A.w. Tozer

A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of read more

A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions, and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar. The tragic results of this spirit are all about us. Shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit; these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul.

Feast of Edmund of the East Angles, Martyr, 870 Commemoration of Priscilla Lydia Sellon, a Restorer of the Religious Life read more

Feast of Edmund of the East Angles, Martyr, 870 Commemoration of Priscilla Lydia Sellon, a Restorer of the Religious Life in the Church of England, 1876 The sacred page is not meant to be the end, but only the means toward the end, which is knowing God himself.

Let a man set his heart only on doing the will of God and he is instantly free. If we read more

Let a man set his heart only on doing the will of God and he is instantly free. If we understand our first and sole duty to consist of loving God supremely and loving everyone, even our enemies, for God's dear sake, then we can enjoy spiritual tranquility under every circumstance.

Commemoration of Ethelburga, Abbess of Barking, 675 Like the eye which sees everything in front of it and never read more

Commemoration of Ethelburga, Abbess of Barking, 675 Like the eye which sees everything in front of it and never sees itself, faith is occupied with the Object upon which it rests and pays no attention to itself at all. While we are looking at God, we do not see ourselves -- blessed riddance. The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One.

Hearts that are "fit to break" with love for the Godhead are those who have been in the Presence and read more

Hearts that are "fit to break" with love for the Godhead are those who have been in the Presence and have looked with opened eye upon the majesty of Deity. Men of the breaking hearts had a quality about them not known to or understood by common men. They habitually spoke with spiritual authority. They had been in the Presence of God and they reported what they saw there. They were prophets, not scribes: for the scribe tells us what he has read, and the prophet tells us what he has seen. The distinction is not an imaginary one. Between the scribe who has read and the prophet who has seen, there is a difference as wide as the sea. We are today overrun with orthodox scribes; but the prophets, where are they? The hard voice of the scribe sounds over evangelicalism, but the Church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with inward eye upon the Wonder that is God.