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A. W. Tozer Devotional

Tozer

The Leadership of the Holy Spirit

It is time for us to seek again the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Man's lordship has cost us too much. Man's intrusive will has introduced such a multiplicity of unspiritual ways and unscriptural activities as positively to threaten the life of the Church. These divert annually millions of dollars from the true work of God and waste Christian man-hours in such vast numbers as to be heartbreaking. There is another and worse evil that springs from this basic failure to grasp the radical difference between the natures of the two worlds. It is the habit of languidly "accepting" salvation as if it were a small matter and one wholly in our hands. Men are exhorted to think things over and "decide" for Christ, and in some places one day each year is set aside as "Decision Day," at which time people are expected to condescend to grant Christ the right to save them, a right that they have obviously refused Him up to that time. Christ is thus made to stand again before men's judgment seat; He is made to wait upon the pleasure of the individual, and after long and humble waiting is either turned away or patronizingly admitted. By a complete misunderstanding of the noble and true doctrine of the freedom of the human will salvation is made to depend perilously upon the will of man instead of upon the will of God.div a href="http://feeds.cmalliance.org/~ff/cma/tozer?a=i892rH0ri-k:94W_fk2DCiE:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/cma/tozer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cmalliance.org/~ff/cma/tozer?a=i892rH0ri-k:94W_fk2DCiE:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/cma/tozer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a /div

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God's Effective Calling

How delightful are God's ways and the goings forth of His will. Not by might nor by power, neither by native ability nor by training are men made apostles, but by God's effectual calling. So it is with every office within the Church. Men are permitted to recognize the call and make public acknowledgment before the congregation, but never are they permitted themselves to make the choice. But where divine ways and the ways of men mix and mingle there is confusion and failure continually. Good men who are yet not called of God may, and often do, take upon them the sacred work of the ministry. Worse still is it when men who belong yet to the old world and have not been renewed by the miracle of regeneration try to carry on God's holy work. How sad is the sight and how tragic the consequences, for the ways of man and the ways of God are forever contrary one to the other. Is this one of the reasons behind our present state of spiritual weakness? How can the flesh serve the Spirit? Or how can men from another tribe than Levi's minister before the altar? How vain to try to serve the new after the ways of the old. From this stems the rank growth of evil methods that characterizes the churches of our day. The bold and self-assertive push forward and the weak ones follow without asking for a proof of their right to lead. The divine call is ignored, and sterility and confusion result.div a href="http://feeds.cmalliance.org/~ff/cma/tozer?a=7rRQHIfyat8:p1Xy_qalK2o:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/cma/tozer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cmalliance.org/~ff/cma/tozer?a=7rRQHIfyat8:p1Xy_qalK2o:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/cma/tozer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a /div

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Called by God

Paul was made an apostle by the direct call of God. "No man taketh this honor upon himself." Among men we see that noted artists sometimes appear before royalty and their appearance is called a "command performance." However gifted they may be and however famous, they dare not intrude into the king's presence except by royal call, a call that amounts to an order. That call leaves no place for refusal except at the risk of affront to majesty. And with Paul it was not otherwise. God's call was also His command. Had Paul been running for political office the voters would have determined the outcome. Had he been trying for a place in the literary world his own abilities would have decided that place for him. Had he been competing in the prize ring his own strength and skill would have won or lost for him. But his apostleship was not so determined.div a href="http://feeds.cmalliance.org/~ff/cma/tozer?a=WiJuUu6pCzU:GlGp9Rnffg8:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/cma/tozer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cmalliance.org/~ff/cma/tozer?a=WiJuUu6pCzU:GlGp9Rnffg8:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/cma/tozer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a /div

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The Kingdom of God

Yet in their pride men assert their will and claim ownership of the earth. Well, for a time it is true, this is man's world. God is admitted only by man's sufferance. He is treated as visiting royalty in a democratic country. Everyone takes His name upon his lips and (especially at certain seasons) He is feted and celebrated and hymned. But behind all this flattery men hold firmly to their right of self-determination. As long as man is allowed to play host he will honor God with his attention, but always He must remain a guest and never seek to be Lord. Man will have it understood that this is his world; he will make its laws and decide how it shall be run. God is permitted to decide nothing. Man bows to Him and as he bows, manages with difficulty to conceal the crown upon his own head. When we enter the Kingdom of God, however, we are in another kind of world. It is altogether other than the old world from which we came; always it is different from and mostly it is contrary to the old. Where the two appear to be alike it is only in appearance, for the first is of the earth earthy, the second is from heaven. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." The first will perish; the last abides forever.div a href="http://feeds.cmalliance.org/~ff/cma/tozer?a=-jxzFY0hiUs:01erkoEDvyA:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/cma/tozer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cmalliance.org/~ff/cma/tozer?a=-jxzFY0hiUs:01erkoEDvyA:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/cma/tozer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a /div

