I think we make two mistakes in our attitude toward our Christian leaders, one in not being sufficiently grateful to them and the other in following them too slavishly.
The first is a sin of omission, and because it is something that is not there it is not so likely to be noticed as a sin that is plainly present. For instance, it is a sin to be ungrateful to a man who has befriended us, but it is not as bad or as obvious a sin as stealing his pocketbook.
To be grateful to God's servants is to be grateful to God. The benefits we receive from them result from God's working through them, but as free agents they could have refused to cooperate. That they cheerfully yielded their members to the Spirit for our good puts us under continual obligation to them. Because they are so many, and because the vast majority of them have long fallen asleep we cannot make a like return to them in person; the only way we can discharge our obligation is to be thankful. Gratitude is an offering precious in the sight of God, and it is one that the poorest of us can make and be not poorer but richer for having made it.
verse
''Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.''
— Hebrews 13:17
thought
Little do we appreciate the price of faithful leadership. Leading those who are willing to be led is a joy. Trying to lead those who refuse to be led, a burden. Are we a joy or burden to our leaders?
prayer
Lord, may I be a joy to those whom You have placed in leadership over me.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Following God-given Leaders We have and will always have spiritual leaders.
Even the most democratic-minded Christian is being influenced, and so led to some degree, by some other Christian living or dead. He cannot escape it; that is the way he is made and he might as well accept it.
At the extreme ends of the religious spectrum are those churches that are controlled from the top by an all-powerful hierarchy and those churches that boldly reject any such supreme authority and insist upon complete autonomy within the local assembly. Yet both kinds of churches are controlled by their leaders. The one group admits it, the other denies it; but the control exists for both nevertheless. Admittedly the degree of control is less in the second instance than in the first, but it is there.
That our religious outlook is largely determined for us by our leaders cannot be denied, but whether that is a good or an evil will depend altogether upon the kind of leaders we have and the wisdom we exercise in our attitude toward them.
verse
''No one from the east or west or from the desert can exalt a man. But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another.''
— Psalm 75:6-7
thought
Leadership has been defined in condensed form by Bobby Clinton as ''a dynamic process in which a man or woman with a God-given capacity influences a specific group of God's people toward His purpose for the group.'' How much we owe to such influencers!
prayer
Thank You, Father, for the leaders You have raised up and those You have brought down. Help me to discern the difference.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Positive beliefs are not popular these days. A mistaken desire to maintain a spirit of tolerance among all races and religions has produced a breed of Januslike Christians with built-in swivels, remarkable only for their ability to turn in any direction gracefully. The philosophy behind this whole thing is that religious beliefs are matters of personal choice, and that the Lord adapts His saving truth to the individual, varying it according to the cultural background, educational level and social situation of each one. Whatever this is, it is not Christianity.
A number of popular religious books have appeared of late quite literally filled with swivel-words of uncertain meaning; and because these were written by persons ostensibly evangelical they have been accepted and promoted by the evangelicals. And they are having a real influence on Christian thin king; or more to the point, they are making sound Christian thinking impossible for those who read and admire them. We had better take a good hard look at these books. If the authors will not stand still to let their meanings be examined, there is probably a good reason. Great ideas have a habit of inhabiting the same great words generation after generation. To ignore or reject the word is to reject the idea.
The hope of the church yet lies in the purity of her theology, that is, her beliefs about God and man and their relation to each other. These beliefs have been revealed to her by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the sacred Scriptures. Everything there is clear-cut and accurate. We dare not be less than accurate in our treatment of anything so precious.
verse
''Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.''
— Matthew 7:13-14
thought
Efforts are underway to widen the narrow gate and even tear it down altogether. It is the idea that all religious ways lead to God and life eternal. But Christ is The Way, the only way because He alone bore the sins of us all.
prayer
Lord, give me compassion for those who are trying to approach You through the wide gate. Help me by word and life to point them to Christ the way.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The constant use of biblical terms to express non-biblical concepts is now common. Yet not everyone who misuses religious words is guilty of wrong intent. For two full generations the habit of emptying words of one meaning and refilling them with another has been taking place among the churches; so it is quite natural that many sincere ministers should engage in theological double-talk without knowing it.
