My walk often amounts to using God to solve my problems, as opposed to using my problems as reason to find God. Oh wretched man that I am!!!!!The lord cannot fully bless a man until He has first conquered him.Of all forms of deception self-deception is the most deadly, and of all deceived persons the self-deceived are the least likely to discover the fraud.All of the Christians I meet who are amounting to anything for god are Christians who are very much out of key with their age—very, very much out of tune with their generation.The things that are closest to our hearts are the things we talk about, and if God is close to your heart, you will talk about Him.The final key to our lives should be turned over to Jesus Christ"In the Kingdom of God the surest way to lose something is to try to protect it, and the best way to keep it is to let it go.""How can God do His work in people who seem to think that Christianity is just another way of getting things from God?"The following concepts reveal much about ourselves;1. What we want the most. 2. What we think about 3. How we use our money 4. What we do with our leisure time. 5. The company we most enjoy6. Whom and what we admire7. What we laugh at.This is a blasé generation. People have been over stimulated to the place where their nerves are jaded and their tastes corrupted. Spiritual things have been rejected to make room for things artificial. The sacred has been secularized, the holy vulgarized and worship converted into a form of entertainment.There is a place in the religious experience where we love God for Himself alone, with never a thought of His benefits.The true Christian ideal is not to be happy but to be holy."There also seems to be a chilling fear of holy enthusiasm among the people of God. We try to tell how happy we are – but we remain so well controlled that there are very few waves of glory experienced in our midst.Of all forms of deception self-deception is the most deadly, and of all deceived persons the self-deceived are the least likely to discover the fraud.Not only are we all in process of becoming; we are becoming what we love.All that is worthwhile in Christianity is a miracle.I contend that whatever does not raise the moral standard of the church or community has not been a revival from god.One of the world's worst tragedies is that we allow our hearts to shrink until there is room in them for little beside ourselves.God waits for your faith and your love, and he doesn't ask whose interpretation of scripture you have accepted.You can be a hypocrite and love the world.You can be a deceived ruler in the religious system and love the world.You can be a cheap, snobbish, modern Christian and love the world.But you cannot be a genuine Bible Christian and love the world.One of our greatest tasks is to demonstrate to the young people of this generation that there is nothing stupid about righteousness.It is doubtful we can be Christian in anything unless we are Christian in everything.One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organization do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team.As the evangelists tell us, even the cat will know it when the head of the house is converted.The devil is a better theologian than any of us and is a devil still.Much that passes for New Testament Christianity is little more that objective truth sweetened with song and made palatable by religious entertainment.Now there are five vows I have in mind which we do well to make and keep. 1. Deal thoroughly with sin. 2. Never own anything -–get rid of the sense of possessing. 3. Never defend yourself. 4. Never pass anything on about anybody else that will hurt him. 5. Never accept any glory.Grace will save a man but it will not save him and his idol.What I believe about God is the most important thing about me.A true and safe leader is likely to be one who has no desire to lead, but is forced into a position of leadership by the inward pressure of the Holy Spirit and the press of the external situation.The warfare of the Christian is like foreign missions, romantic to talk about but drably realistic to live through.There is a tremendous need for prophets in each generation. These are the spiritual original, the god-intoxicated few, who, in every age, have spoken god's clear message into the duller ears of the multitudes.Every ransomed man owes his salvation to the fact that during the days of his sinning, god kept the door of mercy open by refusing to accept any of his evil acts as final.Pseudo faith always arranges a way out to serve in case God fails it.The cross is rough, and it is deadly, but it is effective.Any nation which for an extended period puts pleasure before liberty is likely to lose the liberty it misused.God never hurries. There are no deadlines against which He must work.Scholars can interpret the past; it takes prophets to interpret the present.One mark of the low state of affairs among us is religious boredom.It appears that too many Christians want to enjoy the thrill of feeling right but are not willing to endure the inconvenience of being right.Truth is a glorious but hard mistress. She never consults, bargains or compromises.It is hard to focus upon a better world to come when a more comfortable one than this can hardly be imagined.Men who refuse to worship the true God now worship themselves with tender devotion.To be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with men.Christians don't tell lies they just go to church and sing them" ~ A.W. TozerThe Lordship of Jesus Christ is not quite forgotten among Christians, but it has been relegated to the hymnal where all responsibility toward it may be comfortably discharged in a glow of religious emotion. Or if it is taught as a theory in the classroom it is rarely applied to practical living. The idea that the Man Christ Jesus has absolute