Wrong Choices May Imperil Our Freedom by AW Tozer

Wrong Choices May Imperil Our Freedom by AW Tozer

You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. 2 Timothy 2:1

There is always danger that a free nation may imperil its freedom by a series of small choices destructive of that freedom. The liberty the fathers won in blood the sons may toss away in prodigality and debilitating pleasures. Any nation which for an extended period puts pleasure before liberty is likely to lose the liberty it misused.

In the realm of religion right choices are critically important. If we Protestant Christians would retain our freedom we dare not abuse it, and it is always to abuse freedom when we choose the easy way rather than the harder but better way. The casual indifference with which millions of Protestants view their God-blessed religious liberty is ominous. Being let go they go on weekends to the lakes and mountains and beaches to play shuffleboard, fish and sun bathe. They go where their heart is and come back to the praying company only when the bad weather drives them in. Let this continue long enough and evangelical Protestantism will be ripe for a take-over by Rome.

The Christian gospel is a message of freedom through grace and we must stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. But what shall we do with our freedom? The Apostle Paul grieved that some of the believers of his day took advantage of their freedom and indulged the flesh in the name of Christian liberty. They threw off discipline, scorned obedience and made gods of their own bellies. It is not difficult to decide which company such as these belonged to. They revealed it by the company they kept.

Our choices reveal what kind of persons we are, but there is another side to the coin. We may by our choices also determine what kind of persons we will become. We humans are not only in a state of being, we are in a state of becoming; we are on a slow spiral moving gradually up or down. Here we move not singly but in companies, and we are drawn to these companies by the attraction of similarity.

I think it might be well for us to check our spiritual condition occasionally by the simple test of compatibility. When we are free to go, where do we go? In what company do we feel most at home? Where do our thoughts turn when they are free to turn where they will? When the pressure of work or business or school has temporarily lifted and we are able to think of what we will instead of what we must, what do we think of then?

The answer to these questions may tell us more about ourselves than we can comfortably accept. But we had better face up to things. We haven't too much time at the most.

 

The Father of the Family by T. Austin-Sparks

The Father of the Family by T. Austin-Sparks

God is acting in this dispensation to get a family, and God's present dispensational activity is not going to be defeated by death, and He is not going to be cheated of it by death. He will get a family, and will cheat death of that family. It is not God, Infinite and Mighty, as such, it is the Father; and it is a deathless family that He is after. This family is never divided by death, this family is never broken into by death, this family knows no such thing as bereavement by death, this family will never lose a child by death. Of course, as the family, when we enter into the appreciation of that, that is our comfort: that in this family we do not lose anyone. Death may touch things here, but the spiritual family is no more separated in the spiritual reality and in the eternal oneness of the Father's house, than they would be if they were still here. It is the natural, human side of us that suffers the loss and knows all that pain. But what is the comfort of the believer? We sorrow not as those who have no hope. What is our hope? Because we have a Father Who has got a family that can never be broken up by death and never lose a member by death. Our hope is that the whole family will be together with not one missing. The hope is that we have not lost any. Ours it is to be together forever. "The whole family in heaven and on earth...". That is a part of the meaning of Fatherhood, and that is what the Father is doing in this dispensation; getting that kind of family.

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman" (chapter 15). The two go together all the time. This says another thing. It is a figurative way of presenting the great spiritual truths of the family. This says simply that the Father is concerned over the service of His family. Chapter 15 is concerned with the service of believers: fruit-bearing. That is the life of service. Do not let us stereotype it; do not put service into a water-tight compartment and think of service as being ministers or missionaries in that official designation. It may take various forms and be through different channels, but service is the expression of the life of the Father, it is answering to the Father's desires.

"My Father is the husbandman". In order to get fruit He takes a certain course. There is fruit, but He sees that by adopting a certain method He can get more fruit, and He is concerned with that particular branch that it should be developed to its fullest possible fruitfulness. So He adopts a certain method: "Whom the Lord loves He chastens" is the word in the Hebrew letter which expresses this. "No chastening for the present seems joyous but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness". The Father prunes and chastens, in order to develop fruitfulness to its fullest measure. "I am the vine and my Father is the husbandman", and as such He is concerned with one thing, and that is the fullest measure of fruit.

