Tozer ~ Spiritual Concentration

[b]Accenting the Inner Life[/b]

Retire from the world each day to some private spot, even if it be only the bedroom (for a while I retreated to the furnace room for want of a better place). Stay in the secret place till the surrounding noises begin to fade out of your heart and a sense of God’s presence envelops you. Deliberately tune out the unpleasant sounds and come out of your closet determined not to hear them. Listen for the inward Voice till you learn to recognize it. Stop trying to compete with others. Give yourself to God and then be what and who you are without regard to what others think. Reduce your interests to a few.… Learn to pray inwardly every moment. After a while you can do this even while you work. Practice candor, childlike honesty, humility. Pray for a single eye. Read less, but read more of what is important to your inner life. Never let your mind remain scattered for very long. Call home your roving thoughts. Gaze on Christ with the eyes of your soul. Practice spiritual concentration. ([i]Of God and Men[/i], p. 106)
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Let’s practice the art of Bible meditation. But please don’t grab that phrase and go out and form a club — we are organized to death already. Just meditate. Let us just be plain, thoughtful Christians. Let us open our Bibles, spread them out on a chair and meditate on the Word of God. It will open itself to us, and the Spirit of God will come and brood over it.
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I do challenge you to meditate, quietly, reverently, prayerfully, for a month. Put away questions and answers and the filling in of blank lines in the portions you haven’t been able to understand. Put all of the cheap trash away and take the Bible, get on your knees, and in faith, say, “Father, here I am. Begin to teach me!” ([i]The Tozer Pulpit[/i], Book 2, p. 117)

Quietness. Concentration.

Those words seem almost forgotten in this day and age in which we live.

There is noise all around us everywhere, everyday.

Noises outside the home and in the home too.

However, we can follow the example that Jesus gave us, by rising early, resorting to mountains and gardens to spend time with God.

We too can shut out the world, and spend time with the word.

If we want to, we can.

Trust in the Lord, with all of your heart, with all of your mind, and with all of your Soul. Do not lean on your own understanding, but in all of your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path.

Meditate in the Word of God day and night according to his Psalms 119. And then rise up and wage a war, for you are not of this world, though you may live in this world you are not of this world! Your citizenship is in Heaven. If a thousand arise on one side, and ten thousand on your right non shall come near you, for his rod and his staff they comfort you.

Your steps are ordered by the Lord, his Word, is a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path.

Amen. This word from Tozer brings a reality to me. It reminds me of what I hear Keith Daniel say often, "You are as holy as you want to be."

If that is in fact true, then what the Lord our God says about Holiness is weightier. (That may not even be a legal word) But, if we are in fact as holy as we want to be then the standard is God Himself. O, lets seek Him while He may be found...

You may say; "Physician, Heal thyself!...I have struggled with this for many years. I have given away a lot of TVs. I have discovered this about my Spiritual life. It is like a garden, and the weeds have to be pruned. Sometimes the thorny cactus has a beautiful flower, but it must go, along with the thorns.

almond

[b]Consecration Is Not Difficult[/b]

Consecration is not difficult for the person who has met God. Where there is genuine adoration and fascination, God’s child wants nothing more than the opportunity to pour out his or her love at the Savior’s feet. ([i]Whatever Happened to Worship?[/i], p. 89)

[b]Unhealthy Attitudes[/b]

The amount of loafing practiced by the average Christian in spiritual things would ruin a concert pianist if he allowed himself to do the same thing in the field of music. The idle puttering around that we see in church circles would end the career of a big league pitcher in one week. No scientist could solve his exacting problem if he took as little interest in it as the rank and file of Christians take in the art of being holy. The nation whose soldiers were as soft and undisciplined as the soldiers of the churches would be conquered by the first enemy that attacked it. Triumphs are not won by men in easy chairs. Success is costly.

