Tozer Devotional-Daring to be Different
29 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in A. W. Tozer Tags: Christian, Christianity, Evangelism, God, holyspirit, Jesu, Old Testament, Religion & Spirituality
Daring to be Different
The fear of man brings a snare, said the prophet, and this enemy, too, must be defeated. Our whole modern world is geared to destroy individual independence and bring all of us into conformity to all the rest of us. Any deviation from the pattern, whatever that pattern may be at the time, will not be forgiven by society, and since the Christian must deviate radically from the world he naturally comes in for the world’s displeasure. If he surrenders to fear he has been conquered, and he dare not let this happen. Other enemies may be identified, such as love of luxury, secret sympathy with the world, self-confidence, pride and unholy thoughts. These we must resist with every power within us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
Our Careful Unbelief
23 May 2012 1 Comment
in Oswald Chambers Tags: Christian, Christianity, Evangelism, God, Gospel of Matthew, Holy Spirit, Jesu, Religion and Spirituality
. . . do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on —Matthew 6:25
“. . . do not worry about your life . . . .” Don’t take the pressure of your provision upon yourself. It is not only wrong to worry, it is unbelief; worrying means we do not believe that God can look after the practical details of our lives, and it is never anything but those details that worry us. Have you ever noticed what Jesus said would choke the Word He puts in us? Is it the devil? No— “the cares of this world” (MatthewMatthew 13:22). It is always our little worries. We say, “I will not trust when I cannot see”— and that is where unbelief begins. The only cure for unbelief is obedience to the Spirit.
The greatest word of Jesus to His disciples is abandon.
http://utmost.org/our-careful-unbelief/
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Dealing With the Past
23 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in O Christian.com Tags: Christianity, Evangelism, God, Gospel of Matthew, Jesu, Joel, Matt, Religion & Spirituality
“Believe ye that I am able to do this?” (Matt. 9:28).
God deals with impossibilities. It is never too late for Him to do so, when the impossible is brought to Him, in full faith, by the one in whose life and circumstances the impossible must be accomplished if God is to be glorified. If in our own life there have been rebellion, unbelief, sin, and disaster, it is never too late for God to deal triumphantly with these tragic facts if brought to Him in full surrender and trust. It has often been said, and with truth, that Christianity is the only religion that can deal with man’s past. God can “restore the years that the locust hath eaten” (Joel 2:25); and He will do this when we put the whole situation and ourselves unreservedly and believingly into His hands. Not because of what we are but because of what He is. God forgives and heals and restores. He is “the God of all grace.” Let us praise Him and trust Him. –Sunday School Times
“Nothing is too hard for Jesus No man can work like Him.”
“We have a God who delights in impossibilities.” Nothing too hard for Me.
–Andrew Murray
http://devotionals.ochristian.com/mrs-charles-cowman-streams-in-the-desert-devotional.shtml
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Tozer Devotional-Christ Our Mediator
22 May 2012 1 Comment
in A. W. Tozer Tags: Christ, Christian, Christianity, Evangelism, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Religion and Spirituality
Christ Our Mediator
How two wills set in opposition to each other, and both free, could be harmonized was God’s problem and His alone; and with infinite wisdom and power He solved it through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ our Lord. Because Christ is God and man He can properly represent each before the other. He is the Daysman who can stand between the alienated man and the offended God and lay His hand upon them both. “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5) . All this is such a familiar part of evangelical theology that it may safely be assumed that the majority of my readers know it already. That is, they know it theoretically, but the experiential aspect of the truth is not so well known. Indeed large numbers of supposedly sound Christian believers know nothing at all about personal communion with God; and there lies one of the greatest weaknesses of present-day Christianity.
Not What I Planned
18 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Our Daily Bread Tags: Bible, Christianity, Evangelism, God, Jesus, Lord, Psalm, Religion and Spirituality
This isn’t the way I expected my life to be. I wanted to marry at 19, have a half-dozen children, and settle into life as a wife and mother. But instead I went to work, married in my forties, and never had children. For a number of years I was hopeful that Psalm 37:4 might be for me a God-guaranteed promise: “He shall give you the desires of your heart.”
