| Devotional | BENEFITS OF GRACE
Only a believing Christian can testify, "I am a sinner-saved by the grace of God!" But that is not the whole story. All that we have is cut of His grace. Jesus Christ, the eternal Word who became flesh and dwelt among us, is the open channel through whom God moves to provide all the benefits He gives, both to saints and to sinners-yes, even to si ...read |
| Devotional | Best Seller or Bread of Life?
Of the millions of Bibles bought during the last few years there is no certain way to discover how many are being read. But there is a pretty sure way to discover how many readers obey them. Total committal of a few hundred thousand persons to the message of the Bible anywhere in the world would work a moral revolution that would affect for good ev ...read |
| Devotional | Betrayed by Time
Churches get in ruts only because individuals get in ruts. It is impossible that the church should do anything that individuals do not do. It is impossible that we should make any progress except as made by individuals. It is impossible there should be any regress unless individual Christians go backward. Think about people who find themselves in r ...read |
| Devotional | BETTER FARTHER ON
Truth that is not experienced is no better than error, and may be fully as dangerous. Remember that the scribes who sat in Moses' seat were not the victims of error; they were the victims of failure to experience the truth they taught! We should see that one of the greatest foes of the Christian is religious complacency. The man who believes that ...read |
| Devotional | BETTER THAN GOLD
Every Christian believer should be aware that our God has given us definite promises of an amazing inheritance to be realized in the eternal! The blessings and riches of our divine inheritance are not riches that will come to us for anything that is worthy or superior in ourselves; but will come because of our relationship in faith to the One who i ...read |
| Devotional | BEYOND EMPTY PROFESSION
Preaching from the pulpit about the Christian "deeper life" does not automatically produce a deeper life church and congregation. The profession of men and women that they believe in "the deeper Christian life" is no assurance that their fellowship is actually a deeper life church. The deeper spiritual life many people say they want is not a me ...read |
| Devotional | Beyond the Symbols
I have noticed lately among so-called evangelicals a renewed interest in the religious gadgets that our Protestant fathers once threw away to make room for the Holy Spirit. It is becoming more common now to see in our churches (and in some Alliance churches, I regret to say) huge pictures of Christ, crosses on the altar, candles and other symbolic ...read |
| Devotional | BLAME SOMEONE ELSE
In the earliest day of failure and tragedy in the garden of Eden, Adam came out of hiding, knowing full well his own guilt and shame. Adam confessed: "We ate from the fruit of the tree that was forbidden-but it was the woman who enticed me!" When God said to Eve, "What did you do?" she said: "It was the serpent that beguiled me!" In that bri ...read |
| Devotional | Blessed Maladjustment!
The second prominent tragedy is that the gospel churches are confused and intimidated by numbers. They accept the belief that there has been change and that Christians must adjust to the change. The word used is adjustment. We must get adjusted, forgetting that the world has always been blessed by the people who were not adjusted. The poor people w ...read |
| Devotional | Blind Optimism
The close of World War II saw a radical change in the religious mood, especially on the part of the masses. It was a complete reversal. Religion came into its own. Faith became once more intellectually respectable and people stopped being ashamed to admit that they believed in God. Evangelicalism and the world wept briefly on each other?s shoulders ...read |
| Devotional | Blurred Goals and Spiritual Impediments
Like a doctor with a sick patient whose disease eludes diagnosis, religious leaders have for some years been aware that there is something seriously wrong with evangelicalism and have yet been unable to lay their finger upon the precise trouble. The symptoms they have discovered in abundance, but the cause back of them has been hard to locate. Most ...read |
| Devotional | Body Health Depends On Body Member Health
First, they misunderstand the nature of Christian faith. . . . Second, they misunderstand the nature of the church. . . . Third, they misunderstand what is wrong with them. You cannot cure a weak member by prescribing a certain diet. You can eat caviar and hummingbird tongue until the sun goes down, but it will not help you, because that is not wha ...read |
| Devotional | Boldly Christ's
To become a member of the body of Christ and join with the bride of Christ, you must be born into the family of Christ. It happens by believing in your heart that Jesus is Lord and confessing your faith with your mouth to the people. This is reasonable, and I do not understand why anybody should find fault with it. Suppose you were somewhere in the ...read |
| Devotional | Books and the Christian
The book that informs us without inspiring us may be indispensable to the scientist, the lawyer, the physician, but mere information is not enough for the minister. If knowledge about things constituted learning, the encyclopedia would be all the library one needed for a fruitful ministry. The successful Christian, however, must know God, himself a ...read |
| Devotional | Books to Be Chewed and Digested
The devotional works that have appeared have been so varied as to make classification difficult. Some of the great names are Meister Eckhart, Bernard of Clairvaux, Jan van Ruysbroeck, Michael Molinos, John of the Cross, Thomas Traherne, Richard Rolle, William Law, Walter Hilton, Francis de Sales, Jakob Boehme and Gerhart Tersteegen. To those might ...read |
| Devotional | Born Of God!
I think most of us remember with assurance the words of the Charles Wesley hymn which was his own personal testimony: His Spirit answers to the blood, And tells me I am born of God! Wesley testified here and in many other hymns to an inner illumination! When I became a Christian, no one had to come to me and tell me what Wesley meant. That is why J ...read |
| Devotional | BRAGGING ABOUT GOD
Basic beliefs about the Person and the nature of God have changed so much that there are among us now men and women who find it easy to brag about the benefits they receive from God-without ever a thought or a desire to know the true meaning of worship! I have immediate reactions to such an extreme misunderstanding of the true nature of a holy and ...read |
| Devotional | BREAK WITH THIS WORLD
I dare to say that Christians who have genuinely come to love and trust Jesus Christ have also renounced this world and have chosen a new model after which to pattern their lives. Further, we should say that this is the aspect of the Christian life that most people do not like. They want comfort. They want blessing. They want peace. But they recoil ...read |
| Devotional | BRINGING US TO GLORY
As Christian believers (I am assuming you are a believer), you and I know how we have been changed and regenerated and assured of eternal life by faith in Jesus Christ and His atoning death. On the other hand, where this good news of salvation by faith is not known, religion becomes an actual bondage. If Christianity is known only as a religious in ...read |
| Devotional | BROTHERHOOD OF THE REDEEMED
Anyone making even a quick review of Genesis will discover that God has told us more about His presence in creation and in history than about the details of human civilization. We believe that eternity dwells in the Person of God and that the material universe came into being through God's creation. The first man and woman in the human race were c ...read |
A.W. Tozer