The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men ? robbers, evildoers, adulterers ? or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
— Luke 18:11-12
Any act gains in power as it moves inward toward the heart. For this reason, the sins of the spirit are more iniquitous than those of the body. This was illustrated boldly by the attitude of our Lord toward these two kinds of sins and the corresponding two classes of sinners. He was the friend of publicans and harlots and the enemy of the Pharisees. All sin is sinful and will be fatal to the soul if it is not forgiven and cleansed away. But for intensity of iniquity, the sins of the spirit are in a class by themselves. Yet they are the very sins which are most likely to be committed by religious people. The careless sinner expresses himself overtly and so "releases" the moral tension; the religious sinner is not likely so to do. He scorns outward acts of wickedness and drives his sin inward to the sanctuary of his soul where it remains in a state of high compression. The notorious unloveliness of many religious people can be explained in this way.
thought
As Evangelical Christians we can be highly pharisaical in condeming the overt sins of others while refusing to acknowledge our own sins of the spirit. Does God see us as those with telephone poles in our own eyes yet denouncing tiny specks in the eyes of others?
prayer
Father, help me to understand that sin is sin. I may not be committing sin strongly condemned by society. But so-called "inner sins" are just as sinful. Christ had to die to pay the price for "little" sins as well as big ones.
Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
— Colossians 3:12
Sometimes we Christians are opposed and persecuted for reasons other than our godliness. We like to think it is our spirituality that irritates people, when in reality, it may be our personality. True, the spirit of this world is opposed to the Spirit of God; he that is born after the flesh will persecute him that is born of the Spirit. But making all allowances, it is still true that some Christians get into trouble through their faults instead of through their likeness to the character of Christ. We may as well admit this and do something about it. No good can come from trying to hide our unpleasant and annoying dispositional traits behind a verse of Scripture. It is one of the strange facts of life that gross sins are often less offensive and always more attractive than spiritual ones. The world can tolerate a drunkard or a glutton or a smiling braggart but will turn in savage fury against the man of outwardly righteous life who is guilty of those refined sins, which he does not recognize as sins, but which may be more exceeding sinful than the sins of the flesh.
thought
Coldheartedness, unkindness, pride, harshness, impatience in us as believers are dispositional weaknesses that repel many non Christians. Rather than spirituality characterizing our daily living it may be unChristlikeness.
prayer
You want to draw people to Yourself through me but I sometimes repel them by my unChristlikeness. Lord, continue to change me!
Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.
— James 1:12
The man whom Christ illuminates with His message has eyes, and that resolves the old difficulty of blindness; but he must use his new eyes in a blind world, and that creates another problem. The world in its blindness resents his claim to sight and will go to any lengths to discredit the claim. The truth of Christ brings assurance and so removes the former problem of fear and uncertainty, but that assurance will be interpreted as bigotry by the fear-ridden multitudes. And sooner or later this misunderstanding will get the man of God into trouble. And so with many other of the blessed benefits of the gospel. As long as we remain in this twisted world, these benefits will create their own problems. We cannot escape them.
But no instructed Christian will complain. He will rather accept his problems as opportunities for the exercise of spiritual virtues. He will turn them into useful disciplines for the purification of his life and will rejoice that he is permitted to suffer with his Lord. For however severe may be a Christian's trials, they cannot last very long, and the blessed fruit they bear will last while the ages endure.
thought
Standing for truth will bring trials. Trials develop perseverance which is essential to spiritual maturity. Trials are painful but only temporary!
prayer
Give me the good sense, Lord, to see joy in trials because of how You use trials to mature me.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
— 1 Corinthians 13:6-7
The truth resolves some difficulties and creates others. "The truth shall make you free"; that is, free from the woes, the yokes, the burdens which sin imposes. Yet that same truth brings problems of another kind. It cannot be otherwise, since we are forced to entertain truth in a world dedicated to the lie. Human society is in a quiet conspiracy against the truth as far as it touches spiritual and moral things. The soul dedicated to God's truth is never popular with the multitudes. They make him pay for his love of truth. And that creates a problem for him. Wherever and whenever truth gets itself incarnated in a man, that man is sure to become the target for every kind of opposition from the casual barbed insult of a professed friend to the carefully prepared campaign of the avowed enemy. The problem this creates for the man of truth is how to accept these attacks in the spirit of charity, how to keep cool and patient when all his old natural reflexes urge him to strike back with every weapon at his command.
thought
Living out truth in the midst of untruth cause wounds. To accept those wounds without rancor or retaliation requires that we allow the love of Christ to flow through us. And that love heals the wounds.
prayer
Lord, I ask for a miracle ? Your love. Love for truth and for the enemies of it.
But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.
— Job 23:10
Ten thousand enemies cannot stop a Christian, cannot even slow him down, if he meets them in a attitude of complete trust in God. They will become to him like the atmosphere that resists the airplane, but which because the plane's designer knew how to take advantage of that resistance, actually lifts the plane aloft and holds it there for a journey of 2,000 miles. What would have been an enemy to the plane becomes a helpful servant to aid it on its way. The main thing is this: we should never blame anyone or anything for our defeats. No matter how evil their intentions may be, they are altogether unable to harm us until we begin to blame them and use them as excuses for our own unbelief. Then they become potent to do us injury; nevertheless, we are to blame and not they.