But God doesn’t always “bring it to pass” (v.5), and unmet desires stir up occasional sadness. Like mine, your life may have turned out differently than you planned. A few thoughts from Psalm 37 may be helpful (even though the psalm is primarily about comparing ourselves to the wicked).
We learn from verse 4 that unfulfilled desires don’t have to take the joy out of life. As we get to know God’s heart, He becomes our joy.
“Commit your way to the Lord” (v.5). The word commit means “to roll.” Bible teacher Herbert Lockyear, Sr., says, “‘Roll thy way upon the Lord,’ as one who lays upon the shoulders of one stronger than himself a burden which he is not able to bear.”
“Trust also in Him” (v.5). When we confidently entrust everything to God, we can “rest in the Lord” (v.7), for He is bringing about His best for our lives.
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“It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps” (Jer. x. 23).
16 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in O Christian.com Tags: Christ, Christian, Christianity, Evangelism, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Religion and Spirituality
United to Jesus Christ as your Redeemer, you are accepted in the Beloved. He does not merely take my place as a man and settle my debts. He does that and more.
He comes to give a perfect ideal of what a man should be. He is the model man, not for us to copy, for that would only bring discouragement and utter failure; but He will come and copy Himself in us. If Christ lives in me, I am another Christ. I am not like Him, but I have the same mind.
The very Christ is in me. This is the foundation of Christian holiness and Divine healing. Christ is developing a perfect life within us. Some say man can never be perfect. “It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” We are all a lot of failures. This is true, but we should go further.
We must take God‘s provision for our failure and rise above it through His grace. We must take Jesus as a substitute for our miserable self. We must give up the good as well as the bad and take Him instead. It is hard for us to learn that the very good must go, but we must have Divine impulses instead of even our best attainments.
http://devotionals.ochristian.com/a-b-simpson-devotional.shtml
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Tozer Devotional-Daily Cross-carrying
12 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in A. W. Tozer Tags: Christ, Christian, Christianity, Evangelism, God, Jesu, Matt, Religion & Spirituality
Daily Cross-carrying
Our Lord called men to follow Him but He never made the way look easy. Indeed one gets the distinct impression that He made it appear extremely hard. Sometimes He said things to disciples or prospective disciples that we today discreetly avoid repeating when we are trying to win men to Him. What present-day evangelist would have the courage to tell an inquirer, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matt. 16:24-25)? And do not we do some tall explaining when someone asks us what Jesus meant when He said, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law” (Matt. 10:34-35)? That kind of rugged, sinewy Christianity is left for an occasional missionary or for some believer behind one of the various curtains in the world. The masses of professed Christians simply do not have the moral muscle to enable them to take a path so downright and final as this. When will Christians learn that to love righteousness it is necessary to hate sin? that to accept Christ it is necessary to reject self? that to follow the good way we must flee from evil? that a friend of the world is an enemy of God? that God allows no twilight zone between two altogethers where the fearful and the doubting may take refuge at once from hell to come and the rigors of present discipline?
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God’s Reward System (1)
02 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in The Encouraging Word Tags: Christ, Christianity, Evangelism, God, holyspirit, Jesu, New International Version, Religion & Spirituality
“He will receive his reward.” 1Co 3:14 NIV
Read these three Scriptures: (1) “The fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss” (vv. 13-15 NIV). (2) “No one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions)” (Mk10:29-30 NIV). (3) “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous” (Lk 14:13-14 NIV). These Scriptures clearly teach that God records your deeds and rewards you for them. Some of your rewards will come in this life, and some will come in the next. If you fail to understand that, you’ll find yourself saying, “I served God faithfully, so why am I still struggling? Doesn’t God notice or care?” Yes, God notices and He cares. But He doesn’t promise that the work you do for Him now will always result in gain from Him now. Many of the rewards God has for us are so great that it will take eternity to appreciate and enjoy them. Jesus said, “Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name…will by no means lose his reward” (Mk 9:41 NKJV). No deed for God will be overlooked or go unrewarded—even a cup of cold wate or a prayer in the middle of the night.
http://theencouragingword.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/gods-reward-system-1/
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Ready to Move
22 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in O Christian.com Tags: Christ, Christianity, Evangelism, God, Jesu, Lord, Religion and Spirituality, Second Epistle to the Corinthians
“For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor.5:1).
