| Devotional | THE LORD OF ALL BEAUTY
Think with me about beauty-and about this matchless One who is the Lord of all beauty, our Savior! God has surely deposited something within our human beings that is capable of understanding and appreciating beauty - the love of harmonious forms, appreciation of colors and beautiful sounds. Brother, these are only the external counterparts of a dee ...read |
| Article | The Menace Of The Religious Movie
When God gave to Moses the blueprint of the Tabernacle He was careful to include every detail; then, lest Moses should get the notion that he could improve on the original plan, God warned him solemnly, "And look that thou make them after their pattern, which was shown thee in the mount." God, not Moses, was the architect. To decide the plan was th ...read |
| Devotional | THE MYSTERY IN WORSHIP
Consider the experience of Moses in the desert as he beheld the fire that burned in the bush without consuming it. Moses had no hesitation in kneeling before the bush and worshiping God. Moses was not worshiping a bush; it was God and His glory dwelling in the bush whom Moses worshiped! This is an imperfect illustration, for when the fire departed ...read |
| Devotional | The Necessity of the Spirit's Illumination
I said that the causes of religious confusion were four, and I named misunderstanding of the nature of truth as one of them.
The others are lack of love, unbelief and nonobedience.
"Wisdom is a loving spirit," says the Wisdom of Solomon. "He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way" (Psalm 25:9), says David, the father ...read |
| Devotional | The Need for Power from On High
Christ told His disciples to tarry in Jerusalem until they had been endued with power from on high. This can only mean that He will not entrust His work to the unready and the unqualified. It is infinitely more important that we should be prepared for service than that we should win someone else to our subnormal spiritual condition. Soul-winning by ...read |
| Devotional | THE NEED FOR REVERENCE
Many persons who have been raised in our churches no longer think in terms of reverence, which seems to indicate that they doubt God's presence is there! Much of the blame must be placed on the growing acceptance of a worldly secularism that seems much more appealing than any real desire for the spiritual life that is pleasing to God. We seculari ...read |
| Devotional | The Object of True Faith
True faith is not the intellectual ability to visualize unseen things to the satisfaction of our imperfect minds; it is rather the moral power to trust Christ. To be contented and unafraid when going on a journey with his father the child need not be able to imagine events; he need but know the father. Our earthly lives are one shining web of gold ...read |
| Devotional | The One Before Whom All Shall Bow
The cure for superstition is an increased appreciation of the being of God: not names only, but character and being. The idea that the devil is afraid of a word or a gesture is pure superstition. He is not afraid of any name, not even the name Jesus. There are thousands of little boys in Latin America who bear that name, and surely Satan does not s ...read |
| Devotional | The One to be Feared
Over the years I have read or thumbed through a great many books on how to conquer fear. The cult of relaxation has, in fact, quite taken over certain areas of the religious thinking of the day. Of course the fear-not cultists are able to assemble a lot of Scripture to support their teaching, but the catch is that practically all of it is misunders ...read |
| Devotional | The Only Way to the Father
It is more than a little strange that persons who modestly decline to risk an opinion on matters that do not touch them at all closely, such as philosophy or science for instance, are often ready and eager to pronounce with finality on religion which above all else is vital to their welfare for this world and that which is to come. This follows the ...read |
| Devotional | The Open Secret
But the God we must see is not the utilitarian God who is having such a run of popularity today, whose chief claim to men's attention is His ability to bring them success in their various undertakings and who for that reason is being cajoled and flattered by everyone who wants a favor. The God we must learn to know is the Majesty in the heavens, Go ...read |
| Devotional | The Pain of Cross-Bearing
The weakness of much that passes for the Christian faith these days is seen in the readiness of many professed followers of Christ to make any concessions in order to ?get along with people,? especially with relatives and in-laws. The philosophy of mid-twentieth century Christianity is a philosophy of appeasement. Peace and unity have become the Ca ...read |
| Devotional | THE PERFECTIONS OF GOD
I hope that if I am remembered at all it will be for this reason: I have spent my efforts and my energies trying to turn the direction of the people away from the external elements of religion to those that are internal and spiritual. I have tried to take away some of the clouds in the hope that men and women would be able to view God in His glory. ...read |
| Devotional | The Period Becomes a Comma
He was dead, but He is alive forevermore. That such a thing could be was intimated by the miracles of restoration which our Lord performed during His earthly ministry. The widow's son was brought back to life for a brief time; at our Lord's gentle call Jairus's little daughter rose from her bed of death; and Lazarus, at Christ's command, came f ...read |
| Devotional | The Power of Godly Living
The most effective argument for Christianity is still the good lives of those who profess it. A company of pure-living and cheerful Christians in the community is a stronger proof that Christ is risen than any learned treatise could ever be. And a further advantage is that, while the average person could not be hired to read a theological work, no ...read |
| Article | The Powers That Shape Us
Fortunately for all of us, human nature is not fixed but plastic. Every human being is in a state of becoming, of passing from what he was to what he is to be. And this is as true of the Christian as of every other person.
The new birth does not produce the finished product. The new thing that is born of God is as far from completeness as the ne ...read |
| Excerpt | The Prayer of a Minor Prophet
The covenant and prayer of a preacher
This is the prayer of a man called to be a witness to the nations. This is what he said to his Lord on the day of his ordination. After the elders and ministers had prayed and laid their hands on him he withdrew to meet his Savior in the secret place and in the silence, farther in than his well-meaning breth ...read |
| Devotional | THE PRESENCE OF GOD
The spiritual giants of old were those who at some time became acutely conscious of the presence of God. They maintained that consciousness for the rest of their lives. How otherwise can the saints and prophets be explained? How otherwise can we account for the amazing power for good they have exercised over countless generations? Is it not that in ...read |
| Devotional | The Primacy of Self
Selfish personal interest, says the Greek moral philosopher Epictetus, is the motive behind all human conduct. The children of the world, Christ tells us, are often wiser than the children of light. In his discovery of the springs of human conduct Epictetus reveals an understanding of mankind far beyond that of the average Christian; and this in sp ...read |
| Devotional | The Privilege of Choice
It is inherent in the nature of man that his will must be free. Made in the image of God who is completely free, man must enjoy a measure of freedom. This enables him to select his companions for this world and the next; it enables him to yield his soul to whom he will, to give allegiance to God or the devil, to remain a sinner or become a saint. A ...read |
A.W. Tozer