final authority over the whole church and over its members in every detail of their lives is simply not now accepted as true by the rank and file of evangelical Christians.What we do is this: We accept the Christianity of our group as being identical with that of Christ and His apostles. The beliefs, the practices, the ethics, the activities of our group are equated with the Christianity of the New Testament. Whatever our group thinks or says or does is scriptural, no questions asked. It is assumed that all our Lord expects of us is that we busy ourselves with the activities of the group. In doing so we are keeping the commandments of Christ.What church board consults our Lord's words to decide matters under discussion? Let anyone reading this who has had experience on a church board try to recall the times or time when any board member read from the Scriptures to make a point, or when any chairman suggested that the brethren should see what instructions the Lord had for them on a particular question. Board meetings are habitually opened with a formal prayer or a "season of prayer"; after that the Head of the Church is respectfully silent while the real rulers take over.What Christian when faced with a moral problem goes straight to the Sermon on the Mount or other New Testament Scripture for the authoritative answer? Who lets the words of Christ be final on giving, buying, selling and other important matters?For the true Christian the one supreme test for the present soundness and ultimate worth of everything religious must be the place our Lord occupies in it. Is He Lord or symbol? Is He in charge of the project or merely one of the crew? Does He decide things or only help to carry out the plan of others? All religious activities, from the simplest act of an individual Christian to the ponderous and expensive operations of a whole denomination, may be proved by the answer to the question, Is Jesus Christ Lord in this act? Whether our works prove to be wood, hay and stubble or gold and silver and precious stones in that great day will depend upon the right answer to that question.Let a man set his heart only on doing the will of God and he is instantly free. No one can hinder him. The Root of the Righteous, 129."Christianity today is man-centered, not God-centered. God is made to wait patiently, even respectfully, on the whims of men. The image of God currently popular is that of a distracted Father, struggling in heartbroken desperation to get people to accept a Savior of whom they feel no need and in whom they have very little interest. To persuade these self-sufficient souls to respond to His generous offers God will do almost anything, even using salesmanship methods and talking down to them in the chummiest way imaginable. This view of things is, of course, a kind of religious romanticism which, while it often uses flattering and sometimes embarrassing terms in praise of God, manages nevertheless to make man the star of the show. Man: The Dwelling Place of God, 27.God dwells in the heart where praise is. Man is made to admire something and he admires. And when he admires to the point of incandescent white heat charged with mystery, that's worship. Tozer on Worship and Entertainment, 34"I Thank God that the kingdom of God is not divided into areas for big, important people and areas for little, unimportant people. Every one is just as needful in God's sight as any other!" "Who Put Jesus On the Cross", 161Nobody ever got anything from God on the grounds that he deserved it. Haven fallen, man deserves only punishment and death. So if God answers prayer it's because God is good. From His goodness, His lovingkindness, His good-natured benevolence, God does it! That's the source of everything. The Attributes of God, 47."Many of us Christians have become extremely skillful in arranging our lives so as to admit the truth of Christianity without being embarrassed by its implications. We arrange things so that we can get on well enough without divine aid, while at the same time ostensibly seeking it. We boast in the Lord but watch carefully that we never get caught depending on Him." The Root of the Righteous 39."We need to improve the quality of our Christianity and we never will until we raise our concept of God back to that held by apostle, sage, prophet, saint and reformer. When we put God back where he really belongs, we will instinctively and automatically move up again; the whole spiral of our religious direction will be upward." The Attributes of God, 195.I say that a Christian congregation can survive and often appear to prosper in the community by the exercise of human talent and without any touch from the Holy Spirit! All that religious activity and the dear people will not know anything better until the great and terrible day when our self-employed talents are burned with fire and only that which was wrought by the Holy Ghost will stand forever! Tragedy in the Church: The Missing Gifts, 30.Faith as Paul saw it, was a living flaming thing leading to surrender and obedience to the commandments of Christ. Faith in our day often means no more than a meek assent to a doctrine. Paths to Power, 56-57.Now, worship is the missing jewel in modern evangelicalism. We're organized; we work; we have our agendas. We have almost everything, but there's one thing that the churches, even the gospel churches, do not have: that is the ability to worship. We are not cultivating the art of worship. Worship: The Missing Jewel, 20.To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul's paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart. The Pursuit of God, 14"No man is worthy to succeed until he is willing to fail. No man is morally worthy of success in religious activities until he is willing that the honor of succeeding should go to another if God so wills. God may allow His