If we would progress spiritually, we must separate ourselves unto the things of God and concentrate upon them to the exclusion of a thousand things the worldly man considers important. ([i]We Travel an Appointed Way[/i], pp. 26-27)

[b]Critque of Meaningless Activity[/b]

Our religious activities should be ordered in such a way as to leave plenty of time for the cultivation of the fruits of solitude and silence. It should be remembered, however, that it is possible to waste such quiet periods as we may be able to snatch for ourselves out of the clamorous day. Our meditation must be directed toward God; otherwise, we may spend our time of retiral in quiet converse with ourselves. This may quiet our nerves but will not further our spiritual life in any way. ([i]That Incredible Christian[/i], p. 137)

Let a Christian insist upon rising above the poor average of current religious experience and he will soon come up against the need to know God Himself as the ultimate goal of all Christian doctrine. Let him seek to explore the sacred wonders of the Triune Godhead and he will discover that sustained and intelligently directed meditation on the Person of God is imperative. To know God well he must think on Him unceasingly. Nothing that man has discovered about himself or God has revealed any shortcut to pure spirituality. It is still free, but tremendously costly. ([i]That Incredible Christian[/i], p. 135)

Neglected Christian truths can be revitalized only when by prayer and long meditation we isolate them from the mass of hazy ideas with which our minds are filled and hold them steadily and determinedly in the focus of the mind’s attention. ([i]The Divine Conquest[/i], p. 20)

These are words to be taken to heart from one of my favorite men of God.

The amount of loafing practiced by the average Christian in spiritual things would ruin a concert pianist if he allowed himself to do the same thing in the field of music. The idle puttering around that we see in church circles would end the career of a big league pitcher in one week. No scientist could solve his exacting problem if he took as little interest in it as the rank and file of Christians take in the art of being holy. The nation whose soldiers were as soft and undisciplined as the soldiers of the churches would be conquered by the first enemy that attacked it. Triumphs are not won by men in easy chairs. Success is costly.

Did this step on anyone else’s toes…or just mine?

Good stuff brother. Thanks for posting it.

Oh yeah brother. It crushed mines

[b]Gazing on God[/b]

\tWhen we lift our inward eyes to gaze upon God we are sure to meet friendly eyes gazing back at us, for it is written that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout all the earth. The sweet language of experience is “Thou God seest me” (Gen_16:13). When the eyes of the soul looking out meet the eyes of God looking in, heaven has begun right here on this earth. ([i]The Pursuit of God[/i], p. 83)
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Looking is of the heart and can be done successfully by any man standing up or kneeling down or lying in his last agony a thousand miles from any church. ([i]The Pursuit of God[/i], p. 85)
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Many have found the secret of which I speak and, without giving much thought to what is going on within them, constantly practice this habit of inwardly gazing upon God. They know that something inside their hearts sees God. Even when they are compelled to withdraw their conscious attention in order to engage in earthly affairs, there is within them a secret communion always going on. Let their attention but be released for a moment from necessary business and it flies at once to God again. This has been the testimony of many Christians, so many that even as I state it thus I have a feeling that I am quoting, though from whom or from how many I cannot possibly know. ([i]The Pursuit of God[/i], p. 86)
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Private prayer should be practiced by every Christian. Long periods of Bible meditation will purify our gaze and direct it; church attendance will enlarge our outlook and increase our love for others. Service and work and activity — all are good and should be engaged in by every Christian. But at the bottom of all these things, giving meaning to them, will be the inward habit of beholding God. A new set of eyes (so to speak) will develop within us enabling us to be looking at God while our outward eyes are seeing the scenes of this passing world. ([i]The Pursuit of God[/i], p. 87)
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I would emphasize this one committal, this one great volitional act which establishes the heart’s intention to gaze forever upon Jesus. God takes this intention for our choice and makes what allowances He must for the thousand distractions which beset us in this evil world. He knows that we have set the direction of our hearts toward Jesus, and we can know it too, and comfort ourselves with the knowledge that a habit of soul is forming which will become, after a while, a sort of spiritual reflex requiring no more conscious effort on our part. ([i]The Pursuit of God[/i], p. 82)

