Man is a worshiper and only in the spirit of worship does he find release for all the powers of his amazing intellect.
A religious writer has warned us that it may be fatal to trust to the squirrel-work of the industrious brain rather than to the piercing vision of the desirous heart.
The Greek church father, Nicephorus, taught that we should learn to think with our heart. Force your mind to descend into the heart, he says, and to remain there. . . . When you thus enter into the place of the heart give thanks to God and, praising His mercy, keep always to this doing, and it will teach you things which in no other way will you ever learn.
A religious mentality characterized by timidity and lack of moral courage has given us to a flabby Christianity, intellectually impoverished, dull, repetitious and to a great many persons just plain boring.
This is peddled as the very faith of our fathers in direct lineal descent from Christ and the apostles.
We spoon-feed this insipid pabulum to our inquiring youth and, to make it palatable, spice it up with carnal amusements filched from the unbelieving world. It is easier to entertain than to instruct, it is easier to follow degenerate public taste than to think for oneself, so too many of our evangelical leaders let their minds atrophy while they keep their fingers nimble operating religious gimmicks to bring in the curious crowds.
Christianity must embrace the total personality and command every atom of the redeemed being.
We cannot withhold our intellects from the blazing altar and still hope to preserve the true faith of Christ.
verse
All mankind will fear; they will proclaim the works of the God and ponder what he has done.
— Psalm 64:9
thought
The indwelling Spirit can inflame our intellect, empowering it to climb new mountains of thought that brings us closer and closer to God.
prayer
Lord, remind me to think from the heart, not just the mind. May I persevere and find answers of heart, if not of mind. Make me a sanctified thinker.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
To think well and usefully a man must be endowed with certain indispensable qualifications.
He must, for one thing, be completely honest and transparently sincere.
Another qualification is courage. The timid man dare not think lest he discover himself, an experience to him as shocking as the discovery that he has cancer. The sincere thinker comes to his task with the abandonment of a Saul of Tarsus, crying, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?
Thinking carries a moral imperative. The searcher for truth must be ready to obey truth without reservation or it will elude him. Let him refuse to follow the light and he dooms himself to darkness. The coward may be shrewd or clever but he can never be a wise thinker, for wisdom is at bottom a moral thing and will have no truck with evil.
Again, the effective religious thinker must possess some degree of knowledge.
A Chinese saying has it, Learning without thought is a snare; thought without learning is a danger.
I have met Christians with sharp minds but limited outlook who saw one truth and, being unable to relate it to other truths, became narrow extremists, devoutly cultivating their tiny plot, naively believing that their little fence enclosed the whole earth. An acquaintance with or at least a perception of the significance of what Kant called the starry heavens above and the moral law within is necessary to right thinking.
Add to this a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures, a good historic sense and some intimate contact with the Christian religion as it is practiced currently and you have the raw material for creative thought.
Still this is not enough to make a thinker.
verse
Great are the works of the LORD; they are pondered by all who delight in them.
— Psalm 111:2
thought
Courageous thinking pursued in depth and fixed on God, His Word and our human situation takes us into new territory. It leads to new questions, expanded knowledge and truth new to us. It brings us to our knees in delight before our great God.
prayer
Lord, it is You who have given me the ability to think. May I exercise that ability with courage even though I encounter new problems and questions. May I grow in You.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The creative religious thinker is not a daydreamer, not an ivory tower intellectual carrying on his lofty cogitations remote from the rough world; he is more likely to be a troubled, burdened man weighed down by the woes of existence, occupied not with matters academic or theoretical but the practical and personal.
The great religious thinkers of the past were rarely men of leisure; mostly they were men of affairs, close to and very much a part of the troubled world. Neither will the sanctified thinker of our times be a poet gazing at a sunset from some quiet secluded spot, but one who feels himself a traveler lost in a wilderness who must find his way to safety. That others will later follow the path he makes will not be primary in his thinking.
Later he will understand this, but for the time being he will be all engaged hunting the way out for himself.
To think well and usefully a man must be endowed with certain indispensable qualifications.
He must, for one thing, be completely honest and transparently sincere. The trifler is automatically eliminated. He is weighed in the balance and found too light to be entrusted with the thoughts of God.
Let but a breath of levity enter the mind and the power to do creative thinking instantly goes out.
And by levity I do not mean wit or even humor; I do mean insincerity, sham, the absence of moral seriousness.
Great thoughts require a grave attitude toward life and mankind and God.
verse
Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking.
