"If your love for the Lord is pure, you will love Him as much on Calvary as on Mount Tabor"~ Madame Jeanne GuyonWith this open secret awaiting easy discovery, why do we in almost all our busy activities work in another direction from this? Why do we build our churches upon human flesh? Why do we set such store by that which the Lord has long ago repudiated and despise those things which God holds in such high esteem? For we teach men not to die with Christ but to live in the strength of their dying manhood. We boast not in our weakness but in our strength. Values which Christ has declared to be false are brought back into evangelical favor and promoted as the very life and substance of the Christian way. How eagerly do we seek the approval of this or that man of worldly reputation. How shamefully do we exploit the converted celebrity. Anyone will do to take away the reproach of obscurity from our publicity-hungry leaders: famous athletes, congressmen, world travelers, rich industrialists; before such we bow with obsequious smiles and honor them in our public meetings and in the religious press. Thus we glorify men to enhance the standing of the Church of God, and the glory of the Prince of Life is made to hang upon the transient fame of a man who shall die.\tWe are slaves to our gadgets, puppets of our power, and prisoners of our security. The theme of our generation is: "Get more, know more, and do more," instead of "Pray more, be more, and serve more."~Billy Graham It is amazing that we can claim to be followers of Christ and yet take so lightly the words of His servants. We could not act as we do if we took seriously the admonition of James the servant of God:My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? Hearken, my beloved brethren, hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? (James 2:1-5)The cross always stands ready, and everywhere awaits you. You cannot escape it, wherever you flee, for wherever you go, you bear yourself, and always find yourself. Look up or down, without you or within, and everywhere you will find the cross.~ Thomas a' KempisPaul saw these things in another light than did those of whom James makes his complaint. “By the cross,” he said, “I am crucified unto the world” (see Galatian 6:14). The cross where Jesus died became also the cross where His apostle died. The loss, the rejection, the shame, belong both to Christ and to all who in very truth are His. The cross that saves them also slays them, and anything short of this is a pseudo-faith and not true faith at all. But what are we to say when the great majority of our evangelical leaders walk not as crucified men but as those who accept the world at its own value—rejecting only its grosser elements? How can we face Him who was crucified and slain when we see His followers accepted and praised? Yet they preach the cross and protest loudly that they are true believers. Are there then two crosses? And did Paul mean one thing and they another? I fear that it is so, that there are two crosses, the old cross and the new.The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men.~Edward Mckendree Bounds\tRemembering my own deep imperfections I would think and speak with charity of all who take upon them the worthy Name by which we Christians are called. But if I see aright, the cross of popular evangelicalism is not the cross of the New Testament. It is, rather, a new bright ornament upon the bosom of self-assured and carnal Christianity whose hands are indeed the hands of Abel, but whose voice is the voice of Cain. The old cross slew men; the new cross entertains them. The old cross condemned; the new cross amuses. The old cross destroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it. The old cross brought tears and blood; the new cross brings laughter. The flesh, smiling and confident, preaches and sings about the cross; before the cross it bows and toward the cross it points with carefully staged histrionics—but upon that cross it will not die, and the reproach of that cross it stubbornly refuses to bear.I have come to feel very badly about many church-growth moguls. There is often little of Jeremiah in their message. The thorny personal requirements of Amos or John the Baptist have been traded for a velvet togetherness. In fact, megachurch messages are all too often contrived to attrack the largest possible crowds. The scriptural feeding of these thousands is often accomplished by keeping the soup so bland that no one is offended by the taste. If any significant content arises, it is put aside lest anything doctrinal or demanding get in the way of building a large crowd. In such a milieu we never talk about the quality of the soup, only how many we serve.~Calvin MillerI well know how many smooth arguments can be marshaled in support of the new cross. Does not the new cross win converts and make many followers and so carry the advantage of numerical success? Should we not adjust ourselves to the changing times? Have we not heard the new slogan “New days, new ways”? And who but someone very old and very conservative would insist upon death as the appointed way to life? And who today is interested in a gloomy mysticism that would sentence its flesh to a cross and recommend self-effacing humility as a virtue actually to be practiced by modern Christians? These are the arguments, along with many more flippant still, which are brought forward to give an appearance of wisdom to the hollow and meaningless cross of popular Christianity.Doubtless there are many whose eyes are open to the tragedy of our times, but why are they so silent when their testimony is so sorely needed? In the name of Christ men have made void the cross of Christ. “The noise of them that sing do I hear” (Exodus 32:18). Men have fashioned a golden cross with a graving tool, and before it they sit down to eat and drink and rise up to play. In their blindness they have substituted the work of their own hands for the working of God’s power. Perhaps our greatest present need may be the coming of a prophet to dash the stones at the foot of the mountain and call the Church out to repentance or to judgment.Oh God our Father, how easy it is to backslide, to be living and yet be dead. How easy it is to become part of a troop of jolly church people, chattering and giggling, while the world grows old, the judgment draws near, hell enlarges its borders and the antichrist prepares himself to take over. While the world is unifying itself and getting ready for a king, oh God, my church is playing and saying, “I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing” (Revelation 3:17). We have more people attending, we have more money than we ever had. Our churches cost more and our schools are full and our programs are many. But we are forgetting, oh my God, that the quality of our Christianity has been greatly impaired.-AWT in The Attributes of God,Vol.1----------------------------The Pursuit of God-The Pursuit of ManDevotinal ReadingsA.W. TozerCompiled By Edythe Draper
