| Devotional | WHAT REALLY MATTERS?
It is all but impossible these days to get people to pay any attention to things that really matter. The broad cynic in our modern civilization is likely to ask: "What really matters, after all?" It is our personal relationship to God that really matters! That takes priority over everything else; for no man can afford to live or die under the fro ...read |
| Devotional | What to Do with Burdens
"If a burden is laid on my back and another immediately takes it off and carries it himself," said Meister Eckhart, "it can make no difference to me whether it is one or a hundred pounds."
In the Scriptures, there would seem to be three kinds of burdens recognized. First, the burden of loving help which we are admonished to give to others: " ...read |
| Devotional | What We Are and What We Can Be
Remember, we are compared with what we could be, not just what we should be. God being who He is, and Jesus Christ being His risen and all-powerful Son, anything we ought to be we can be. Anything that God has declared that we should be we can be. In the wonderful book of Romans, perhaps the greatest and most profound book in the Bible, 7 tells us ...read |
| Devotional | When Fish Catch the Fisherman
History shows clearly enough that true spirituality has never at any time been the possession of the masses. In any given period since the fall of the human race, only a few persons ever discerned the right way or walked in God's law. God's truth has never been popular. Wherever Christianity becomes popular, it is not on its way to die--it has al ...read |
| Devotional | When Interests Collide
Whether we are considering two men or two nations we see how personal interest controls their relation to each other. Two men can live together in perfect harmony as long as their interests coincide. Indeed it might correctly be said that human society can exist only by organizing itself in such a manner as to serve the interests of the majority of ...read |
| Devotional | WHEN PENTECOST CAME
As we read the New Testament, we find a very simple and very plain and very forceful truth-the Holy Spirit makes a difference! Consider the early disciples-Jesus Himself had taught them for more than three years-the greatest Bible school! But still He had to caution them and encourage them not to depend on their own wisdom and strength: "Tarry ye ...read |
| Devotional | When the Heart Lights Go On
God is concerned with the whole man and has designed that Christian experience should embrace the entire personality. The Christian faith deals not with the spiritual only but with the moral and the rational as well. The rational and moral elements in religion are the proper objects of thought and willingly yield their rich treasures to prayerful m ...read |
| Devotional | When ''Adjust'' Means ''Maladjust''
A word that is being greatly overused in modern society is adjust.
I am certainly not the first one to complain about it, but my objection to its overuse is, I believe, on a little higher level, for most persons who register their objections are thinking only about its social effects while I am concerned with its effect in the spiritual realm.
...read |
| Devotional | Where Have Those Hymnals Gone?
In order to express myself more freely on a matter that lies very near to my heart, I shall waive the rather stilted editorial we and speak in the first person.
The matter I have in mind is the place of the hymnbook in the devotional life of the Christian. For purposes of inward devotion, there is only one book to be placed before the hymnal, and ...read |
| Devotional | WHERE IS THE RADIANCE?
I keep looking, but with little success, for a distinguishing radiance in life and testimony among our evangelical Christians. Instead of an inner witness, too many professing Christians are depending upon logical conclusions drawn from Bible texts. They have no witness of an encounter with God, no awareness of inner change! I believe that where th ...read |
| Devotional | Where Truth Leads Us
The world is full of seekers, true enough, and they gravitate quite naturally toward the church. Seekers after peace of mind are plentiful enough to keep the printing presses busy; seekers after physical health are always with us in sufficient numbers to make our leading faith healers comfortably rich; seekers after success and safety are legion, a ...read |
| Devotional | WHICH CROSS DO WE CARRY?
One of the strange things under the sun is a "crossless" Christianity. The cross of Christendom is a "no-cross," an ecclesiastical symbol. The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is a place of death! Let each one be careful which cross he carries! Thousands turn away from Jesus Christ because they will not meet His conditions. He watches them as the ...read |
| Devotional | WHO HEARS THE CALL OF GOD?
Who can deny that there are certain persons who, though still unconverted, nevertheless differ from the crowd, marked out of God, stricken with an interior wound and susceptible to the call of God? In the prayer of Jesus in John 17:1lb, He said: "Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me." Surely no man is ever the same af ...read |
| Devotional | Who is the Church?
For clarification, what is the church? When I say that a church gets into the rote and then onto the rut and finally to the rot, what am I talking about? For one thing, the church is not the building. A church is an assembly of individuals. There is a lot of meaningless dialogue these days about the church. It is meaningless because those engaged i ...read |
| Devotional | WHO IS YOUR EXAMPLE?
The Christian churches of our day have suffered a great loss in rejecting the example of good men, choosing instead the "celebrity of the hour" for their pattern. We must agree that it is altogether unlikely that we know who our "greatest" men are. One thing is sure, however-the greatest man alive today is the best man alive today. That is not ...read |
| Devotional | WHO WILL COME TO JESUS?
God's invitation to men is broad but not unqualified. The words "whosoever will may come" throw the door open, indeed, but the church is carrying the gospel invitation far beyond its proper bounds, turning it into something more human and less divine than that found in the sacred Scriptures. What we tend to overlook is that the word "whosoever\ ...read |
| Devotional | Why Am I Here?
Since the first fallen man got still long enough to think, fallen men have been asking these questions: "Whence came I? What am I? Why am I here? and Where am I going?" The noblest minds of the race have struggled with these questions to no avail. Did the answer lie somewhere hidden like a jewel it would surely have been uncovered, for the most pe ...read |
| Devotional | Why Satan Hates the Child of God
As we move farther on and mount higher up in the Christian life we may expect to encounter greater difficulties in the way and meet increased hostility from the enemy of our souls. Though this is seldom presented to Christians as a fact of life it is a very solid fact indeed as every experienced Christian knows, and one we shall learn how to handle ...read |
| Devotional | WHY SETTLE DOWN?
Why should a Christian "settle down" as soon as he has come to know the Lord? I blame faulty exposition of the New Testament for stopping many Christians dead in their tracks, causing them to shrug off any suggestion that there is still spiritual advance and progress beckoning them on. It is the position of some would-be teachers that everyone wh ...read |
| Devotional | Willing to Love
Civilized man has brought about this tragic fall by associating love with sex exclusively and then popularizing the error by every means at his command. Millions of young people today are wholly unable to think of love except in terms of the disgraceful promiscuity of Hollywood. Newspapers now report the numerous marriages of the movie crowd by num ...read |
A.W. Tozer