Do we relate pruning and chastening to God, or to the Father? It makes a good deal of difference. The mentality of "God" is sometimes severe. We can never have a severe mentality in the right atmosphere of "the Father". All these things have to be brought into that realm; the Lord's dealings with us now are the dealings of the Father and are along the family line. That is what is happening in this dispensation.

Completely Honest with God When You Pray

Be Completely Honest with God When You Pray by AW Tozer

“But, O Lord of hosts, that triest the righteous, and seest the reins and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them: for unto thee have I opened my cause”. Jeremiah 20:12

There is a vital element of true prayer which is likely to be overlooked in our artificial age.

That vital element is just plain honesty!

The saintly David M’Intyre once wrote: “Honest dealing becomes us when we kneel in His pure presence.”

Then M’Intyre continued: “On one occasion Jeremiah failed to interpret God aright. He cried as if in anger, ‘O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived.’ “These are terrible words to utter before Him who is changeless truth. But the prophet spoke as he felt, and the Lord not only pardoned him, but met him and blessed him there.”

I recall another spiritual writer of unusual penetration has advised frankness in prayer even to a degree that might appear to be downright rudeness. When you come to prayer, he says, and find that you have no taste for it, tell God so without mincing words. If God and spiritual things bore you, admit it frankly.

This advice will shock some squeamish saints, but it is altogether sound nevertheless. God loves the guileless soul even when in his ignorance he is actually guilty of rashness in prayer. The Lord can soon cure his ignorance, but for insincerity no cure is known.

We can learn something at this point if we will!

The Danger of Coming Short

The Danger of Coming Short by T. Austin-Sparks

Whenever we are being faced with some new and different course, some fresh proposition or position, there is one all-governing question that we should ask, and which we should take ample time to ponder and pray over seriously. That question is - Does this thing before me stand in direct line with the full purpose of God, as revealed - not in a fragment - but in the fulness of His Word? God has left us in no doubt that He has a clearly defined purpose in view as the ultimate object of all His dealings. He has also made it abundantly clear what that purpose is. Further, it is distinctly shown that believers are "called according to his purpose", and that they are to 'make their calling and election sure'. One who was an aged and advanced believer, and a greatly used servant of God, said - toward the end of his course - that his great concern was that he 'might apprehend that for which he had been apprehended by Christ Jesus'.

It is the business and duty of every true Christian to study so as to be quite clear as to what that 'Eternal Purpose' is. Having done so, everything that arises to engage us must be brought to the judgment bar of that purpose, and interrogated in its light. God will not cut across our path, or give us particular light at any fork in the road, if we have not been diligent in this quest, or faithful to the light given. It just will not do to allow ourselves to be influenced by questions of comparative right or wrong, good or bad, permissibility, desirability, expediency, or policy. Nor must ambition, soul-gratification, enlarged prospects 'for the Lord', wider acceptance in Christianity, or any such thing, colour our judgment or affect our decision. Advantage and cost are ruled out here as deciding factors. One question, and one alone, will decide tragedy or glory: Does this that is before me stand directly in line with the full purpose of God? When the end is reached, the full story told, the sum taken, how much that is bound up with this will be stripped off, as having no real substance with what is Christ, and therefore fail to be carried over into the eternal? What will the River carry away, and what will emerge on the other side?

 

God Resources and Us

Unlimited Resources but Limited Receptacles: by AW Tozer

Since God is infinite, whatever He is must be infinite also; that is, it must be without any actual or conceivable limits. The moment we allow ourselves to think of God as having limits, the one of whom we are thinking is not God but someone or something less than and different from Him. To think rightly of God we must conceive of Him as being altogether boundless in His goodness, mercy, love, grace and in whatever else we may properly attribute to the Deity. It is not enough that we acknowledge God's infinite resources; we must believe also that He is infinitely generous to bestow them. The first is not too great a strain on our faith. Even the deist will admit that the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth, must be rich beyond the power of man to conceive. But to believe that God is a giver as well as a possessor takes an advanced faith and presupposes that there has been a divine revelation to that effect which gives validity to our expectations. Which indeed there has been. We call this revelation the Bible. Believing all this, why are we Christians so poverty stricken? I think it is because we have not learned that God's gifts are meted out according to the taker, not according to the giver. Though almighty and all-wise, God yet cannot pour a great gift into a small receptacle.