Certain biblical words along with certain theological terms embody what God has given to be intellectually grasped by man. It is critically important that the same word should mean the same thing to everyone in a given language group. To permit a change in meaning is to invite disaster. To preserve life the physician and the druggist use words of fixed meaning common to both. How much more should the pulpit and the pew have a clear understanding about the words of eternal life.
The modern effort to popularize the Christian faith has been extremely damaging to that faith. The purpose has been to simplify truth for the masses by using the language of the masses instead of the language of the church. It has not succeeded, but has added to rather than diminished religious confusion.
verse
''Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.''
— Genesis 11:7
thought
''Born-again'' is one of those biblical terms that has been dragged into popular usage to convey non-biblical meaning. The danger is that over a period of time the term is emptied of its biblical meaning altogether and truth communication is severely hindered.
prayer
Make me aware, Lord, of the need in today's world of understanding and carefully explaining biblical terms and concepts. My tendency is to assume understanding when it may not be there.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
A disturbing phenomenon of the day is the new and tricky use of familiar words.
A "people's republic," for instance, is not a republic nor does it belong to the people. The word "freedom" now in most countries refers to something so restricted that a generation or two ago another word altogether would have been chosen to describe it.
Other words that have changed their meanings without admitting it are "war," "peace," "grant" (to describe the small sop the government tosses back out of the money it has previously taken from us), "right," "left," "equality," "security," "liberal" and many more. These have been emptied of their meaning and a different meaning has been poured into them. We may now read them or hear them spoken and, unless we are very sharp, gain from them a wholly false idea.
This phenomenon has invaded the field of religion also. In a predominantly Christian society such as prevails in the West the words of Scripture and of Christian theology have quite naturally acquired a fixed meaning and until recently always meant the same thing whenever they were used by educated and responsible persons. With the coming of the various revolutions ? scientific, industrial, philosophical, social, artistic, political ? fixed meanings have deserted religious words and now float about like disembodied spirits, looking for but apparently never finding the bodies from which they have been exorcised by the revolutionists.
Among religious words which have lost their Christian meaning are "inspiration, "revelation," "spiritual," "fellowship," "brotherhood," "unity,'' ''worship," "prayer," "heaven," "immortality," "hell," "Lord," "new birth," "converted" ? but the list is long and includes almost every major word of the Christian faith.
verse
"If then I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and he is a foreigner to me."
— 1 Corinthians 14:11
thought
We have all engaged in conversation where the same word is used but with different meaning. Quite confusing! Even more so when terms are being used that designate spiritual reality. Are we careful definers?
prayer
Lord, keep me from confusing and misleading people by incorrect use of terms, especially those that deal with spiritual reality.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
A farmer sows wheat and, granted that the soil is fertile, his harvest will be only what the seed was, allowing for the slight natural retrogression that usually follows each careless planting. Is it not plain that the quality of the seed is what matters most? Would it not be folly for the farmer to grow more and more and poorer and poorer wheat? Let him look to his seed if he would improve his harvest.
Should someone object that the seed is the Word and that since the Word remains always the same it will produce the same effect wherever and by whomsoever it is preached, I would reply that the first is true but not the second. Verily God's Word is ever the same, but what it will do at any time in any place depends largely upon the moral purity, wisdom and spiritual power of those who preach it. There is nothing automatic about the truth. To do its most effective work it must be incarnated in the church.
Look at Acts 18 and 19. Apollos, a man mighty in the Scriptures, for all his faithfulness to the truth as he understood it, could produce only imperfect converts. Suppose Paul had not arrived when he did. It is not hard to imagine an immature, weak and ineffective church propagating itself in Ephesus.
So vitally important is spiritual quality that it is hardly too much to suggest that attempts to grow larger might well be suspended until we have become better.
verse
''For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.''
