TOZER l "Refusing to be Conformed" l Reclaiming Christianity l Bible Teaching University l School of the Bible l Night School

Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer

Devotional for March 3

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Tozer in the Morning
Refusing to be Conformed to the Pattern of This World

Men are impressed with the message of the Church just as far and as long as she is different from themselves. 

When she seeks to be like them they no longer respect her. They believe (and rightly) that she is playing false to herself and to them. The moral jar that results when an indoctrinated son of Adam meets a son of heaven is one of the most wholesome things that can happen to both of them. 

And contrary to common opinion, men are more inclined to follow the way of Christ when they are compelled to make a radical alteration in their lives than they are when the way is made easy for them. 

The human heart senses its need to be changed, and when religion appears offering life without such change, it is not taken seriously by thinking men. 

The superficial, the insincere, may embrace such a low-powered brand of religion, but the seeking heart must reject it as false and unreal. 

All conformity to the world is a negation of our Christian character and a surrender of our heavenly position.

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Tozer in the Evening
Marked by Christly Fragrance

I also long in the tender mercies of Christ that among us there may be the following: . . . 7. 

A presence of Christ that is as the fragrance of myrrh and aloes. When you become accustomed to the smell of His garments you will be spoiled for anything less. If we never smell the myrrh and aloes out of the ivory palaces, we may go along a lifetime and not miss it. 

But one beautiful whiff of the fragrance of these garments and we will never be satisfied with anything less. When my wife and I were first married we attended a church of The Christian and Missionary Alliance in Akron, Ohio. 

There was something on that church, a sense of the fragrance of God. The great Dr. Gerow preached there in those days. 

The church had some sweet Christian brethren, some wonderful men and women of God, and there was a fragrance on that place. 

I have never forgotten it. I was between 19,21 for the three years I spent in that church, and I do not remember getting help from others of my age. 

But how I remember getting help that is with me to this day from the older saints whose garments were fragrant with the myrrh, aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces!

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TOZER l "On Becoming More Lovable" l Reclaiming Christianity l Bible Teaching University l School of the Bible l Night School

Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer

Devotional for March 2

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On Becoming More Lovable

God desires that all men should become Christlike, for in so doing they present larger and more perfect objects for the reception of His outpoured love. 

Conformity to the nature of Christ on the part of a redeemed man restores the image of God in the soul and thus makes it possible for God to lavish on the soul without restraint all the boundless love of which He is the original fountain. It is hard for a sinful man to believe that God loves Him. 

His own accusing conscience tells him it could not be so. He knows that he is an enemy of God and alienated in his mind through wicked works, and he sees in himself a thousand moral discrepancies that unfit him for the just enjoyment of so pure a love. 

Yet the whole Bible proclaims the love of God for sinful men. We must believe in His love because He declares it and avail ourselves of the sanctifying grace of Christ in order to receive and enjoy that love to the full.

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Tozer in the Evening
THE WONDER OF REDEMPTION

My brethren in the Christian faith, stand with me in defense of this basic doctrine: The living God did not degrade Himself in the Incarnation. 

When the Word was made flesh, there was no compromise on God's part! It is plain in the ancient Athanasian Creed that the early church fathers were cautious at this point of doctrine. 

They would not allow us to believe that God, in the Incarnation, became flesh by a coming down of the Deity into flesh, but rather by the taking of mankind into God. That is the wonder of redemption! In the past, the mythical gods of the nations were not strangers to compromise. 

But the holy God who is God, our heavenly Father, could never compromise Himself! He remained ever God and everything else remained not God. 

That gulf still existed even after Jesus Christ had become man and dwelt among us. 

This much, then, we can know about the acts of God-He will never back out of His bargain. This amazing union of man with God is effected unto perpetuity!