The Old Nature Must Disappear: by T. Austin-Sparks

The Old Nature Must Disappear: by T. Austin-Sparks

My little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you... (Galatians 4:19).

 The profaning of the Lord's Name, and the taking away of His glory, is the inveterate habit and course of the old creation nature. Should you see any of the old creation getting into the realm of the things of God, what is the result sooner or later? That man takes the glory, and dishonors God. Is not that the tragic, dark story of "the Church"; man in his old creation powers and life pressing into the things of God, and making a name for himself? The Church has been the happy hunting ground of men for reputation, position, influence and all such things. The flesh always does that. It takes God's glory away, it profanes God's Name. In order that that might not be so there must be a new creation, where all things are of God. I see the appalling state of things today amongst the Lord's people everywhere; death, weakness, limitation, defeat, failure, inability to stand up, to go on; and, without being critical, censorious or judging, you have to come to the conclusion as you speak with so many, that the measure of Christ is pathetically small. Sometimes when you speak about the Lord to people, who have borne the name of Christian for many years, they gape at you as though you were talking a strange language.

 Let us ask the Lord that, so far as we are concerned, there may be an increase of Christ in every way. Let us seek grace for any fiery furnace in the light of the explanation, that it is neither what is of Christ that is being tested in us, nor any good within ourselves, but that what is not Christ should disappear, that it should be Christ, only Christ. At last this universe will know nothing but Christ. He will fill all things, and that will be a great day! May He be fully formed in us.

Warfare Spirituality part 4

Thus far we have been discussing Warfare With the Flesh (and the handling temptations, before they handle us)

  For in my inner being I delight in God's law;  but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. Romans 7:22-23
 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, Colossians 1:13

We have talked about…

Temptation to Anger (Insofar as depression is anger turned inward, these affirmations are relevant for depression as well.)

Temptation to Seek Revenge  This is sin.

"Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. . . . If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge" (Rom. 12:17-19).

 

Sexual Temptation

There is no future in this. (It would damage my relationship with God and could destroy my relationship with my spouse and children, as well as damage my reputation and discredit my ministry;

Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised. 1 Corinthians 7:18

I will not degrade this person but treat her/him with dignity and honor. (I will treat her/him as a subject, not an object, since she/he has been created in the image of God.)

I will let the attractiveness direct me to praise for the greatness of her/his Creator. [This is a kind of spiritual judo in which you use quick movement and leverage to throw your opponent; in this case, you redirect the incoming force from temptation to praise.]

I am no longer under the power of sin, but I am alive to God in Christ Jesus

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:11

(I am not a skin-wrapped package of glands, but a new creation in Christ;

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 2 Corinthians 5:17

I will walk by the Spirit and not carry out the desire of the flesh

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. Galatians 5:16
 Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 2 Timothy 2:22

I will fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and Perfector of faith (Heb. 12:2).

Temptation to Covet

This is sin. "You shall not covet" (Exod. 20:17).

I do not want to sin. Sin is beneath the dignity of the person I have become in Christ Jesus

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,  made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,  in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:4-7

I do not have to sin. I am no longer under the power of sin, but I am alive to God in Christ Jesus

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6:11
 Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation--but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it.  For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,  because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. Romans 8:12-14

Then why am I tempted to covet? Because I am not content with what I have.

My lack of contentment stems from comparison with other people. [There will always be people who have better possessions, positions, marriages, children, ministries, etc., than I have. The more I focus on this, the more I can be consumed by jealousy, envy, and resentment.]

I will take my eyes off other people's possessions and fix my eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of faith (Heb. 12:2).

God is in control and has my best interests at heart (Rom. 8:28). Therefore, I will be content and thankful with what He gives me.