— Ephesians 5:8-10
thought
Truth proclaimed but unlived clouds that truth. Truth lived out emblazons that truth. God wants His truth incarnated in you and me.
prayer
Lord, forgive me for so often obscuring Your truth by cloud-befogged living. May Your truth be incarnate in me that I may be light because of You.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
If we would be followers of Christ indeed we must become personally and vitally involved in His death and resurrection. And this requires repentance, prayer, watchfulness, self-denial, detachment from the world, humility, obedience and cross carrying. That is why it is easier to talk about revival than to experience it.
To avoid personal involvement with the cross we have become adept at finding or creating religious projects to soothe our conscience and make things look good. Among these may be named evangelism and foreign missions. These are good, scriptural activities, incumbent upon all Christians, but all presuppose that they who engage in them should be holy, Spirit-filled and totally committed to God. To carry on these activities scripturally the church should be walking in fullness of power, separated, purified and ready at any moment to give up everything, even life itself, for the greater glory of Christ. For a worldly, weak, decadent church to make converts is but to bring forth after her own kind and extend her weakness and decadence a bit further out.
verse
"In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus."
— Romans 6:11
thought
Because of Christ's death and resurrection and our faith identification with Him, we are to count ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. That means refusing to let sin reign in us. Wow!
prayer
Father, Your provision for me in Christ is so full and complete. May more and more I utilize it by faith ? Christ's life lived out in my daily life.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
Our most pressing obligation today is to do all in our power to obtain a revival that will result in a reformed, revitalized, purified church. It is of far greater importance that we have better Christians than that we have more of them. Each generation of Christians is the seed of the next, and degenerate seed is sure to produce a degenerate harvest not a little better than but a little worse than the seed from which it sprang. Thus the direction will be down until vigorous, effective means are taken to improve the seed.
And how can we improve the church?
Simply and only by improving ourselves: and there is where the difficulty lies. The church in any locality is what its individual members are, no better and no worse. We as members must begin by seeking moral amendment that will result in a positive spiritual renaissance. And that is why improvement is hard to achieve.
As long as we can keep the whole thing at arm's length and deal with it academically we may preach and write about it at little or no real cost to ourselves and, it must be admitted, with no real advance in godliness.
verse
''For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.''
— Colossians 2:9-10
thought
The Church will experience revival, spiritual renewal only as we experience it. We cannot criticize the Church for spiritual defects unless we ourselves are modeling Christlike living. The Church is not them, it is us.
prayer
You promise fullness in Christ. May I experience it, Lord!
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/
The emphasis today in Christian circles appears to be on quantity, with a corresponding lack of emphasis on quality. Numbers, size and amount seem to be very nearly all that matters even among evangelicals. The size of the crowd, the number of converts, the size of the budget, the amount of the weekly collections: if these look good the church is prospering and the pastor is thought to be a success. The church that can show an impressive quantitative growth is frankly envied and imitated by other ambitious churches.
This is the age of the Laodiceans. The great goddess Numbers is worshiped with fervent devotion and all things religious are brought before her for examination. Her Old Testament is the financial report and her New Testament is the membership roll. To these she appeals as arbiters of all questions, the test of spiritual growth and the proof of success or failure in every Christian endeavor.
A little acquaintance with the Bible should show this up for the heresy it is. To judge anything spiritual by statistics is to judge by another than scriptural judgment. It is to admit the validity of externalism and to deny the value our Lord places upon the soul as over against the body. It is to mistake the old creation for the new and to confuse things eternal with things temporal. Yet it is being done every day by ministers, church boards and denominational leaders. And hardly anyone notices the deep and dangerous error.
verse
''His work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work.''
— First Corinthians 3:13
thought
It is the quality of one's work that will be tested. Nothing is said of quantity. There can be qualitative quantity but quantity without quality is of little worth.
prayer
Lord, I want to strive for quality in service for You. May I do my very best regardless of quantity.
https://cmalliance.org/devotionals/tozer/