| Devotional | ACTIVITY IS NOT ENOUGH
Those 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 ...read |
| Devotional | Admiring God
The dictionary says that to admire is ?to regard with wondering esteem accompanied by pleasure and delight; to look at or upon with an elevated feeling of pleasure.? According to this definition, God has few admirers among Christians today. Many are they who are grateful for His goodness in providing salvation. At Thanksgiving time the churches rin ...read |
| Devotional | Adoring Worship
Neither the word adoration nor any of its forms is found in our familiar King James Bible, but the idea is there in full bloom. The great Bible saints were, above all, enraptured lovers of God. The psalms celebrate the love which David (and a few others) felt for the person of God. As suggested above, Paul admitted that the love of God was in his b ...read |
| Devotional | Advertizing Our Imperfections
Our Lofty Idealism would argue that all Christians should be perfect, but a blunt realism forces us to admit that perfection is rare even among the saints. The part of wisdom is to accept our Christian brothers and sisters for what they are rather than for what they should be.
We do not wish to excuse the laziness of the saints or to provide carn ...read |
| Devotional | After Winter the Eternal Tomorrow
To the man out of Christ, the fall of the year, in spite of its many charms, must surely bring with it a deep and hidden terror. For it speaks of the approaching end, the time when it may be said, ?The summer is ended, and we are not saved.? It would be good indeed if the autumn winds could preach to the lost soul of the brevity of life and the lo ...read |
| Devotional | Agape Love
"Love," said Meister Eckhart, "is the will to, the intention." By that definition, it is possible to obey the divine command to love our neighbor. We may not in a thousand years be able to feel a surge of emotion toward certain "neighbors," but we can go before God and solemnly will to love them, and the love will come. By prayer and an appli ...read |
| Devotional | All People are . . . People!
The man of God may labor on in complete trust and in full expectation of success, provided he is aware of a few basic truths. One is that however different people may be in externals, they are all alike fundamentally. That in us to which the Christian message is directed is the same in every human being. Before the cross of Jesus we are not old or ...read |
| Devotional | Altering God's Image
. . . at the root of all superstition is an inaccurate and unworthy conception of the character of God. To be more explicit, men believe God to be whimsical, and consequently expect Him to be impulsive and unpredictable in His dealings with mankind. Out of this notion comes a score of superstitious fancies that have gotten themselves accepted thro ...read |
| Devotional | AN EXCLUSIVE ATTACHMENT
I 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." Some of the unsaved with whom we deal on the \ ...read |
| Devotional | ANSWERING GOD'S CALL
When will men and women realize that when God calls us out He is completely faithful to call us into something better? In his faith, Abraham was against idolatry and idol-making, but that was not his crusade. Because of his faith, God led him into a promised land, into possessions and into the lineage that brought forth the Messiah. The call of God ...read |
| Devotional | Applying the Test of Biblical Accuracy
The tests for spiritual genuineness are two: First, the leader must be a good man and full of the Holy Ghost. Christianity is nothing if not moral. . . . But the test of moral goodness is not enough. Every man must submit his work to the scriptural test. It is not enough that he be able to quote from the Bible at great length or that he claim for h ...read |
| Devotional | Appointed to Be Eternal Fruit-Bearers
. . . No man is ever the same after God has laid His hand upon him. He will have certain marks, and though they are not easy to detect perhaps we may cautiously name a few. . .
Another mark of the Spirit's working is a mighty moral discontent. In spite of our effort to make sinners think they are unhappy the fact is that wherever social and hea ...read |
| Devotional | ARE WE MIRED DOWN?
God 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. Many in our congregations have grown older and yet are not one inch farther up the mountain than on that day when the sun first ...read |
| Devotional | Are We Missing the Churchs Purpose?
It would be too easy to dismiss this dislike for church as only another symptom of original sin and love of moral darkness, but I believe that explanation is too pat to be wholly true. It doesnt explain enough. Some persons, for instance, find church intolerable because there is no objective toward which pastor and people are moving, aside possibly ...read |
| Devotional | As I Was, So Will I Be
For all things, God is the great Antecedent! Because He is, we are and everything else is. We cannot think rightly of God until we begin to think of Him as always being there-and being there first! Joshua 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 Mos ...read |
| Devotional | As the Son so the Father
It is a rare mind, I suppose, that is much concerned with the conduct of God in those distant realms that lie beyond human experience. But almost everyone has wondered how God would act if He were in our place. And we may have had moments when we felt that God could not possibly understand how hard it is for us to live right in such an evil world a ...read |
| Devotional | ASCRIPTION OF GLORY
I 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. The 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 m ...read |
| Devotional | ASHAMED OF SIN
Brethren, I am not ashamed of this world God created-I am only ashamed of man's sin! If 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. Our apologies must be for humanity-and for our sins. I keep repeating that we have no business making excuses for God. It is popular now to ...read |
| Devotional | ASTONISHED REVERENCE
In 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. I am sorry that the powerful sense of godly fear is a missing quality in churches today. The fear of God is ...read |
| Devotional | AUTHORITY IN PREACHING
Because we are Christians who believe the inspired Word of God and because we believe that the Holy Spirit is the abiding third person of the Trinity, there should be more divine authority in our preaching ministries. A preacher of this gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ should have the authority of God upon him, so that he makes the people responsib ...read |
A.W. Tozer