Friday 15 September 2017

REFLECTIONS

Tozer’s Insights

“WE ARE TOO COMFORTABLE
And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection. (Hebrews 11:35)
Is the fact that millions of Americans refuse to attend our church services only another symptom of original sin and love of moral darkness?
No, I believe that explanation is too “pat” to be wholly true.
Churches cannot deny they are too comfortable, too rich, too contented! We hold the faith of our fathers, but it does not hold us. God is trying to interest us in a glorious tomorrow and we are settling for an inglorious today. God has set eternity in our hearts and we have chosen time instead. We are bogged down in local interests and have lost sight of eternal purposes.
It was the knowledge that they were part of God’s eternal plan that imparted unquenchable enthusiasm to the early Christians. They burned with holy zeal for Christ, and felt they were part of an army which the Lord was leading to ultimate conquest over all the powers of darkness!

A LOWER LEVEL
O God, thou hast taught me from my youth: and hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works. (Psalm71:17)
There are leaders and there are churches within the Christianity of our day who will surely answer for their failure to apply the disciplines of the New Testament to the present generation of young people.
Much of Christianity today does not hold to the necessity for disciplines in the Christian life. If we have any of God’s concerns in our hearts, we must grieve over the lack of spirituality in the lives of great segments of professing Christian young people.
It is not my calling to assess blame. It is part of my Christian calling to proclaim the fact that no one, young or old, has the right to come to Jesus Christ and stake out their own conditions and terms.
Segments of Christianity have made every possible concession in efforts to win young people to Christ; but instead of converting them to Christ they have converted “Christianity” to them. Too often they have come down to the modern level—playing, teasing, coaxing and entertaining. In essence, they have been saying to them, “We will do everything as you want it,” instead of giving them Christ’s insistent word, “Take up your cross!”

THE WORLD IS SCARED
Look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. (Luke 21:28)
A fear-stricken church cannot help a scared world; and it needs to be said that surely a fear-ridden Christian has never examined his or her defense!
No one can blame humans for being afraid. Beyond the continuing times of crisis and terror and violence, God has also warned that the world is in a baptism of fire, sooner or later. God has declared this by the voice of all of the holy prophets since time began—there is no escaping it!
Bible-reading Christians should be the last persons on earth to give way to hysteria. We have been given a prophetic preview of all those things that are to come to pass upon the earth. Can anything take us unaware?
We who are in God’s secret place of safety must begin to talk and act like it! We, above all who dwell on the earth, should be calm, hopeful, buoyant and cheerful. We will never convince the scared world that there is peace and assurance at the Cross if we continue to exhibit the same fears as those who make no profession of Christianity!”

-From Renewed Day by Day; Volume 2, by A. W. Tozer  American Pastor and Author  1897-1963


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