Renewed II~ Day By Day ~ Devotional ~ A.W.Tozer

Preface\tThis second volume of brief, timely daily readings from the heart and mind of Dr. A.W. Tozer becomes a companion to the pervious book, Renewed Day by Day, already in its fourth printing.\tThe compiler and publisher have followed a definite policy not to include any selections in this second volume which were used previously in the first.\tSelections have been gleaned largely from Dr. Tozer’s taped sermons, with additional quotations from his own published books and from his incisive editorials while he was the editor of Alliance Life. His helpful personal illustrations, testimonies, spiritual concerns and prayers have been scattered throughout these pages, all glorifying the Person of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.\tI remember telling you in the preface of the first Renewed Day by Day that Dr. Tozer would often rap your spiritual knuckles. Because much of the material in this second volume was spoken or written by Dr. Tozer nearer the time of his death in 1963, there are more warnings, more concerns for spiritual progress and more emphasis on the believer’s readiness and preparation to meet his coming Lord and King.Gerald B. SmithFort Myers, Florida

JANUARY 1YES, EVERYTHING IS WRONG... UNTIL JESUS MAKES IT RIGHTHaving made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. (Colossians 1:20)\tMen and women without God are helpless and hopeless human beings. We do well to remember that sin is to the human nature what cancer is to the human body!\tWho can argue with the fact that sin has ruined us?\tOur feverish activity is only one sign of what is wrong with us—sin has plunged us into the depths and so marked us with mortality that we have become brother to the clay—but God never meant it to be so.\tI recall being invited to speak at a summer conference where much of the emphasis is upon fun and amusement and jokes, something like Hollywood, I suppose. After my sessions there, the pastor-director told me frankly of his wife’s reaction: “Honey, after listening to Dr. Tozer, can it be true that there isn’t anything good in this world?”\tWell, I know she had a Bible in her house and I consider her query one of the foolish questions of our times. Of course the world makes its own argument that there are things that can be considered good on the human level—but they belong to us only for a brief day. Nothing is divinely good until it bears the imprint of our Lord Jesus Christ!\tMen and women may argue and make excuses, but it does not change the fact that in our human society we are completely surrounded by three marks of the ancient curse: everything is recent, temporal and transient! That is why the Holy Spirit whispers faithfully, reminding us of the Christ of God, eternity walking in flesh, God Almighty come to live among us and to save—actually to give us eternity!\tI once preached for a week in the old tabernacle church in New York City’s Times Square. After several days the pastor, Dr. Julian Bandy, a learned brother with a delightful southern drawl, said: “Brother Tozer, I have figured you out. I believe your basic spiritual philosophy is this: `Everything is wrong until Jesus makes it right!’“\tI replied, “Thank you, brother. You have summed it up!”\tThis we know: when we turn our faces toward the Eternal One, asking, “God have mercy on me, a sinner,” we are finally being what God intended us to be in the first place!A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 2IN THE BEGINNINGIn the beginning was the Word. and the Word was God. (John 1:1)\tNone of us can approach a consideration of the eternal nature and Person of Jesus Christ without sensing and confessing our human inadequacy in the face of the divine revelation.\tJohn, in his gospel, provides a beautiful portrait of the eternal Christ, starting with those stark, incredible words: “In the beginning!” My brethren, that is where we start with the understanding and the revelation of Christianity!\tMany others have made a variety of claims but only our Christ is the Christ of God. Certainly it was not Buddha and not Mohammed; not Joseph Smith, not Mrs. Eddy and not Father Divine! All of these and countless others like them had beginnings—but they all had their endings, too.\tWhat an incredible difference! Our Christian life commences with the eternal Son of God. This is our Lord Jesus Christ: the Word who was with the Father in the beginning; the Word who was God; and the Word who is God! This is the only one who can assure us: “No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me!”A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 3MAN HAS LOST GODThou takest away their breath, they die, and return to dust. (Psalm 104:29)\tThe average person in the world today, without faith and without God and without hope, is engaged in a desperate personal search and struggle throughout his lifetime. He does not really know what he is doing here. He does not know where he is going.\tThe sad commentary is that everything he is doing is being done on borrowed time, borrowed money and borrowed strength—and he already knows that in the end he will surely die! It boils down to the bewildered confession of many humans that they have lost God somewhere along the way.\tMan, made more like God than any other creature, has become less like God than any other creature. Created to reflect the glory of God, he has retreated sullenly into his cave—reflecting only his own sinfulness.\tCertainly it is a tragedy above all tragedies in this world that love has gone from man’s heart. Beyond that, light has gone from his mind. Having lost God, he blindly stumbled on through this dark world to find only a grave at the end!A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 4SAVIOR AND LORDFor by grace are ye saved through faith it is the gift of God. (Ephesians 2:8)\tGod chose His only begotten Son as the channel for His grace and truth, for John witnesses that “grace and truth came by Jesus Christ!”\tThe Law was given by Moses—but that was all that Moses could do. He could only “command” righteousness. In contrast, only Jesus Christ produces righteousness.\tAll that Moses could do was to forbid us to sin. In contrast, Jesus Christ came to save us from sin.\tMoses could not save anyone—but Jesus Christ is both Savior and Lord.\tGrace came through Jesus Christ before Mary wept in the manger stall in Bethlehem. It was the grace of God in Christ that saved the human race from extinction when our first parents sinned in the Garden.\tIt is plain in history that God forgave Israel time and time again. It was the grace of God in Christ prior to the Incarnation that made God say: “I have risen early in the morning and stretched out my hands to you!”A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 5OUR CHARTER IS FROM GODUpon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)\tWhile we are right to thank God in appreciation for all of the great and good men in the history of the Christian church, we actually “follow” none of them. Our charter goes farther back and is from a higher source. They were rightly looked upon as leaders, but they were all servants of God, even as you and I are.\tLuther sowed. Wesley watered. Finney reaped—but they were only servants of the living God.\tIn our local assemblies, we are part of the church founded by the Lord Jesus Christ and perpetuated by the mystery of the new birth. Therefore, our assembly is that of Christian believers gathered unto a Name to worship and adore the Presence. So, in that sense, the strain is gone. The strain and pressure to abide by traditional religious forms all begin to pale in importance as we function in faith as the people of God who glorify His Name and honor His Presence!\tIf all of this is true—and everything within me witnesses that it is—we may insist that God is able to do for us all that He did in the days of the apostles. There has been no revocation of our charter!A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 6YES, GOD LOVES USWe love him, because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)\tIf we are to have any satisfying and lasting understanding of life, it must be divinely given. It begins with the confession that it is indeed the God who has revealed Himself to us who is the central pillar bearing up the universe. Believing that, we then go on to acknowledge that we have discovered His great eternal purpose for men and women made in His own image.\tI heard a brilliant Canadian author being interviewed on the radio concerning world conditions, and he said: “I confess that our biggest mistake is the fond belief that we humans are special pets of Almighty God and that God has a special fondness for us as people.”\tWe have a good answer: man as he was originally created is God’s beloved. Man in that sense is the beloved of the universe. God said, “I have made man in My image and man is to be above all other creatures. Redeemed man is to be even above the angels in the heavens. He is to enter into My presence pardoned and unashamed, to worship me and to look on My face while the ages roll on!” No wonder we believe that God is the only certain foundation!A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 7RICHES OF GRACEGod hath in these last days spoken by his Son by whom also he made the worlds. (Hebrews 1:2)\tWould it startle you if I dared to say that the living God has never done anything in His universe apart from Jesus Christ?\tChristians seem to be woefully unaware of the full meaning and measure of the grace of God. Why should we question God’s provision when the Holy Spirit tells us through the Apostle John that the Word who became flesh is “full of grace and truth”? Brethren, the stars in their courses, the frogs that croak beside the lake, the angels in heaven above and men and women on earth below—all came out of the channel we call the eternal Word!\tIn the book of Revelation, John bears record of the whole universe joining to give praise to the Lamb that was slain. Under the earth and on the earth, and above the earth John heard creatures praising Jesus Christ, all joining in a great chorus: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory and blessing!”\tYes, surely the entire universe is beneficiary of God’s rich grace in Jesus Christ!A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 8BENEFITS OF GRACEBut now in Christ Jesus ye are made nigh by the blood of Christ. (Ephesians 2:12)\tOnly a believing Christian can testify, “I am a sinner—saved by the grace of God!” But that is not the whole story. All that we have is cut of His grace. Jesus Christ, the eternal Word who became flesh and dwelt among us, is the open channel through whom God moves to provide all the benefits He gives, both to saints and to sinners—yes, even to sinners!\tEven though you may still be unconverted and going your own way, you have received much out of the ocean of His fullness. You have received the pulsing life that beats in your bosom.\tYou have received the brilliant mind and the brain without which you could not function. You have received a memory that strings the events you cherish as a jeweler strings pearls into a necklace.\tWhen we say to an unbelieving man, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” we are actually saying to him: “Believe on the One who sustains you and upholds you and who has given you life. Believe in the One who pities you and spares you and keeps you. Believe on the One out of whom you came!”A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 9GOD’S GRACIOUS ACTThe Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.(John 1:14)\tWe do well to remember that mankind is only one order of God’s beings or creatures. So we wonder: How could the Infinite ever become finite? And: How could the Limitless One deliberately impose limitations upon Himself?\tIn the book of Hebrews we learn to our amazement that God took not upon Him the nature of angels, but He took upon Him the seed of Abraham.\tWe would suppose that God in stepping down would step down just as little as possible. But instead He came down to the lowest order and took upon Himself the nature of Abraham—the seed of Abraham.\tI like what John Wesley said concerning this mysterious act of God in stooping down to tabernacle with us: we should be sure to distinguish the act from the method by which the act is performed. Do not reject a fact because we do not know how it was done, Wesley advised.\tWith the saints of all ages, we do well just to throw up our hands and confess: “Oh Lord, Thou knowest!”A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 10GRACE CAN BE COSTLYFor it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace ... grace be with you all. Amen.(Hebrews 13:9, 25)\tChristians all around us are trying every shortcut they can think of, to get “something for nothing” in the kingdom of God. Talk to them and they will predictably flare up: “Isn’t grace something for nothing?”\tThat depends upon what kind of grace we are talking about.\tPastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave his life as a martyr in Hitler’s Germany, but he left a book now known around the world: The Cost of Discipleship. He pointed out a sharp distinction between “cheap grace” and “costly grace.” Although God’s grace has been given freely to humans who do not deserve it, Bonhoeffer believed it rightly could be called “costly grace” because it cost our Lord Jesus Christ even the suffering of death.\tSome men and women have actually turned God’s grace into lasciviousness. They do not know what the word grace means—that God gives us out of His rich and full goodness although we are unworthy of it. When I preach about the grace of God and point out that Jesus commanded us to take up our cross and follow Him, those who do not know the meaning of grace respond: “Oh, Tozer is now preaching legalism.”A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 11UNITED WITH CHRISTWe are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ.(1 John 5:20)\tThe Spirit of God has impelled me to preach and write much about the believer’s conscious union with Christ—a union that must be felt and experienced. I will never be through talking about the union of the soul with the Savior, the conscious union of the believer’s heart with Jesus.\tRemember, I am not talking about a “theological union” only. I am speaking also of a conscious union, a union that is felt and experienced.\tI have never been ashamed to tell my congregations that I believe in feelings. I surely believe in what Jonathan Edwards termed “religious affections.” That is man’s perspective.\tI am aware also that from God’s perspective there are qualities in the Divine Being that can only be known by the heart; never by the intellect!\tLong ago John wrote: “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16). So it is best for us to confess that as humans we have difficulty in understanding what God has said when He says that He loves us!A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 12DEALING WITH SINFor the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life. (Romans 6:23)\tMany evangelical teachers insist so strongly upon free, unconditional grace as to create the impression that sin is not a serious matter and that God cares very little about it!\tThey make it seem that God is only concerned with our escaping the consequences.\tThe gospel, then, in practical application, means little more than a way to escape the fruits of our past!\tBut the heart that has felt the weight of its own sin and has seen the dread whiteness of the Most High God will never believe that a message of forgiveness without transformation is a message of good news. To remit a man’s past without transforming his present is to violate the moral sincerity of his own heart.\tTo that kind of thing God will be no party! For to offer a sinner the gift of salvation based upon the work of Christ, while at the same time allowing him to retain the idea that the gift carries with it no moral implications, is to do him untold injury where it hurts him most!A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 13LOVE WITHOUT MEASUREYea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love.(Jeremiah 31:3)\tI once wrote something about how God loves us and how dear we are to Him. I was not sure I should put it down on paper—but God knows what I meant.\tI wrote: “The only eccentricity that I can discover in the heart of God is the fact that a God such as He is should love sinners such as we are!”\tOn this earth a mother will love the son who has betrayed her and shamed her and is now on his way to a life in prison. That seems to be a natural thing for a mother. But there is nothing natural about this love of God. It is a divine thing. It is forced out by the inward pressure within the heart of the God of all grace. That is why He waits for us, puts up with us, desires to lead us on—He loves us!\tMy brethren, this should be our greatest encouragement in view of all that we know about ourselves: God loves us without measure, and He is so keenly interested in our spiritual growth and progress that He stands by in faithfulness to teach and instruct and discipline us as His own dear children!A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 14THE WONDER OF REDEMPTIONFor in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. (Colossians 2:9)\tMy brethren in the Christian faith, stand with me in defense of this basic doctrine: The living God did not degrade Himself in the Incarnation. When the Word was made flesh, there was no compromise on God’s part!\tIt is plain in the ancient Athanasian Creed that the early church fathers were cautious at this point of doctrine. They would not allow us to believe that God, in the Incarnation, became flesh by a coming down of the Deity into flesh, but rather by the taking of mankind into God. That is the wonder of redemption!\tIn the past, the mythical gods of the nations were not strangers to compromise. But the holy God who is God, our heavenly Father, could never compromise Himself!\tHe remained ever God and everything else remained not God. That gulf still existed even after Jesus Christ had become man and dwelt among us. This much, then, we can know about the acts of God—He will never back out of His bargain. This amazing union of man with God is effected unto perpetuity!A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 15OUR LIFE IS IN CHRISTThanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ. (2 Corinthians 2:14)\tCertainly not all of the mystery of the Godhead can be known by man—but just as certainly, all that men can know of God in this life is revealed in Jesus Christ!\tWhen the Apostle Paul said with yearning, “That I may know Him,” he was not speaking of intellectual knowledge. Paul was speaking of the reality of an experience of knowing God personally and consciously, spirit touching spirit and heart touching heart.\tWe know that people spend a lot of time talking about a deeper Christian life—but few seem to want to know and love God for Himself.\tThe precious fact is that God is the deeper life! Jesus Christ Himself is the deeper life, and as I plunge on into the knowledge of the triune God, my heart moves on into the blessedness of His fellowship. This means that there is less of me and more of God—thus my spiritual life deepens and I am strengthened in the knowledge of His will!A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 16GOD SETS NO LIMITLet no man deceive you with vain words. \t(Ephesians 5:6)\tDo you know that there are Bible “interpreters” now who believe they can set up rules as to how much we can have of God? However, the Lord Himself has promised that as far as He is concerned, He is willing to keep the candles of my soul brightly burning!\tSo, my heart tells me to ignore the modern scribes whose interpretations, I fear, are forcing the Spirit, the blessed Dove, to fold His wings and be silent. I turn rather to one of Dr. A.B. Simpson’s hymns rarely sung now, probably because very few believers have this experience of which he wrote:I take the hand of love divine,I count each precious promise mineWith this eternal countersign—I take—He undertakes!I take Thee, blessed Lord,I give myself to Thee;And Thou, according to Thy WordDost undertake for me!A.W.Tozer

More than a bit backed up here...JANUARY 17EXPLORE GOD’S WORDThy word have I hid in mine heart. (Psalm 119:11)\tWhat a strange paradox! The atheistic free-thinker rants and raves about the Bible being a “dangerous” book at the very same time that the Word of God is speaking life to my soul!\tStrange indeed that some humans have the idea that the Word of God can only be approached with shivering fears. But that is true only of those who love their sin and hate their Savior.\tThe blessed truth is that if I hate my sin and love my Savior, the Word of God is a wonderful revelation, indeed, and a trustworthy guide.\tWe need to be aware always that if we do not keep the Word of God on our side, we will be miserable in our souls continually. It is up to us. What do we sincerely will to do with God and His revealed Word?\tYears ago, the saintly George Mueller said he had read the Bible hundreds of times, and then he added: “with meditation!”\tLet us see to it that we read the Word. More than that, we should actually explore it!A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 18FAITH AND OBEDIENCEFor whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Romans 10:13)\tWhat is our answer to the many confused persons who keep asking: “How can we know that we have come into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ?”\tFirst, we stand together on the basic truth that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. A second fact is that men and women are saved by faith in Christ, alone; without works and without our merit.\tHowever, the fact that Christ came to save sinners is not enough—that fact in itself cannot save us. Now, in our day, the issues of believing faith and the gift of eternal life are clouded and confused by an “easy acceptance” that has been fatal to millions who may have stopped short in matters of faith and obedience.\tFaith is believing and receiving, as in Acts 16:31: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved;” and as in John 1:12: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe in his name.”A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 19SALVATION’S PRICEBut without faith it is impossible to please him.(Hebrews 11:6)\tToo many Christian leaders, acting like enthusiastic promoters, are teaching that the essence of faith is this: “Come to Jesus—it will cost you nothing!”\tThe price has all been paid—”it will cost you nothing!” \tBrethren, that is a dangerous half-truth. There is always a price connected with salvation and with discipleship.\tGod’s grace is free, no doubt about that. No one in the wide world can make any human payment towards the plan of salvation or the forgiveness of sins.\tI take issue on Bible grounds with the statement that “everyone in the world has faith—all you have to do is turn your faith loose.”\tThat is truly a misconception of what the Bible teaches about men and God and faith. Actually, faith is a rare and wonderful plant that lives and grows only in the penitent soul.\tThe teaching that every one has faith is simply a form of humanism in the guise of Christianity. I warn you that any faith that belongs to everybody is not the faith that saves. It is not that faith which is a gift of God to the broken and contrite heart!A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 20GOD’S FAITHFUL VOICEAnd take heed to yourselves and cares of this life.(Luke 21:34)\tIn a day when judgments are soon to come upon the earth, we are often warned by doctors that we eat too much—and that we worry too much. More of us suffer from mental illness than suffer from major physical illnesses.\tIn our self-centered lives, even those who are professing believers are prone to think they will hear the trumpets of woe in time to do something about all this. But at that time, it will be too late!\tThe voice of God is a quiet voice. The voice of God’s love and grace is constant—never strident, never compulsive. God has sent His messengers to every generation. He has spoken urgently and faithfully through His prophets; through the concerns of preachers and evangelists; even through the sweet voices of the gospel singers. Further, God has spoken through witnessing men and women: plain, sincere, loving men and women transformed by a spiritual birth which is from above.\tThis is the voice of God we hear in this day of grace—the voice of the Savior calling wandering sinners home.A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 21THE TRUE SON OF MANOne like unto the Son of man . . . out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword. (Revelation 1:13, 16)\tThe Christian message has ceased to be a pronouncement and has become instead a proposition. Scarcely anyone catches the imperious note in the words spoken by Jesus Christ.\tThe invitational element of the Christian message has been pressed far out of proportion in the total scriptural scene. Christ with His lantern, His apologetic stance and weak pleading face has taken the place of the true Son of Man whom John saw — His eyes as a flame of fire, His feet like burnished brass and His voice as the sound of many waters.\tOnly 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.\tThese are strenuous times and men and women are being recruited to devote themselves to one or another master. But anything short of complete devotion to Christ is inadequate and must end in futility and loss.A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 22GUIDANCE IS BY THE SPIRITBringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)\tWe can always trust the moving and the leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives and experiences, but we cannot always trust our human leanings and our fleshly and carnal desires. That calls for another word of balance. We know that the emotional life is a proper and noble part of our total personality. But by its very nature, it is of secondary importance, for religion lies in the will, and so does righteousness.\tGod never intended that such a being as mankind should become the mere plaything of his or her feelings. The only good that God recognizes is the willed good. The only valid holiness is a willed holiness. That is why I am always a little suspicious of the overly bubbly Christian who talks too much about himself or herself—and not enough about Jesus. That is also why I am more than a little concerned about the professing Christian whose experience does not seem to have resulted in a true inner longing to be more like Jesus every day in thought, word and deed!A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 23MAJESTY—AND MEEKNESSI will speak of the glorious honour of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works. (Psalm 145:5)\tWhen the prophets try to describe for me the attributes, the graces, the worthiness of the God who appeared to them and dealt with them, I feel that I can kneel down and follow their admonition: “He is thy Lord—worship thou Him!”\tThey described Him as radiantly beautiful and fair. They said that He was royal and that He was gracious. They described Him as a mysterious being, and yet they noted His meekness.\tThe meekness was His humanity. The majesty was His deity. You find them everlastingly united in Him. So meek that He nursed at His mother’s breast, cried like any baby and needed all the human care that every child needs.\tBut He was also God, and in His majesty He stood before Herod and before Pilate. When He returns, coming down from the sky, it will be in His majesty, the majesty of God; yet it will be in the majesty of the Man who is God!\tThis is our Lord Jesus Christ. Before His foes He stands in majesty. Before His friends, He stands in meekness!A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 24BRINGING US TO GLORYFor it became him bringing many sons unto glory. (Hebrews 2:10)\tAs Christian believers (I am assuming you are a believer), you and I know how we have been changed and regenerated and assured of eternal life by faith in Jesus Christ and His atoning death. On the other hand, where this good news of salvation by faith is not known, religion becomes an actual bondage. If Christianity is known only as a religious institution, it may well become merely a legalistic system of religion, and the hope of eternal life becomes a delusion.\tI have said this much about reality and assurance to counter the shock you may feel when I add that God wants to fully prepare you in your daily Christian life so that you will be ready indeed for heaven! Many of us have been in God’s household for a long time. Remember that God has been trying to do something special within our beings day after day, year after year.\tWhy? Because His purpose is to bring many sons—and daughters, too—unto glory!A.W.Tozer