servant to succeed when He has disciplined him to a point where he does not need to succeed to be happy." Renewed Day By Day, Vol. 1. March 24"Complacency is the deadly enemy of spiritual progress. The contented soul is the stagnant soul." The Size of the Soul, 22.The only fear I have is to fear to get out of the will of God. Outside of the will of God, there's nothing I want, and in the will of God there's nothing I fear, for God has sworn to keep me in His will. If I'm out of his will that's another matter. But if I'm in His will, He's sworn to keep me." Success and the Christian, 80."Whatever a man wants badly and persistently enough will determine the man's character." The Root of the Righteous, 116."It is impossible to keep our moral practices sound and our inward attitudes right while our idea of God is erroneous or inadequate." The Knowledge of the Holy, viii"The New Christian is like a man who has learned to drive a car in a country where the traffic moves on the left side of the highway and suddenly finds himself in another country and forced to drive on the right. He must unlearn his old habit and learn a new one and more serious than all, he must learn in heavy traffic." Of God and Men, 63."The notion that the careless sinner is the smart fellow and the serious-minded Christian, though well-intentioned, is a stupid dolt altogether out of touch with life will not stand up under scrutiny. Sin is basically an act of moral folly, and the greater the folly the greater the fool." Man The Dwelling Place of God, 48."What does this word holiness really mean? Is it a negative kind of piety from which so many people have shied away? No, of course not! Holiness in the Bible means moral wholeness-- a positive quality which actually includes kindness, mercy, purity, moral blamelessness and godliness. It is always to be thought of in a positive, white intensity of degree." I Call it Heresy, 63History will show that the church has prospered most when blessed with strong leaders and suffered the greatest decline when her leaders were weak and time serving. The sheep rarely go much farther than the shepherd. The Warfare of the Spirit, 191-192PRIDE: Creatures that have been saved by the sovereign grace of the Creator, put into the service of their fellow creatures and commanded to herald the good news of Divine pardon and deliverance may all too quickly forget that they are but clay pots made out of 'proud dust' (to note Thomas Watson's apt description). We must be reminded that we hold our office by our Master's pleasure, to do His bidding, to further His Kingdom, and to build up His children. Humble shepherds look upon God's sheep with compassion born of self-knowledge of their own wicked and slow hearts. Prideful shepherds look down upon the sheep with scornful contempt for their weakness, slowness, dullness, and failings. Humble shepherds remember that even the Great Shepherd of the sheep patiently endured the misunderstanding, scolding and fleshly second-guessing of His slow-to-learn sheep (cf. Matt. 16:22; Mark 4:38; 1 Pet. 2:21-23). Prideful shepherds, however, react to every real or perceived slight to their 'noble personage'. How unlike their Master! Shepherds must learn that they cannot be conformed to the image of Christ as long-suffering and forgiving unless they are first 'long-bothered' and wronged. Think about that before reading on! Pride, however, responds to the irritations of fellow sinners with anger. Bottom line, an angry leader is a prideful leader. "O my God, I am too ashamed and disgraced to lift up my face to you, my God, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens" (Ezra 9:6).In the conduct of our public worship where is the authority of Christ to be found? The truth is that today the Lord rarely controls a service, and the influence He exerts is very small. We sing of Him and preach about Him, but He must not interfere; we worship our way, and it must be right because we have always done it that way, as have the other churches in our group. TozerWhat Christian when faced with a moral problem goes straight to the Sermon on the Mount or other New Testament Scripture for the authoritative answer? Who lets the words of Christ be final. The causes back of the decline in our Lord's authority are many. I name only two. One is the power of custom, precedent and tradition within the older religious groups. These like gravitation affect every particle of religious practice within the group, exerting a steady and constant pressure in one direction. Of course that direction is toward conformity to the status quo. Not Christ but custom is lord in this situation…. The second cause is the revival of intellectualism among the evangelicals. This, if I sense the situation correctly, is not so much a thirst for learning as a desire for a reputation of being learned……. One sign of His diminishing authority is that many churches have for years baptized professing Christians in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit without even asking them to commit themselves to learn to obey all that Christ commanded (Matthew 28:18-20). Consequently Christ's supreme authority is ignored at the entrance into the membership and fellowship of His church. A disciple is a person who is committed to learn to obey all that Christ commanded, but the majority of Christians spend a lifetime in church and never even know that they should become a disciple.A.W. Tozer said, ``I am a Bible Christian and if an archangel with a wingspread as broad as a constellation shining like the sun were to come and offer me some new truth, I'd ask him for a reference. If he could not show me where it is found in the Bible, I would bow him out and say, I'm awfully sorry, you don't bring any references with you""The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and abnegation of all things. The blessed ones who possess the Kingdom are they who have repudiated every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing. These are the 'poor in spirit'" The Pursuit of God, 23"We must face today as children of tomorrow. We must meet the uncertainties of this world with the certainty of the world to come."