If this should seem like a bit of theorizing, remember that always the greatest Christians have come out of hard times and tough situations. Tribulations actually worked for their spiritual perfection in that they taught them to trust not in themselves but in the Lord who raised the dead. They learned that the enemy could not block their progress unless they surrendered to the urgings of the flesh and began to complain. And slowly, they learned to stop complaining and start praising. It is that simple ? and it works!
thought
Our culture is not inclined to accept the truth that tribulations, difficulties, trials are for our good. Yet as believers we know that those experiences need not cause defeat and failure, rather God uses them to refine us.
prayer
It is true, Lord, as the old hymn expresses it: "The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine." I have so much dross that needs refining!
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen
— Ephesians 3:20-21
It matters little how twisted a man's life may be, there is hope for him if he will but establish a right attitude toward God and refuse to admit any other element into his spiritual thinking. God and I; here is the beginning and the end of personal religion. Faith refuses to acknowledge that there is or ever can be a third party to this holy relation. Attitude is all-important. Let the soul take a quiet attitude of faith and love toward God, and from there on the responsibility is God's. He will make good on His commitments. There is not on earth a lonely spot where a Christian cannot live and be spiritually victorious if God sends him there.
He carries his own climate with him or has it supplied supernaturally when he arrives. Since he is not dependent for his spiritual health upon local moral standards or current religious beliefs, he lives through a thousand earthly changes, unaffected by any of them. He has a private supply from above and is in reality a little world within a world and very much of a wonder to the rest of creation. Because this is true, we can easily see why we should never blame our spiritual failures on others. The habit of seeking weak consolation by blaming our poor showing on unfavorable circumstances is a damaging evil and should not for one moment be tolerated. To live a lifetime believing that our inner weakness was the result of an external situation and then find at the last that we ourselves were to blame ? that is too painful to be contemplated.
thought
It's me, not them or it. I am personally responsible to God for faith recognition of His presence and His promises in the darkness; for appropriation of His promised enablement. No one can do it for me. No one can keep me from doing it ? except me.
prayer
You are able to do immeasurably more than I can ever ask or imagine according to Your power presently at work in me. It is for me to simply trust You, O Lord.
A lifetime of observation, Bible reading and prayer has led to the conclusion that the only thing that can hinder a Christian's progress is the Christian himself.
The true child of God can live and grow in circumstances that are wholly unfavorable to such life and growth.
Outward circumstances can help little or none in a Christian's spiritual life.
The whole philosophy of the spiritual way requires us to believe this.
For this reason, it is always bad to blame anyone or anything for our spiritual or moral failures.
God has so ordered things that His children may grow as successfully in the middle of a desert as in the most fruitful land.
It is necessary that this should be so, seeing that the very world itself is a field where nothing good can grow except by some kind of miracle. The old hymn asks the rhetorical question, "Is this vile world a friend to grace, to help me on to God?"
And the implied answer is no. Grace operates without the help of the world.
verse
That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
— Second Corinthians 12:10
thought
Our greatest spiritual growth often occurs in the most unfavorable of circumstances. When most aware of our weakness we are more inclined to collapse into God's strength and there experience His amazing grace.
prayer
No matter the circumstances nor the evil intent of other people, I may be strong in You, O Lord, but only in You!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Satan's distracting words often come from the most unexpected quarters.
Martha would call Mary away from sitting at the feet of the Master.
Sometimes, if we are not careful, our best friend may distract us.
Or it might be some very legitimate activity.
This day's bustle and hurly-burly would too often and too soon call us away from Jesus' feet.
These distractions must be immediately dismissed, or we shall know only the "barrenness of busyness."
The multiplying agencies and the extraneous activities of much of the current gospel "programming" may distract us if we are not wary and lead us into some meandering by-path that comes to a dead end.
Our genius is preserved by sticking at the task of worldwide evangelization that God has called us to by the tried and proven methods that God has blessed, thereby avoiding the slough of an effete denominationalism on the one hand and unproductive, fevered activity on the other.
In a world like ours, we need to master the art and keep at the business of dismissing distractions.
verse
'Martha, Martha,' the Lord answered, 'You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.'
— Luke 10:41-42
thought
So easily we fall victim to busyness. But with whose business are we busy? Is it distracting us from simply sitting at Christ's feet?
prayer
There are times when I try to sit at Your feet, Lord, when in fact You are directing me to ministry action. And there are times when I am ministry busy when I desparately need to just sit at Your feet.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Nehemiah, the good, rose up from his weeping to do something about a vision God had laid on his heart.
Under divine providence, he was soon transported from Shushan to his beloved city, Jerusalem, armed with authority and equipped with materials to rebuild the ruined city. .
. . The first device of the "enemy," upon hearing of the undertaking, was to heap ridicule on the whole plan.
Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem laughed Nehemiah and his helpers to scorn.
Undeterred, Nehemiah replied with firm assurance, "The God of heaven, he will prosper us."
And the work went on according to plan.
After all other means had failed to hinder the reconstruction, the conspirators tried to arrange for a conference with Nehemiah.
The man of God saw in this an evil purpose to do him mischief and divert him from his monumental work. His reply to the would-be mischief-makers is classic, and might well be adopted for the all-time stock reply to all such overtures: "I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?" (Nehemiah 6:3).
The great task to which God had called Nehemiah was so important that every other consideration must be waived.
Would that we might have such an overpowering sense of being about our Father's business and be so impressed with the grandeur of our task that we would reject every suggestion of the evil one that would bid us take up some lesser pursuit.
Let us rout him with the words that date back to 445 B.C., and which cannot be improved upon: "I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down."
verse
So I sent messengers to them with this reply: 'I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?'
— Nehemiah 6:3
thought
When we are certain of the Lord's will, we may with faith confidence pursue it despite the obstacles and opposition. Being about His business is our business.
prayer
Lord, as I determine to do Your will as I know it, You confirm Your will and reveal it more clearly and fully. Your business is my business.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/