Looking to the Lord
A.W. Tozer
For some of us last year was one in which we did not acquit ourselves very nobly as Christians, considering the infinite power available to us through the indwelling Spirit. But through the goodness of God we may go to the school of our failures. The man of illuminated mind will learn from his mistakes, yes even from his sins. If his heart is trusting and penitent, he can be a better man next year for last year’s fault—but let him not return again to folly. Repentance should be radical and thorough, and the best repentance for a wrong act, as Fenelon said, is not to do it again. Charles Wesley called Pharaoh “a penitent in vain” because he repented under the pressure of each plague and went back to sinning as soon as the plague was removed.
In seeking to evaluate our conduct over the past year, we must be careful to avoid two opposite errors: the first is being too easy on ourselves and the second is being too hard.
Contrary to what we hear constantly, especially from certain enthusiastic brethren determinedly bent on revival according to their particular idea of it, we do not always do God service by scourging ourselves. The evangelical flagellant who thinks to please God by punishing himself is as far from the truth, though in the other direction, as the rabbi who in all seriousness declared, “If there are two righteous men in the world they are myself and my son; if one, it is myself.”
Verse
Look to the LORD and his strength; seek his face always. First Chronicles 16:11
Thought
There are some lessons in life we learn best from failure. But that is no reason to drown ourselves in it. We have not learned what God seeks to teach us until we have changed accordingly as He enables us.
Prayer
I look to You, Father, and to Your strength to learn from the past and grow in the future.
The Purpose of Prayer
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam
The question is sometimes asked: If God’s will and purpose are unalterable, why pray? The answer is simply: Because the divine purpose, which any answer to prayer must represent, includes the prayer itself. It is enough that He “who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will” (Ephesians 1:11) invites and exhorts His people to “come boldly unto the throne of grace” to “let [their] requests be made known unto God” (Hebrews 4:16; Philippians 4:6).
But prayer is not merely petition, as many suppose. It is one aspect of active communion with God (meditation on the Word being the other) and includes adoration, thanksgiving and confession, as well as supplication. Hyde, in God’s Education of Alan, Pp. 154,155, says: “Prayer is the communion of two wills, in which the finite comes into connection with the Infinite, and, like the trolley, appropriates its purpose and power.”
We have an example of this in the record of our Lord’s prayer in the garden, for, while He is not to be classed with finite men, yet He laid aside His glory, became “a servant” (Phil. 2:7) and “learned obedience” (Hebrews 5:8; Philippians 2:8). In this place of subjection He made definite and earnest requests of His Father, but closed His prayer with the words: “Nevertheless, not My will, but Thine, be done” (Luke 22:42) with the result that He was “strengthened” for the ordeal He had to face (Ver. 43).
Thus prayer is not merely a means of “getting things from God” but a God-appointed means of fellowship with Him, and all acceptable prayer will include the supplication — as sincerely desired as the rest: “Nevertheless, not My will, but Thine, be done.”
(contemplations continued after photo below)
A.W. Tozer Devotional (AUDIO)
While faith contains an element of reason, it is essentially moral rather than intellectual. In the New Testament unbelief is a sin, and this could not be so if belief were no more than a verdict based upon evidence. There is nothing unreasonable about the Christian message, but its appeal is not primarily to reason. At a specific time in a certain place God became flesh, but the transcendence of Christ over the human conscience is not historic; it is intimate, direct and personal.
Christ’s coming to Bethlehem’s manger was in harmony with the primary fact of His secret presence in the world in preincarnate times as the Light that lighteth every man. The sum of the New Testament teaching about this is that Christ’s claims are self-validating and will be rejected only by those who love evil. Whenever Christ is preached in the power of the Spirit, a judgment seat is erected and each hearer stands to be judged by his response to the message. His moral responsibility is not to a lesson in religious history but to the divine Person who now confronts him.
Verse
It is written: ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.’ Romans 14:11
Audio Sermons
(1 Peter – Part 10): Grand Mystery of the Bible (Salvation) by A.W. Tozer
(1 Peter – Part 12): As Obedient Children by A.W. Tozer
(contemplations continue after illustration below)
Christ the God-Man (AUDIO)
A.W. Tozer
The Christmas message, when stripped of its pagan overtones, is relatively simple: God is come to earth in the form of man. Around this one dogma the whole question of meaning revolves. God did come or He did not; He is come or He is not, and the vast accumulation of sentimental notions and romantic practices that go to make up our modern Christmas cannot give evidence on one side or the other.
Certain religious teachers in apostolic times refused to believe that Jesus was actually God come in the flesh. They were willing to exhaust the language of unctuous flattery to describe His glorious manhood, but they would have none of His deity. Their basic philosophy forbade them to believe that there could ever be a union of God and human flesh. Matter, they said, is essentially evil. God who is impeccably holy could never allow Himself contact with evil. Human flesh is matter, therefore God is not come in the flesh.
Certainly it would not be difficult to refute this negative teaching. One would only need to demonstrate the error of the major premise, the essential sinfulness of matter, and the whole thing would collapse. But that would be to match reason against reason and take the mystery of godliness out of the realm of faith and make of it merely another religious philosophy. Then we would have rationalism with a thin Christian veneer. How long before the veneer wore off and we had only rationalism?
Verse
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. John 1:14
Thought
The Word, who is eternally God, became flesh. Christ became man. He did not cease to be God. However, though still possessing them He willingly laid aside the exercise of His divine attributes (Philippians 2:7) from the time of his human birth to His resurrection. Now He is the glorified God-Man!
Prayer
Because You became flesh, Lord, You can sympathize with my weaknesses. You knew what it was to be tempted far beyond what I will ever experience. Yet You did not sin. You are the God-Man.
Audio Sermon
(1 Peter – Part 16): Christ…Foreordained, Manifest by A.W. Tozer
(contemplations continue after photo below)
An Old-Fashioned Doctrine
by Pastor Cornelius R. Stam
How many there are whose hearts would be thrilled if they understood the old-fashioned Bible doctrine of sanctification!
Sanctification is not a negative matter: “Don’t do this” and “Don’t do that.” It is rather the positive truth that God wants us for Himself as a sacred possession, much as a bridegroom considers his bride his very own in a special, sacred way.
Bible sanctification is a twofold truth, affecting both our standing before God and our spiritual state. In one sense every true believer in Christ has already been sanctified, or consecrated to God, by the operation of the Holy Spirit. Thus we read:
“…God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit…” (II Thessalonians 2: 13).
“Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit…” (I Peter 1:2).
This has nothing to do with our conduct. God did it. Sanctification begins with Him. Thus Paul could write to even the careless Corinthian believers and say: “Ye are sanctified” (1 Corinthians 6:11; cf. Acts 20:32; 26:18), i.e., “God has set you apart for Himself.” This phase of sanctification is based on the redemptive work of Christ in our behalf, for Hebrews 10:10 says: “We are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
But now God would have us appreciate this fact and conduct ourselves accordingly, consecrating ourselves ever more completely to Him. This is practical, progressive sanctification. “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification” (I Thessalonians 4:3). Hence Paul’s benediction: “The very God of peace sanctify you wholly” (I Thessalonians 5:23), and his exhortation to Timothy to be “a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet [fit] for the Master’s use” (II Timothy 2:21).
How can believers be more wholly sanctified to God in their practical experience? By studying and meditating on His Word. Our Lord prayed: “Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy Word is truth” (John 17:17), and Paul declares that “Christ… loved the Church and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word” (Ephesians 5:25,26).
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