JANUARY 25SPIRITUAL READINESSThe end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. (1 Peter 4:7)\tWhen the Bible says that God is calling a special people out of the nations to bear the name of His eternal Son, I believe it-—and His name is Jesus!\tOur pious forefathers believed in spiritual preparation, and they said so. They saw themselves as a bride being prepared to meet the Bridegroom. They regarded this earth as the dressing room to outfit themselves for heaven.\tThe evangelical church has come through a period when nearly everyone has believed that there is just one prerequisite to readiness: being born again. We have made being born again almost like receiving a pass to a special event-—when Jesus returns we whip out the pass to prove our readiness.\tFrankly, I do not think it will be like that. I do not believe that all professed believers are automatically ready to meet the Lord. Our Savior Himself was joined by Peter and John and Paul in warning and pleading that we should live and watch and pray, so to be ready for Jesus’ coming.A.W. Tozer

JANUARY 26Journey of the HeartAnd they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. (Acts 16:31)\tI object to the charge that “Tozer preaches experience.” I preach Christ, the Savior—that is my calling! But I am positive about the validity, the reality and the value of genuine Christian experience. We can talk to Jesus just as we talk to our other friends.\tAs a boy, I was not a Christian. I did not have the privilege of growing up in a home where Christ was known and loved. God spoke to me through a street preacher who quoted the words of Jesus, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”\tThat invitation let me know that Jesus is still calling “Come now!” I went home and up into the attic. There in earnest prayer I gave my heart and life to Jesus Christ. My feet had taken me home and into the attic. But it was my heart that went to Jesus! Within my heart I consented to go to Jesus. I have been a Christian ever since that moment.A.W. Tozer

JANUARY 27WE GET AROUND ITIf I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. (John 13:14)\tThe lordship of Jesus is not quite forgotten among Christians, but it has been relegated to our hymn book, where all responsibility toward it may be comfortably discharged in a glow of pleasant religious emotion. \t The idea that the Man Christ Jesus has absolute and final authority over all its members in every detail of their lives is simply not accepted as true by the rank and file of evangelical Christians. \tTo avoid the necessity of either obeying or rejecting the plain instruction of our Lord in the New Testament, we take refuge in a liberal interpretation of them. We find ways to avoid the sharp point of obedience, comfort carnality and make the words of Christ of none effect. And the essence of it all is that “Christ simply could not have meant what He said.” Dare we admit that His teachings are accepted even theoretically only after they have been weakened by “interpretation”? Dare we confess that even in our public worship, the influence of the Lord is very small? We sing of Him and preach about Him, but He must not interfere!A.W. Tozer

JANUARY 28MINISTRY OF THE CHURCHThe house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. (1 Timothy 3:15)\tNot all of the pooled efforts of any church can make a Christian out of a lost man!\tThe Christian life begins with the individual; a soul has a saving encounter with God and the new life is born.\tAll else being equal, every individual. Christian will find in the communion of a local church the most perfect atmosphere for the fullest development of his spiritual life. There he will also find the best arena for the largest exercise of those gifts and powers with which God may have endowed him.\tUnfortunately, the word “church” has taken on meanings which it did not originally have. The meaning of the word for the true Christian was fixed by our Lord and His apostles, and no man and no angel has authority to change it!\tThe universal Church is the Body of Christ, the Bride of the Lamb, the habitation of God through the Spirit, the pillar and the ground of the Truth.\tWithout doubt, the most important body on earth is the Church of God which He purchased with His own blood!A.W. Tozer

JANUARY 29A BELIEVING REMNANTEven so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. (Romans 11:5)\tWhat is God trying to do with His believing people?—the Bible calls us a remnant according to grace, believers taken out of the great, teeming swarm of so-called religious people in today’s world.\tI am inclined to join others in wondering if the Lord is postponing His coming because He is trying to get His Bride ready?\tFor years it has been the popular idea in evangelical Christianity that the whole body of believers in Christ would rise like a flock of frightened birds when the Lord comes. But A.B. Simpson and William MacArthur and others in the past generation said, “Oh no! The Lord will take with Him those who are prepared and ready for His coming!”\tI do not presume to give an answer satisfying to every one in our churches. But I know that many Christians are too smug about this, saying in effect: “I am converted to Christ through grace, so I can live as I please!”\tOf some things we cannot be dogmatic; but we know this for sure—God has no halfway house between heaven and hell where He takes us to fumigate us!A.W. Tozer

JANUARY 30CHRIST WILL RULE I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians 5:23) \tI am not surprised that I still meet people who do not believe that Jesus Christ is going to return to earth. In fact, some of them, armed with their own Bibles and interpretations, are insistent on setting me “straight.”\tOne gentleman has written saying that I have it all wrong, and that Paul did not mean what I had said he meant, as I applied Paul’s statement to everyday life.\tI took time to write a reply: “When it comes to saying what he meant, Paul’s batting average has been pretty good up to now. So, I will string along with what Paul plainly, clearly said.”\tI did not figure I needed someone to straighten me out—particularly someone who had decided the Bible does not mean what it says.\tNo one is going to argue me out of my faith in what God has revealed and what God has said. As far as I am concerned, it is a fact that Jesus is coming again! The question I do raise is this: Are we prepared spiritually for His coming? Are we tolerating conditions in our midst that will cause us embarrassment when He does come?A.W. Tozer

JANUARY 31A PRAYER OF CONCERN\tGracious Father in heaven, I am a pastor in the flock of God and I confess that I am a troubled man. It is too late in my ministry for me to be engaged week after week with men and women who do not hear Thy pleading voice.\tO Lord, we often wonder if Thou wilt be forced to turn from those who have heard all of the Bible truths over and over again, in order to find willing and responsive listeners elsewhere? We recognize that Thou hast given us plain warnings in Thy Word. We remember all too well that the Jews of Jesus’ day held stubbornly to their attitudes of presumption: “We are Abraham’s descendants. We know who we are. If God is going to bless anyone, He is going to bless us.” Yet at that very time those same self-serving men were planning to kill their promised Messiah, the eternal Son whom Thou hadst sent in the fullness of time.\tWe pray earnestly, O God, that we may not be found among those with hardened hearts, no longer able to hear Thy voice.A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 1OUR GOD: ALL SUFFICIENT\tIn the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:10)\tHave we modern men and women never given thought or meditation concerning the eternal nature of God? Who are we to imagine that we are “bailing out” the living God when we drop a $10 bill in the Sunday offering plate?\tLet us thank God for the reality of His causeless existence. Our God only is all sufficient, uncreated, unborn, the living and eternal and self-existent God!\tI refer often to the great worshiping heart of Frederick William Faber, who in these words celebrated his vision of God’s eternal self-existence:Father! the sweetest, dearest Name,That men or angels know!Fountain of life, that had no fountFrom which itself could flow.Thy vastness is not young or old,Thy life hath never grown;No time can measure out Thy days,No space can make Thy throne!A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 2SHARING GOD’S NATUREPrecious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature. (2 Peter 1:4)\tOur heavenly Father disciplines us for our own good, “that we may share in His holiness.” God’s motives are always loving!\tI have known people who seemed to be terrified by God’s loving desire that we should reflect His own holiness and goodness. As God’s faithful children, we should be attracted to holiness, for holiness is God-likeness—likeness to God!\tGod encourages every Christian believer to follow after holiness. We know who we are and we know who God is. He does not ask us to be God and He does not ask us to produce the holiness that only He Himself knows. Only God is holy absolutely: all other beings can be holy only in relative degrees.\tActually, it is amazing and wonderful that God should promise us the privilege of sharing in His nature. He remembers we were made of dust. So He tells us what is in His being as He thinks of us: “It is My desire that you grow in grace and in the knowledge of Me. I want you to be more like Jesus, My eternal Son, every day you live!”A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 3GOD REVEALS HIMSELF\tI saw also the Lord then said I, woe is me! for I am undone. (Isaiah 6:1, 5)\tI often wonder how so many people can live with a continuing hope that they will in some way be able to commune with God through their intellectual capacities. When will they realize that if they could possibly “discover” God they realize that with the intellect, they would be equal to God?\tIsaiah is a dramatic example of God’s revelation of Himself to mankind. Isaiah could have tried for a million years to reach God by means of his intellect. But brainpower is not the means by which we find God!\tBrethren, it is true that all of us would still be far from God if He had not graciously and in love revealed Himself to us. In the space of a short second of time, the Lord who loves us can reveal Himself to the willing spirit of a man or woman. It is only then that an Isaiah, or any one of us, can say with humble assurance, “I know Him!”\tA committed Christian, then, should have upon him an element that is beyond psychology—beyond all natural laws and into spiritual laws!A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 4JESUS SAID HE WAS GODBut unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever. (Hebrews 1:8)\tThe more we study the words of our Lord Jesus Christ when He lived on earth among us, the more certain we are about who He is.\tSome critics have scoffed: “Jesus did not claim to be God. He only said He was the Son of Man.”\tIt is true that Jesus used the term, “Son of Man” frequently. But He testified boldly, even among those who were His sworn enemies, that He was God. He said with great forcefulness that He had come from the Father in heaven and that He was equal with the Father.\tBible-believing Christians stand together on this. They may differ about the mode of baptism, church polity or the return of the Lord. But they agree on the deity of the eternal Son. Jesus Christ is of one substance with the Father—begotten, not created (Nicene Creed). In our defense of this truth we must be very careful and old—belligerent, if need be! \tChrist is the brightness of God’s glory, and the express image of God’s Person!A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 5BOTH LORD AND CHRISTGod hath made this same Jesus both Lord and Christ. (Acts 2:36)\tNo Christian believer should ever forget what the Bible says about the Person and the offices of the eternal Son, the Christ of God. \t“God hath made this same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). Jesus means Savior; Lord means Sovereign; Christ means Anointed One.\tThe Apostle Peter did not proclaim Jesus only as Savior—he preached to them Jesus as Lord and Christ and Savior, never dividing His Person or His offices. \tRemember, also, the declaration of Paul: “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, thou shalt be saved.”\tThree times in the passage to the Roman Christians telling how to be saved, Paul calls Jesus “Lord.” He says that faith in the Lord Jesus plus confession of that faith to the world brings salvation to us!A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 6TRUTH IS A PERSONThen said Jesus And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:31–32)\tLet me say boldly that it is not the difficulty of discovering truth, but the unwillingness to obey it, that makes it so rare among men.\tOur Lord said, “I am the Truth.” And again He said, “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Truth, therefore, is not hard to find for the very reason that it is seeking us!\tSo we learn that Truth is not a thing for which we must search, but a Person to whom we must hearken! In the New Testament, multitudes came to Jesus for physical help, but only rarely did one seek Him out to learn the Truth. The whole picture in the gospels is one of a seeking Savior, not one of seeking men.\tThe Truth was hunting for those who would receive it, and relatively few did, for “many are called, but few are chosen.”A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 7CHRIST IS NOT DIVIDEDJesus answered, If a man love me, he will keep my words. (John 14:23)Much of our full gospel literature and much of our preaching tend to perpetuate a misunderstanding of what the Bible says about obedience and Christian discipleship.\tI think the following is a fair statement of what I was taught in my early Christian experience and before I began to pray and study and anguish over the whole matter:\t“We are saved by accepting Christ as our Savior.”\t “We are sanctified by accepting Christ as our Lord.”\t “We may do the first without doing the second.”\tWhat a tragedy that in our day we often hear the gospel appeal made in this way:\t“Come to Jesus! You do not have to obey anyone. You do not have to give up anything. Just come to Him and believe in Him as Savior!”\tThe fact that we hear this everywhere does not make it right! To urge men and women to believe in a divided Christ is bad teaching—for no one can receive a half or a third or a quarter of the divine Person of Christ!A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 8WHO HEARS THE CALL OF GOD?Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. (John 6:68)\tWho can deny that there are certain persons who, though still unconverted, nevertheless differ from the crowd, marked out of God, stricken with an interior wound and susceptible to the call of God?\tIn the prayer of Jesus in John 17:11b, He said: “Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me.” Surely no man is ever the same after God has laid His hand upon him. He will have certain marks, perhaps some not easy to detect.\tFirst might be a deep reverence for divine things. A sense of the sacred must be present or there can be no receptivity to God and truth.\tAnother mark is great moral sensitivity. When God begins to work in a man to bring him to salvation He makes him acutely sensitive to evil.\tAnother mark of the Spirit’s working is a mighty moral discontent. It does take a work of God in a man to sour him on the world and to turn him against himself; yet until this has happened he is psychologically unable to repent and believe!A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 9WHO WILL COME TO JESUS?Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. (Revelation 22:17)\tGod’s invitation to men is broad but not unqualified. The words “whosoever will may come” throw the door open, indeed, but the church is carrying the gospel invitation far beyond its proper bounds, turning it into something more human and less divine than that found in the sacred Scriptures.\tWhat we tend to overlook is that the word “whosoever” never stands by itself. Always its meaning is modified by the word “believe” or “will” or “come.”\tAccording to the teachings of Christ no one will or can come and believe unless there has been done within him a prevenient work of God enabling him to do so.\tIn the sixth chapter of John, Jesus teaches as that no one can come of himself; he must first be drawn by the Father. “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing,” Jesus said.\tBefore any man or woman can be saved, he or she must feel a consuming spiritual hunger. Where a hungry heart is found, we may be sure that God was there first—”Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you” (John 15:16).A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 10CHRIST CAME TO SAVEFor God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world. (John 3:17)\tMillions who have rejected the Christian gospel have generally been too busy and too involved to ask themselves a simple question: “What really is God’s intention toward me?”\tThey could have found the plain and simple answer given by the Apostle John: “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world: but that the world through him might be saved.”\tThis is a gravely significant message from the heart of God Himself! Yet, even in the full light it provides, people are indifferent. Upon our eyes there seems to have fallen a strange dimness; within our ears, a strange dullness. It is a wonder, and a terrible responsibility, that we should have this message in our possession and be so little stirred about it!\tI confess that it is very hard for me to accept the fact that it is now very rare for anyone to come into the house of God, silently confessing: “Dear Lord, I am ready and willing to hear what you will speak to me today!”A.W.Tozer

FEBRUARY 11WE ARE NOT ORPHANSThe steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. (Psalm 37:23)\tI once wrote in an editorial that Christian believers are not orphans in this world, making the point that the divine Shepherd goes before us and that we travel an appointed way.\tA reader wrote to question my allusion to our traveling an “appointed” way, asking: “I was brought up a Methodist. In your comments, do you mean this to be foreordination? That is what the Presbyterians believe. Just what did you mean?”\tI replied that I had not meant to go down that deep into doctrine—that I had not been thinking of foreordination, predestination or the eternal decrees.\t“I was just satisfied that if a consecrated Christian will put himself in the hands of God, even the accidents may be turned into blessings,” I told him.\tAnyway, I am sure the Methodist brother can go to sleep at night knowing that he does not have to become a Presbyterian to be certain that God is looking after him!A.W. Tozer

"I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. (Joh 14:16-18 NASB)

FEBRUARY 12THINK LIKE GOD THINKSSearch me ,O God and try me, and know my thoughts. (Psalm 139:23)\tIf God knows that your intention is to worship Him with every part of your being, He has promised to cooperate with you. On His side is the love and grace, the promises and the atonement, the constant help and the presence of the Holy Spirit.\tOn your side there is determination, seeking, yielding, believing. Your heart becomes a chamber, a sanctuary, a shrine in which there may be continuous, unbroken fellowship and communion with God. Your worship rises to God moment by moment!\tWe have all found that God will not dwell in spiteful and proud and selfish thoughts. He treasures our pure and loving thoughts, our meek and charitable and kindly thoughts. They are the thoughts like His own!\tAs God dwells in your thoughts, you will be worshiping—and God will be accepting. He will be smelling the incense of your high intentions even when the cares of life are intense and there is activity all around you.\tThis leaves us no argument. We know what God wants us to be. He wants us to be worshipers!A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 13OUR HIGHEST HAPPINESSIf ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. (John 13:17)\tLet me call it to your attention that the happiness of all moral creatures lies in the giving of obedience to God, the Creator.\tThe psalmist cries out in Psalm 103:20: “Bless the Lord, ye his angels; that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.”\tThe angels in heaven find their complete freedom and highest happiness in obeying the commandments of God. They do not find it a tyranny—they find it a delight!\tHere is something that we should know and realize: heaven is a place of surrender to the whole will of God and it is heaven because it is such a place.\tI thank God that heaven is the world of God’s obedient children. Whatever else we may say of its pearly gates, golden streets and jasper walls, heaven is heaven because children of the Most High God find they are in their normal sphere as obedient moral beings.A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 14ACTIVITY IS NOT ENOUGHAnd he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart and rest awhile. (Mark 6:31)\tThose who try to give warnings to the Christian church are never very popular. Still, I must voice the caution that our craze for “activity” brings very few enriching benefits into our Christian circles. Look into the churches, and you will find groups of half-saved, half-sanctified, carnal people who know more about social niceties than they do about the New Testament.\tIt is a fact that many of our church folks are activists—engaged in many religious journeys—but they do not seem to move up any closer to Jesus in heart and in spirit.\tThis modern religious emphasis on activity reminds me of the Japanese mice I have seen in the pet store windows. They are called waltzing mice—but they do not waltz. They just run continually!\tMany in our churches hope to have a part in “something big and exciting.” But God calls us back—back to the simplicity of the faith; back to the simplicity of Jesus Christ and His unchanging Person!A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 15PLAYING AT RELIGIONWhatsoever is born of God overcometh the world. (1 John 5:4)\tWhen our faith becomes obedience to our Savior, then it is true faith, indeed! The difficulty we modern Christians face is not misunderstanding the Bible, but persuading our untamed hearts to accept its plain instruction. Our problem is to get the consent of our world-loving minds to make Jesus Lord in fact, as well as in word. For it is one thing to say, “Lord, Lord,” and quite another to obey the Lord’s commandments.\tWe may sing “Crown Him Lord of all,” and rejoice in the tones of the loud organ and the deep melody in harmonious voices, but still have done nothing until we have left the world and set our faces toward the City of God in hard practical reality.\tThe world’s spirit is strong and it can play at religion with every appearance of sincerity. It can have fits of conscience (particularly during Lent)! It will contribute to charitable causes and campaigns on behalf of the poor, but all with its own condition: “Let Christ keep His distance and never assert His Lordship.” This it positively will not endure!A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 16WE SEE GOD’S PURPOSEThat he might gather together in one, all things in Christ in heaven and on earth. (Ephesians 1:10)\tWe trust the Word of God—and the inspired revelation makes it plain to the believing Christian that all things in the universe have derived their form from Christ, the eternal Son!\tWe are assured that even as an architect-builder gathers the necessary materials needed to fashion the structure he has designed, so God will ultimately gather all things together under one head, even Christ (Ephesians 1:9–10).\tEverything in the universe has received its meaning by the power of His word; each has maintained its place and order through Him.\tJesus Christ is God creating!\tJesus Christ is God redeeming!\tJesus Christ is God completing and harmonizing!\tJesus Christ is God bringing together all things after the counsel of His own will!\tI can only hope that as we grow and mature and delight in our faith we are beginning to gain a new appreciation of God’s great eternal purpose!A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 17MAN’S WASTED POTENTIALDepart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. (Matthew 25:41)\tGod has made it plain that hell is a real place—a final abode for people who do not want to love God and serve Him!\tThe sadness and the tragedy of this fact is that these are human beings, all dear to God because He created them in His own image. Of nothing else in the Creation is it said that it was created in the likeness of God! \tBecause fallen and perishing man is still nearer to God’s likeness than any other creature on earth, God offers him conversion, regeneration and forgiveness. It was surely because of this great potential in the human personality that the eternal Word could become flesh and dwell among us.\tWe are assured in many ways in the Scriptures that God the Creator does not waste human personality but it is surely one of the stark tragedies of life that human personality can waste itself!\tA man by his own sin may waste himself, which is to waste and lose that which on earth is most like God. The man who dies out of Christ is said to be lost, and hardly a word in our language expresses his condition with greater accuracy!A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 18WE WERE OUTCASTS, TOOAs the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. (John 15:9)\tWe confess, do we not, that we have a Christian responsibility to believe God’s Word and to obey God’s Truth?\tThen we should accept the fact that it is our task to practice the Christian virtues in the power of the Holy Spirit as we await the coming of Him who will come.\tThe great spiritual needs around us should drive us back to the gospel records of the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus. When evil men crucified Jesus, killed Him, they had no power to change Him. They could not alter the Person or the personality of the Son of God. Putting Him on the cross did not drain away any of His divine affection for a lost race.\tThe best thing we know about our Lord and Savior is that He loves the sinner. He has always loved the outcast—and for that we should be glad, for we, too, were once outcasts! We are descended from that first man and woman who failed God and disobeyed. They were cast out of the garden, and God set in place a flaming sword to keep them from returning!A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 19GOD’S HIGHEST WILLThen said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. (Hebrews 10:9)\tLet us consider three simple things reinforced in the Word of God for those who would discern God’s highest will.\tFirst, be willing to put away known sin!\tSecond, separate yourself from all of the attractions of the world, the flesh and the devil!\tFinally, offer yourself to your God and Savior in believing faith!\tGod has never yet turned away an honest, sincere person who has come to know the eternal value of the atonement and the peace that is promised through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.\tThe only person who will never be cleansed and made whole is the one who insists he or she needs no remedy. The person who comes in faith to God and confesses, “I am unclean; I am sin-sick; I am blind,” will find mercy and righteousness and life.\tOur Lord Jesus Christ is the Savior, the Cleanser. He is the Purifier, the Healer. He is the Sight-giver and the Life-giver. He alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life!A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 20EVERY HINDRANCE REMOVEDBeing justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:1)\tThere are many legal and governmental reasons why lost men and women should not go to heaven!\tIt should not be difficult for us to acknowledge that a holy and righteous God must run His universe according to holy laws—and we do not belong there because we have broken every one of those holy laws in some way!\tTherefore, there must be an effective redemption, a justification of some kind if we are to have God and He is to have us!\tThank God, it has been done!\tThe New Testament language is as plain as can be—in Christ through His death and resurrection, every legal hindrance has been met and satisfied: taken away! There is nothing that can keep us from assurance except our own selves. \tLet us quit trying to think our way in, to reason our way in. The only way to get in is to believe Him with our hearts forevermore!A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 21WE HAVE IT ALLSeek ye first the kingdom all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33)\tHow much time have you spent in your Christian life meditating on the plain instruction from our Savior?—”Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”\tThe God who has revealed Himself to needy men and women wants us to know that when we have Him, we have everything—we have all the rest!\tAny of us who have experienced a life and ministry of faith can tell how the Lord has met our needs—even for food and the essentials of life.\tBrethren, we ought to learn, and learn it soon, that it is much better to have God first and have God Himself, even if we have only a thin dime, than to have all the riches and all the influence in this world and not have God with it!\tLet us go on to know Him and to love Him more dearly; not for His gifts and benefits but for the pure joy of His presence. Thus we will fulfill the purpose for which He created us and redeemed us!A.W.Tozer