-- Of God and Men, 132-133 –"Modern civilization is so complex as to make the devotional life all but impossible. It wears us out by multiplying distractions and beats us down by destroying our solitude, where otherwise we might drink and renew our strength before going out to face the world again."Of God and Men, 103."Wisdom, among other things, is the ability to devise perfect ends and to achieve those ends by the most perfect means....All God's acts are done in perfect wisdom, first for His own glory, and then for the highest good of the greatest number for the longest time. And all His acts are as pure as they are wise, and as good as they are wise and pure. Not only could His acts not be better done: a better way to do them could not be imagined."The Knowledge of the Holy, 60-61"Without doubt the emphasis in Christian teaching today should be on worship. There is little danger that we shall become merely worshipers and neglect the practical implications of the gospel. No one can long worship God in spirit and in truth before the obligation to holy service becomes too strong to resist. Fellowship with God leads straight to obedience and good works. That is the divine order and it can never be reversed."Born After Midnight, 126."We modern Christians are long on talk and short on conduct."Born After Midnight, 32."The idea that God will pardon a rebel who has not given up his rebellion is contrary both to the Scriptures and to common sense."The Root of the Righteous, 43."The man that believes will obey; failure to obey is convincing proof that there is no true faith present. To attempt the impossible God must give faith or there will be none, and He gives faith to the obedient heart only."Man the Dwelling Place of God, 33."The average Christian is so cold and so contented with His wretched condition that there is no vacuum of desire into which the blessed Spirit can rush in satisfying fullness."Born After Midnight, 7."In the Book of Acts faith was for each believer a beginning, not an end; it was a journey, not a bed in which to lie while waiting for the day of our Lord's triumph. 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."Born After Midnight, 16."Too many of our religious convictions are negative. We act not from a positive conviction that something is right, but from a feeling that the opposite is wrong."-- Of God and Men, 94. –"The greatness of God rouses fear within us, but His goodness encourages us not to be afraid of Him. To fear and not be afraid -- that is the paradox of faith.The Knowledge of the Holy, 84"When I am praying the most eloquently, I am getting the least accomplished in my prayer life. But when I stop getting eloquent and give God less theology and shut up and just gaze upward and wait for God to speak to my heart He speaks with such power that I have to grab a pencil and a notebook and take notes on what God is saying to my heart."Success and the Christian, 46-47"Worship, I say, rises or falls with our concept of God .... and if there is one terrible disease in the Church of Christ, it is that we do not see God as great as He is."Worship: The Missing Jewel of the Evangelical Church, 25.Actually, I do find Christians these days who seem to have largely wasted their lives. They were converted to Christ but they have never sought to go on to an increasing knowledge of God. There is untold loss and failure because they have accepted the whole level of things around them as being normal and desirable.The Counselor, 130."The best book is not one that informs merely, but one that stirs the reader up to inform himself."Man the Dwelling Place of God, 149.We may as well face it: the whole level of spirituality among us is low. We have measured ourselves by ourselves until the incentive to seek higher plateaus in the things of the Spirit is all but gone."Of God and Men, 12."We must do something about the cross, and one of two things only we can do--flee it or die upon it."The Root of the Righteous, 63."Faith never means gullibility. The man who believes everything is as far from God as the man who refuses to believe anything."The Root of the Righteous, 120."The notion that hostile persons or unfavorable circumstances can prevent the will of God from being fulfilled in a human life is altogether erroneous. Nothing, no one, can hinder God or a good man."The Root of the Righteous, 128"We Christians must simplify our lives or lose untold treasures on earth and in eternity."The Pursuit of God, 103"We cannot grasp the true meaning of the divine holiness by thinking of someone or something very pure and then raising the concept to the highest degree we are capable of. God's holiness is not simply the best we know infinitely bettered. We know nothing like the divine holiness. It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible and unattainable. The natural man is blind to it. He may fear God's power and admire His wisdom, but His holiness he cannot even imagine."The Knowledge of the Holy, 111."Prayer is never an acceptable substitute for obedience. The sovereign Lord accepts no offering from His creatures that is not accompanied by obedience. To pray for revival while ignoring or actually flouting the plain precept laid down in the Scriptures is to waste a lot of words and get nothing for our trouble."Of God and Men, 52.'