5. Another desire of the spiritual man is to die right rather than to live wrong
. A sure mark of the mature man of God is his nonchalance about living.
The earth-loving, body-conscious Christian looks upon death with numb terror in his heart; but as he goes on to live in the Spirit he becomes increasingly indifferent to the number of his years here below, and at the same time increasingly careful of the kind of life he lives while he is here.
He will not purchase a few extra days of life at the cost of compromise or failure. He wants most of all to be right, and he is happy to let God decide how long he shall live. He knows that he can afford to die now that he is in Christ, but he knows that he cannot afford to do wrong, and this knowledge becomes a gyroscope to stabilize his thinking and his acting.
6. The desire to see others advance at his expense is another mark of the spiritual man.
He wants to see other Christians above him and is happy when they are promoted and he is overlooked.
There is no envy in his heart; when his brethren are honored he is pleased because such is the will of God and that will is his earthly heaven.
If God is pleased, he is pleased for that reason, and if it pleases God to exalt another above him he is content to have it so.
verse
Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.
— Romans 12:10
thought
Love for others promotes them above ourselves, even at our expense. It makes us encouragers, developers of people.
prayer
Thank You, Father, for those whom You have used to develop me. Use me in honoring and encouraging others. For Jesus' sake.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
3. The spiritual man wants to carry his cross.
Many Christians accept adversity or tribulation with a sigh and call it their cross, forgetting that such things come alike to saint and sinner.
The cross is that extra adversity that comes to us as a result of our obedience to Christ. This cross is not forced upon us; we voluntarily take it up with full knowledge of the consequences. We choose to obey Christ and by so doing choose to carry the cross.
Carrying a cross means to be attached to the Person of Christ, committed to the Lordship of Christ and obedient to the commandments of Christ. The man who is so attached, so committed, so obedient is a spiritual man.
4. Again, a Christian is spiritual when he sees everything from Gods viewpoint. The ability to weigh all things in the divine scale and place the same value upon them as God does is the mark of a Spirit-filled life. God looks at and through at the same time. His gaze does not rest on the surface but penetrates to the true meaning of things.
The carnal Christian looks at an object or a situation, but because he does not see through it he is elated or cast down by what he sees.
The spiritual man is able to look through things as God looks and think of them as God thinks. He insists on seeing all things as God sees them even if it humbles him and exposes his ignorance to the point of real pain.
verse
Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."
— Matthew 16:24
thought
Today crosses are placed on church steeples or made of gold and used as necklaces or lapel pins. The cross of which Jesus spoke is an instrument of death ? ours.
prayer
Forgive me, Lord, for storing my cross in the basement. You want me to carry it daily.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
True spirituality manifests itself in certain dominant desires.
These are ever-present, deep-settled wants sufficiently powerful to motivate and control the life.
For convenience let me number them, though I make no effort to decide the order of their importance.
1. First is the desire to be holy rather than happy. The yearning after happiness found so widely among Christians professing a superior degree of sanctity is sufficient proof that such sanctity is not indeed present. The truly spiritual man knows that God will give abundance of joy after we have become able to receive it without injury to our souls, but he does not demand it at once.
John Wesley said of the members of one of the earliest Methodist societies that he doubted that they had been made perfect in love because they came to church to enjoy religion instead of to learn how they could become holy.
2. A man may be considered spiritual when he wants to see the honor of God advanced through his life even if it means that he himself must suffer temporary dishonor or loss. Such a man prays ?Hallowed be Thy name, and silently adds, at any cost to me, Lord. He lives for Gods honor by a kind of spiritual reflex.
Every choice involving the glory of God is for him already made before it presents itself. He does not need to debate the matter with his own heart; there is nothing to debate. The glory of God is necessary to him; he gasps for it as a suffocating man gasps for air.
verse
Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? "Father, save me from this hour"? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!
— John 12:27-28
thought
God's glory at any cost, even my own. Too often "our glory" gets in the way. Self intrudes. It is God's glory that matters!
prayer
Father, glorify Your name through me. Bring me to that place where I can pray with all my heart "Your glory at any cost to me."
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
verse
verse
Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly ? mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it.
— 1 Corinthians 3:1-2
The concept of spirituality varies among different Christian groups. In some circles the highly vocal person who talks religion continually is thought to be very spiritual; others accept noisy exuberance as a mark of spirituality, and in some churches the man who prays first, longest and loudest gets a reputation for being the most spiritual man in the assembly. Now a vigorous testimony, frequent prayers and loud praise may be entirely consistent with spirituality, but it is important that we understand that they do not in themselves constitute it nor prove that it is present. True spirituality manifests itself in certain dominant desires. These are ever-present, deep-settled wants sufficiently powerful to motivate and control the life. . . .
thought
It is submission to the control of the Spirit that makes me spiritual. Changes in daily living result as do dominant desires.
prayer
Deliver me, Lord, from assuming a form of spirituality that fits people expectations. You know the real me and that is what needs changing.
To stay free from religious ennui we should be careful not to get into a rut, not even a good rut.
Our Lord warned against vain repetition.
There is repetition that is not vain, but oft-repeated prayers become vain when they have lost their urgency.
We should examine our prayers every now and again to discover how much sincerity and spontaneity they possess.
We should insist on keeping them simple, candid, fresh and original.
And above all we should never seek to induce holy emotions.
When we feel dry it is wise either to ignore it or to tell God about it without any sense of guilt.