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TOZER l "The Wrong Kind of Teachers" l Reclaiming Christianity l Bible Teaching University l School of the Bible

Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer

Devotional for February 4

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Tozer in the Morning

The Wrong Kind of Teachers

The newborn Christian finds himself alive with a sweet, enjoyable kind of life that he accepts naively, almost unconsciously. To him everything is simple and immediate. He knows no intermediary. Christ is to him on an infinitely higher level what its mother is to a baby--warmth, nourishment, protection, rest and an object of satisfying affection.

Right here is where the wrong kind of Bible teacher can do his damage. The first thing he does is to destroy the new Christian's simplicity. He introduces something between the Christian and Christ. He makes him Biblo-centric instead of Christo-centric. (And there is a difference, let no one deceive you.) The Spirit-anointed Bible teacher will so teach the Word as to keep it transparent, so as to allow it to be what it always should be, a kind of burning bush which God indwells and out of which He shines in awesome splendor. The beholder sees the bush, it is true, but the object of his interest is the Presence, not the bush. The wrong kind of teacher gets so technical about the bush that the fire dims down and the light ceases to fall on the Christian's face.

That is what the gentle cynic meant when he said "before he has met too many Bible teachers."

As for "too many church members" spoiling the new Christian's happiness, it is the result of disillusionment pure and simple.

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Tozer in the Evening

THE PERFECTIONS OF GOD

I hope that if I am remembered at all it will be for this reason: I have spent my efforts and my energies trying to turn the direction of the people away from the external elements of religion to those that are internal and spiritual. I have tried to take away some of the clouds in the hope that men and women would be able to view God in His glory. I would like to see this sense of glory recaptured throughout the church-too many Christians do not expect to experience any of the glory until they see Him face to face! Within our Christian fellowship and worship, we must recapture the Bible concepts of the perfection of our God Most High! We have lost the sense and the wonder of His awe-fullness, His perfection, His beauty. Oh, I feel that we should preach it, sing it, write about it, talk about it and tell it until we have recaptured the concept of the Majesty of God! Only that can be beautiful ultimately which is holy-and we who belong to Jesus Christ should know the true delight of worshiping God in the beauty of His holiness!

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TOZER l "GOD IS ON OUR SIDE" l Reclaiming Christianity l Bible Teaching University l School of the Bible

Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer

Devotional for February 3

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Tozer in the Morning

GOD IS ON OUR SIDE

It was a gracious revelation to my human spirit when I discovered that the Word of God was actually on my side, operating in my behalf! I was readingPsalms 71 and I came to this amazing statement: "Thou hast given commandment to save me!" My heart has been warmed with that realization ever since. I believe that the Word of the living God has gone throughout all the earth to save me and keep me! Let the theological experts raise their eyebrow -- I do not care! The living Word has charged Himself with responsibility to forgive, to cleanse and to keep me! Let us not be guilty of under rating the Word of God operating on our behalf I dare to say that there is not an uncontrolled stroke or force anywhere in all of God's mighty universe that can take eternal life away from a trusting, believing, obedient child of God. Let us thank God for the Word! It is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword!

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Tozer in the Evening

Pressing On!

Once while listening to a man reproach, disparage and scold an assembly of Christians with whom he was only slightly acquainted and whose personal lives he had no way of appraising, I asked myself some questions, the answers to which up to this point I have not received. Since they bear directly on the matter here being discussed I want to list them. Perhaps some reader can answer them for me. Here they are:

Why do some preachers--

1. To take us on in the Christian life, begin by trying to prove that we have not started yet?

2. To emphasize a truth, assume or assert that everyone but them is ignorant of it?

3. To stir us to more praying, assume that we never pray at all?

4. To make us feel penitent, imply that we had a fierce family quarrel just before we left for church?

5. To bring conviction of sin on an audience, act wise and mysterious and subtly suggest that there is deep and grave hidden evil present somewhere?

6. Create invidious comparisons, as for example: "You can preach about the deeper life all you will; I believe in foreign missions"; or "You may run to and fro over the earth engaged in foreign missions; I believe in love as the only way to please God." This is dishonest and confusing, but it does disturb the tenderhearted saints and bring them to the altar. I wonder if that is not the real purpose of it after all.

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