| Devotional | The Bane of "Religious Talk"
Now, while we cannot project ourselves backward through time and walk again in Galilee with Christ and His disciples, we can by faith actually experience "the substance of things hoped for"; we can have every sufficient "evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1, KJV); we can taste "the powers of the coming age" (6:5); we can "know" and " ...read |
| Devotional | The Barrenness of Busyness
Satan's distracting words often come from the most unexpected quarters. Martha would call Mary away from sitting at the feet of the Master. Sometimes, if we are not careful, our best friend may distract us. Or it might be some very legitimate activity. This day's bustle and hurly-burly would too often and too soon call us away from Jesus' feet. ...read |
| Devotional | The Barrenness of Busyness
Satan's distracting words often come from the most unexpected quarters. Martha would call Mary away from sitting at the feet of the Master. Sometimes, if we are not careful, our best friend may distract us. Or it might be some very legitimate activity. This day's bustle and hurly-burly would too often and too soon call us away from Jesus' feet. ...read |
| Devotional | The Believer and Worlds
The New Testament teaches that to be a follower of Christ it is necessary that a man turn his back upon the world and have no fellowship with it. Our Lord drew a sharp line between the kingdom of God and the world and said that no one could be at the same time a lover of both. This was also the teaching of Paul, James and John (2 Corinthians 6:14-1 ...read |
| Devotional | The Bible's Purpose
In recent years the Bible has been recommended for many other purposes than the one for which it was written. The peace of mind cults, for instance, manage to find in it oil for the troubled waters of the soul; but to make it work they must pick, choose, misunderstand and misapply quite literally to their heart's content. Now, the Bible when read ...read |
| Devotional | The Blessedness of Obedience
It will take more than talk and prayer to bring revival. There must be a return to the Lord in practice before our prayers will be heard in heaven. We dare not continue to trouble God's way if we want Him to bless ours. Joshua sent his army up to conquer Ai, only to see them hurled back with bloody losses. He threw himself to the ground on his fa ...read |
| Devotional | The Blindness of Self-Righteousness
. . If we compare what we ought to be and could be with what we are, and we don't see that we are in a rut and we are not concerned, then one of three things may be wrong. First, we may not be converted at all. . . . Second, people may not be concerned about the rut because of sin they have committed. . . . Third, some people are so self-righteou ...read |
| Devotional | THE BREATH OF GOD
Two of the great realities in our midst are surely the promised Presence of God and the testimony of His eternal Word! By the "Word of God" I do not refer only to the book you hold in your hand-paper and letters, pages and ink-sewed together with silk thread. By the Word of God I do mean the expression of the mind of God: the mighty, world-fillin ...read |
| Devotional | The Brooding Spirit of God
Because the inner lostness is the same in all human beings the work of God to reclaim them must be the same in all. And the Spirit broods over all, illuminating, revealing, convicting, enabling them to hear and see and understand. It is one of the wonders and delights of preaching that the same message will often affect people differently, produc ...read |
| Devotional | The Changing External and the Unchanging Internal
While Jesus grew through the various stages of developing childhood, He never saw a mechanical device more complicated than a cart. He never saw paper, or plastic, or a telephone, or a radio, or a camera, or a printed sheet, or a paved highway, or a gun, or a steam engine, or an electric motor. No one in His day ever got vaccinated or took vitamin ...read |
| Devotional | The Chapter after the Last
Matthew says, "And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb." Mark says, "And he [Joseph] bought fine linen, and took him [Jesus] down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock." Luke writes, "And the women also, which came with him from ...read |
| Devotional | The Choice Quandary
One of the problems most frequently encountered by serious-minded Christians is how to discover the will of God in a given situation. Now, granted that we are wholly committed to God with every full intent to obey Him, we may expect actually to be led by Him. The Scriptures that teach this are so many that one scarcely knows where to begin quoting. ...read |
| Excerpt | The Christian's Greatest Enemy
Excerpted from Rut, Rot or Revival
East of the Jordan in the territory of Moab, Moses began to expound this law, saying:
The Lord our God said to us at Horeb, "You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Break camp and advance into the hill country of the Amorites; go to all the neighboring peoples in the Arabah, in the mountains, in the w ...read |
| Devotional | The Church is Our Spiritual Family
The elements of a true church are few and easy to possess. They are a company of believers, the Lord, the Spirit and the Word of the Living God. Let the Lord be worshiped, the Spirit be obeyed, the Word be expounded and followed as the only rule for faith and conduct, and the power of God will begin to show itself as it did to Samson in the camp of ...read |
| Devotional | The Church is Us
Our most pressing obligation today is to do all in our power to obtain a revival that will result in a reformed, revitalized, purified church. It is of far greater importance that we have better Christians than that we have more of them. Each generation of Christians is the seed of the next, and degenerate seed is sure to produce a degenerate harve ...read |
| Devotional | The Church: the Body of Christ
The universal Church is the body of Christ, the bride of the Lamb, the habitation of God through the Spirit, the pillar and ground of the truth. The local church is a community of ransomed men, a minority group, a colony of heavenly souls dwelling apart on the earth, a division of soldiers on a foreign soil, a band of reapers, working under the dir ...read |
| Devotional | The Contemporary vs. the Eternal
Pastors and churches in our hectic times are harassed by the temptation to seek size at any cost and to secure by inflation what they cannot gain by legitimate growth. The mixed multitude cries for quantity and will not forgive a minister who insists upon solid values and permanence. Many a man of God is being subjected to cruel pressure by the ill ...read |
| Article | The Cross is a Radical Thing
The cross of Christ is the most revolutionary thing ever to appear among men.
The cross of the Roman times knew no compromise; it never made concessions. It won all its arguments by killing its opponent and silencing him for good. It spared not Christ, by slew Him the same as the rest. He was alive when they hung Him on that cross and completely ...read |
| Devotional | THE CROWD TURNS BACK
Our Lord Jesus Christ called men to follow Him, but He plainly taught that "no man can come unto me, except it were given him of my Father" (John 6:65). It is not surprising that many of His early followers, upon hearing these words, went back and walked no more with Him. Such teaching cannot but be deeply disturbing to the natural mind. It takes ...read |
| Devotional | The Cure
. . . suppose that I found an old fellow sitting on a bench and I went and sat down beside him. I noticed by looking at him that he had high blood pressure. I could tell it by the veins that stood out on his forehead. I began to try to tell him, "You have lived long enough on this bench. Get up; there's something better for you," and he began t ...read |
A.W. Tozer