— 2 Peter 3:1
thought
Wholesome thinking is not done in a closet or in an isolated ivory tower. Wholesome thinking is serious thinking of depth and breadth done in the midst of busy living in a busy world. It is honest and sincere thinking.
prayer
Father, Im not inclined to wholesome thought. But the intent of Your Word is to stimulate me to wholesome thinking. May I give myself to it!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
But the thinking, worshiping man is still short of perfection until he becomes also the working man.
In a world like ours there is and always will be plenty of important work for the thoughtful, reverent man to do.
Morally the world is like a bombed city.
The streets are blocked, the buildings lie in ruins and the wounded and homeless wait for the healing services of men and women who can help them in their distress.
No man can be said to be truly educated who cannot relate his intellectual gifts to creative work.
And no work, however sacrificial, will be permanent unless it is geared to eternity.
Only what is done in a spirit of worship will last forever. When the man becomes a thinking man a great deal has been accomplished. When the thinking man goes on to become a worshiping man a longer step has been taken toward full and perfect manhood.
When the thinking, worshiping man has found his hands and has put his whole personality to work for the high honor of God and the blessing of mankind, some modest approach at least has been made toward Christlikeness and the restoration of the heavenly image ruined in the Fall.
verse
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, . . .
— Colossians 3:23
thought
Doing the work the Lord gives, whether high or low profile, and doing that work with all our heart is a form of worship since we do it for Him and not for those around us. That gives a different value to work, doesnt it.
prayer
O Lord, may I do all for You. Deliver me from the sacred/secular divide. If I do it for You and to You, it is sacred!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Mans nature indicates that he was created for three things: To think, to worship and to work.
But thinking is not enough.
Men are made to worship also, to bow down and adore in the presence of the Mystery inexpressible. Mans mind is not the top peak of his nature. Higher than his mind is his spirit, that something within him which can engage the supernatural, which under the breath of the Spirit can come alive and enter into conscious communion with heaven, can receive the divine nature and hear and feel and see the ineffable wonder that is God.
When, therefore, an institution dedicated to the growth and development of the thinking person seeks at the same time to turn this thinker into a worshiper, our debt to that institution becomes all the greater.
So many schools on every level are content to train the intellect, forgetting that they are dealing with but part of the man-an important part certainly, but a part only. The wise of the world who have not learned to worship are but demi-men, unformed and rudimentary.
Their further development awaits the life-giving touch of Christ to wake them to spiritual birth and life eternal.
verse
Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.
— Psalm 95:6-7
thought
We are made to be worshipers-worshipers of God from the heart. Thinking worshipers. Working worshipers.
prayer
Teach me to worship, Lord. Not the emotionally ecstatic or feel good-but heart worship of You, my spirit with Your Spirit.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Though human nature as we know it now is fallen and morally degenerate, it yet stands at the top in the order of Gods creation.
Of no other being was it said, In the image of God created he him.
Mans nature indicates that he was created for three things: To think, to worship and to work.
Under think may be included everything that the intellect can do, from the simplest act to the creation of an oratorio or the founding of an empire. In his ability to observe, to inquire, to collect data and to reason from it to causes, laws and principles, man stands easily supreme above all other creatures.
The domestication of the wild forces of nature, the conquest of disease, the amelioration of the pains and woes of our physical organism-all has been done by the thinking man riding on the wings of his imagination out into the unknown and daring to entertain notions no one had entertained before.
To make out of the raw material that is a man a thinking man, an imaginative, dreaming man, is one of the most urgent tasks of society. This task begins in the nursery and goes on through to the university.
Whatever institution, large or small, famous or obscure, dedicates itself to the necessary and heavy job of teaching men to think deserves the gratitude of the whole human race.
verse
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your minds on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
— Colossians 3:1-2
thought
What an amazing ability is that of thinking. What we set our minds on, to a large degree, charts our course and determines whether our fallen nature or the Holy Spirit dictates our living.
prayer
Thank You, Father, for the gift of thinking. By Your Sprit remind me to set my mind on things above. Too often I concentrate on the earthly.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The truth is, dedication of the life to any thing or anyone short of God Himself, is a prostitution of noble powers and must bring a harvest of grief and disappointment at last. Only God is worthy of the soul He has made in His own image.
To devote our lives to any cause, however worthy, is to sell ourselves short.
Not money, position, fame, can justly claim our devotion.
Art, literature, music also fall short.
And, if God is forgotten, even the loftiest and most unselfish task is unworthy of the souls full surrender.
Complete dedication unto death in the cause of freedom, for instance, is a touching thing and has given to history many of her greatest heroes, but only the God of freedom should have our last full measure of devotion.
