive it and live it to Your glory. Amen.
They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.
— Acts 2:42-43
Dr. Samuel Johnson, the famous English sage, once said that one of the surest evidences of intellectual immaturity is the desire to startle people. Yet there are Christians who have been fed upon the odd, the strange and the curious so long and so exclusively that they have become wholly unfitted spiritually to receive or to appreciate sound doctrine. They live to be startled by something new or thrilled by something wonderful. They will believe anything so long as it is just a little away from the time-honored beliefs of sober Christian men. A serious discourse calling for repentance, humbleness of mind and holiness of life is impatiently dismissed as old-fashioned, dull and lacking in "audience appeal."
Yet these things are just the ones that rank highest on the list of things we need to hear, and by them we shall all be judged in that great day of Christ. A church fed on excitement is no New Testament church at all. The desire for surface stimulation is a sure mark of the fallen nature, the very thing Christ died to deliver us from. A curious crowd of baptized worldlings waiting each Sunday for the quasi-religious needle to give them a lift bears no relation whatsoever to a true assembly of Christian believers. And that its members protest their undying faith in the Bible does not change things any. "Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."
thought
Is the "apostles' teaching" still at the heart of our worship services or do we feature the more interesting story-telling and Christian entertainment? Perhaps it is the Spirit's power demonstrated in some wonders and miraculous signs we need.
prayer
Lord, give me a hunger for the solid food that feeds the heart and a holy dissatisfaction with anything less.
...always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth.
— 2 Timothy 3:7
In the Christian life also we find this pattern repeated: a few important things and a world of burdensome but unimportant ones. The Spirit-taught Christian must look past the multiplicity of incidental things and find the few that really matter. And let it be repeated for our encouragement, they are few in number and surprisingly easy to identify. The Scriptures make perfectly clear what they are: the fact of God, the Person and work of Christ, faith and obedience, hope and love. These along with a few more constitute the essence of the truth which we must know and love.
Christ summed up the moral law as love to God and man. Salvation He made to rest upon faith in God and in the One whom He had sent. Paul simplified the wonders of the spiritual life in the words, "Christ in you, the hope of glory." The temptation to forget the few spiritual essentials and to go wandering off after unimportant things is very strong, especially to Christians of a certain curious type of mind. Such persons find the great majors of the faith of our fathers altogether too tame for them. Their souls loathe that light bread; their appetites crave the gamy tang of fresh-killed meat. They take great pride in their reputation as being mighty hunters before the Lord, and any time we look out we may see them returning from the chase with some new mystery hanging limply over their shoulder. Usually the game they bring down is something on which there is a biblical closed season.
Some vague hint in the Scriptures, some obscure verse about which the translators disagree, some marginal note for which there is not much scholarly authority: these are their favorite meat. They are especially skillful at propounding notions which have never been a part of the Christian heritage of truth. Their enthusiasm mounts with the uncertainty of their position, and their dogmatism grows firmer in proportion to the mystery which surrounds their subject.
thought
Seizing upon minor issues and becoming engrossed in details can be an excuse for failure to live the unmistakable truth.
prayer
O God, You are the Light. The closer I come to You the more clearly the dark holes of my heart are exposed. Shine on me and burn away the dross. For Christ's sake.