FEBRUARY 22OUR INDIVIDUAL WORTHFor Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. (Romans 10:4)\tOur lost race has always been prone to discount and reject the wonderful fact of the individual factor in the love of God. Far, far too many men and women in this world are convinced that God’s love for the world is just one big lump—and the individual is not involved.\tWe have only to look around us with serious observation to confirm the fact that the devil has been successful in planting his lie that no one cares for the individual person.\tEven in nature around us, there appears to be very little individual concern. The burden of concern is always for the species.\tBut Jesus did not preach to the multitudes as though they were a faceless crowd. He preached to them as individuals, and with a knowledge of the burdens and the needs of each one. Our Savior did not come into the world to deal with statistics!\tEach of us must come with full confidence that it is a personal word God has spoken to us in Christ, that “whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish.”A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 23THE SPIRIT ILLUMINATESYour faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:5) \tWhen we study the New Testament record, we see plainly that Christ’s conflict was with the theological rationalists of His day.\tJohn’s gospel record is actually a long, inspired, passionately-outpoured account trying to save us from evangelical rationalism—the doctrine that says the text is enough.\tDivine revelation is the ground upon which we stand. The Bible is the book of God and I stand for it with all my heart; but before I can be saved, there must be illumination, penitence, renewal, inward deliverance.\tIn our Christendom, we have tried to ease many people into the kingdom but they have never been renewed within their own beings. The Apostle Paul told the Corinthians that their faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God! There is a difference.\tWe must insist that conversion to Christ is a miraculous act of God by the Holy Spirit—it must be wrought in the Spirit. There must be an inward illumination!A.W. Tozer

FEBRUARY 24GIVE TIME TO GODIn his law doth he meditate day and night. (Psalm 1:2)\tI have often wished that there were some way to bring modern Christians into a deeper spiritual life painlessly by short easy lessons; but such wishes are vain. No shortcut exists!\tGod has not bowed to our nervous haste nor embraced the methods of our machine age. It is well that we accept the hard truth now: the man who would know God must give time to Him!\tHe must count no time wasted which is spent in the cultivation of His acquaintance.\tHe must give himself to meditation and prayer hours on end. So did the saints of old, the glorious company of the apostles, the goodly fellowship of the prophets and the believing members of the holy Church in all generations.\tAnd so must we if we would follow in their train!\tMay not the inadequacy of much of our spiritual experience be traced back to our habit of skipping through the corridors of the kingdom like little children through the marketplace, chattering about everything but pausing to learn the true value of nothing?AWT

FEBRUARY 25“NOW IT IS THE LORD”In Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us sanctification. (1 Corinthians 1:30)\tIs it possible to become so enamored of God’s good gifts that we fail to worship Him, the Giver?\tDr. Albert B. Simpson, the founder of The Christian and Missionary Alliance, invited to preach in a Bible conference in England discovered on his arrival that he was to follow two other Bible teachers. All three had been given the same topic, “Sanctification.”\tFrom the pulpit, the first speaker made clear his position that sanctification means eradication—the old carnal nature is removed. The second, a suppressionist, advised: “Sit on the lid and keep the old nature down!”\tDr. Simpson in his turn quietly told his audience that he could only present Jesus Christ Himself as God’s answer.\t“Jesus Christ is your Sanctifier, your all and in all! God wants you to get your eyes away from the gifts. He wants your gaze to be on the Giver—Christ Himself,” he said.\tThis is a wonderful word for those who would worship rightly: Once it was the blessing; Now it is the Lord!AWT

FEBRUARY 26“BE STILL AND KNOW”Be still, and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10)\tPrayer among evangelical Christians is always in danger of degenerating into a glorified “gold rush.” Almost every book on prayer deals with the “get” element mainly. How to get things we want from God occupies most of our space.\tChristians should never forget that the highest kind of prayer is never the making of requests.\tPrayer at its holiest moment is the entering into God to a place of such blessed union as makes miracles seem tame and remarkable answers to prayer appear something very far short of wonderful, by comparison.\tWe should be aware that there is a kind of school where the soul must go to learn its best eternal lessons. It is the school of silence. “Be still and know,” said the psalmist.\tIt might well be a revelation to some Christians if they were to get completely quiet for a time—a time to listen in the silence for the deep voice of the Eternal God!AWT

FEBRUARY 27THE END OF THE AGEAll of these things shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought ye to be? (2 Peter 3:11) \tEverywhere around us we are experiencing a great new wave of humanity’s interest in spiritism and devil worship. I must take this as one of the signs that God’s age of grace and mercy is approaching the end point. It tells us that the time may be near when God proclaims: “I have seen enough of mankind’s sin and rebellion. It is time for the trumpets of judgment to sound!”\tIf we are willing to add the appeals from the book of Revelation to the weight of the other Scriptures, we discover God saying to us that the earth on which we live is not self-explanatory and certainly not self-sufficient.\tAlthough the earth on which we spin is largely populated by a rebel race, it had a divine origin. Now God is about to enforce His claim upon it and judge those who are usurpers. He is saying that there is another and better world, another kingdom, that is always keeping an eye on the world we inhabit!AWT

FEBRUARY 28PRAYER FOR ANOINTING\tIt is time, O God, for Thee to work, for the enemy has entered into Thy pasture, and the sheep are torn and scattered. False shepherds abound who deny the danger and laugh at the perils which surround Thy flock.\tLord Jesus, I come to Thee for spiritual preparation. Lay Thy hand upon me, anoint me with the oil of the New Testament prophet. Save me from the error of judging a church by its size, its popularity or the amount of its yearly offering.\tHelp me to remember that I am a prophet—not a promoter, not a religious manager. Let me never become a slave to crowds. Heal my soul of carnal ambitions and deliver me from the itch for publicity.\tLay Thy terror upon me, O God, and drive me to the place of prayer, where I may wrestle with principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world.\tTeach me self-discipline, that I may be a good soldier of Jesus Christ.AWT

FEBRUARY 29WHAT IS TRUE RELIGION!If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them (Isaiah 8:20)\tTo the convicted Christian there can be but one true religion. The self-converted may shy away from the bigotry and intolerance which he fears lie in an exclusive devotion to Christianity, but the wholly converted will have no such apprehensions. To him Christ is all in all and the faith of Christ is God’s last word to mankind. To him there is but one God, the Father; one Lord and Savior, one faith, one baptism, one body, one Spirit one fold and one Shepherd. To him there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. For him Christ is the only way, the only truth and the only life. For him Christ is the only wisdom, the only righteousness, the only sanctification and the only redemption. He knows that his convictions will bring him into disrepute with the so-called liberals, and he knows he will be branded as narrow and “seventeenth century” in his thinking. But he is willing to bear the stigma. What he has seen and heard and experienced precludes any possibility of compromise. He must be true to the heavenly vision.\tWhen, therefore, I ask the question, “Are we having a revival of true religion?” I have only one religion in mind. I mean the faith of the New Testament as held and experienced by the Fathers. I mean religion of which Moses and all the prophets did write, that religion which originated in the heart of God the Father, was made effectual through the hard dying and triumphant resurrection of God the Son and is vitalized and propagated among men by God the Holy Spirit. Of this religion the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures are the source book, the first and last word, to which we dare add nothing and from which we dare take nothing away.\tOnce this standard is acknowledged it is not too difficult to test a given doctrine or practice to determine whether it is of God or not. We have only to compare everything that professes to be New Testament Christianity with the New Testament itself.AWT

MARCH 1BEGIN WITH GODNot as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts. (1 Thessalonians 2:4)\tI am really sad for the great throngs of men and women who have never known the satisfaction of believing what God says about all of the good things He has created—and everything having its purpose!\tThis is an area in which you must begin with God. Then you begin to understand everything in its proper context. All things fit into shape and form when you begin with God!\tIn Christian circles, there is now an undue deference to intellectual knowledge and accomplishment. I insist that it ought to be balanced out. We appreciate the efforts and hours that go into academic progress, but we must always keep God’s wisdom and God’s admonitions in mind. \tSearch and study as we will and we discover that we have only learned fragments of truth. On the other hand, the newest Christian believer has already learned many marvelous things at the center of truth. He has met and knows God! \tThat is the primary issue, my brother and sister. That is why we earnestly invite men and women to become converted, taking Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord!AWT

MARCH 2THE GODHEAD—FOREVER ONEFather, into thy hands I commend my spirit. (Luke 23:46)\tWhen Christ Jesus died on that unholy, fly-infested cross for mankind, He never divided the Godhead! We are assured from the earliest church fathers that the Father in heaven, His eternal Son, and the Holy Ghost are forever One—inseparable, indivisible—and can never be anything else.\tNot all of Nero’s swords could ever cut down through the substance of the Godhead to cut off the Father from the Son.\tIt was Mary’s son who cried out, “Why hast Thou forsaken me?” It was the human body which God had given Him. It was the sacrifice that cried—the lamb about to die! The Son of Man knew himself forsaken. God dumped that vast, filthy, slimy mass of human sin on the soul of the Savior—and then backed away.\tBelieve it that the ancient and timeless Deity was never separated. He was still in the bosom of the Father when He cried, “Into Thy hands I commend my spirit!”\tLittle wonder that we are amazed and marvel every day at the wonder of the ancient theology of the Christian church!AWT

MARCH 3GLORY OF THE TRINITYThree that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. (1 John 5:7)\tThe more I read my Bible, the more I believe in the triune God!\tWith the prophet Isaiah, I am stirred by the vision of the heavenly creatures, the seraphim around the throne of God, engrossed in their worship and praise. \tI have often wondered why the rabbis and saints and hymnists of the olden times did not come to the knowledge of the Trinity just from the seraphims’ chorus: “Holy! Holy! Holy!”\tI am a trinitarian—I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Father, begotten of Him before all ages. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified.\tIsaiah was an astonished man. He could only manage this witness: “Mine eyes have seen the King!” Only the King of glory can reveal Himself to the willing spirit of a man, so that an Isaiah or any other man or woman, can say with humility but with assurance, “I know Him!”AWT

MARCH 4PREACH A WHOLE CHRISTGod is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:9)\tI reject the human insistence among us that Christ may sustain a divided relationship toward us in this life.\tI am aware that this is now so commonly preached that to oppose it or object to it means that you are sticking your neck out and you had best be prepared for what comes.\tBut, I am forced to ask: how can we insist and teach that our Lord Jesus Christ can be our Savior without being our Lord?\tHow can so many continue to teach that we can be saved without any thought of obedience to our Sovereign Lord?\tI am satisfied in my own heart that when a man or a woman believes on the Lord Jesus Christ he or she must believe on the whole Lord Jesus Christ—not making any reservation! How can a teaching be justified when it encourages sinners to use Jesus as a Savior in their time of need, without owing Him obedience and allegiance?\tI believe we need to return to preaching a whole Christ to our needy world!AWT

MARCH 5LORD OF RIGHTEOUSNESSBut of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness. (1 Corinthians 1:30)\tIn the midst of all the confusions of our day, it is important that we find out that Jesus Christ is the Lord of all righteousness and the Lord of all wisdom.\tRighteousness is not a word easily acceptable to lost men and women in a lost world. Outside of the Word of God, there is no book or treatise that can give us a satisfying answer about righteousness, because the only One who is Lord of all righteousness is our Lord Jesus Christ, Himself. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of His kingdom. He is the only One in all the universe who perfectly loved righteousness and hated iniquity.\tOur great High Priest and Mediator is the righteous and holy One—Jesus Christ, our risen Lord. He is not only righteous, He is the Lord of all righteousness! \tThen, there is His wisdom. The sum total of the deep and eternal wisdom of the ages lies in Jesus Christ as a treasure hidden away. All the deep purposes of God reside in Him because His perfect wisdom enables Him to plan far ahead! Thus history itself becomes the slow development of His purposes.AWT

MARCH 6THE GOSPEL WARNINGAs he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled. (Acts 24:25)\tWe who rejoice in the blessings that have come to us through the Savior, need to bear in mind that the gospel is not good news only!\tThe message of the Cross is good news indeed for the penitent, but to those who obey not the gospel it carries an overtone of warning.\tThe Spirit’s ministry to the impenitent world is to tell of sin and righteousness and judgment. For sinners who want to cease being willful sinners and become obedient children of God, the gospel message is one of unqualified peace, but it is by its very nature also an arbiter of the future destinies of man.\tActually, the message of the gospel may be received in either of two ways: in word only without power, or in word with power.\tThe truth received in power shifts the bases of life from Adam to Christ—a new and different Spirit enters the personality and makes the believing man new in every department of his being!AWT

MARCH 7THE ETERNAL VERITYJesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)\tThere is a great deal of discussion now taking place about the lack of spiritual power in our Christian churches. What about the New Testament patterns?\tBrethren, the apostolic method was to provide a foundation of good, sound biblical reasons for following the Savior, for our willingness to let the Spirit of God display the great Christian virtues in our lives.\tThat is why we come in faith and rejoicing to the eternal verity of Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever!” This proclamation gives significance to every other section of teaching and exhortation in the letter to the Hebrews. In this verse is truth that is morally and spiritually dynamic if we will exercise the faith and the will to demonstrate it in our needy world.\tI think this fact, this truth that Jesus Christ wants to be known in His church as the ever-living, never-changing Lord of all, could bring back again the power and testimony of the early church!AWT

MARCH 8WE KNOW WHAT WE BELIEVEIf ye continue in the faith grounded and settled not moved away from the hope of the gospel. (Colossians 1:23)\tThe hope of the Christian church still lies in the purity of her theology, that is, her beliefs about God and man and their relation to each other.\tIt is a fact that positive beliefs are not popular these days. I sense that the modern efforts to popularize the Christian faith have been extremely damaging to that faith. The purpose has been to simplify truth for the masses by using the language of the masses instead of the language of the church. It has not succeeded, but has added to rather than diminished religious confusion.\tA mistaken desire to maintain a spirit of tolerance among all races and religions has produced a breed of Janus-like Christians with built-in swivels, remarkable only for their ability to turn in any direction gracefully!\tOur Christian beliefs have been revealed by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the sacred Scriptures. Everything there is clear-cut and accurate. We dare not be less than accurate in our treatment of anything so precious!AWT

MARCH 9“AUTOMATIC” SAINTS?Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest. (2 Corinthians 4:10)\tNot everyone agrees with me that full qualification for eternity is not instant or automatic or painless.\tI can only hope that you are wise enough, desirous enough and spiritual enough to face up to the truth that every day is another day of spiritual preparation, another day of testing and discipline with our heavenly destination in mind.\tI hope, too, that you may begin to understand why many evangelical churches are in such a mess. It has become popular to preach a painless Christianity and automatic saintliness. It has become a part of our “instant” culture—”just pour a little water on it, stir mildly, pick up a gospel tract, and you are on your Christian way!”\t“Lo,” we are told, “this is Bible Christianity!”\t“It is nothing of the sort!”\tTo depend upon that kind of a formula is to experience only the outer fringe, the edge of what Christianity really is. For when the new birth is real and the wonder of regeneration has taken place, then comes the lifetime of preparation with the guidance of the Holy Spirit!AWT

MARCH 10NORMAL—OR NOMINAL?Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Luke 12:34)\tIs the Lord Jesus Christ your most precious treasure in the whole world? If so, count yourself among “normal” Christians, rather than among “nominal” Christians!\tMy old dictionary gives this definition as the meaning of nominal:Existing in name only, not real or actual; hence so small, slight, as to be hardly worth the name.\tWith that as a definition, those who know they are Christians “in name only” should never make the pretense of being normal Christians. Thankfully those who are “normal” are constantly being drawn to praise and worship, charmed by the moral beauty which is found only in Jesus.\tI cannot understand how anyone can profess to be a follower and a disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ and not be overwhelmed by His attributes. Those divine attributes faithfully attest that He is indeed Lord of all, completely worthy of our worship and praise!AWT

MARCH 11THE GREAT PHYSICIANWhen Jesus saw him he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? (John 5:6)\tIf you are a discouraged and defeated Christian believer, you may have accepted the rationalization that your condition is “normal for all Christians.”\tYou may now be content with the position that the progressive, victorious Christian life may be suitable for a few Christians—but not for you! You have been to Bible conferences; you have been to the altar—but the blessings are for someone else.\tNow, that attitude on the part of Christian believers is neither modesty nor meekness. It is a chronic discouragement resulting from unbelief. It is rather like those who have been sick for so long that they no longer believe they can get well.\tJesus is still saying, as He said to the man lying by the gate at the Jerusalem pool, “Do you want to be made whole?” Jesus made him whole—because of his desire! His need was great, but he had never lapsed into that state of chronic discouragement.AWT

MARCH 12WISDOM FROM GODThings which are seen are temporal things which are not seen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18)\tThe thinking of our generation often reflects a willingness to exchange a high view of God’s eternity for a short-term concept called “here and now.” Technology is presumed to be paramount but the answers science gives us are short-term answers. \tThe scientists may be able to keep us alive for a few extra years but believing Christians know some things that Einstein did not know!\tFor instance, we know why we are here. We can say why we were born. We also know what we believe about the value of things eternal.\tWe are thankful that we have found the promise from the God of all grace that deals with the long-term and the eternal. We belong to a company of the plain people who believe the truth revealed in the Bible.\tActually, the wisest person in the world is the person who knows the most about God; the person who realizes that the answer to creation and life and eternity is a theological answer—not a scientific answer!AWT

MARCH 13THE IMAGE WE PROJECTO come, let us worship and bow down; for he is our God. (Psalm 95:6–7)\tAre we presently missing important elements of worship in our churches? I speak of the genuine and sacred offering of ourselves as we worship the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.\tWe must ask the question, even though we are building great churches and large congregations. We are boasting about high standards and talking about revival. But as evangelical Christian believers, are we as concerned as we should be about the image we really project to the community around us? It cannot be denied that many who profess the name of Christ still fail to show forth His love and compassion!\tIt should say something to us that the often-quoted Jean-Paul Sartre described his turning to philosophy and hopelessness as a turning away from a secularistic church.\tHis indictment: “I did not recognize in the fashionable God who was taught me, Him who was waiting for my soul. I needed a creator: I was given a big businessman!”AWT

MARCH 14WORSHIP—AND WORKAnd the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men. (1 Thessalonians 4:12).\tI must take issue with those in the churches who insist that the worshiping saints do not get anything done but worship! Such an attitude reveals that they have not done their homework. The beautiful part of worship is that it prepares you and enables you to zero in on the important things that must be done for God.\tListen to me! Practically every great deed done in the church of Christ all the way back to the apostles was done by people blazing with the radiant worship of their God! \tThe great hospitals and the mental institutions have grown out of the hearts of worshiping and compassionate disciples. It is true, also, that wherever the church has come out of her lethargy and into the tides of revival and spiritual renewal, always the worshipers were back of it.\tA survey of church history will prove that it was those who were the yearning worshipers who also became the great workers and the selfless servants. If we give ourselves to God’s call for worship, everyone will do more for the Savior than they are doing now!AWT

MARCH 15“TEARS OF JOY—AMEN!”He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. (Luke 3:16)\tWe need not be afraid of a genuine visitation of the Spirit of God! \tBlaise Pascal, the famed seventeenth-century French scientist and philosopher, experienced in his lifetime a personal, overwhelming encounter with God that changed his life. Those who attended him at his death found a worn, creased paper in his clothing, close to his heart; apparently a reminder of what he had felt and sensed in God’s very presence.\tIn Pascal’s own hand it read: From about half-past ten at night, to about half after midnight—fire! O God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob—not the God of philosophers or the wise. The God of Jesus Christ who can be known only in the ways of the Gospel. Security. Feeling. Peace. Joy. Tears of joy—Amen!\tWere these the expressions of a fanatic, an extremist? No; it was the ecstatic utterance of a yielded man during two awesome hours in the presence of God. The astonished Pascal could only describe the visitation in one word—”Fire!”AWT

MARCH 16EXCEPT YE REPENTThe rest of mankind still did not repent. (Revelation 9:20)\tThere are many compelling lessons to be drawn from the Scriptures and one of the clearest is that sinful and rebellious people can never be forced into repentance.\tThe same act that may cause one person to repent and believe will cause others to hate and despise God!\tThe same Bible sermon that brings the person to tearful submission at an altar of prayer will send others out with pride and a resolve to have their own human way.\tStudents of the Scriptures are aware that the Old Testament prophets and the writing apostles of New Testament times foresaw and proclaimed God’s coming day of judgment—the consummate settling of accounts between the Sovereign God and his rebellious and sinful creation.\tHow desperately we would like to believe that in the face of coming judgment, all lost men and women will cry out to God, but such will not be the case: “The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent” (Revelation 9:20).AWT