These are strenuous times and men are being recruited everywhere to devote themselves to one or another master.
Let us be careful.
No one has any true right to claim my life except the One who gave His own life for my redemption.
If He gets my full dedication then I may engage in any good and worthy cause under His Spirit's guidance.
But anything short of complete devotion to Christ is inadequate and must end in futility and loss.
verse
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
— Psalm 139:23-24
thought
Complete dedication to Christ. We feel it in those highly emotional crises of life. But full dedication lived out by is often elusive. Yet to know Him fully we must give ourselves fully to Him.
prayer
O God, forgive me for dedication that is thin and limited. I want to surrender myself wholly to You. Show me those areas still unsurrendered.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
It is one of the ironies of modern life that after a word has been dropped from the Christian vocabulary because it no longer expresses any vital content in current church religion, it is often taken up by the world and made to mean not the same thing but something close to what it once meant in its original Christian usage.
Such a word is dedicate.
This word in its various forms was once used to express a sacred idea deriving straight from the Scriptures. . . . Now I have no quarrel with mere words. Whatever current usage and an up-to-date dictionary declare a word to mean, that is what it means, whatever it may have meant before. But I am concerned when men mistake earth for heaven, confuse this world with the world to come and borrow sacred words to describe secular things-without knowing what they have done.
That is precisely what has happened to the word dedication. Through a radical change of meaning it has been lost to the language of worship. And it is highly significant that up to this moment Christians have not felt sufficient inward pressure to create a new word that would mean what the old word once meant. Apparently not only the word is gone from us but the idea as well. One reason for this is the current imperfect understanding of the Christian message.
Scarcely anyone catches the imperious note in Christs words.
The Christian message has ceased to be a pronouncement and has become a proposition. Its invitational element has been pressed far out of proportion in the total scriptural scheme. Christ with His lantern, His apologetic stance and His weak pleading face has taken the place of the true Son of Man whom John saw clothed with a garment down to the foot, girt with a golden girdle, whose head and hair are white like wool, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, whose feet are like burnished brass and whose voice is as the sound of many waters.
The Christ of the tentative smile and air of puzzlement is not the Christ of God. The artists have been guilty of inadvertent idolatry in presenting to the world a false image of Christ. Only the Holy Spirit can reveal our Lord as He really is, and He does not paint in oils. He manifests Christ to the human spirit, not to our physical eyes.
verse
He [the Holy Spirit] will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.
— John 16:14
thought
Only the Holy Spirit can reveal Christ to us as He really is because only the Spirit can take what is Christs and make it known to us. When we know Christ as He is in His person and glory, then we will give ourselves wholly to Him.
prayer
O Christ, we humans have cheapened You. We have sought to reduce You to our level. Forgive us! Forgive me! May Your Spirit reveal You to me.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The irrepressible urge to share spiritual blessings can explain a great many religious phenomena.
It even goes so far as to create a kind of vicarious transfer of interest from one person to another, so that the blessed soul would if necessary give up its own blessing that another might receive. Only thus can that prayer of Moses be understood, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin-; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written (Exodus 32:31, 32).
His great care for Israel had made him incautious, almost rash, before the Lord in their behalf.
Moses felt that for Israel to be forgiven was reward enough for him. This impulsive uprush of vicarious love can hardly be defended before the bar of pure reason. But God understood and complied with Moses request. The intense urge to have others enjoy the same spiritual privileges as himself once led Paul to make a statement so extreme, so reckless, that reason cannot approve it; only love can understand: I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that 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 (Romans 9:1-3).
In the light of this it is quite easy to understand why all great Christian teachers have insisted that true spiritual experience must be shared. The careless person who remarks that he does not need to go to church to serve God is far from understanding the most elementary spiritual truths. By cutting himself off from the religious community he proves that he has never felt the deep urge to share-and for the very reason that he has nothing to share. He has never felt the constraining love of Christ, so he can go his way in silence. His withdrawal from the believing fellowship tells us more about him than he knows about himself.
Being let go, they went to their own company.
So it was in the Early Church and so it has always been when men meet God in saving encounter. They want to share the blessed benefits.
verse
On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. . . .
— Acts 4:23-24a
thought
Sharing with other believers serious needs is fuel for prayer to God. Sharing what God has done in answer to prayer lights the fire of joy and praise. These are family celebrations!
prayer
Lord, when I hear of what You have done and are doing in the lives of brothers and sisters I am encouraged to trust You for my heart needs. May I, too, be sharer with Your family.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/