...Faith is not a once-done act, but a continuous gaze of the heart at the Triune God. Believing, then, is directing the hearts' attention to Jesus. It is lifting the mind to "behold the Lamb of God," and never ceasing that beholding for the rest of our lives.'The Pursuit of God, 90." I find that many men and women are troubled by the thought that they are too small and inconsequential in the scheme of things. But that is not our real trouble -- we are actually too big and too complex, for God made us in His image and we are too big to be satisfied with what the world offers us!....Man is bored, because he is too big to be happy with that which sin is giving him. God has made him too great, his potential is too mighty."Who Put Jesus on the Cross, 170."When our Lord looked at us, He saw not only what we were -- He was faithful in seeing what we could become! He took away the curse of being and gave us the glorious blessing of becoming.Who Put Jesus on the Cross, 166""Truth is a glorious but hard mistress. She never consults, bargains or compromises."Of God and Men, 39"I think that most Christians would be better pleased if the Lord did not inquire into their personal affairs too closely. They want Him to save them, keep them happy and take them to heaven at last, but not to be too inquisitive about their conduct or service. But He has searched us and known us; He knows our downsitting and our uprising and understands our thoughts afar off. There is no place to hide from those eyes that are as a flame of fire and there is no way to escape from the Judgment of those feet that are like fine brass. It is the part of wisdom to live with these things in mind." That Incredible Christian, 105-106."To be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with men."Man the Dwelling Place of God, 114."God dwells in eternity but time dwells in God. He has already lived all our tomorrows as He has lived all our yesterdays."The Knowledge of the Holy, 45."We have become so engrossed in the work of the Lord that we have forgotten the Lord of the work." The Banner, Dec. 4, 70, p. 2"If God is the Supreme good then our highest blessedness on earth must lie in knowing Him as perfectly as possible."That Incredible Christian, 65"God being who He is must always be sought for Himself, never as a means toward something else.""Whoever seeks God as a means toward desired ends will not find God. The mighty God, the maker of heaven and earth, will not be one of many treasures, not even the chief of all treasures. He will be all in all or He will be nothing. God will not be used."Man the Dwelling Place of God, 56-57For a long time I have believed that truth, to be understood must be lived; that Bible doctrine is wholly ineffective until it has been digested and assimilated by the total life. That Incredible Christian, 92.The yearning to know What cannot be known, to comprehend the Incomprehensible, to touch and taste the Unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man. Deep calleth unto deep, and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster theologians call the Fall, the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its Source. The Knowledge of the Holy, 9.All things being equal, our prayers are only as powerful as our lives. In the long pull we pray only as well as we live. Some prayers are like a fire escape, used only in times of critical emergency -- never very enjoyable, but used as a way of terrified escape from disaster. They do not represent the regular life of the one who offers them; rather are the unusual and uncommon acts of the spiritual amateur.The Root of the Righteous, 81.God formed us for His pleasure, and so formed us that we as well as He can in divine communion enjoy the sweet and mysterious mingling of kindred personalities. He meant us to see Him and live with Him and draw our life from His smile.The Pursuit of God, p. 34.Worship means "to feel in the heart"....Worship also means to "express in some appropriate manner" what you feel....and what will be expressed? "A humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe and astonished wonder."Worship The Missing Jewel of the Evangelical Church 8, 9In the New Testament there is no contradiction between faith and obedience. Between faith and law-works, yes; between law and grace, yes; but between faith and obedience, not at all. The Bible recognizes no faith that does not lead to obedience, nor does it recognize any obedience that does not spring from faith.Paths to Power, 24"...no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God." The Knowledge of the Holy, 9."Our pursuit of God is successful just because He is forever seeking to manifest Himself to us." Pursuit of God, 65."It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it. The motive is everything." The Pursuit of God, 127"There is scarcely anything so dull and meaningless as Bible doctrine taught for its own sake. Truth divorced from life is not truth in its Biblical sense, but something else and something less."Of God and Men, 26"The abuse of a harmless thing is the essence of sin." A.W. Tozer"Men who refuse to worship the true God now worship themselves with tender devotion."A.W. Tozer The Divine Conquest, 52."One of the Most stinging criticisms made against Christians is that their minds are narrow and their hearts small."The Root of the Righteous, 113."We are called to an everlasting preoccupation with God."That Incredible Christian, 46."Every man is as holy as he really wants to be."Man: the Dwelling Place of God, 40Much of our difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify Him and to bring Him nearer to our own image. The Pursuit of God, 101."What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us." The Knowledge of the Holy, 7."God never hurries. There are no deadlines against which He must work." The Knowledge of the Holy, 53."The Christian is a Holy rebel loose in the world with access to the throne of God. Satan never knows from where the danger will come.""Christians don't tell lies they just go to church and sing them" ~ A.W. Tozer