MARCH 17RESPONSE TO THE WORDThe word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword. (Hebrews 4:12)\tMen and women who read and study the Scriptures for their literary beauty alone have missed the whole purpose for which they were given.\tGod’s Word is not to be enjoyed as one might “enjoy” a Beethoven symphony or a poem by Wordsworth.\tThe reason: the Bible demands immediate action, faith, surrender, committal. Until it has secured these, it has done nothing positive for the reader, but it has increased his responsibility and deepened the judgment that must follow.\tThe Bible was called forth by the fall of man. It is the voice of God calling men home from the wilds of sin; it is a road map for returning prodigals. It is instruction in righteousness, light in darkness, information about God and man and life and death and heaven and hell.\tFurther, the destiny of each individual depends upon the response to that Voice in the Word!AWT

MARCH 18THE CROWD TURNS BACKFrom that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. (John 6:66)\tOur Lord Jesus Christ called men to follow Him, but He plainly taught that “no man can come unto me, except it were given him of my Father” (John 6:65).\tIt is not surprising that many of His early followers, upon hearing these words, went back and walked no more with Him. Such teaching cannot but be deeply disturbing to the natural mind. It takes from sinful men much of the power of self-determination. It cuts the ground out from under their self-help and throws them back upon the sovereign good pleasure of God—and that is precisely where they do not want to be!\tThese statements by our Lord run contrary to the current assumptions of popular Christianity. Men are willing to be saved by grace, but to preserve their self-esteem, they must hold that the desire to be saved originated with them.\tMost Christians today seem afraid to talk about these plain words of Jesus concerning the sovereign operation of God—so they use the simple trick of ignoring them!AWT

MARCH 19MONEY IS NOT TRUTHThe blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it. (Proverbs 10:22)\tIt is a fact in human history that men and women have never in any great numbers sought after truth.\tThe young people who stream from our halls of learning each year confess to having no more than a passing and academic interest in truth. The majority admit that they go to college only to improve their social standing and increase their earning power.\tSo, the average American will confess that he most wants success in his chosen field; and he wants success both for prestige and for financial security.\tThe ominous thing about all this is that everything men and women want can be bought with money, and it would be difficult to think of an indictment more terrible than that!\tReal seekers after truth are almost as rare as albino deer! Why? Because truth is a glorious but hard master. Jesus said, “I am the Truth,” and followed Truth straight to the Cross. The Truth seeker must follow Him there and that is the reason few men seek the Truth!AWT

MARCH 20TELL THE WHOLE TRUTHIn hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began. (Titus 1:2)\tIt is sad indeed to know that there are Christian leaders among us who are too timid to tell the people all the truth. They are now asking men and women to give to God only that which costs them nothing!\tThe contemporary moral climate does not favor a faith as tough and fibrous as that taught by our Lord and His apostles.\tChrist calls men to carry His cross; we call them to have fun in His name!\tHe calls them to suffer; we call them to enjoy all the bourgeois comforts modern civilization affords!\tHe calls them to holiness; we call them to a cheap and tawdry happiness that would have been rejected with scorn by the least of the Stoic philosophers!\tWhen will believers learn that to love righteousness it is necessary to hate sin? That to accept Christ it is necessary to reject self? That a friend of the world is an enemy of God? Let us not be shocked by the suggestion that there are disadvantages to the life in Christ!AWT

MARCH 21POUR YOURSELF OUTHow be it when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth. (John 16:13)\tScience declares that nature abhors a vacuum. It should be happy knowledge to us, then, that the same principle is true in the kingdom of God—when you empty yourself, God Almighty rushes in!\tThe Creator God who fills the universe and overflows into immensity can never be surrounded by that little thing we call our brain, our mind, our intellect. Never can we rise to face God by what we are and by what we know!\tOnly by love and faith are we lifted thus to know Him and adore Him!\tWhat a happy hour it becomes when we are drawn out of ourselves, and into that vacuum rushes the blessed Presence.\tHow wonderful in our humanity to sense the reality of the Holy Spirit’s invitation: “Pour yourself out! Give yourself to Me! Empty yourself! Bring your empty earthen vessels! Come in meekness like a child!”\tDrawn out of ourselves by the Holy Spirit of God—for who knows the things of God but the Holy Spirit?\tWe are delivered from ourselves when we finally seek God for Himself alone!AWT

MARCH 22GOD’S OVERCOMERSThese have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (Revelation 7:14)\tI insist that if we are burdened with genuine concern, we have the responsibility of examining the true spiritual condition of men and women within the church’s ranks.\tWe do live in a time of soft, easy Christianity. It is an era marked by a polite “nibbling” around the edges of the Word of God. There is a mindset within present day Christianity that supposes one should get into trouble or suffer embarrassment for Christ’s sake!\tMy brethren, what does it mean to be loyal to Jesus Christ? To confess that Jesus Himself is more important to us than anything else in the world?\tMany find it hard to understand how large numbers of Christian believers could have died for their faith in our own generation! With a sense of distant admiration, we call them simple-hearted nationals. God calls them overcomers!\tProfessing Christians in our North American churches can hardly comprehend so costly a price for the faith we take for granted. Material prosperity and popular acceptance have sapped the vitality of our Christian witness!AWT

MARCH 23HERE FOR OUR TIMEWho knowest whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this? (Esther 4:14)\tJust as those who lived in the past had the privilege of being God’s people of faith then, so do we in our own day! It is good to come to the understanding that while God wants us to be holy and Spirit-filled, He does not expect us to look like Abraham or to play the harp like David or to have the same spiritual insights given to Paul.\t\tAll of the former heroes of the faith are dead. You are alive in your generation. A Bible proverb says that it is better to be a living dog than a dead lion. You may wish to be Abraham or Isaac or Jacob, but remember they have been asleep for centuries, and you are still around!\tYou can witness for our Lord today! You can still pray! You can still give of your substance to help those who are in need!\tIn this, your own generation, give God all your love, all your devotion. You do not know what holy, happy secret God may want to whisper to your responsive heart!AWT

MARCH 24“BORN OF GOD!”By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place. (Hebrews 9:12) \tI think most of us remember with assurance the words of the Charles Wesley hymn which was his own personal testimony: His Spirit answers to the blood, And tells me I am born of God!\tWesley testified here and in many other hymns to an inner illumination!\tWhen I became a Christian, no one had to come to me and tell me what Wesley meant. That is why Jesus taught that whosoever is willing to do His will shall have a revelation in his own heart. He shall have an inward revelation that tells him he is a child of God.\tToo many persons try to make Jesus Christ a convenience. They reduce Him simply to a Big Friend who will help us when we are in trouble.\tThat is not biblical Christianity! Jesus Christ is Lord, and when an individual comes in repentance and faith, the truth flashes in. For the first time he finds himself saying, “I will do the will of the Lord, even if I die for it!”AWT

MARCH 25CONVICTION AND PAINNicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? (John 3:9)\tI consider it a good sign that some people are still asking questions like these in our churches: “What should happen in a genuine conversion to Christ?” and “What should a man or woman feel in the transaction of the new birth?”\tIf I am asked, my answer is this: “There ought to be a real and genuine cry of pain!”\tThat is why I am not impressed with the kind of evangelism that tries to invite people into the fellowship of God by signing a card. There should be a birth within, a birth from above. There should be the terror of seeing ourselves in violent contrast to the holy, holy God!\tUnless we come into this place of conviction and pain concerning our sin, I am not sure how deep and real our repentance will ever be.\tThe man whom God will use must be undone, humble and pliable. He must be, like the astonished Isaiah, a man who has seen the King in His beauty!AWT

MARCH 26BREAK WITH THIS WORLDCome out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord. (2 Corinthians 6:17)\tI dare to say that Christians who have genuinely come to love and trust Jesus Christ have also renounced this world and have chosen a new model after which to pattern their lives.\tFurther, we should say that this is the aspect of the Christian life that most people do not like. They want comfort. They want blessing. They want peace. But they recoil from this radical, revolutionary break with the world.\tTo follow Christ in this rough and thorough-going way is too much for them!\tActually, the true Christian dissents from the world because he knows that it cannot make good on its promises. As Christ’s believing disciple, he is not left without a “norm” to which he seeks to be adjusted. The Lord Jesus Christ is Himself the norm, the ideally perfect model, and the worshiping soul yearns to be like Him. Indeed, the whole drive behind the Christian life is the longing to be conformed to the image of Christ!AWT

MARCH 27THE WORLDLY “VIRUS”Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour be put away from you. (Ephesians 4:31)\tAs Christian believers, we must stand together against some things. So, if you hear anyone saying that A.W. Tozer preaches a good deal that is negative, just smile and agree: “That is because he preaches the Bible!”\tHere are some of the things we oppose: we are against the many modern idols that have been allowed to creep into the churches; we are against the “unauthorized fire” that is being offered on the altars of the Lord; we are against the modern gods that are being adopted in our sanctuaries. \tWe are against the world’s ways and its false values. We are against the world’s follies and its vain pleasures. We are against this world’s greed and sinful ambitions. We are against this world’s vices and its carnal habits.\tWe believe this spells out clearly the Bible truth of separation. God asks us to stand boldly against anything or anyone who hurts or hinders this New Testament body of Christians. Where the church is not healed it will wither. The Word of God is the antibiotic that alone can destroy the virus that would plague the life of the church!AWT

MARCH 28LET FEAR BECOME TRUSTYe have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear. (Romans 8:15)\tWhat can we do but pray for the throngs of defiant men and women who believe that their humanistic view of life is all-sufficient? They believe that they are responsible “captains” of their own souls.\tThe sad fact is that even while they are joining in the age-old rejection of Jesus Christ—”We will not have this Man to rule over us”—they still are beset with fears within.\tThe present competitive world and its selfish society have brought many new fears to the human race. I can sympathize with those troubled beings who lie awake at night worrying about the possible destruction of the race through some evil, misguided use of the world’s store of nuclear weapons. The tragedy is that they have lost all sense of the sovereignty and omnipotence and faithfulness of the living God.\tAlthough the material world has never understood it, our faith is well-placed in the Scriptures! Those who take God’s Word seriously are convinced of an actual heavenly realm as real as this world we inhabit!AWT

MARCH 29OUR FUTURE REWARDSEvery man shall receive his own reward. (1 Corinthians 3:8)\tOur motives in the Christian life should be both right and genuine. God is the Faithful One. We are to love Him and serve Him because He is God—not because of the gracious things He does for us or for the rewards He promises us! \tHowever, it should be said that God does not expect us to forget or ignore the gracious future promises He has made to us. It is a glorious truth that if we believe God and honor His Word, if we walk by faith in love and obedience, there will be eternal rewards for each of us in that great coming day. The rewards will differ. Wisdom and knowledge and love reside in Him who is our God. He will make the right judgments for His people.\tI for one will not be surprised if some of God’s faithful people serving Him today should rise as high and shine as brightly as the heroes of faith listed in the book of Hebrews.\tI say that in all truthfulness because I do not think that all of the heroes of faith are dead and gone!AWT

MARCH 30WHICH CROSS DO WE CARRY?Having made peace through the blood of his cross. (Colossians 1:20)\tOne of the strange things under the sun is a “crossless” Christianity. The cross of Christendom is a “no-cross,” an ecclesiastical symbol. The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is a place of death! \tLet each one be careful which cross he carries!\tThousands turn away from Jesus Christ because they will not meet His conditions. He watches them as they go, for He loves them, but He will make no concessions.\tAdmit one soul into the kingdom by compromise and that kingdom is no longer secure. Christ will be Lord, or He will be Judge. Every man must decide whether he will take Him as Lord now, or face Him as Judge then!\t“If any man will let him follow me.” Some will rise and go after Him, but others give no heed to His voice. So the gulf opens between man and man, between those who will and those who will not. \tThe Man, the kindly Stranger who walked this earth, is His own proof. He will not put Himself again on trial; He will not argue. But the morning of the judgment will confirm what men in the twilight have decided!AWT

MARCH 31POWER OF THE CROSSThe cross by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. (Galatians 6:14) \tOnly a person with a perfect knowledge of mankind could have dared to set forth the terms of discipleship that our Lord Jesus Christ expects of His followers.\tOnly the Lord of men could have risked the effect of such rigorous demands: “Let him deny himself!”\tCan the Lord lay down such severe rules at the door of His kingdom? He can—and He does!\tIf He is to save the man, He must save him from himself. It is the “himself” which has enslaved and corrupted the man. Deliverance comes only by denial of that self.\tNo man in his own strength can shed the chains with which self has bound him, but in the next breath the Lord reveals the source of the power which is to set the soul free: “Let him take up his cross.”\tThe cross was an instrument of death—slaying a man was its only function. “Let him take his cross,” said Jesus, and thus he will know deliverance from himself!AWT

APRIL 1THE PRESENCE OF GODThe righteous shall give thanks the upright shall dwell in thy presence. (Psalm 140:13)\tThe spiritual giants of old were those who at some time became acutely conscious of the presence of God. They maintained that consciousness for the rest of their lives.\tHow otherwise can the saints and prophets be explained? How otherwise can we account for the amazing power for good they have exercised over countless generations?\tIs it not that indeed they had become friends of God? Is it not that they walked in conscious communion with the real Presence and addressed their prayers to God with the artless conviction that they were truly addressing Someone actually there?\tLet me say it again, for certainly it is no secret: we do God honor in believing what He has said about Himself and coming boldly to His throne of grace than by hiding in a self-conscious humility!\tThose unlikely men chosen by our Lord as His closest disciples might well have hesitated to claim friendship with Christ. But Jesus said to them, “You are my friends!”AWT

APRIL 2GOD HAS A REMEDYIf we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. (1 John 1:9)\tSeekers and inquirers have often voiced this deep question of concern: “Why does God forgive? and how does God forgive sin?”\tThere is plain teaching throughout the Old and New Testaments concerning God’s willingness to forgive and forget. Yet there are segments of the Christian church which appear to be poorly taught concerning God’s clear remedy, through the atonement of Christ, for the believer who has yielded to temptation and failed his Lord.\tGod knows that sin is the dark shadow standing between Him and His highest creation, man. God is more willing to remove that shadow than we are to have it removed!\tHe wants to forgive us—and that desire is a part of God’s character. In the sacrificial death of a lamb in the Old Testament, God was telling us that one day a perfect Lamb would come to actually take away sin.\tThat is how and why God forgives sin now. In John’s words: “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:1-2a).AWT

APRIL 3SPIRITUAL UNANIMITYFinally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren. (1 Peter 3:8)\tThe Holy Spirit knew what He was doing when He moved the Apostle Peter to write to the early Christian church about the reality of being “of one mind” in their fellowship.\tPeter was not asking all the brothers and sisters to settle for some kind of regulated uniformity. He was recommending a spiritual unanimity—which means that the Spirit of God making Christ real within our beings will also give us a unity in certain qualities and disposition.\tPeter leaves little doubt about the fruits of genuine Christian unanimity within: “Be alike in compassion. Be alike in loving. Be alike in pity. Be alike in courtesy. Be alike in forgiving!” Then he sums it all up: “Finally, be ye all of one mind!”\tGod’s love shed abroad in our hearts—compassion and love which can only be found in Jesus Christ—these are the only elements of true unity among men and women today!AWT

APRIL 4HOPE OR DESPAIR?A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven. (John 3:27)\tJohn the Baptist gave his questioners a brief sentence that I have called the “hope and the despair” of mankind. He told them that “a man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.”\tJohn was not referring to men’s gifts. He was speaking of spiritual truth. Divine truth is of the nature of the Holy Spirit, and for that reason it can be received only by spiritual revelation.\tIn his New Testament letters, the Apostle Paul declares again and again the inability of human reason to discover or comprehend divine truth. In that inability we see human despair.\tJohn the Baptist said, “. . . except it be given him from heaven—and this is our hope! These words do certainly mean that there is such a thing as a gift of knowing, a gift that comes from heaven. Jesus promised His disciples that the Holy Spirit of truth would come and teach them all things.\tJesus also prayed: “I thank thee, O Father, because thou hast hid these things from the wise, and hast revealed them unto babes” (Luke 10:21).AWT

APRIL 5THE EASTER TRIUMPHWhy seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen. (Luke 24:5-6)\tI do not mind telling you that within me I find the Easter message and the reality of the Resurrection more beautiful and glorious than the Christmas scene.\tChristmas tells us that Jesus was born; that He was born for the humiliation of suffering and death and atonement.\tBut Easter is the radiant and glory-filled celebration of Christ’s mighty triumph over the grave and death and hell!\tWhen Easter comes, our voices are raised in the triumphant chorus:The three sad days had quickly sped;He rises glorious from the dead!\tThere is the real beauty! This is more than the beauty of color; more than the beauty of outline or form; more than the beauty of physical proportion.\tIn the living Christ is the perfection of all beauty; and because He lives, we too shall live in the presence of His beauty and the beauties of heaven, forever!AWT

APRIL 6RESURRECTION POWERJesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. (Matthew 28:18) \tLet us be confident, Christian brethren, that our power does not lie in the manger at Bethlehem nor in the relics of the Cross. True spiritual power resides in the victory of the mighty, resurrected Lord of glory, who could pronounce after spoiling death: “All power is given me in heaven and in earth.”\tThe power of the Christian believer lies in the Savior’s triumph of eternal glory!\tChrist’s resurrection brought about a startling change of direction for the believers. Sadness and fear and mourning marked the direction of their religion before they knew that Jesus was raised from the dead—their direction was towards the grave. When they heard the angelic witness, “He is risen, as He said,” the direction immediately shifted away from the tomb—“He is risen, indeed!” If this is not the meaning of Easter, the Christian church is involved only in a shallow one-day festival each year.\tThankfully, the resurrection morning was only the beginning of a great, vast outreach that has never ended—and will not end until our Lord Jesus Christ comes back again!AWT

APRIL 7RESURRECTION: A FACTBe established in the present truth for we have not cunningly devised fables. (2 Peter 1:12, 16)\tThe resurrection of Christ and the fact of the empty tomb are not a part of this world’s complex and continuing mythologies. This is not a Santa Claus tale—it is history and it is a reality!\tThe true church of Jesus Christ is necessarily founded upon the belief and the truth that there was a real death, a real tomb and a real stone!\tBut, thank God, there was a sovereign Father in heaven, an angel sent to roll the stone away and a living Savior in a resurrected and glorified body, able to proclaim to His disciples, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth!”\tBrethren, He died for us, but ever since the hour of the resurrection, He has been the mighty Jesus, the mighty Christ, the mighty Lord!\tOur business is to thank God with tearful reverence for the Cross, but to go on to a right understanding of what the resurrection meant both to God and to men. We understand and acknowledge that the Resurrection has placed a glorious crown upon all of Christ’s sufferings!AWT

APRIL 8EASTER—AND MISSIONSThat I may know him, and the power of his resurrection. (Philippians 3:10)\tDo we really believe that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is something more than making us the “happiest fellows in the Easter parade”?\tAre we just to listen to the bright cantata and join in singing, “Up from the Grave He Arose,” smell the flowers and go home and forget it?\tNo, certainly not!\tIt is truth and a promise with a specific moral application. The resurrection certainly commands us with all the authority of sovereign obligation—the missionary obligation!\tI cannot give in to the devil’s principal, deceitful tactic which makes so many Christians satisfied with an “Easter celebration” instead of experiencing the power of Christ’s resurrection. It is the devil’s business to keep Christians mourning and weeping with pity beside the cross instead of demonstrating that Jesus Christ is risen, indeed.\tWhen will the Christian church rise up, depending on His promise and power, and get on the offensive for the risen and ascended Savior?AWT

APRIL 9“I WILL NOT FORSAKE YOU!”And, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. (Matthew 28:20)\tMen without God suffer alone and die alone in times of war and in other circumstances of life. All alone!\tBut it can never be said that any true soldier of the Cross of Jesus Christ, no man or woman as missionary or messenger of the Truth has ever gone out to a ministry alone!\tThere have been many Christian martyrs—but not one of them was on that mission field all alone. Jesus Christ keeps His promise of taking them by the hand and leading them triumphantly through to the world beyond.\tWe can sum it up by noting that Jesus Christ asks us only to surrender to His lordship and obey His commands. When the Spirit of God deals with our young people about their own missionary responsibility, Christ assures them of His presence and power as they prepare to go: “All power is given unto Me! I am no longer in the grave. I will protect you. I will support you. I will go ahead of you. I will give you effectiveness for your witness and ministry. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations—I will never leave you nor forsake you!”AWT

APRIL 10LEANING TOWARD HERESYThe mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself. (Psalm 50:1, 21)\tWhen large numbers of adherents in the Christian churches come to believe that God is different from what He actually is, that concept becomes heresy of the most insidious and deadly kind!\tWhen the Christian church surrenders her once lofty concept of God and substitutes for it ideas so low, so ignoble as to be utterly unworthy, her situation is tragic indeed. Into the life and the practices of the church comes a whole new philosophy; and the sense of the divine Presence and the majesty of God is no longer known.\tAlthough “morality” is no longer a popular word in our world, it is apparent that such low and unworthy concepts of God’s Person actually constitute a moral calamity for professed believers in great segments of Christianity. The records of both sacred and secular history show that low views of God will surely destroy the appeal of the Christian for all who hold them!\tTo all sinners, Jesus said, “You must be born again—from above!” He knew that the gods begotten in the shadowy thoughts of the fallen sons and daughters of Adam will quite naturally be no true likeness of the true and living God!AWT