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God's Sovereign Will

?Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy.? (1 Corinthians 1:1#150;2)br / The little word, called, as used here by the apostle is like a door opening into another world, and when we enter we shall find ourselves in another world indeed. For the new world into which we pass is the world of God's sovereign will where the will of man cannot come, or if it come it is as a dependent and a servant, never as a lord. Paul here explains his apostleship: it is by an effectual call, not by his own wish or will or determination, and this call is a divine thing, free, uninfluenced and altogether out of the hands of man. The response is from man, but the call, never. That is from God alone. There are two worlds, set over against each other, dominated by two wills, the will of man and the will of God, respectively. The old world of fallen nature is the world of human will. There man is king and his will decides events. So far as he is able in his weakness he decides who and what and when and where. He fixes values: what is to be esteemed, what despised, what received and what rejected. His will runs through everything. "I determined," "I decided," "I decree," "Be it enacted." These words are heard continually springing from the lips of little men. And how they rejoice in their fancied "right of self-determination," and with what comic vanity do they boast of the "sovereign voter." They do not know, or refuse to consider, that they are but for a day, soon to pass away and be no more.br / br / Time like an ever rolling streambr / nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Bears all its sons away,br / They fly forgotten as a dream.br / nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Dies at the break of day.br / br / The busy tribes of flesh and bloodbr / nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;With all their cares and fears,br / Are carried downward like a floodbr / nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;And lost in following years.div a href="http://feeds.cmalliance.org/~ff/cma/tozer?a=rx3WOPOCrvE:pfapGJuidD4:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/cma/tozer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cmalliance.org/~ff/cma/tozer?a=rx3WOPOCrvE:pfapGJuidD4:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/cma/tozer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a /div

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Only God Matters

The way it works in experience is something like this: The believing man is overwhelmed suddenly by a powerful feeling that only God matters; soon this works itself out into his mental life and conditions all his judgments and all his values. Now he finds himself free from slavery to man's opinions. A mighty desire to please only God lays hold of him. Soon he learns to love above all else the assurance that he is well pleasing to the Father in heaven. It is this complete switch in their pleasure-source that has made believing men invincible. So could saints and martyrs stand alone, deserted by every earthly friend, and die for Christ under the universal displeasure of mankind. When, to intimidate him, Athanasius' judges warned him that the whole world was against him, he dared to reply, "Then is Athanasius against the world!" That cry has come down the years and today may remind us that the gospel has power to deliver men from the tyranny of social approval and make them free to do the will of God. I have singled out this one enemy for consideration, but it is only one, and there are many others. They seem to stand by themselves and have existence apart from each other, but it is only seeming. Actually they are but branches of the same poison vine, growing from the same evil root, and they die together when the root dies. That root is self, and the Cross is its only effective destroyer. The message of the gospel, then, is the message of a new creation in the midst of an old, the message of the invasion of our human nature by the eternal life of God and the displacing of the old by the new. The new life seizes upon the believing man's nature and sets about its benign conquest, a conquest that is not complete until the invading life has taken full possession and a new creation has emerged. And this is an act of God without human aid, for it is a moral miracle and a spiritual resurrection.div a href="http://feeds.cmalliance.org/~ff/cma/tozer?a=s_4jvz-2RyQ:Ey6gzQSX7Cw:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/cma/tozer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cmalliance.org/~ff/cma/tozer?a=s_4jvz-2RyQ:Ey6gzQSX7Cw:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/cma/tozer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a /div

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A Reversal of Nature

Every man looks to his fellow men because he has no one else to whom he can look. David could say, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee," but the sons of this world have not God, they have only each other, and they walk holding to each other and looking to one another for assurance like frightened children. But their hope will fail them, for they are like a group of men, none of whom has learned to fly a plane, who suddenly find themselves aloft without a pilot, each looking to the other to bring them safely down. Their desperate but mistaken trust cannot save them from the crash that must certainly follow. With this desire to please men so deeply implanted within us how can we uproot it and shift our life-drive from pleasing men to pleasing God? Well, no one can do it alone, nor can he do it with the help of others, nor by education nor by training nor by any other method known under the sun. What is required is a reversal of nature (that it is a fallen nature does not make it any the less powerful) and this reversal must be a supernatural act. That act the Spirit performs through the power of the gospel when it is received in living faith. Then He displaces the old with the new. Then He invades the life as sunlight invades a landscape and drives out the told motives as light drives away darkness from the sky.div a href="http://feeds.cmalliance.org/~ff/cma/tozer?a=epa5KSO-yB8:Jq_YzwjSPs0:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/cma/tozer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cmalliance.org/~ff/cma/tozer?a=epa5KSO-yB8:Jq_YzwjSPs0:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/cma/tozer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a /div

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The Great Taskmaster, Self

They to whom the Word comes in power know this deliverance, this inward migration of the soul from slavery to freedom, this release from moral bondage. They know in experience a radical shift in position, a real crossing over, and they stand consciously on another soil under another sky and breathe another air. Their life motives are changed and their inward drives made new. What are these old drives that once forced obedience at the end of a lash? What but little taskmasters, servants of the great taskmaster, Self, who stand before him and do his will? To name them all would require a book in itself, but we would point out one as a type or sample of the rest. It is the desire for social approval. This is not bad in itself and might be perfectly innocent if we were living in a sinless world, but since the race of men has fallen off from God and joined itself to His foes, to be a friend of the world is to be a collaborator with evil and an enemy of God. Still the desire to please men is back of all social acts from the highest civilizations to the lowest levels upon which human life is found. No one can escape it. The outlaw who flouts the rules of society and the philosopher who rises in thought above its common ways may seem to have escaped from the snare, but they have in reality merely narrowed the circle of those they desire to please. The outlaw has his pals before whom he seeks to shine; the philosopher his little coterie of superior thinkers whose approval is necessary to his happiness. For both, the motive-root remains uncut. Each draws his peace from the thought that he enjoys the esteem of his fellows, though each will interpret the whole business in his own way.div a href="http://feeds.cmalliance.org/~ff/cma/tozer?a=EnSHTO32d1M:uXug0FnWI6o:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/cma/tozer?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cmalliance.org/~ff/cma/tozer?a=EnSHTO32d1M:uXug0FnWI6o:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/cma/tozer?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a /div

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