[b]The Voice of God[/b]

\tWhen God spoke out of heaven to our Lord, self-centered men who heard it explained it by natural causes, saying, “It thundered.” This habit of explaining the Voice by appeals to natural law is at the very root of modern science. In the living, breathing cosmos there is a mysterious Something, too wonderful, too awful for any mind to understand. The believing man does not claim to understand. He falls to his knees and whispers, “God!” The man of earth kneels also, but not to worship. He kneels to examine, to search, to find the cause and the how of things. Just now we happen to be living in a secular age. Our thought habits are those of the scientist, not those of the worshiper. We are more likely to explain than to adore. “It thundered!” we exclaim, and go our earthly way. But still the Voice sounds and searches. The order and life of the world depend upon that Voice, but men are mostly too busy or too stubborn to give attention. ([i]The Pursuit of God[/i], p. 71)

[b]Safety in Silence[/b]

\tWhoever will listen will hear the speaking Heaven. This is definitely not the hour when men take kindly to an exhortation to listen, for listening is not today a part of popular religion. We are at the opposite end of the pole from there. Religion has accepted the monstrous heresy that noise, size, activity and bluster make a man dear to God. But we may take heart. To a people caught in the tempest of the last great conflict God says, “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psa_46:10), and still He says it, as if He means to tell us that our strength and safety lie not in noise but in silence. ([i]The Pursuit of God[/i], p. 74)

Our thought habits are those of the scientist, not those of the worshiper. We are more likely to explain than to adore. “It thundered!” we exclaim, and go our earthly way. But still the Voice sounds and searches. The order and life of the world depend upon that Voice, but men are mostly too busy or too stubborn to give attention.

[i]But still.....[/i]

[b]The Presence of God[/b]

The presence of the Lord is the most wonderful thing in all the world. ([i]“The Chief End of Man,[/i]” Sermon #4, Toronto, 1962)

We must rescue our own concepts, not rescue God. God needs no rescuers. But we must rescue our own concepts from their fallen and frightfully inadequate condition. (“[i]The Chief End of Man[/i],” Sermon #5, Toronto, 1962)

\tThere comes the love of excellence that you can go into the presence of God and not want to rush out again. You want to stay in the presence of God because you are in the presence of utter, infinite excellence. And so naturally, you would admire. This can grow on you until your heart is lifted into an excellency of love and admiration. (“[i]The Chief End of Man[/i],” Sermon #5, Toronto, 1962)

\tIf you do not know the presence of God in your office, your factory, your home, then God is not in the church when you attend. ([i]Whatever Happened to Worship?[/i], p. 123)
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What the Church needs today is a restoration of the vision of the Most High God. I’m not just making up a sermon to preach to you. This is sound and can be checked and tested and proved. What we need more than we need anything else is a restoration of the vision of the Most High God. The honor of God has been lost to men and the God of today’s Christianity is a weakling — a little cheap, palsy God that you can run and pal around with. He’s “the man upstairs.” He’s the fellow that can help you when you’re in difficulty and not bother you too much when you’re not. We’ve reduced the God of Abraham and Jacob to a stuffed God that can be appealed to by anybody at any time. The clown on the radio can break into his fun and say, “Now we will have a minute of prayer.” The half-converted cowboy dressed like an idiot will say after he’s twanged out some sexy numbers, “Now I’ll do you a holy number.” God is approached by everybody because that kind of God can be approached by anybody. We’ve lost the glory and honor of God. (Sermon, “[i]Prayer[/i],” Chicago, 1956)

We must rescue our own concepts, not rescue God. God needs no rescuers. But we must rescue our own concepts from their fallen and frightfully inadequate condition.

I have never been able to read very much Tozer at any one time. I always find myself staring off into the distance pondering…

Anything over a few bites is usually way too much to properly digest in one meal.

Rumination and Tozer go hand in hand.

If Tozer doesn’t start you to thinking…you didn’t really read it.

Oswald Chambers and William Gurnall also come to mind.