APRIL 11TO SIN IS TO REBELSin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. (James 1:15)\tSome of you will object to my saying this—but it is my opinion that in Christianity we have over-emphasized the psychology of the lost sinner’s condition.\tWe spend time describing the sinner’s woes and the great burden he carries until we almost forget the principal fact that the sinner is actually a rebel against properly constituted authority!\tThat is what makes sin SIN! We are rebels, we are sons of disobedience. Sin is the breaking of the Law and we are fugitives from the just laws of God while we are sinners. We are fugitives from divine judgment.\tBut thankfully, the plan of salvation reverses that, and restores the original relationship, so that the first thing the returning sinner does is confess: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in Thy sight and I am no more worthy to be called Thy son. Make me as one of Thy hired servants!” \tThus, in repentance, we reverse that relationship and we fully submit to the Word of God and the will of God, as obedient children!AWT

APRIL 12THE TRANSFORMED LIFEHe that taketh not his cross is not worthy of me. (Matthew 10:38)\tMany of the great evangelists who have touched the world for God, including such men as Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney, have declared that the church is being betrayed by those who insist on Christianity being made “too easy.”\tJesus laid down the terms of Christian discipleship and there are some among us who criticize: “Those words of Jesus sound harsh and cruel.”\tThis is where we stand: receiving Jesus Christ into your life means that you have made an attachment to the Person of Christ that is revolutionary, in that it reverses the life and transforms it completely! It is complete in that it leaves no part of the life unaffected. It exempts no area of the life of the total man.\tBy faith and through grace, you have now formed an exclusive relationship with your Savior, Jesus Christ. All of your other relationships are now conditioned and determined by your one relationship to your Savior. \tTo receive Jesus Christ, then, is to attach ourselves in faith to His holy person, to live or die, forever! He must be first and last and all!AWT

APRIL 13RUNNING LIFE’S RACELet us run with patience the race that is set before us. (Hebrews 12:1)\tThe writer to the Hebrews gives us good New Testament counsel: “Let us run the race with patience.”\tThe Holy Spirit here describes Christian believers as runners on the track, participants in the race which is the Christian life. He provides both strong warning and loving encouragement, for there is always the danger of losing the race, but there is also the victor’s reward awaiting those who run with patience and endurance. So, there are important things each of us should know and understand about our struggles as the faithful people of God.\tFor instance, it is a fact that the Christian race is a contest. But in no sense is it a competition between believers or between churches! As we live the life of faith, we Christians are never to be in competition with other Christians. The Bible makes this very plain!\tChristian churches are never told to carry on their proclamation of the Savior in a spirit of competition with other Jesus-churches. The Holy Spirit tells us to keep our eyes on Jesus not on others who are also running the race!AWT

APRIL 14ARE WE MIRED DOWN?I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot. (Revelation 3:1)\tGod will speak to us if we read and study and obey the Word of God! But when He does speak, we should speak back to Him in prayer and devotion. Otherwise, we are among the Christians who are mired down right where we are.\tMany in our congregations have grown older and yet are not one inch farther up the mountain than on that day when the sun first arose on them in conversion. In fact, some are not even as far advanced along the way with God as they were a few years ago. \tIf these things are true, I can only conclude that there are “common” Christians, men and women who no longer hear the Lord speaking to them as they should.\tCan they really think that this half-way Christian life is the best that we can know?\tIn the face of what Christ offers us, how can we settle for so little?\tIt is a tragedy of our time that so many are settling for less than the Lord is willing to give!AWT

APRIL 15MEDIOCRE CHRISTIANITYI, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal. (1 Corinthians 3:1)\tRead your New Testament again and you will agree that mediocrity in the Christian life is not the highest that Jesus offers. Certainly God is not honored by our arrested spiritual development—our permanent half-way spiritual condition.\tWe all know that the Bible tells us that we honor God by going on to full maturity in Christ!\tWhy, then, do we settle for those little pleasures that tickle the saintlets and charm the fancy of the carnal?\tIt is because we once heard a call to take up the cross and instead of following toward the heights, we bargained with the Lord like a street huckster! We felt an urge to be spent for Christ, but instead of going on, we started asking questions. We began to bicker and bargain with God about His standards for spiritual attainment.\tThis is plain truth—not about unbelieving “liberals”— but about those who have been born again and who dare to ask, “Lord, what will it cost me?”AWT

(Quite a bit behind here, my apologies to anyone following along...)APRIL 16INSTRUCT—THEN EXHORTLet the word of Christ dwell in you richly teaching and admonishing one another. (Colossians 3:16)\tThe godly men of old through whom the Scriptures came to us were faithful in their exhortations to personal faith and godliness, characteristic of the early church.\tThe apostolic method of teaching, instructing and encouraging was based on solid and fundamental Christian doctrine. This was Paul’s method in his New Testament letters. First he gives his readers the scriptural reasons for certain Christian actions and attributes. He provides the basis and reason—then he exhorts the readers to respond appropriately.\tWe do not know if Paul was the human writer to the Hebrews, but the method of exhortation is like Paul’s. We are assured that Christ is greater than Moses and greater than the angels and that He purchased mankind’s salvation.\tThen the exhortation: if all of these things are true, then we should keep on loving one another, keep on praying for one another. It is a good and gracious argument: because we have reasons for doing something, we ought to do it without delay and without reservation!AWT

APRIL 17NOT READY FOR HEAVEN?My meditation of him shall be sweet; I will be glad in the Lord. (Psalm 104:34)\tI can safely say on the authority of all that is revealed in the Word of God, that any man or woman on this earth who is bored and turned off by worship is not ready for heaven!\tNow, I can almost hear someone saying, “Is Tozer getting away from justification by faith?”\tI assure you that Martin Luther never believed in justification by faith more strongly than I do. But nowadays there is a deadly, automatic quality about getting saved. \tThis bothers me greatly: “Sinner, just put a nickel’s worth of faith in the slot, pull down the lever and take out the little card of salvation.” Tuck it in your wallet and off you go—a justified believer!\tBut really, my brother or sister, we are brought to God and to faith and to salvation that we might worship. We do not come to God that we might be automatic Christians stamped out with a die!\tGod has provided His salvation that we might be, individually and personally, vibrant children of God, loving God with all our heart and worshiping Him in the beauty of holiness!AWT

APRIL 18KNOWING HIS PRESENCELo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. (Matthew 28:20)\tDo not try to short-circuit God’s plans for your discipleship and spiritual maturity here. If you and I were already prepared for heaven in the moment of our conversion, God would have taken us home instantly! \tWe must remember that God exists in Himself. His holy nature is such that we cannot comprehend Him with our minds. He is of a substance not shared by any other being. Hence, God can be known only as He reveals Himself!\tI have found this to be a fact: every redeemed human being needs the humility of spirit that can only be brought about by the manifest Presence of God.\tThis mysterious yet gracious Presence is the air of life eternal. It is the music of existence, the poetry of the Christian life. It is the beauty and wonder of being one of Christ’s own—a sinner born again, regenerated, created anew to bring glory to God! \tTo live surrounded by this sense of God is not only beautiful and desirable, but it is imperative!AWT

APRIL 19COME AS YOU AREBeing justified by his grace heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:7)\tLet me say this to any of you who are still trying to add up your human merits—look away in faith to the Lord of abundant mercy!\tFixing yourself over and trying to straighten yourself out will never be sufficient—you must come to Jesus as you are!\tOur Lord told about two men who went up into the temple to pray. One said, “God, here I am—all fixed up. Every hair is in place!”\tThe other said, “Oh God, I just crawled in off Skid Row. Have mercy on me!”\tGod forgave the Skid Row bum, but sent the other man away, hardened and unrepentant and unforgiven.\tWe come to Him just as we are but in humble repentance. When the human spirit comes to God knowing that anything it receives will be out of God’s mercy, then repentance has done its proper work!\tGod promises to forgive and forget and to take that man into His heart and teach him that all of God’s kindnesses are due to His mercy. What more can a sinner ask?AWT

APRIL 20SEEKING AFTER TRUTHWe have received that spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given us of God. (1 Corinthians 2:12)\tWe live in a mixed-up kind of world in which many people are not at all sure of what they believe or what they ought to believe.\tSome churches advertise that way—you do not have to believe anything: “just be a seeker after truth.” Some actually settle for poetry, siding with Edwin Markham who “saw his bright hand sending signals from the sun.”\tI, for one, never had any such signals from God. We have Bibles everywhere and the gospel is preached faithfully. Yet men and women seek God in old altars and tombs—in dark and dusty places, and finally wind up believing that God is sending signals from the sun.\tSome folks get mad at me when I say that this kind of “seeking after truth” needs to be exposed. We need to double our efforts in telling the world that God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. \tIt must be the Truth of God and the Spirit of God! Far from being an optional luxury in our Christian lives, the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit is a necessity!AWT

APRIL 21SPIRITUAL TESTINGDo therefore as the Lord your God hath commanded you: ye shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. (Deuteronomy 5:32)\tIn the scriptural accounts, there are many examples of men and women being tested, and I think it is plain that the Holy Spirit rarely tells a believer that he is about to be tested.\tAbraham was being tested when the Lord asked him to take his only son up into the mountain. He thought he was being ordered. He did not know he was being tested.\tPeter was unconsciously tested. Paul was tested and tried. There does come a time when we have heard enough truth and the Holy Spirit says, “Today this disciple is going to be tested.”\tThe people of Israel in their time of testing came to Kadesh-Barnea and instead of crossing into the promised land, they said, “We will not go over!” God simply let them make their own test and they flunked it! \tAre there any among us who have an honest desire to be Christlike? We should all be aware that every day is a day of testing. Some come to their own Kadesh-Barnea and turn back.\tWhat a solemn thought: that many of the persons whom God is testing will flunk the test!AWT

APRIL 22GLORIOUS CONTRADICTIONSThe life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me. (Galatians 2:20)\tGod has revealed so many glorious contradictions in the lives and conduct of genuine Christian believers that it is small wonder that we are such an amazement to this world.\tThe Christian is dead and yet he lives forever. He died to himself and yet he lives in Christ.\tThe Christian saves his own life by losing it and he is in danger of losing it by trying to save it.\tIt is strange but true that the Christian is strongest when he is weakest and weakest when he is strongest. When he gets down on his knees thinking he is weak, he is always strong.\tThe Christian is in least danger when he is fearful and trusting God and in the most danger when he feels the most self-confident.\tHe is most sinless when he feels the most sinful and he is the most sinful when he feels the most sinless.\tThe Christian actually has the most when he is giving away the most; and in all of these ways, the Christian is simply putting into daily practice the teachings and example of Jesus Christ, his Savior and Lord!AWT

APRIL 23REJOICING IN TRIALSBut rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings. (1 Peter 4:13) \tThe Apostle Peter stated a great Christian truth in the form of an amazing paradox: the obedient Christian believer will continue to rejoice and praise God even in the midst of continuing trials and suffering in this earthly life! \tGod’s people know that things here on this earth are not all they ought to be, but they refuse to join the worry brigade. They are too busy rejoicing in the gracious prospect of all that will take place when God fulfills His promises to His redeemed children.\tThis ability to rejoice is demonstrated throughout the Bible and in the New Testament it rings forth like a silver bell!\tThe life of the normal believing child of God can never become a life of gloom and pessimism, for it is the Holy Spirit of God who keeps us above the kind of gloomy resignation that marks the secularism of the day.\tWe are still able to love the unlovely and to weep with those who weep, for in Peter’s words, “when Christ’s glory shall be revealed you may be glad with exceeding joy!”AWT

APRIL 24CONFESSING OUR LOVEHe brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love. (Song of Solomon 2:4)\tConsider with me the appealing Old Testament story of the beautiful young woman in the Song of Solomon. Deeply in love with the young shepherd, she is also actively sought out by the king, who demands her favor. She remains loyal to the simple shepherd, who gathers lilies and comes to seek her and calls to her through the lattice.\tIn many ways, this is a beautiful picture of the Lord Jesus, of His love and care for His Bride, the Church. In the scriptural account, she does turn her loved one away with simple excuses. But condemned in heart, she rises to go out and search for him. As she seeks, she is asked: “What is he above others that you should seek him?”\t“Oh, he is altogether lovely,” she replies. “He came and called for me, and I had not the heart to go!”\tBut at last she is able to confess, “I have found him whom my soul loveth!”\tHe had been grieved but He was not far away. So it is with our Beloved—He is very near to us and He awaits our seeking!AWT

APRIL 25“AS I WAS, SO I WILL BE!”As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. (Joshua 1:5)\tFor all things, God is the great Antecedent!\tBecause He is, we are and everything else is.\tWe cannot think rightly of God until we begin to think of Him as always being there—and being there first!\tJoshua had this to learn. He had been so long the servant of God’s servant Moses, and had with such assurance received God’s word at his mouth, that Moses and the God of Moses had become blended in his thinking; so blended that he could hardly separate the two thoughts. By association they always appeared together in his mind.\tNow Moses is dead and lest the young Joshua be struck down with despair God spoke to assure him: “As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee!”\tMoses was dead, but the God of Moses still lived! Nothing had changed and nothing had been lost, for nothing of God dies when a man of God dies.\t“As I was—so I will be.” Only the Eternal God could say this!AWT

APRIL 26THE WALK OF FAITHEnoch walked with God and God took him. (Genesis 5:24)\tThere are spiritual lessons for every Christian believer in the life of godly Enoch, seventh generation from Adam through Adam’s third son, Seth.\tWe are impressed that he could resist the devil and find fellowship with his Creator-God, for he lived in a worldly society headed for destruction.\tEnoch’s daily walk was a walk of faith, a walk of fellowship with God. The Scriptures are trying to assure us that if Enoch could live and walk with God by faith in the midst of his sinful generation, we likewise should be able to follow his example because the human race is the same and God is the same!\tBeyond that, Enoch reminds us that the quality and boldness of our faith will be the measure of our preparation for the return of Jesus Christ to this earth. We walk by faith as Enoch did, and although it is now twenty centuries after Christ’s sojourn on earth, we hold firmly to the New Testament promise that our risen Lord will return to earth again!AWT

APRIL 27ENOCH ESCAPED DEATHBy faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death he had this testimony, that he pleased God. (Hebrews 11:5)\tThe Genesis record concerning Enoch should speak to us of our own troubled times—for that is the purpose of the Word of God. It should be our concern that we hear and that we obey!\tThe faith and deportment of the man Enoch compose a vivid picture—a powerful object lesson—to encourage every believer in his or her faith. There is only one conclusion to be drawn—Enoch was translated into the presence of God because of his faith, and thus he escaped death!\tIt is my strong conviction that Enoch’s experience of translation is a type, or preview, of the coming rapture of the Church, the Bride of Christ, described in the Scriptures. \tIt is evident that there was no funeral for Enoch. Perhaps members of his family did not fully understand his walk with God, but they could answer with the facts! “He is gone! We thought he was extreme in his beliefs but now he is gone, and we are still here in a troubled world!”AWT

APRIL 28A MAN SENT FROM GODAmong them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist. (Matthew 11:11)\tThe Bible record is very plain when it assures us that John the Baptist was a man sent from God.\tOur generation would probably decide that such a man ought to be downright proud of the fact that God had sent him. We would urge him to write a book. Seminary leaders would line up to schedule him as guest lecturer.\tActually, John the Baptist would never have fit into the contemporary religious scene in our day--never! He did not keep his suit pressed. He was not careful about choosing words that would not offend. He did not quote beautiful passages from the poets. The doctors of psychiatry would have quick advice for him: “John, you really need to get adjusted to the times and to society!”\t“Adjust”--that is a modern word I have come to hate. It was never an expression used to speak about human beings until we forgot that man has a soul. Now we have weird guys with mental “screwdrivers” adjusting one person a little tighter and another a little looser. John needed no adjustment. He gladly stepped down, so that all eyes could turn to Jesus, the Lamb of God!AWT

APRIL 29DEMONSTRATE YOUR FAITHIt is the spirit that quickeneth the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. (John 6:63) \tWe know of many who have been deceived into believing that the learning and the memorizing of Christian doctrine is all-sufficient. They actually think that somehow they are better off for having learned the doctrines of religion.\tGod actually asks of us what He asked of Noah long ago! “Demonstrate your faith in God in your everyday life!”\tIt is evident that God did not say to Noah, “I am depending on you to hold the proper orthodox doctrines. Everything will be just fine if you stand up for the right doctrines.”\tI have read a statement by Martin Lloyd-Jones, the English preacher and writer, in which he said: “It is perilously close to being sinful for any person to learn doctrine for doctrine’s sake.”\tI agree with his conclusion that doctrine is always best when it is incarnated—when it is seen fleshed out in the lives of godly men and women. Our God Himself appeared at His very best when He came into our world and lived in our flesh!AWT

APRIL 30PRAYER OF A SERVANT\tO Lord, I have heard Thy voice and was afraid. Thou hast called me to an awesome task in a grave and perilous hour. Thou art about to shake all nations and the earth and also heaven, that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.\tO Lord my Lord, Thou hast stooped to honor me to be Thy servant. No man taketh this honor upon himself save he that is called of God as was Aaron. Thou hast ordained me Thy messenger to them that are stubborn of heart and hard of hearing.\tThey have rejected Thee, the Master and it is not to be expected that they will receive me, the servant.\tMy God, I shall not waste time deploring my weaknesses nor my unfittedness for the work. The responsibility is not mine but Thine. Thou hast said, “I know thee; I ordained thee; I sanctified thee.”\tWho am I to argue with Thee or to call into question Thy sovereign choice? The decision is not mine but Thine. So be it, Lord; Thy will, not mine be done.AWT

MAY 1YOUR DEVOTIONAL LIFEBe strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. (Ephesians 6:10)\tToo many of us object, perhaps unconsciously, to the rather evident fact that the maintenance of the devotional mood is indispensable to success in the Christian life.\tAnd what is the devotional mood?\tIt is nothing else than constant awareness of God’s enfolding presence, the holding of inward conversations with Christ and private worship of God in spirit and in truth!\tTo establish our hearts in the devotional mood we must abide in Christ, walk in the Spirit, pray without ceasing and meditate in the Word of God day and night. Of course this implies separation from the world and obedience to the will of God, as we are able to understand it.\tNo matter how we may argue, true holiness and spiritual power are not qualities that can be once received and thereafter forgotten, as one might wind a clock or take a vitamin pill. Every advance in the spiritual life must be made against the determined resistance of the world, the flesh and the devil!AWT

MAY 2PRACTICING THE TRUTHCleanse your hands and purify your hearts, ye double minded. (James 4:8)\tChristians habitually weep and pray over beautiful truth, only to draw back from that same truth when it comes to the difficult job of putting it into practice!\tActually, the average church simply does not dare to check its practices against biblical precepts. It tolerates things that are diametrically opposed to the will of God, and if the matter is pointed out to its leaders, they will defend its unscriptural practices with a casuistry equal to the verbal dodgings of the Roman moralists.\tCan it be that there is no vital connection between the emotional and the volitional departments of life? Since Christ makes His appeal directly to the will, are we justified in wondering whether or not these divided souls have ever made a true commitment to the Lord? Or whether they have been inwardly renewed?\tIt does appear that too many Christians want to enjoy the thrill of feeling right but not willing to endure the inconvenience of being right! Jesus Himself left a warning: “Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead” (Revelation 3:1b).AWT

MAY 3AN EXCLUSIVE ATTACHMENTBut now, after ye are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements? (Galatians 4:9)\tI am not in the business of trying to downgrade any other believer’s efforts to win souls. I am just of the opinion that we are often too casual and there are too many tricks that can be used to make soul winning encounters completely “painless” and at “no cost” and without any “inconvenience.”\tSome of the unsaved with whom we deal on the “quick and easy” basis have such little preparation and are so ignorant of the plan of salvation that they would be willing to bow their heads and “accept” Buddha or Zoroaster if they thought they could get rid of us in that way.\tTo “accept Christ” in anything like a saving relationship is to have an attachment to the Person of Christ that is revolutionary, complete and exclusive!\tIt is more than joining some group that you like. It is more than having enjoyable social fellowship with other nice people. You give your heart and life and soul to Jesus Christ—and He becomes the center of your transformed life!AWT

MAY 4A BIRTH FROM ABOVEMarvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. (John 3:7)\tThis may sound like heresy in some quarters, but I have come to this conclusion—that there are far too many among us who have thought that they accepted Christ, but nothing has come of it within their own lives and desires and habits!\tThis kind of philosophy in soul-winning—the idea that it is “the easiest thing in the world to accept Jesus”—permits the man or woman to accept Christ by an impulse of the mind or of the emotions.\tIt allows us to gulp twice and sense an emotional feeling that has come over us, and then say, “I have accepted Christ.”\tThese are spiritual matters about which we must be legitimately honest and in which we must seek the discernment of the Holy Spirit. These are things about which we cannot afford to be wrong; to be wrong is still to be lost and far from God.\tLet us never forget that the Word of God stresses the importance of conviction and concern and repentance when it comes to conversion, spiritual regeneration, being born from above by the Spirit of God!AWT

MAY 5SPIRITUAL CONFIRMATIONLet us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. (Hebrews 10:22)\tThe human personality has a right to be consciously aware of a meeting with God. There will be a spiritual confirmation, an inward knowledge or witness!\tThis kind of confirmation and witness was taught and treasured by the great souls throughout the ages.\tConscious awareness of the presence of God! I defy any theologian or teacher to take that away from the believing church of Jesus Christ!\tBut be assured they will try. And I refer not just to the liberal teachers. God has given us the Bible for a reason—so it can lead us to meet God in Jesus Christ, in a clear, sharp encounter that will burn on in our hearts forever and ever.\tWhen the Bible has led us to God and we have experienced God in the crisis of encounter, then the Bible has done its first work. That it will continue to do God’s work in our Christian lives should be evident!AWT

