And He Dwelt Among Us: Teachings from the Gospel of John

by A.W. Tozer

Many Christians are familiar with the prophetic voice of Tozer, but few living today were blessed to sit under his weekly teaching from the pulpit. The Gospel of John was Tozer’s favorite book of the Bible, and the focus of these writings (adapted from sermons given to his parishioners) is the Incarnation and what it means for believers’ lives. Christ came down to earth in order to lift men and women up into the heavenlies. No other New Testament writer, not even the amazing apostle Paul, presents Christ with a passion equal to John’s, the Beloved. Tozer captures the spirit of John and presents his winsome and enthralling portrait of Christ, challenging readers to discover a fresh and overwhelming desire for Him. Readers will be captivated anew by the One we call Lord.

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Paperback, 224 pages

Published August 14th 2009 by Regal

tags: theology, spirituality, new testament, faith, christianity, christian non fiction, religion, nonfiction, christian living, christian

Book Quotes

“Jesus Christ came not to condemn you but to save you, knowing your name, knowing all about you, knowing your weight right now, knowing your age, knowing what you do, knowing where you live, knowing what you ate for supper and what you will eat for breakfast, where you will sleep tonight, how much your clothing cost, who your parents were. He knows you individually as though there were not another person in the entire world. He died for you as certainly as if you had been the only lost one. He knows the worst about you and is the One who loves you the most. If you are out of the fold and away from God, put your name in the words of John 3:16 and say, “Lord, it is I. I’m the cause and reason why Thou didst on earth come to die.” That kind of positive, personal faith and a personal Redeemer is what saves you. If you will just rush in there, you do not have to know all the theology and all the right words. You can say, “I am the one He came to die for.” Write it down in your heart and say, “Jesus, this is me—Thee and me,” as though there were no others. Have that kind of personalized belief in a personal Lord and Savior.”

― A.W. Tozer

topics: Die, God, Gospel, Jesus, John 3 16, Knowing, Lost, Personal, Redeem, Salvation

“Many people are caught up with the toys of contemporary society. Because of great advancements in our culture, some have cultivated an attitude of “comfortability.” They may be going to hell, but it is going to be a comfortable ride for them.”

― A.W. Tozer

topics: Comfortable, Contemporary, Hell, Toys

“Whenever you see confusion, you can be sure that something is wrong. Disorder in the world implies that something is out of place. Usually, at the heart of all disorder you will find man in rebellion against God. It began in the Garden of Eden and continues to this day.”

― A.W. Tozer

topics: Confusion, Disorder, God, Mankind, World, Wrong

“Only the redeemed have the ability to like what God likes and to be pleased with what pleases God.”

― A.W. Tozer

topics: God, Pleases, Redeemed

“Your poor heart, in which God put appreciation for everlastingness, will not take electronic gadgets in lieu of eternal life. Something inside of you is too big for that, too terrible, too wonderful. God has set everlastingness in your heart. All the things of this world are here for but a moment and then are gone. None can satisfy the longing for that eternal ragging in the soul of every man.”

― A.W. Tozer

topics: Among, Dwelt, Everlasting, Everlastingness, Fleeting, God, Heart, Life, Us

“All nature has come to expect from God a sense of orderliness. Whatever God does carries with it His fingerprint. And in the world around us His fingerprint of orderliness is evident to anybody who is honest with the facts. If you look at nature, you will discover a mathematical exactness. Without this precision, the entire world would be in utter confusion. One plus one always equals two no matter what part of the universe you happen to be in. And the laws of nature operate in beautiful harmony, a harmony that is ordered by God Himself.”

― A.W. Tozer

topics: Exactness, Fingerprint, God, Harmony, Nature, Precision

“Unfortunately, the ten-cent-store Jesus being preached now by many men is not the Jesus that will come to judge the world. This plastic, painted Christ who has no spine and no justice, but is a soft and pliant friend to everybody, if He is the only Christ, then we might as well close our books, bar our doors and make a bakery or garage out of our church buildings. The popular Christ being preached now is not the Christ of God nor the Christ of the Bible nor the Christ we must deal with finally. For the Christ that we deal with has eyes as a flame of fire. And His feet are like burnished brass; and out of His mouth cometh a sharp two-edged sword (see Rev. 1:14-16). He will be the judge of humanity. You can leave your loved ones in His hands knowing that He Himself suffered, knowing that He knows all, no mistakes can be made, there can be no miscarriage of justice, because He knows all that can be known... Jesus Christ our Lord, the judge with the flaming eyes, is the one with whom we must deal. We cannot escape it.”