If we are dry because of some wrong on our part the Spirit through the Word will show us the fault. In short, we can keep from going stale by getting proper rest, by practicing complete candor in prayer, by introducing variety into our lives, by heeding God?s call to move onward and by exercising quiet faith always.
verse
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.
— Psalm 19:14
thought
Repetition of prayer in the same verbal form may leak meaning and eventually degenerate into empty religious formula. Periodic rephrasing contributes to fresh expression of worship, praise and prayer.
prayer
Breath of God, blow upon me. Refresh, renew. In Jesus' name.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
verse
He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. . . .
— Psalm 40:3a
Some of the purest souls have written of the dangers of continuous spiritual exercises uninterrupted by lowlier considerations. Von Hugel speaks of the ?neutral cost? of prayer and advises that we should sometimes break off thoughts of heavenly things and go for a walk or dig in the garden. We have all known the disappointment felt when returning to a passage of Scripture that had been so fresh and fragrant the day before only to find the sweetness gone out of it. It is the Spirit?s way of urging us on to new vistas. I notice that in the wilderness God kept Israel moving. One may wonder what would have happened if they had camped in one place for forty years. The lives of the great Christians show that they differed not only from each other but from themselves at different periods of their lives. Spiritual exercises that helped them at one stage of their development later became useless and had to be changed for others.
thought
Better to pray as we walk than to fall asleep on our knees. Better to struggle in prayer expression than to mouth beautiful phrases that have lost their meaning. Variety in spiritual exercises aids in avoiding a dull and sometimes empty habit.
prayer
Thank You, Lord, for the variety and creativity You give to counter monotony and the overly familiar. Help me to stay fresh!
verse
Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest."
— Mark 6:31
Sometimes our trouble is not moral but physical. As long as we are in these mortal bodies our spiritual lives will be to some degree affected by our bodies. Here we should notice that there is a difference between our mortal bodies and the ?flesh? of Pauline theology. When Paul speaks of the flesh he refers to our fallen human nature, not to our physical bodies, which are the temples of the Holy Spirit. Through the power of the Spirit there is deliverance from the propensities of the flesh, but while we live there is no relief from the weaknesses and imperfections of the body. One often-unsuspected cause of staleness is fatigue. Shakespeare said something to the effect that no man could be a philosopher when he had a toothache, and while it is possible to be a weary saint, it is scarcely possible to be weary and feel saintly; and it is our want of feeling that we are considering here. The Christian who gets tired in the work of the Lord and stays tired without relief beyond a reasonable time will go stale. The fact that he grew weary by toiling in the Lord?s vineyard will not make his weariness any less real. Our Lord knew this and occasionally took His disciples aside for a rest.
thought
Jesus recognized the need of rest for His disciples. He still does! Rest is not an excuse for laziness. It is an essential for effective service.
prayer
Father, may I have the good sense to schedule time for rest. Forgive me for sometimes taking on too much and, as a consequence, failing to serve You well.
We live by faith, not by sight.
— 2 Corinthians 5:7
Periods of staleness in the life are not inevitable but they are common. He is a rare Christian who has not experienced times of spiritual dullness when the relish has gone out of his heart and the enjoyment of living has diminished greatly or departed altogether. Since there is no single cause of this condition there is no one simple remedy for it. Sometimes we are to blame, as for instance when we do a wrong act without immediately seeking forgiveness and cleansing; or when we permit worldly interests to grow up and choke the tender plants of the inner life. When the cause is known, and particularly when it is as uncomplex as this, the remedy is the old-fashioned one of repentance. But if after careful and candid examination of the life by prayer and the Word no real evil is discovered, we gain nothing by putting the worst construction on things and lying facedown in the dust. To say that we have not sinned when we have is to be false to the fact; to insist that we have sinned when we have not is to be false to ourselves. There comes a time when the most spiritual thing we can do is to accept cleansing from all sin as an accomplished fact and stop calling that unclean which God has called clean.
thought
There are times when the Christian life is reduced to what it essentially is ? a walk by faith. By faith, not by sight or good feelings. God sometimes leads us through a period of dark clouds and we know that He is there only by faith.
prayer
Thank You, Lord. I am saved by faith, not by feeling saved. I live, by faith not by feelings. May I clearly distinguish between feelings which can deceive and faith fixed on You.
Before there can be acceptable service there must be an acceptable life.
Before we can know how much we owe we must learn how great is the need.
Men are caught in a disaster worse than earthquake or flood, and the redeemed of the Lord are to work for their rescue. In considering these things we must not go on the defensive.
The Lord loves the artless, the candid, the childlike.
He cannot work with those who argue or bargain or plead or excuse themselves. He hides His profoundest mysteries from the wise and the prudent and reveals them unto babes.
The poor in spirit always receive the kingdom, the meek inherit the earth, the mourner is comforted and the pure in heart see God.
My old friend Tom Haire, the praying plumber, after several months of ministry in the United States, told me one day that he was going back home for a rest.
In the thickest of Irish brogues he explained how it was with him. Im preached out, he said, and I am going back to spend three months waiting on God.
There are some spiritual matters that I want to get straightened out.
I want to appear before the judgment seat now while I can do something about it.?
verse
Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
— Matthew 20:28
thought
A vital ingredient of serving is living. Christlike living will determine how we serve and why. Emergency living gives quality to emergency serving.
prayer
Lord, You came to serve, not to be served. May I serve You in serving others.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/