MAY 6THE ETHICS OF JESUSAnd ye shall be witnesses unto me. (Acts 1:8)\tThe teachings of Jesus belong to the Church, not to society, for in society is sin, and sin is hostility to God!\tChrist did not teach that He would impose His teachings upon the fallen world. He called His disciples to Him and taught them, and everywhere throughout His teachings there is the overt or implied idea that His followers will constitute an unpopular minority group in an actively hostile world.\tThe divine procedure is to go into the world of fallen men, preach to them the necessity to repent and become disciples of Christ and, after making disciples, to teach them “the ethics of Jesus,” which Christ called “all things which I have commanded you.”\tThe ethics of Jesus cannot be obeyed or even understood until the life of God has come to the heart of a man or woman in the miracle of the new birth.\tThe righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those who walk in the Spirit. Christ lives again in His redeemed followers the life He lived in Judea, for righteousness can never be divorced from its source, which is Jesus Christ Himself!AWT

Really behind here, forgive me any who usually read these.. a rather difficult time it has been...MAY 7FAITH AND EXPERIENCEO taste and see that the Lord is good. (Psalm 34:8)\tI insist that the effective preaching of Jesus Christ, rightly understood, will produce Christian experience in Christian believers. Moreover, if preaching does not produce spiritual experience and maturing in the believer, that preaching is not being faithful to the Christ revealed in the Scriptures.\tLet me say it again another way: the Christ of the Bible is not rightly known until there is an experience of Him within the believer, for our Savior and Lord offers Himself to human experience.\tWhen Jesus says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,” it is an invitation to a spiritual experience. He is saying, “Will you consent to come? Have you added determination to your consent? Then come; come now!”\tYes, our Lord gives Himself to us in experience. David says in Psalm 34: “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” I think David said exactly what he meant.\tSurely the Holy Spirit was saying through David: “You have taste buds in your soul for tasting, for experiencing spiritual things. Taste and experience that God is good!”AWT

MAY 8WE ARE NOT ALL ALIKEFor we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. (Ephesians 2:10)\tWe ought to be fully aware that in the body of Christ we are not interested in the production of “cookie-cutter” Christians.\tThis is a word of caution in the matter of Christian experience—there is no pattern or formula for identical Christian experiences. It is actually a tragic thing for believers to try to be exactly like each other in their Christian faith and life.\tI have probably been overly cautious about testifying to my own experiences because I do not want anyone to be tempted to try to copy anything the Lord has done for me.\tGod has given each of us an individual temperament and distinct characteristics. Therefore it is the office of the Holy Spirit to work out as He will the details of Christian experience. They will vary with personality.\tOf this we may be sure: whenever a person truly meets God in faith and commitment to the gospel, he will have a consciousness and a sharp awareness of the details of that spiritual transaction!AWT

MAY 9QUESTIONS WE ASKA living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. (Romans 12:1)\tI am convinced that anyone who brings up the question of consequences in the Christian life is only a mediocre and common Christian! \tI have known some who were interested in the deeper life, but began asking questions: “What will it cost me—in terms of time, in money, in effort, in the matter of my friendships?” Others ask of the Lord when He calls them to move forward: “Will it be safe?” This question comes out of our constant bleating about security and our everlasting desire for safety above all else.\tA third question that we want Him to answer is: “Will it be convenient?”\tWhat must our Lord think of us if His work and His witness depend upon the security and the safety and the convenience of His people? No element of sacrifice, no bother, no disturbance—so we are not getting anywhere with God!\tWe have stopped and pitched our tent halfway between the swamp and the peak. We are mediocre Christians!AWT

MAY 10BEYOND EMPTY PROFESSIONExamine yourself, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. (2 Corinthians 13:5)\tPreaching from the pulpit about the Christian “deeper life” does not automatically produce a deeper life church and congregation. The profession of men and women that they believe in “the deeper Christian life” is no assurance that their fellowship is actually a deeper life church.\tThe deeper spiritual life many people say they want is not a message; it is not a sermon; it is not a profession.\tI am a pastor and I think I major in telling the truth. It is true that it is about time we stop coddling and apologizing for congregations that have reputations for being deeper life churches.\tThe deeper spiritual life is not something just to be talked about—it is a quiet enjoyment of daily blessing and peace and victory that is lived day by day; beyond empty profession and without any two-faced circumstances!AWT

MAY 11CONFESS CHRIST’S LORDSHIPAs ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him. (Colossians 2:6)\tI think it is a completely wrong concept in Christian circles to look upon Jesus as a kind of divine nurse to whom we can go when sin has made us sick, and after He has helped us, to say, “Goodbye, Jesus”—and go on our own way.\tSuppose I go into a hospital in need of a blood transfusion. After the staff has ministered to me and given their services, do I just slip out with a cheery “goodbye”—as though I owe them nothing and it was kind of them to help me in my time of need?\tThat may sound far out to you, but it draws a picture of attitudes among us today.\tBut the Bible never in any way gives us such a concept of salvation. Nowhere are we ever led to believe that we can use Jesus as a Savior and not own Him as our Lord. He is the Lord and as the Lord He saves us, because He has all of the offices of Savior, Christ, High Priest, and Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption!\tHe is all of these—and all of these are embodied in Him as Christ, the Lord!AWT

MAY 12HOW DO WE LISTEN?I will hear what God the Lord will speak peace unto his people (Psalm 85:8)\tThe living God has spoken to lost mankind in a variety of ways. The general response among us has been, “We did not hear His voice. We did not hear anything.”\tJohn recorded in his gospel the reactions of an audience of people who heard God speak audibly. When Jesus talked of His coming death, asking God to glorify His name through it, “a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and will glorify it again’:” (John l2:28).\tAnd what were the reactions of the bystanders? “The crowd that was there heard it and said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him” (John 12:29).\tPeople prefer their own logic, their own powers of reason. even when God speaks, they refuse to recognize His voice. They will not confess that God has spoken through Jesus Christ, the eternal Son. When He confronts them with their sin, they consult a psychiatrist and hope they can get their personalities “properly adjusted.”\tBut in a coming day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of all!AWT

MAY 13UNCLEAN BY COMPARISONAnd when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. (Revelation 1:17)\tIn the Old Testament, whenever the living God revealed Himself in some way to humankind, terror and amazement were the reactions. People saw themselves as guilty and unclean by comparison!\tIn the book of Revelation, the Apostle John describes the overwhelming nature of his encounter with the Lord of glory. Although a believer and an apostle, John sank down in abject humility and fear when the risen, glorified Lord Jesus appeared before him on Patmos.\tOur glorified Lord did not condemn John. He knew that John’s weakness was the reaction to revealed divine strength. He knew that John’s sense of unworthiness was the instant reaction to absolute holiness. Along with John, every redeemed human being needs the humility of spirit that can only be brought about by the manifest Presence of God.\tJesus at once reassured John, stooping to place a nail-pierced hand on the prostrate apostle, and saying: “Do not be afraid. I am the Living One. I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and hades.”AWT

MAY 14GOD KNOWS THE HYPOCRITESLet us therefore not judge one another anymore. (Romans 14:13)\tI do not consider that it is my place as a Christian to stand around making judgments and calling other people “hypocrites.”\tOur Lord Jesus Christ is the only man I know who was holy and perfect enough to call the religious leaders of the day hypocrites.\tI am just a man with faults and shortcomings of my own, and I must always consider myself lest I be tempted!\tI preach to my own congregation about our faults and our failings, with the warning that some of our professions of blessing and victory may get into the area of “unintentional hypocrisy.” Through the grace of God and the kindness of our spiritual ancestors we may have spiritual light that some others do not have—but in all honesty, we are wretchedly far below what we should be in living up to it, day by day.\tIt helps us to be honest and frank and humble to know that the great God Almighty knows the secrets of every person’s heart!AWT

MAY 15MORE THAN RELIGIONWalk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory. (1 Thessalonians 2:12)\tContrary to much that is being said and practiced in churches, true worship is not something that we “do” in the hope of appearing to be religious!\tTrue worship must be a constant and consistent attitude or state of mind within the believer, a sustained and blessed acknowledgment of love and admiration. If we have this awareness in our own lives and experience, then it is evident that we are not just waiting for Sunday to come to church and worship.\tHaving been made in His image, we have within us the capacity to know God and the instinct that we should worship Him. The very moment that the Spirit of God has quickened us to His life in regeneration, our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition!\tThat response within our beings, a response to the forgiveness and pardon and regeneration, signals the miracle of the heavenly birth—without which we cannot see the kingdom of God. Thus the primary work of the Holy Spirit is to restore the lost soul to intimate fellowship with God through the washing of regeneration.AWT

MAY 16HOLY SPIRIT, ALL DIVINEIt is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. (1 John 5:6)\tI wonder if any Christian can ever show forth the transforming radiance of the love of God without a complete surrender to the indwelling Person of the Holy Spirit?\tSurely that was in the mind of the songwriter, as he prayed and sang:Holy Ghost, with light divine, Shine upon this heart of mine; Chase the shades of night away, Turn my darkness into day. Holy Spirit, all divine, Dwell within this heart of mine; Cast down every idol throne, Reign supreme—and reign alone.\tOur world is filled with hatred and conflict, violence and bloodshed. Through the plan of redemption God has dealt graciously with this global problem of hatred in the hearts of men and women. He has sent the source of love and light and radiance to the human bosom; Paul himself testifying: “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us” (Romans 5:5).AWT

MAY 17HONOR GOD’S SPIRITGrieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. (Ephesians 4:30)\tI think there are great numbers of Christian believers who ought to go home and go into their places of prayer and apologize to God for their demeaning attitudes toward the Holy Spirit of God.\tIncluded in their numbers are Bible teachers who are guilty of leading us astray. They have dared to teach Christians that the Holy Spirit will never speak of His own person or position, as though the third Person of the Godhead may be ignored and His ministry downgraded!\tJesus said, “[When He comes] He shall not speak of himself, but whatever He shall hear, that shall He speak” (John 16:13b).\tJesus was actually telling His disciples: The Comforter will not come to stand on His own, to speak on His own authority. He will guide you into all truth—He will speak and act on the authority of the divine Godhead: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.\tIf you do not yield and honor the Holy Spirit, your lives will not show forth the blessed fruits of the Spirit!AWT

MAY 18RESPONDING TO THE SPIRITQuench not the Spirit. Hold fast to that which is good. (1 Thessalonians 5:19–20)\tAre we raising a whole generation of young men and women without any sensitivity to the voice of God’s Holy Spirit?\tI am on record, and I will be as long as I live, that I would rather lose a leg and hobble along throughout the rest of my life than to lose my sensitivity to God and to His voice and to spiritual things!\tOh, how I want to keep that sensitivity within me—within my soul!\tI am thinking about a great throng of men and women raised in Christian homes. They have been brought up in Sunday school. They probably cut their first baby tooth on the edge of a hymn book when the mother was not watching.\tStill, to this day, they are not right with God. Some have made a kind of profession but have never been able to delight themselves in the Lord.\tThe reason? They have lost sensitivity to the message and the voice of God. If the Holy Spirit cannot move something within their beings every day they are not going to be effective Christians—if they are Christians at all!AWT

MAY 19WHEN PENTECOST CAMEBut ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses. (Acts 1:8)\tAs we read the New Testament, we find a very simple and very plain and very forceful truth—the Holy Spirit makes a difference!\tConsider the early disciples—Jesus Himself had taught them for more than three years—the greatest Bible school! But still He had to caution them and encourage them not to depend on their own wisdom and strength: “Tarry ye until ye be endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49b). He promised that they would receive the Person of the Holy Spirit to carry out His plan of world evangelization.\tAfter Pentecost, the Spirit brought them a new and vivid consciousness of the actual Presence of God. He gave them the gifts of divine joy and peace. He gave them great and continuing delight in prayer and communion with God!\tFinally, we recall that before Pentecost the disciples could only ask questions. After Pentecost, throughout the record in the book of Acts, they stood in the authority of the Spirit and answered all of the questions of the people concerning God’s plan of salvation through the crucified and risen Christ!AWT

MAY 20THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRITThis Jesus being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost. (Acts 2:32–33)\tThe miraculous events wrought in Jerusalem by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost indicated to the disciples that Jesus Christ, the Messiah-Savior, had indeed taken His place at the right hand of the Majesty on high.\tWith Jewish critics all around, Peter lifted his voice and said that all who were in Jerusalem on that day were seeing the fulfillment of prophecy—the words of Jesus that He would send the Holy Spirit after His death and resurrection and exaltation.\t“Therefore,” Peter cried, “let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36).\tMany, many have failed to note Peter’s Pentecostal emphasis: the important thing in God’s plan was the fact that Jesus had been exalted in heaven, and that His glorification there had been the signal for the coming of the promised Holy Spirit. What a lesson! The Spirit does not have to be begged—He comes when the Savior is honored and exalted!AWT

MAY 21GEARED INTO THINGS ETERNALChrist, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God. (Hebrews 9:14)\tThe coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost was a gracious experience of fulfillment and blessing and direction for the Christian church.\tIt was the continuing emphasis for believers that we must live to gear ourselves into things eternal and to live the life of heaven here upon earth. We must yield our first obedience and loyalty to Jesus Christ, at any cost!\tAnything we try to offer God that is less than that really is a degradation of the Christian church.\tFrankly, I would rather be a member of a group that meets in a little room on a side street than to be part of a great activity that is not New Testament in its doctrine, in its spirit, in its living, in its holiness, in all of its texture and tenor. The Spirit-filled and Spirit-led congregation will be a joyful people. Beyond that, it will be useful and caring and compassionate! I do believe that the Christian church ought to be a helpful influence to the whole community!AWT

MAY 22GOD IS SOVEREIGNWe are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 5:20)\tOh, how I wish that I could adequately set forth the glory of the One who is worthy to be the object of our worship!\tI do believe that if our new converts—the babes in Christ—could be made to see His thousand attributes and even partially comprehend His being, they would become faint with a yearning desire to worship and honor and acknowledge Him, now and forever!\tI know that many discouraged Christians do not truly believe in God’s sovereignty. In that case, we are not filling our role as the humble and trusting followers of God and His Christ.\tAnd yet, that is why Christ came into our world. The old theologians called it “theanthropism”—the union of the divine and human natures in Christ. This is a great mystery and I stand in awe before it!\tThe theanthropy is the mystery of God and man united in one Person—not two persons but two natures. So, the nature of God and the nature of man are united in this One who is our Lord Jesus Christ!AWT

MAY 23BLAME SOMEONE ELSEAnd the man said, The woman gave me of the tree, and I did eat. (Genesis 3:12)\tIn the earliest day of failure and tragedy in the garden of Eden, Adam came out of hiding, knowing full well his own guilt and shame.\tAdam confessed: “We ate from the fruit of the tree that was forbidden—but it was the woman who enticed me!”\tWhen God said to Eve, “What did you do?” she said: “It was the serpent that beguiled me!”\tIn that brief time our first parents had learned the art of laying the blame on someone else. That is one of the great, betraying evidences of sin—and we have learned it straight from our first parents. We do not accept the guilt of our sin and iniquity. We blame someone else.\tIf you are not the man you ought to be, you are likely to blame your wife or your ancestors. If you are not the young person you ought to be, you can always blame your parents. If you are not the wife you ought to be, you may blame your husband or perhaps the children.\tSin being what it is, we would rather lay the blame on others. We blame, blame, blame! That is why we are where we are.AWT

MAY 24UNHOLY, UNRIGHTEOUS, UNHAPPYAnd so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. (Romans 5:12)\tAll of history and the daily newspaper testify that the human race lies in ruin—spiritually, morally and physically.\tThe long parade of gods, both virtuous and obscene, and a thousand varieties of vain and meaningless religious practices declare our spiritual degeneration, while disease, old age and death testify sadly to the completeness of our physical decay.\tBy nature, men and women are unholy; and by practice we are unrighteous. That we are also unhappy is of small consequence.\tBut it is of overwhelming importance to us that we should seek the favor of God while it is possible to find it, and that we should bring ourselves under the plenary authority of Jesus Christ in complete and voluntary obedience.\tTo do this is to invite trouble from a hostile world and to incur such unhappiness as may naturally follow. Add the temptation of the devil and a life-long struggle with the flesh and it will be obvious that we will need to defer most of our enjoyments to more appropriate time!AWT

MAY 25BRAGGING ABOUT GODThat God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion. (1 Peter 4:11)\tBasic beliefs about the Person and the nature of God have changed so much that there are among us now men and women who find it easy to brag about the benefits they receive from God—without ever a thought or a desire to know the true meaning of worship!\tI have immediate reactions to such an extreme misunderstanding of the true nature of a holy and sovereign God, for I believe that the very last thing God desires is to have shallow-minded and worldly Christians bragging about Him.\tBeyond that, it does not seem to be very well recognized that God’s highest desire is that every one of His believing children should so love and so adore Him that we are continually in His presence, in spirit and in truth.\tSomething wonderful and miraculous and life-changing takes place within the human soul when Jesus Christ is invited in to take His rightful place. That is what God anticipated when He wrought the plan of salvation. He intended to make worshipers out of rebels; to restore the place of worship which our first parents knew when they were created!AWT

MAY 26MAN’S VIEW OF THIS WORLDChoose you this day whom ye will serve but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. (Joshua 24:15)\tIf you have ever given much thought to this present world in which we live, you have some idea of the power of interpretation. The world is a stable fact, quite unchanged by the passing of years, but how different is modern man’s view of the world from the view our fathers held.\tThe world is for all of us not only what it is; it is what we believe it to be, and a tremendous load of weal or woe rides on the soundness of our interpretation!\tIn the earlier days, when Christianity exercised a dominant influence over American thinking, men conceded this world to be a battleground. Man, so our fathers held, had to choose sides. He could not be neutral—for him it must be life or death, heaven or hell!\tIn our day, the interpretation has changed completely. We are not here to fight, but to frolic! We are not in a hostile foreign land; we are at home! It now becomes the bounden duty of every Christian to reexamine his spiritual philosophy in the light of the Bible. So much depends on this that we cannot afford to be careless about it!AWT

MAY 27THE HUMBLE PLACEAll of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility. (1 Peter 5:5)\tI have met two classes of Christians; the proud who imagine they are humble, and the humble who are afraid they are proud!\tThere should be another class: the self-forgetful men and women who leave the whole thing in the hands of Christ and refuse to waste any time trying to make themselves good. They will reach the goal far ahead of the rest.\tThe truly humble person does not expect to find virtue in himself, and when he finds none he is not disappointed. He knows that any good deed he may do is the result of God’s working within him.\tWhen this belief becomes so much a part of any man or woman that it operates as a kind of unconscious reflex, he or she is released from the burden of trying to live up to the opinion they hold of themselves. They can relax and count upon the Holy Spirit to fulfill the moral law within them.\tLet us never forget that the promises of God are made to the humble: the proud man by his pride forfeits every blessing promised to the lowly heart, and from the hand of God he need expect only justice!AWT

MAY 28ASHAMED OF SINVerily every man at his best state is altogether vanity Surely every man walketh in a vain shew. (Psalm 39:5–6)\tBrethren, I am not ashamed of this world God created—I am only ashamed of man’s sin!\tIf you could take all of man’s sin out of this world, there would be nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to be afraid of.\tOur apologies must be for humanity—and for our sins. I keep repeating that we have no business making excuses for God.\tIt is popular now to talk about Christ being a guest here. I dare to tell people that they should stop patronizing Jesus Christ!\tHe is not the guest here—He is the Host!\tWe have apologists who write books and give lectures—apologizing for the person of Christ, trying to “explain” to our generation that the Bible does not really mean “exactly” what it says. But God has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ and thus we know where we stand, believing that all things were made by Him and “without Him was not anything made that was made.”AWT

MAY 29A GREAT MORAL BLUNDERBy the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders. (Acts 4:10–11)\tOf all the people on the earth, the nation of Israel surely was the best prepared to receive the Christ of God. The children of Abraham, they were called to be a chosen people in an everlasting covenant with God, the Father.\tYet they failed to recognize Jesus as Messiah and Lord. There is no doubt that theirs was the greatest moral blunder in the history of mankind. He came to His own people and they rejected Him!\tJesus taught frankly that He was asking His followers to throw themselves out on the resources of God. For the multitude, He was asking too much. He had come from God but they received Him not!\tIt seems to be a comfort to some Christians to sit back and blame and belabor the Jews, refusing to acknowledge that they have information and benefits and spiritual light that the Jews never had.\tIt is surely wrong for us to try to comfort our own carnal hearts by any emphasis that Israel rejected Him. If we do that, we only rebuild the sepulchers of our fathers as Jesus said!AWT

MAY 30ASTONISHED REVERENCECome and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul. (Psalm 66:16)\tIn my own being, I could not exist very long as a Christian without the inner consciousness of the Presence and nearness of God! I can only keep right by keeping the fear of God on my soul and delighting in the fascinating rapture of worship. \tI am sorry that the powerful sense of godly fear is a missing quality in churches today.\tThe fear of God is that “astonished reverence” of which the saintly Faber wrote. I would say that it may grade anywhere from its basic element—the terror of the guilty soul before a holy God—to the fascinated rapture of the worshiping saint.\tThere are few unqualified things in our lives but I believe that the reverential fear of God, mixed with love and fascination and astonishment and adoration, is the most enjoyable state and the most purifying emotion the human soul can know. A true fear of God is a beautiful thing, for it is worship, it is love, it is veneration. It is a high moral happiness because God is!AWT

MAY 31GOD KNOWS MY PRAYERBlessed are the dead which die in the Lord that they may rest from their labors. (Revelation 14:13) \tWe modern Christians seem to be a strange breed in many of our ways. We are so completely satisfied with earthly things and we enjoy our creature comforts so much that we would just rather stay on here for a long, long time!\tProbably most of us do not tell God about that kind of desire when we pray. But for years I have made a practice of writing many of my earnest prayers to God in a little book—a book now well worn. I remind God often of what my prayers have been. \tOne prayer in the book—and God knows it well by this time—is an honest supplication:Oh, God, Let me die rather than to go on day by day living wrong. I do not want to become a careless, fleshly old man.I want to be right so that I can die right! Lord, I do not want my life to be extended if it would mean that I should cease to live right and fail in my mission to glorify You all of my days!\tI would rather go home right now than to live on—if living on was to be a waste of God’s time and my own!AWT

