| Devotional | Friends or Just Acquaintances?
There is a great difference between having ?company? and having a friend in the house. The friend we can treat as a member of the family, but company must be entertained. God is not satisfied until there exists between Him and His people a relaxed informality that requires no artificial stimulation. The true friend of God may sit in His presence fo ...read |
| Devotional | Friendship Trust
It should be pointed out that no revealed truth becomes automatically effective. The effect any truth has upon us depends upon our attitude toward it. First it must be accepted in active faith and received into our minds as completely trustworthy and beyond dispute. It must become a kind of dye to give color to all of our thinking and praying. The ...read |
| Devotional | From Failure to Radical Transformation
For all his faults, or perhaps because of them, Peter could do one thing superbly: he could shed tears of grief when he had offended his Savior. The ability to repent is a sweet treasure, and one that is rare among us these days. If we had Peter's penitent heart, we might go on to have his purity and his power. Should the contemplation of Peter's ...read |
| Devotional | From Spiritual Infancy to Maturity
Surely we need a baptism of clear seeing if we are to escape the fate of Israel (and of every other religious body in history that forsook God). If not the greatest need, then surely one of the greatest is for the appearance of Christian leaders with prophetic vision. We desperately need seers who can see through the mist. Unless they come soon, it ...read |
| Devotional | GAME OF PIOUS WORDS
Do you realize that most men play at religion as they play at games? Religion itself being of all games the one most universally played. The Church has its "fields" and its "rules" and its equipment for playing the game of pious words. It has its devotees, both laymen and professionals, who support the game with their money and encourage it wit ...read |
| Devotional | Gasping for the Glory of God
True spirituality manifests itself in certain dominant desires. These are ever-present, deep-settled wants sufficiently powerful to motivate and control the life. For convenience let me number them, though I make no effort to decide the order of their importance. 1. First is the desire to be holy rather than happy. The yearning after happiness foun ...read |
| Devotional | Gazing Upon Christ
We have all seen the person who begins all arguments with the unassailable proposition that he is right and reasons from there. We have received a few letters which purported to settle all questions, not by bringing forth reasons, but by establishing the writer's qualifications to pronounce judgment. "How dare you question my actions," he says. ...read |
| Devotional | GEARED INTO THINGS ETERNAL
The coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost was a gracious experience of fulfillment and blessing and direction for the Christian church. It 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 Jesu ...read |
| Devotional | Gentle but Determined Restorers
It is more than probable that in the whole history of the United States there was never at any one time so much religious activity as there is today. And it is also very likely that there was never less true spirituality.
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Now, experience has prepared us for the rebuttal we will surely hear from tender-minded friends: "Who are we to jud ...read |
| Devotional | GETTING GOD IN FOCUS
While many are busy trying to set forth satisfactory definitions of the word "faith," we do well to simply consider that believing is directing the heart's 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. At first this may be difficult, but it becomes easier as ...read |
| Devotional | Getting Honest With God
Try what I call the pad and pencil method. This method is very simple and consists of getting on your knees with your Bible, a pad of paper and a pencil. Read the Bible and then write down what is wrong with you. The only way to remain spiritual is to keep after yourself. The pad and pencil method is good. Read, for example, the Sermon on the Mount ...read |
| Devotional | GIFTS AND GRACES
I go back often to Genesis 24 for the illustration and the figure in the Old Testament reminding us of the adornments of grace and beauty that will mark the believing Body of Christ. Abraham sent his trusted servant to his former homeland to select a bride for Isaac. The adornment of Rebekah's beauty consisted of jewels and the raiment that came ...read |
| Devotional | GIVE GOD THE CONTROL
I know that I am being repetitious - but this needs to be said again and again: our Lord will not save those whom He cannot command! The lifetime God has given us down here is a lifetime of decisions. Each person makes his own decisions as to the eternal world he is going to inhabit. We must decide to take Jesus for what He is - the anointed Savio ...read |
| Devotional | GIVE TIME TO GOD
I 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! God 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 ti ...read |
| Devotional | GLAMOR INSTEAD OF GLORY
One ominous sign in the social structure that surrounds us is the false attitude toward anything that can be called "ordinary." There has grown up all around us an idea that the "commonplace" is old-fashioned and strictly for the birds! This existing mania for glamor and contempt for the ordinary are signs and portents in American society. Even ...read |
| Devotional | GLORIOUS CONTRADICTIONS
God 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. The Christian is dead and yet he lives forever. He died to himself and yet he lives in Christ. The Christian saves his own life by losing it and he is in danger of losing it by ...read |
| Devotional | GLORY OF THE TRINITY
The more I read my Bible, the more I believe in the triune God! With 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. I have often wondered why the rabbis and saints and hymnists of the olden times did not come to the knowledge of the Trinity jus ...read |
| Devotional | GLORY TO GOD
When the Holy Spirit comes among us with His anointing, we become a worshiping people! Now, that does not mean that all Christians everywhere must all worship alike - but that under the guidance of the Holy Spirit believers everywhere are united in their praises to God. When Jesus came into Jerusalem presenting Himself as Messiah there was a great ...read |
| Devotional | God Always Acts Like Himself
Since true faith rests upon what God is, it is of utmost importance that, to the limit of our comprehension, we know what He is. "They that know thy name will put their trust in thee" (Psalm 9:10). The name of God is the verbal expression of His character, and confidence always rises or falls with known character. What the psalmist said was simpl ...read |
| Devotional | GOD AND THE INDIVIDUAL
When the eternal Son of God became the Son of Man and walked on this earth, He always called individuals to His side. Jesus did not come into the world to deal with statistics! He deals with individuals and that is why the Christian message is and always has been: "God loves the world! He loves the masses and throngs only because they are made up ...read |
A.W. Tozer