The owner of the tenement which I have occupied for many years has given notice that he will furnish but little or nothing more for repairs. I am advised to be ready to move.
At first this was not a very welcome notice. The surroundings here are in many respects very pleasant, and were it not for the evidence of decay, I should consider the house good enough. But even a light wind causes it to tremble and totter, and all the braces are not sufficient to make it secure. So I am getting ready to move.
It is strange how quickly one’s interest is transferred to the prospective home. I have been consulting maps of the new country and reading descriptions of its inhabitants. One who visited it has returned, and from him I learn that it is beautiful beyond description; language breaks down in attempting to tell of what he heard while there. He says that, in order to make an investment there, he has suffered the loss of all things that he owned here, and even rejoices in what others would call making a sacrifice. Another, whose love to me has been proven by the greatest possible test, is now there. He has sent me several clusters of the most delicious fruits. After tasting them, all food here seems insipid.
Two or three times I have been down by the border of the river that forms the boundary, and have wished myself among the company of those who were singing praises to the King on the other side. Many of my friends have moved there. Before leaving they spoke of my coming later. I have seen the smile upon their faces as they passed out of sight. Often I am asked to make some new investments here, but my answer in every case is, “I am getting ready to move.” –Selected
The words often on Jesus’ lips in His last days express vividly the idea, “going to the Father.” We, too, who are Christ‘s people, have vision of something beyond the difficulties and disappointments of this life. We are journeying towards fulfillment, completion, expansion of life. We, too, are “going to the Father.” Much is dim concerning our home-country, but two things are clear. It is home, “the Father’s House.” It is the nearer presence of the Lord. We are all wayfarers, but the believer knows it and accepts it. He is a traveller, not a settler. –R. C. Gillie
The little birds trust God, for they go singing
From northern woods where autumn winds have blown,
With joyous faith their trackless pathway winging
To summer-lands of song, afar, unknown.
Let us go singing, then, and not go sighing:
Since we are sure our times are in His hand,
Why should we weep, and fear, and call it dying?
‘Tis only flitting to a Summer-land.
–Selected
http://devotionals.ochristian.com/mrs-charles-cowman-streams-in-the-desert-devotional.shtml
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When The Journey Gets Tough
13 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in Our Daily Bread Tags: Christ, Christianity, Eternal life (Christianity), Evangelism, God, Jesu, Religion and Spirituality, Second Epistle to the Corinthians
In August 2009, Blair and Ronna Martin lost their energetic 9-year-old son Matti when he was dragged to his death by a family cow. I had a chance to meet this Kenai, Alaska, family and share in their grief. And I know how tough this tragedy has been for them.
I also know that they are seeking God’s care and comfort for their pain. An observation made by Matti’s mom is valuable for anyone walking through one of life’s valleys. During one of her down times, Ronna was reading 2 Corinthians 1:9, which says that “we should not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead.” She felt as if Jesus were telling her, “Ronna, I know the journey has been too much for you, and you are bone-weary. Do not be ashamed of your exhaustion. Instead, see it as an opportunity for Me to take charge of your life.”
When the journey gets too tough to navigate, 2 Corinthians 1:9 is a reminder to us that we don’t travel alone. We have the help of the One who showed us His power in the resurrection, and who will demonstrate His power again when He raises believing loved ones of all generations to eternal life. “My strength and my hope have to be in Christ alone,” Ronna said. That’s a truth we all need as we travel the journey God has for us.