JUNE 1GOD’S GRACE IS ETERNALMuch more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. (Romans 5:15)\tIt is a typical and accepted teaching in Christian churches today that Moses and the Old Testament knew only God’s law, and that Christ and the New Testament know only God’s grace.\tI repeat: that is the “accepted” teaching of the hour— but I also hasten to add that it is a mistaken concept, and that it was never the concept held and taught by the early Christian church fathers.\tGod has always been the God of all grace, and He does not change. Immutability is an attribute of God; therefore God at all times and in all of history must act like Himself! \tHe is the God of all grace; therefore the grace of God does not ebb and flow like the ocean tides. There has always been the fullness of grace in the heart of God. There is no more grace now than there was previously and there will never be any more grace than there is now!\tThe flow of God’s grace did not begin when Christ came to die for us. It was part of God’s ancient plan of redemption and was manifested in the blood and tears and pain and death at Calvary’s cross!AWT

JUNE 2HIS CROSS IS MY CROSSThe disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. (Matthew 10:24)\tTo take Jesus Christ into your life without reservation is to accept His friends as your friends and to know that His enemies will be your enemies! It means that we accept His rejection as our rejection. We knowingly accept His cross as our cross.\tIf you then find yourself in an area where Christ has no friends, you will be friendless—except for the one Friend who will stick closer than a brother. I made up my mind a long time ago. Those who declare themselves enemies of Jesus Christ must look upon me as their enemy, and I ask no quarter from them! And if they are friends of Christ they are my friends—and I do not care what color they are or what denomination they belong to.\tIf the preachers would faithfully tell the people what it actually means to receive Christ and obey Him and live for Him, we would have fewer converts backsliding and foundering.\tPreachers who are not faithful one day will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and answer to a faithful Savior why they betrayed His people in this way!AWT

JUNE 3NEW TESTAMENT ROOTSFor by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:13)\tIt is really a blessed thing in our Christian fellowship and in our congregations that God never asks whether it is a big church or a little church!\tA young pastor, when introduced to a well-known church leader, said, “You do not know me. I am the pastor of a little rural church.”\tI think it was a wise reply that came from the churchman: “Young man, there are no little churches; all churches are the same size in God’s sight!”\tBut, whether large or small, it must be an assembly of believers brought together through the Name of Jesus, to worship in God’s Presence; and with the right to receive all that God bestows.\tWith these roots, we should ask ourselves if we are truly interested in spiritual attainment as were the New Testament believers. We must confess that the spiritual temperature among us may often be lower than in the early church. But we hold to the message that those who truly honor the Presence of the Savior are included in this relationship that goes back to the New Testament and to the apostles!AWT

JUNE 4SPECTATOR CHRISTIANSBy love serve one another. (Galatians 5:13)\tThis we have heard: “I am a born again Christian and I am happy that my sins are forgiven and I go to church on Sunday because I like the fellowship!”\tWe ask: “Do you not go to put yourself in the way of spiritual blessing?”\tThe answer: “No, I am saved and I do not need anything!”\tWe ask: “Have you offered to witness, to pray, to encourage, to assist, to participate in your church’s life and outreach?”\tThe answer: “No. My church seems to get along very well without my help!”\tBrethren, this “non participation” kind of faith is a strange parody on Bible Christianity. Men and women who say they are believers just cancel themselves out. Is it something we have learned from the sporting events?—the great majority are spectators. They come and sit!\tIf there is any true spiritual life within us, God will give us a gift of some kind and the humble soul will find something to do for God!AWT

JUNE 5DO THINGS POSSESS US?Nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy. (1 Timothy 6:17)\tI think a lot of people in our congregations get confused when some learned brother advises us that we must all join in a fervent fight against “materialism.”\tIf men and women do not know what materialism is, how can they be expected to join the battle?\tMaterialism in its crisis form occurs when men and women created in the image of God accept and look upon matter as “the ultimate”—the only reality.\tThe advice, “We must fight materialism,” does not mean that everyone should get a sword, and run after a fellow named Material, and cut him down.\tWhat it does mean is that we should start believing in the fact of God’s Creation and that matter is only a creature of the all-wise and ever-loving God! The believer is not deceived into believing that the physical things we know and enjoy are the ultimate end, in themselves.AWT

JUNE 6WITHOUT FEELING?Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. (Ephesians 5:19)\tI do know something of the emotional life that goes along with conversion to Jesus Christ. I came into the kingdom of God with joy, knowing that I had been forgiven.\tI have had people tell me very dogmatically that they will never allow “feeling” to have any part in their spiritual life and experience.\t“Too bad for you!” is my reply.\tI say that because I have voiced a very real definition of what I believe true worship to be: “Worship is to feel in the heart!”\tIn the Christian faith, we should be able to use the word “feel” boldly and without apology. What worse thing could be said of us as the Christian church if it can be said of us that we are a feelingless people?\t I think we must agree that those of us who have been blest within our own beings would not join in any crusade to “follow your feelings.” But if there is no feeling at all in our hearts, then we are dead!AWT

JUNE 7WHO IS YOUR EXAMPLE?Be thou an example in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity. (1 Timothy 4:12)\tThe Christian churches of our day have suffered a great loss in rejecting the example of good men, choosing instead the “celebrity of the hour” for their pattern.\tWe must agree that it is altogether unlikely that we know who our “greatest” men are.\tOne thing is sure, however—the greatest man alive today is the best man alive today. That is not open to debate.\tSpiritual virtues run deep and silent. The holy and humble man will not advertise himself nor allow others to do it for him.\tThe Christian who is zealous to promote the cause of Christ can begin by living in the power of God’s Spirit, and so reproducing the life of Christ in the sight of men. In deep humility and without ostentation he can let his light shine.\tTo sum it all up: the most effective argument for Christianity is still the good lives of those who profess it!AWT

JUNE 8MAKE GOD’S WILL OUR WILLAnd he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? (Acts 9:6)\tThe mystery of man’s free will is far too great for us!\tGod said to Adam and Eve: “Thou shalt not eat from this tree.” Here was a divine requirement calling for obedience on the part of those who had the power of choice and will. When they disobeyed they usurped the right that was not theirs!\tThe poet Tennyson must have thought about this for he wrote in his In Memoriam: “our wills are ours, we know not how; our wills are ours to make them Thine!”\t“We know not how;” then Tennyson girds himself and continues, “Yes, our wills are ours to make them Thine.”\tAs created beings, that is our only right—to make our wills the will of God, to make the will of God our will!\tGod is sovereign, and we are the creatures. He is the Creator and therefore His is the right to command us with the obligation that we should obey.\tIt is a happy obligation, I might say, for “His yoke is easy and His burden is light!” It is important to agree that true salvation restores the right of a Creator-creature relationship, acknowledging God’s right to our fellowship and communion!AWT

JUNE 9WHY SETTLE DOWN?That ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:19)\tWhy should a Christian “settle down” as soon as he has come to know the Lord?\tI blame faulty exposition of the New Testament for stopping many Christians dead in their tracks, causing them to shrug off any suggestion that there is still spiritual advance and progress beckoning them on.\tIt is the position of some would-be teachers that everyone who comes into the kingdom of God by faith immediately obtains all there is of God’s spiritual provision.\tI believe that such a teaching is as deadly as cyanide to the individual Christian life. It kills all hope of spiritual advance and causes many believers to adopt what I call “the creed of contentment.”\tI am sure you agree with me that there is always real joy in the heart of the person who has become a child of God. Sound teaching of the Word will then hold out the goal of moving forward, emulating the Apostle Paul’s desire to become a special kind of Christian!AWT

JUNE 10FALSE PRETENDERSWhen the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions. (Matthew 19:22)\tAll persons who are alienated from God and outside of Christ are part and parcel of a mighty deception!\tThey are called upon to pretend that they can have peace of mind within and that they can be relatively happy and make a big success of their human lives if they have youth and wealth and morality and high position.\tIn that sense of what is going on all around us, David never had to apologize for writing that “every man is a liar!” The whole human concept of success and happiness and inner peace, based upon who we are and what we have, is completely false.\tThe rich young ruler who came to question Jesus had wealth, morality, position and youth. But his very first question gave the clue to his own inner emptiness of life: “What good thing should I do, that I may have eternal life?”\tHe knew very well that there is not a person alive who has eternal youth or eternal position or eternal righteousness. So, like every other man, he had to make a choice!AWT

JUNE 11COMPROMISE IS COSTLYI pray that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. (John 17:15)\tChristianity today is so entangled with this present world that millions never guess how radically they have missed the New Testament pattern.\tCompromise is everywhere—but actually no real union between the world and the Church is possible. When the Church joins up with the world it is the true Church no longer but only a pitiful hybrid thing, an object of smiling contempt to the world, and an abomination to the Lord!\tNothing could be clearer than the pronouncements of the Scriptures on the Christian’s relation to the world. The confusion which gathers around this matter results from the unwillingness of professing Christians to take the Word of the Lord seriously.\tThis whole thing is spiritual in its essence. A Christian is what he is not by ecclesiastical manipulation but by the new birth. He is a Christian because of a Spirit which dwells in him. Only that which is born by the Spirit is spirit, no matter how many church dignitaries work on it!AWT

JUNE 12CHRIST MADE THE WORLDGod hath spoken unto us by his Son by whom he made the worlds. (Hebrews 1:12)\tThink about the world into which our Lord Jesus Christ came—it is actually Christ’s world!\tEvery section of this earth that we buy and sell and kick around and take by force of arms is a part of Christ’s world. He made it all and He owns it all.\tJesus Christ, the eternal Word, made the world. He made the very atoms of which Mary was made; the atoms of which His own body was made. He made the straw in the manger upon which He was laid as a new-born baby.\tLet me digress here. I hear an occasional devotional exercise on the radio, in which the participants ask: “Mary, mother of God, pray for us!” It is only right that we should express our position based on the Word of God, and the truth is that Mary is dead and she is not the “mother of God.”\tMary was the mother of that tiny babe, for God in His loving and wise plan of redemption used the body of the virgin Mary as the matrix to give the eternal Son a human body. We join in giving her proper honor when we refer to her as Mary, mother of Christ.AWT

JUNE 13LOVING GOD ONLYAnd because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. (Matthew 24:12)\tThe first and greatest commandment is to love God with every power of our entire being. Where love like that exists, there can be no place for a second object.\tYet popular Christianity has as one of its most effective talking points the idea that God exists to help people to get ahead in this world! The God of the poor has become the God of an affluent society. We hear that Christ no longer refuses to be a judge or a divider between money-hungry brothers. He can now be persuaded to assist the brother that has accepted Him to get the better of the brother who has not!\tWhoever seeks God as a means toward desired ends will not find God. God will not be one of many treasures. His mercy and grace are infinite and His patient understanding is beyond measure, but He will not aid men in selfish striving after personal gain. If we love God as much as we should, surely we cannot dream of a loved object beyond Him which He might help us to obtain!AWT

JUNE 14NO ONE CHANGES GOD’S LAWI delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. (Psalm 40:8)\tBecause we live in a period known as the age of God’s grace, it has become a popular thing to declare that the Ten Commandments are no longer valid, no longer relevant in our society.\tWith that context, it has become apparent that Christian churches are not paying attention to the Ten Commandments.\tBut Dwight L. Moody preached often in the commandments. John Wesley said he preached the commands of the Law to prepare the way for the gospel. R. A. Torrey told ministers if they did not preach the Law they would have no response to the preaching of the gospel. It is the Law that shows us our need for the gospel of salvation and forgiveness!\tIt is accurate to say that our binding obligation is not to the Old Testament Law. As sincere Christians we are under Christ’s higher law—that which is represented in His love and grace. But everything that is morally commanded in the Ten Commandments still comprises the moral principles that are the will of God for His people. God’s basic moral will for His people has not changed!AWT

JUNE 15ASCRIPTION OF GLORYYet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. (1 Peter 1:18)\tI am discovering that many Christians are not really comfortable with the holy attributes of God. In such cases, I am forced to wonder about the quality of their worship.\tThe word “holy” is much more than an adjective saying that God is a holy God. It is an ecstatic ascription of glory to the triune God. Everything that appears to be good among men and women must be discounted, for we are humans. Abraham, David and Elijah, Moses, Peter and Paul—all were good men, but each had his human flaws and weaknesses as members of Adam’s race. Each had to find his own place of humble repentance. Because God knows our hearts and our intentions, He is able to restore His believing children in the faith!\tSo, we should be honest and confess that much of our problem in continuing fellowship with a holy God is that many Christians only repent for what they do, rather than for what they are!AWT

JUNE 16THE MYSTERY IN WORSHIPBehold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. (Exodus 3:2)\tConsider the experience of Moses in the desert as he beheld the fire that burned in the bush without consuming it. Moses had no hesitation in kneeling before the bush and worshiping God. Moses was not worshiping a bush; it was God and His glory dwelling in the bush whom Moses worshiped!\tThis is an imperfect illustration, for when the fire departed from that bush, it was a bush again.\tBut this Man, Christ Jesus, is eternally the Son. In the fullness of this mystery, there has never been any departure, except for that awful moment when Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). The Father turned His back for a moment when the Son took on Himself that putrefying mass of sin and guilt, dying on the cross not for His own sin, but for ours.\tThe deity and the humanity never parted, and to this day, they remain united in that one Man.\tWhen we kneel before Him and say, “My Lord and my God, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever,” we are talking to God!AWT

JUNE 17“YET SHALL HE LIVE!”He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. (John 11:25)\tThis may sound strange—but it is a fact that death is not the worst thing that can happen to a believing Christian!\tI can recall the first time I heard that statement, in a quiet conversation with Harry M. Shuman, for many years the president of the international Christian and Missionary Alliance.\tHe was a soft-spoken yet forceful man of God, rich in the wisdom of God’s word. We were talking of the serious issues of life and death. When he had something especially important to say, Dr. Shuman had an unusual way of lowering his voice and tilting his head just a bit. I can see him yet as he looked out from under his shaggy brows straight into my eyes.\t“Remember, Tozer,” he said, “death is not the worst thing that can happen to a person!”\tFor the Christian, death is a journey to the eternal world. It is a victory, a rest, a delight. I am sure my small amount of physical suffering has been mild compared to Paul’s, but I feel as Paul did: “I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far!” (Philippians 2:23)AWT

JUNE 18TRUTH HAS A SOULNeither knoweth any man the father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son shall reveal him. (Matthew 11:27)\tI believe there is a positive warning in the gospels that a person’s faith may stand in the revealed Bible text—and still be as dead as the proverbial doornail!\tConsider the prayer of our Lord in Matthew 11: “All things are delivered unto me of my Father; and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.”\tThere is more than a body of truth—and if we do not get through to the soul of truth, we have only a dead body on our hands.\tWhen the power of God moves in on the text and sets the sacrifice on fire, then you have genuine Christianity! We try to call that revival, but it is not revival at all. It is simply New Testament Christianity.\tPeople who thought they were saved get saved! People who have only believed in a code now have placed their faith and trust in Christ’s person. It is not any deluxe edition of Christianity—it is simply New Testament Christianity having its place!AWT

JUNE 19THE CONDITIONS OF PEACEHe came trembling and fell down before Paul and Silas and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? (Acts 16:29–30)\tIn a world like ours, with conditions being what they are, what should a serious-minded man or woman do?\tFirst, accept the truth concerning yourself. You do not go to a doctor to seek consolation, but to find out what is wrong and what to do about it.\t Then seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Seek through Jesus Christ a right relationship to God and then insist upon maintaining a right relation to your fellow man.\tSet about reverently and honestly to amend your doings. Magnify God, mortify the flesh, simplify your life. Take up your cross and learn of Jesus Christ to die to this world that He may raise you up in due time.\tIf you will do these things in faith and love, you will know peace; the peace of God that passes all understanding.\tYou will know joy; the joy of resurrection. you will know, too, the comfort of the indwelling Spirit of God, for you have sought to do the will of God at any price!AWT

JUNE 20OUR WILLS MUST SURRENDERHis servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness. (Romans 6:16)\tThe Christian doctrine of obedience to God and to His will is now largely neglected in modern religious circles, and many in our own congregations seem to feel that our obligation to obey has been discharged by the act of believing on Jesus Christ at the beginning of our Christian lives.\tWe need to remember that “the will is the seat of true religion in the soul.” Nothing genuine has been done in a man or woman’s life until his or her will has been surrendered in active obedience. It was disobedience that brought about the ruin of the race. It is the obedience of faith that brings us back again into the divine favor!\tIt needs to be said that a world of confusion results from trying to believe without obeying!\tA mere passive surrender may be no surrender at all. Any real submission to the will of God must include willingness to take orders from Him from that time on.\tI keep wondering whether the Lord’s ministers will again give to obedience the place of prominence it occupies in the Scriptures.AWT

JUNE 21GOD UNDERSTANDS USGod is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:16)\tWe should revel in the joy of believing that God is the sum of all patience and the true essence of kindly good will!\tBecause He is what He is, we please Him most, not by frantically trying to make ourselves good, but by throwing ourselves into His arms with all our imperfections and believing that He understands everything—and loves us still!\tThe God who desires our fellowship and communion is not hard to please, although He may be hard to satisfy. He expects from us only what He has Himself supplied. When He must chasten us, He even does this with a smile—the proud, tender smile of a Father who is bursting with pleasure over an imperfect son who is coming every day to look more and more like the One whose child he is!\tThis is the best of good news: God loves us for ourselves. He values our love more than He values galaxies of newly created worlds.\tHe remembers our frame and knows that we are dust!AWT

JUNE 22OUR SOVEREIGN LORDThe most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool. (Acts 7:48–49)\tHow can you be a Christian and not be aware of the sovereignty of the God who has loved us to the death?\tTo be sovereign, God must be the absolute, infinite, unqualified ruler in all realms in heaven and earth and sea. To be Lord over all the creation, He must be omnipotent. He must be omniscient. He must be omnipresent.\tWith all that is within me, I believe that the crucified and risen and glorified Savior, Jesus Christ, is the sovereign Lord. He takes no orders from anyone. He has no counselors and no advisers. He has no secretary to the throne. He knows in the one effortless act all that can be known and He has already lived out our tomorrows and holds the world in the palm of His hand.\tThat is the Lord I serve! I gladly own that I am His; glory to God! The Christ we know and serve is infinitely beyond all men and all angels and all archangels; above all principalities and powers and dominions, visible and invisible—for He is the origin of them all!AWT

JUNE 23BEHIND THE MASKBut wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? (James 2:20)\tI think it is pitiful and rather sad that about the only time you can find a fellow citizen who is not a “phony” is when he is mad. In our kind of society, most people feel that they must always be pretending, continually “putting on a front.”\tSo, they are never their real selves until they get mad!\tWhen Jesus faced His bitter religious enemies as recorded in John 8, there was no pretending, nothing staged for dramatic effect. Jesus confronted them with the words: “He that is of God heareth God’s words. You, therefore, hear them not, because you are not of God!”\tThese were firm and severe words; His enemies answered with angry and insulting words. These men were mad; they were letting go. They had given up pretense. They were acting naturally now, showing what they were within.\tAs humans, we are what we do! If what we do proves us to be wrong, then it is either despair or obtaining the help we need. Jesus came to change our natures. He came to break old habits of sin, to break and conquer them!AWT

JUNE 24THE SPIRIT’S GIFTSBut the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. (1 Corinthians 12:7)\tIn our Christian fellowship, we must recognize that the blessed Holy Spirit of God desires to take men and women and control them, and use them as instruments through which He can express Himself in the body of Christ.\tSomeone may try to give me credit for something they think I have done for God—but in actuality, God is doing it through His Holy Spirit—and using me as an instrument. There is no real sense in which we are able to do spiritual work of any kind without the Holy Spirit.\tWe do know that the Apostle Paul said: “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his” (Romans 8:9b). But he also exhorted those early believers not to ignore the Spirit’s gifts and to “covet earnestly the best gifts.” It is still important for us to fulfill the Spirit-given functions and capabilities which are the spiritual birthright of every regenerated believer.\tWe should not be looking around for some other way. God has given us in His Holy Spirit every gift and power and help that we need to serve Him!AWT

JUNE 26LORD OF OUR LIVINGWho died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. (1 Thessalonians 5:10)\tI have studied the New Testament enough to know that our Lord Jesus Christ never made the sharp distinctions between “secular” and “sacred” that we do!\tI think it is wrong to place our physical necessities on one side, and put praying and singing and giving and Bible reading and testifying on the other.\tWhen we are living for the Lord and living to please and honor Him, eating our breakfast can be just as spiritual as having our family prayers. There is no reason for a committed Christian to apologize: “Lord, I am awfully sorry but you know I have to eat now. I will be with you again just as soon as I am through.”\tWell, we have a better way than that in our living for God, and we see as we consider His feeding of the 5,000 the meaning of His Lordship. Jesus Christ is Lord—Lord of our bread and Lord of our eating and Lord of our sleeping, and Lord of our working!\tBrethren, our Lord is with us, sanctifying everything we do, provided it is honest and good.AWT

JUNE 27CHRIST GLORIFIED IN USEye hath not seen, nor ear hear the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. (1 Corinthians 2:9)\tThe Bible tells us that eye has not seen nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of men, the things that God has laid up for those who love Him!\tThat is why the apostle goes on to remind us that God has revealed these mysteries to us by the Holy Spirit.\tOh, if we would only stop trying to make the Holy Spirit our servant and begin to live in His life as the fish lives in the sea, we would enter into the riches of glory about which we know nothing now. Too many of us want the Holy Spirit in order to have some gift—healing or tongues or preaching or prophecy.\tYes, these have their place in that total pattern of the New Testament, but let us ever pray that we many be filled with the Spirit for a secondary purpose!\tRemember, God wants to fill you with His Spirit as an end in your moral life. God’s purpose is that we should know Him first of all, and be lost in Him; and that we should enter into the fullness of the Spirit that the eternal Son, Jesus Christ, may be glorified in us!AWT

