Saturday, June 2, 2018

Truth Is A Person (and more)

Truth Is A Person (and more)

"Then said Jesus...And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:31-32).

Let me say boldly that it is not the difficulty of discovering truth, but the unwillingness to obey it, that makes it so rare among men.

Our Lord said, "I am...the Truth" (John 14:6). And again He said, "The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10). Truth, therefore, is not hard to find for the very reason that it is seeking us!

So we learn that Truth is not a thing for which we must search, but a Person to whom we must hearken! In the New Testament, multitudes came to Jesus for physical help, but only rarely did one seek Him out to learn the Truth. The whole picture in the Gospels is one of a seeking Saviour, not one of seeking men.

The Truth was hunting for those who would receive it, and relatively few did, for "many are called, but few are chosen" (Matthew 22:14).

Thank You for this truth, Lord, that You came "to seek and to save that which was lost."I don't want to keep this truth tucked in my back pocket. Give me the opportunities to share Your good news with someone today. Amen

~A. W. Tozer~
_________________________

Christ Is Not Divided

"Jesus answered...If a man love me, he will keep my words" (John 14:23).

Much of our full gospel literature and much of our preaching tend to perpetuate a misunderstanding of what the Bible says about obedience and Christian discipleship.

I think the following is a fair statement of what I was taught in my early Christian experience and before I began to pray and study and anguish over the whole matter:

"We are saved by accepting Christ as our Saviour."
"We are sanctified by accepting Christ as our Lord."
"We may do the first without doing the second."

What a tragedy that in our day we often hear the gospel appeal made in this way:

"Come to Jesus! You do not have to obey anyone. You do not have to give up anything. Just come to Him and believe in Him as Saviour!"

The fact that we hear this everywhere does not make it right! To urge men and women to believe in a divided Christ is bad teaching - for no one can receive a half or a third or a quarter of the divine Person of Christ!

Heavenly Father, You are a wonderful Saviour and Lord deserving my full obedience to all of Your teachings. Forgive me, Lord, for the times that I've obeyed only a portion of Your Word. Show me the areas in my life in which I am weak. Amen

~A. W. Tozer~
__________________________

Who Hears The Call of God?

"Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life" (John 6:68).

Who can deny that there are certain persons who, though still unconverted, nevertheless differ from the crowd, marked out by God, stricken with an interior wound and susceptible to the call of God?

In the prayer of Jesus in John 17:11, He said, "Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou has given me." Surely no man is ever the same after God has laid His hand upon him. He will have certain marks, perhaps some not easy to detect.

First might be a deep reverence for divine things. A sense of the sacred must be present or there can be no receptivity to God and truth.

Another mark is great moral sensitivity. When God begins to work in a man to bring him to salvation, He makes him acutely sensitive to evil.

Another mark of the Spirit's working is a mighty moral discontent. It does take a work of God in a man to sour him on the world and to turn him against himself; yet until this has happened he is psychologically unable to repent and believe!

Lord, I pray that Your Spirit will continue to make me sensitive to the "divine things" at work in this immoral world so that I may make a difference for Christ among my network of relationships. Amen.

~A. W. Tozer~

No comments:

Post a Comment