JUNE 28THE SPIRITUAL ESSENCEBy the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ. (Titus 3:5–6)\tWe who are the disciples of Jesus Christ often need to be reminded that God is allowing us to live on two planes at the same time.\tHe lets us live in this religious plane where there are preachers and songleaders and choirs, teachers and evangelists—and that is religion. It is actually “religion in overalls”—it is the external part of religion and it has its own place in God’s work and plan.\tBut beyond that and superior to all of the externals in our religious experience is the spiritual essence of it all! It is that spiritual essence that I want to see enthroned in our communion and fellowship in the Church of Jesus Christ!\tWe need the caution that much theology, much Bible teaching and many Bible conferences begin and end in themselves. The circle fully around themselves—but when everyone goes home no one is any better than he was before. We sorely need this caution about holding truth that begins and ends in itself. The danger is that we teach and live so that truth is given no opportunity of moral expression!AWT

JUNE 29ETERNITY IN OUR HEARTSThe high lofty One that inhabiteth eternity with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit. (Isaiah 57:15)\tThe only reason that men and women can be saved is the fact that God has put eternity in our hearts!\tMan is fallen—yes! Man is lost, a sinner and needs to be born again—yes!\tBut God made man in His own image and He keeps the longing after eternity and a desire after everlasting life there within the hearts of men.\tWhat, then, is the matter with man? Like the lion in the cage, he paces back and forth and roars to the heavens before he dies.\tI think this is the truth—we are disturbed because God has put everlastingness in our hearts. He has put a longing for immortality in our beings, something that demands God and heaven. yet, we are too blind and sinful to find Him or even to look for Him!\tAs Christian witnesses, we must be faithful and timely in our preaching and teaching. There is a note of warning in this—telling men and women why they are lost and that if they will not repent they will certainly perish!AWT

JUNE 30PRAYER FOR HUMILITY\tNow, O Lord of heaven and earth, I consecrate my remaining days to Thee; let them be many or few, as thou wilt.\tI accept hard work and small rewards in this life. I ask for no easy place. I shall try to be blind to the little ways that could make life easier. If others seek the smoother path I will try to take the hard way without judging them too harshly.\tI shall expect opposition and try to take it quietly when it comes. Or if, as sometimes it falleth out to thy servants, I should have grateful gifts pressed upon me by they kindly people, stand by me then and save me from the blight that often follows. Teach me to use whatever I receive in such manner that will not injure my soul nor diminish my spiritual power. Let me never forget that I am a man with all the natural faults and passions that plague the race of men.\tAnd if in Thy permissive providence honor should come to me from Thy Church, let me not forget that I am unworthy of the least of Thy mercies.AWT

JULY 1WARNING IN THE GOSPELHe that believeth not is condemned already. (John 3:18)\tWhen God warns a nation or a city, a church or a person, it is a grievous sin to ignore such warning. In conservative Christianity, we believe that the Christian message does indeed contain an element of alarm, but not all Christians believe this.\tSome have been taught that the Christian gospel is “good news exclusively.” They believe that the only way to explain the full meaning of the Christian gospel is to quote one verse: “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”\t“That is it! That is all there is to it,” they say.\tThey surely need to be reminded that in the use of language, it is impossible to make certain definite statements without bringing to mind that which is exactly opposite. So, when the Scriptures admonish us to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved, there comes to our mind the fact of mankind’s lost condition and the starkly plain message to those who do not believe: “He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18).AWT

JULY 2CRITICAL DECISIONSThe Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him. (Genesis 12:1, 4)\tPeople have many different ideas about the most important moment of their lives on this earth. We know of many who have testified to the great importance of their own spiritual decision—the act of faith whereby they committed themselves and their entire futures to God!\tI believe the Bible makes it plain that the single most critical, most important time in the life of Abraham was when he heard and answered the call of God. Unexpectedly and dramatically, God revealed Himself to Abraham and call him to be a pilgrim. It is a lesson to us that when Abraham was called, he by faith obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going!\tI have found comfort in the doctrine of prevenient grace, which, simply stated, is the belief that before a sinner can seek God, God must first have sought him.\tIn Abraham’s case, I believe that if he had been insensitive, he would never have heard God’s voice calling him, and if Abraham had rejected God’s overtures, the whole history of the world would have been vastly different—and different for the worse!AWT

JULY 3FREE TO BE A SERVANTUnderstanding what the will of the Lord is. (Ephesians 5:17)\tEvery man in a free society must decide whether he will exploit his liberty, or curtail it for moral and intelligent ends. He may take upon him the responsibility of business and a family, or he may shun all obligations and end on Skid Row. The tramp is freer than president or king, but his freedom is undoing. While he lives he remains socially sterile and when he dies he leaves nothing to make the world glad he lived.\tThe Christian cannot escape the peril of too much liberty. He is indeed free, but his very freedom may prove a source of real temptation to him. He is free from the chains of sin, free from the moral consequences of evil acts now forgiven, free from the curse of the law and the displeasure of God.\tThe ideal Christian is one who knows he is free to do as he will—and wills to be a servant. This is the path Christ took: blessed is the man who follows Him!AWT

JULY 4ONLY GOD IS FREEStand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. (Galatians 5:1)\tTo any human who bothers to think a bit, it should be evident that there is in our society no such thing as absolute freedom—for only God is free!\tIt is inherent in creaturehood that its freedom must be limited by the will of the Creator and the nature of the thing created. Freedom is liberty within bounds, liberty to obey holy laws, liberty to keep the commandments of Christ, to serve mankind, to develop to the full all the latent possibilities within our redeemed natures. True Christian liberty never sets us free to indulge our lusts or to follow our fallen impulses.\tOn earth, a healthy society requires that its members accept a limited freedom. Each must curtail his own liberty that all may be free, and this law runs throughout all of the created universe, including the kingdom of God.\tThe glory of heaven itself lies in the character of the freedom enjoyed by those who dwell therein!AWT

JULY 5GOD TOUCHES OUR EMOTIONSSet your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. (Colossians 3:2)\tI have heard people say that “Only doctrine is important.”\tWould they leave no room for Christian experience?\tConsider the preaching and the example of the famed Jonathan Edwards, used so mightily by God in the Great Awakening throughout New England in the eighteenth century.\tBut, you say, “Jonathan Edwards was a Calvinist!”\tI know—and that is my point. Edwards was acknowledged by society to have been one of the greatest intellects of his time. Yet he believed in genuine Christian experience so positively that he wrote a well-accepted book, Religious Affections, in defense of Christian emotion.\tCharged by some that his revivals had too much emotion, Edwards stood forth and proclaimed that when men and women meet God, accepting His terms, they experience an awareness that lifts their hearts to rapture.\tWhat higher privilege is granted to mankind on earth than to be admitted into the circle of the friends of God!AWT

JULY 6GOD’S WILL: “OBEY!”If ye will not obey then shall the hand of the Lord be against you. (1 Samuel 12:18)\tIndependence is a strong human trait, so men and women everywhere bristle when anyone says, “You owe obedience!” In the natural sense, we do not take kindly to the prospect of yielding obedience to anyone.\tBoth Old and New Testaments of the Bible make it plain that sin is disobedience to the Law of God. Paul’s picture of sinners in Ephesians concludes that the wrath of God will come upon those who are “the children of disobedience.”\tSo, we live in a generation of men and women alienated from God, and who make a great case for individualism and “the right of self-determination.” The individual’s strong statement is this: “I belong to myself. No one has the authority to require my obedience!”\tNow, if God had made us to be mere machines, we would not have the power of self-determination. He made us in His image, to be moral creatures with the power, but not the right, to choose evil. We have the right to be good. We never have the right to be bad because God, the Creator, is good. If we choose to be unholy, we are using a right that is not ours!AWT

JULY 7DISCIPLINE IS DISMISSEDFollow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway left their nets, and followed him. (Matthew 4:19–20)\tWe live in a land noted and favored for its freedom; a country where Protestant Christianity is popular and well accepted.\tI noted this to speak of one of the great spiritual dangers inherent in Protestantism, the fact that there is no discipline involved. Anyone in our churches is pretty much free to do anything he wants to do. If he does not like one church he has only to cross the street and go to another. If he does not like the preacher, he can leave and soon be attending a church where he is quite pleased with the preacher and with the music and with the atmosphere.\tYou see, he is demanding Christianity without discipline. He is refusing to acknowledge that the Christian faith makes its own demands of obedience to God and humility of spirit.\tWhen his personal desires take the upper hand, the voice of the Spirit of God is stifled and silenced. There can be only one result—the human soul will become starved and deformed!AWT

JULY 8CHRISTIANS INDEEDThey are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection. (Luke 8:14)\tI believe we are mistaken in Christian life and theology when we try to add the “deeper life” to an imperfect salvation, obtained through an imperfect concept of the entire matter.\tUnder the working of the Spirit of God through men like Finney and Wesley, no one would ever have dared to say, “I am a Christian” if he had not surrendered his whole being, taking Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior!\tToday, we let them say they are saved no matter how imperfect and incomplete the transaction, with the proviso that the deeper Christian life can be “tacked on” at some time in the future.\tBrethren, I believe we must put the blame on faulty teaching—teaching that is filled with self-deception.\tLet us look unto Jesus our Lord—high and holy, wearing the crown, Lord of Lords and King of all, having a perfect right to command full obedience from all of His saved people!AWT

JULY 9TOO TIMID TO RESISTSpeak every man truth with his neighbor; for we are members one of another. (Ephesians 4:25)\tThe clever proponents of evil political ideologies are spending millions to make us Americans ashamed to love our country. They use every means possible to persuade our own people that there is little left worth defending and certainly nothing worth dying for.\tThey are building in the public mind a picture of an American as a generous, tolerant, smiling chap who loves baseball and babies, and who subscribes wholly to the doctrine of the brotherhood of man—so everything is going to be all right!\tFrom our point of view, these concepts are having their effects on the nation’s religious life, especially among Protestants.\tLet a man rise to declare the unique Lordship of Jesus Christ and the absolute necessity of obedience to Him, and he is at once branded as a hate-monger and a divider of men.\tThe devil has brainwashed large numbers of religious leaders so successfully that they are now too timid to resist him! And he, being the kind of devil he is, takes swift advantage of their cowardice, erecting altars to Baal everywhere!AWT

JULY 10THE CREATOR’S HANDIWORKThe heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. (Psalm 19:1)\tReading my Bible, I am greatly impressed by the manner in which godly men of old revealed in their writings an intense love for every natural beauty around them. They saw nature as the handiwork of an all-powerful and all-glorious Creator!\tThe Old Testament is a marvelous rhapsody on the creation. Start with Moses, and when you get beyond the Levitical order you will find him soaring in his acute consciousness of the presence of God in all creation.\tGo to the book of Job. In the closing section you will be amazed at the sublimity of the language describing the world around us. Then go to the Psalms, with David literally dancing with ecstatic delight as he gazes out upon the wonders of God’s world. Go to Isaiah, where imagery is neither fanciful nor flighty but a presentation of the wonders of creation.\tIn our generation, how rarely we get into a situation where we can feel the impulses of nature communicated to us. We seldom have time to lift our eyes to look at God’s heaven—except when we are wondering if we should wear our boots!AWT

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JULY 11GOD’S SAVING GRACENoah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. (Genesis 6:8)\tGrace is the goodness of God confronting human demerit. So, grace is what God is—unchanging, infinite, eternal!\tThis throws light on God’s dealings with men and women throughout the Old Testament dispensations and history. It is certainly the truth, and a proper concept for us to hold, that no one was ever saved, no one is now saved, and no one will ever be saved except by the grace of God.\tBefore Moses came with the Law, men were saved only by grace. During the time of Moses, no one was saved except by grace. After Moses, before the cross, and after the cross, and during all of the dispensations, anywhere, anytime, no one was ever saved by anything but the grace of God!\tWe can say this with assurance because God dealt in grace with mankind looking forward to the Incarnation and the atoning death of Christ.\tIf God had not always operated in grace, He would have swept the sinning human race away. This, then, is the good news: God is gracious all the time, and when His grace becomes operative through our faith in Jesus Christ, then there is the new birth from above!AWT

JULY 12WE ARE TOO COMFORTABLEAnd others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection. \t(Hebrews 11:35)\tIs the fact that millions of Americans refuse to attend our church services only another symptom of original sin and love of moral darkness?\tNo, I believe that explanation is too “pat” to be wholly true.\tChurches cannot deny they are too comfortable, too rich, too contented! We hold the faith of our fathers, but it does not hold us. God is trying to interest us in a glorious tomorrow and we are settling for an inglorious today. God has set eternity in our hearts and we have chosen time instead. We are bogged down in local interests and have lost sight of eternal purposes.\tIt was the knowledge that they were part of God’s eternal plan that imparted unquenchable enthusiasm to the early Christians. They burned with holy zeal for Christ, and felt they were part of an army which the Lord was leading to ultimate conquest over all the powers of darkness!AWT

JULY 13OUT OF BALANCEIf ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed. (John 8:31)\tWe must admit that in the evangelical Christian churches of our day, almost all of us are guilty of a lop-sided view of the Christian life—all is made to depend upon the initial act of believing. At a given moment a decision is made for Christ, and after that everything is “automatic.”\tThis is because of our failure to lay a scriptural emphasis in our evangelical preaching.\tIn our eagerness to make converts we allow our believers to absorb the idea that they can deal with their entire responsibility once and for all by an act of believing. This is in some vague way supposed to honor grace and glorify God, whereas actually it is to make Christ the author of a grotesque, unworkable system that has no counterpart in the Scriptures of Truth.\tIn the New Testament accounts, faith was for each believer a beginning, not an end. Believing was not a once-done act; it was more than an act. It was an attitude of heart and mind which inspired and enabled the believer to take up his cross and follow the Lamb whithersoever He went!AWT

JULY 14SELFISH PERSONAL INTERESTChiefly them that walk after the flesh and despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed. (2 Peter 2:10)\tThroughout history, the philosophers have pretty well agreed on the conclusion that selfish personal interest is the motive behind all human conduct.\tThe philosopher Epictetus illustrated his understanding with the fact that two dogs may romp on the lawn with every appearance of friendship until someone tosses a piece of raw meat between them. Instantly, their play turns into savage fight as each struggles to get the meat for himself. Let us not condemn the old thinker for comparing the conduct of men to animals. The Bible frequently does and, humbling as it may be to us, we humans often look bad by comparison.\tIf we would be wise in the wisdom of God we must face up to the truth that men and women are not basically good: they are basically evil and the essence of sin lies in their selfishness! Putting our own interests before the glory of God is sin in its Godward aspects, and the putting of our own interests before those of our fellow man is sin as it relates to society. By the Cross, Jesus Christ demonstrated pure, selfless love in its fullest perfection. When He died, He set a crown of beauty upon a God-centered and an others-centered life!AWT

JULY 15REPENTANCE IS RAREThere is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth. (Luke 15:10)\tHumans, deceived by the devil and charmed by their own pride and abilities, deny that our world is a rebel province in God’s universe. They deny that human society has willfully pulled loose from God’s rule and the rest of God’s domain.\tIn fact, they deny that men and women are the creation of God. They deny even that they owe any allegiance to God, their Creator!\tThe Bible is the record of how God deals with mankind and we can draw but one conclusion: all people are morally obligated to repent and to ask forgiveness of God. Failing to do so, they will perish.\tHow rare it is in our day to hear of genuine repentance. We live amid a proud, selfish and self-sufficient people. Even in our Christian churches there are those who want nothing more than to be known as “respectable church members!” When repentance is real and faith is genuine, the atoning death of Jesus Christ is effective for pardon and forgiveness and regeneration.AWT

JULY 16GOD NEEDS NO PITYWho would not fear thee, O King of nations? there is none like unto thee. (Jeremiah 10:7)\tI do not think I could ever worship a God who was suddenly caught off guard, unaware of circumstances in His world around me!\tI could never offer myself to a God that actually needed me, brethren. If He needed me, I could not respect Him, and if I could not respect Him, I could not worship Him!\tSome of our missionary appeals are getting close to that same error: that we should engage in missionary work because God needs us so badly!\tThe fact is that God is riding above this world and the clouds are the dust of His feet and if you do not follow Him, you will lose all and God will lose nothing. He will still be glorified in His saints and admired of all those who fear Him. To bring ourselves into a place where God will be eternally pleased with us should be the first responsible act of every man!\tAll of these considerations are based upon the character and worthiness of God. Not a man or woman anywhere should ever try to come to God as a gesture of pity because poor God needs you!AWT

JULY 17LOSING THE MYSTERYIf any man will do his will, he shall know...whether it be of God. (John 17:7)\tWe may be sure we are gaining spiritually when we discover there is a sense of divine mystery running throughout all of the Kingdom of God!\tI am aware that there are teachers in various Christian circles who pretend to know everything about God. They will quickly answer any question you may have about God, His creation, His judgements. They end up taking the mystery out of life and the mystery out of worship. When they have done that, they have taken God out as well!\tTheir cleverness and glibness may well betray a lack of the divine awe within the human spirit—awe and adoration, silent and wonderful, that breathes a whisper, “Oh Lord God, Thou knowest!”\tIn Isaiah we see clearly what happens to a person in the mystery of the Presence. Overpowered within His own being, Isaiah can only confess, “I am a man of unclean lips!” A person who has sensed what Isaiah sensed will never be able to joke again about “The Someone up there who likes me.”AWT

JULY 18OLD THINGS PASS AWAYIf any man be in Christ old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)\tThe New Testament is, among others things, a record of the struggle of twice-born men and women to live in a world run by the once-born! That should indicate that we are not being as helpful as we ought to be when we fail to instruct the new Christian, that one who is “a babe in Christ,” that our Lord told his earliest disciples, “In this world you will have tribulation.”\tThe Apostle Paul knew what he was talking about when he told Christian believers, “All that will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.”\tTake the example of a person recently converted to Christ. His inner witness is clear and up to the light he has, he is beginning to live as he believes a Christian should. But this new world is altogether different from the one he has just left. Standards, values, objectives, methods—all are different. Many solid pillars upon which he had previously leaned without question are now seen to be made of chalk and ready to crumble.\tThere will be tears but there will be joy and peace with the continuing discovery that in Christ, indeed, “old things pass away and all things become new.”AWT

JULY 19OBEDIENCE IS BETTERLeaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection. (Hebrews 6:1)\tThe writer to the Hebrews long ago pointed out that some professed Christians were marking time and getting nowhere! They had had opportunity to grow—but they had not grown. They had had sufficient time to mature, yet they were still babes.\tSo, he plainly exhorted them to leave their meaningless religious round and press on to perfection.\tIt is possible to have motion without progress, and this describes much of the activity among Christians today. It is simply lost motion! It boils down to this—it is possible that we may attend church for a lifetime and be none the better for it. I think we can say that most Christians have no clear end toward which they are striving. On the endless religious merry-go-round they continue to waste time and energy.\tA Christian cannot hope for the true manifestation of God while he lives in a state of disobedience. Let a man refuse to obey God on some clear point, and the rest of his religious activity will be wasted. The instructed and obedient Christian will yield to God as the clay yields to the potter, and will relish every moment in church!AWT

JULY 20THE FAMILY OF GODI bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. (Ephesians 3:14, 15)\tThere is an important message for the believing family of God in the Bible: next to God Himself we need each other most!\tGod’s ideal is a fellowship of faith, a Christian community. He never intended that salvation should be received and enjoyed by the individual apart from the larger company of believers. With that, it also needs to be said that to live within the religious family does not mean that we must approve everything that is done there.\tBut God has so created us that we need each other. We may and should go into our closet and pray in secret, but when the prayer is ended we should go back to our people. That is where we belong.\tNo one is wise enough to live alone, nor good enough nor strong enough. From our brethren we can learn how to do things and sometimes also we can learn how to do things and sometimes also we can learn how not to do them!\tOur Lord who is the Great Shepherd has said that we are the sheep of His pasture and it is in our nature to live with the flock. Best of all, the Shepherd always stays with His flock!AWT

JULY 21IS YOUR LINE BUSYI heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send... Then said I, Here am I; send me. (Isaiah 6:8)\tThe gospel invitation is offered freely to one and all, but many are too preoccupied to hear or heed. They never allow God’s call to become a reason for decision. As a result, they live out their entire lives insisting that they never heard any call from God!\tThe answer to that is plain. God has been trying to get through to them, but engrossed in a host of worldly pursuits, their line is always busy.\tThe world around us wants to put us in the same straitjacket that would have kept Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees.\t“We will talk to you about religion” is the seemingly kindly offer people give us today. But then they add the disclaimer: “Just do not make religion personal.” Most people seem to have come to terms with an acceptance of religions if it does not have the Cross of Christ within it!\tBut when God calls men and women to the belief that Christ has given us the only way to God through His death and atonement, their faith will be an offense to the world. It was so in Abraham’s day, and it is so in our day!AWT

JULY 22OUR GODLY CONVERSATIONThen they that feared the Lord spake often one to another; and the Lord hearkened and heard it. (Malachi 3:16)\tI have met Christians who were so intent upon winning souls to Christ that they would not talk to you about anything but God and His goodness!\tSuch a man was the Canadian, Robert Jaffray, one of our early pioneer missionaries. His family owned the Toronto Globe and Mail and as a young Christian he was disinherited because he chose to follow God’s call to China rather than join the family business.\tThat good godly man spent his lifetime in China and the south Pacific, searching for the lost—and winning them! He was always reading maps and daring to go to the most difficult places, in spite of physical weaknesses and diabetic handicap. He sought out and lived among the poor and miserable, always praying to God, “Let my people go!”\tWhen on furlough, he could not sit and talk about common things. Always his thoughts went back to God and missions and winning the lost. I am reminded of Malachi who said, “They that feared the Lord spoke often one to another; and the Lord hearkened.”AWT