― A.W. Tozer

topics: Christ, God, Hell, Jesus, Judge, Justice, Savior, Saviour, True

“Everything God does has purpose and intention behind that design. It is a master design, and every little thing has its proper place and function.”

― A.W. Tozer

topics: Creation, God, Purpose, Work

“We have heard the same thing repeated until we are bored. I do not blame those who repeat, because it is necessary that we continue to say the same things. What I complain about is that we are unconscious of that Presence of the one who can take the familiar word and make it brilliantly new. We are dying by degrees in evangelical circles because we are resting in the truth of the Word and are forgetting that there is a Spirit of the Word without which the truth of the Word means nothing to the human spirit at last.”

― A.W. Tozer

“One of the great leaders of America was Daniel Webster. That great bulging brow of his and those blazing eyes used to hold the Senate spellbound as he stood there and talked to them not with silly quips or funny remarks. The Senate in those days was not composed of half-baked comedians but of strong, noble statesmen who carried the weight of the nation on their shoulders. Someone said, “Mr. Webster, what do you consider the most serious thought that has ever entered your mind?” He said, “The most solemn thought that has ever entered my mind is the accountability to my Maker.”

― A.W. Tozer

“The Love of God,” written by Frederick M. Lehman (1868–1953): Could we with ink the ocean fill, And were the skies of parchment made, Were every stalk on earth a quill, And every man a scribe by trade, To write the love of God above Would drain the ocean dry. Nor could the scroll contain the whole, Though stretched from sky to sky.”

― A.W. Tozer

“We have many examples of God walking with man. But this was intermittent and temporary compared to what it was prior to the Fall. Take for example, Enoch. The Bible says, “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him” (Gen. 5:24). I can just imagine the fellowship those two had together. Then one day the walk took longer than usual and God looked at Enoch and said, “My house is closer. Why don’t you come home with Me tonight?” And Enoch just disappeared.”

― A.W. Tozer

“If you read the Gospels and follow the life and ministry of Jesus, you will note that He always called individuals to follow Him. The masses followed Him for the “loaves and fishes” that He provided. But Jesus called individuals to come and follow Him. These individuals mattered to Him. Not as a collective mass, but as individuals created in the image of God, His Father. The woman taken in adultery, the mother with her crippled baby, Nicodemus who came to Him by night, and the list goes on and on.”

― A.W. Tozer

“Just because I, finite man, do not understand everything that God, the infinite, does is no reason to doubt God’s purpose. I may go into someone’s workshop and see all the tools and gadgets that are important to the man’s work. I may see laying on the table, for instance, a little tool that I can make nothing of and have no understanding of its purpose. But in the hands of the craftsman, that little tool has a well-defined purpose and does what it’s supposed to do. Just because the man’s worktable looks cluttered and as if everything is out of place does not mean in his mind there is not order and purpose. In the same regard, I am not going to accuse God of creating a lot of unnecessary things that have no purpose in God’s total scheme of things, just because I don’t understand them. I give you that”

― A.W. Tozer

“Back in the Old Testament there is a strange prophecy, "And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach" (Isa. 4:1). I do not know whether Christianity today is a fulfillment of that passage or not, but it is an illustration of it. We have everywhere those who call themselves Christian churches. Christian this, Christian that, and they do not want a thing that Jesus has except his name. There is not one thing Jesus has that they want except the external benefits.”

― A.W. Tozer

“I delight in the fact that God is an artist, and the handiwork and the fingers of God are upon everything he does. No artist can escape himself.”

― A.W. Tozer

“Down in the South, some politician with a little education was running against another man and he knew some of the voters in the mountains were not so much up on definitions. So he started a rumor that his opponent had been celibate up until the time he was married; that he had been guilty of celibacy. And the people said, "Why, I never thought or dreamed of such a thing. That man was guilty of celibacy before he was married. We won't vote for him." He swept an easy victory because this other man had been single up to the time he was married.”

― A.W. Tozer

“It is not what a church believes that matters so much as what that church believes enough to emphasize. It is not what a preacher will admit theologically when you pin him down and make him talk; it is what he believes with sufficient urgency to make it a living, constant part of his message.”

― A.W. Tozer

“A person does not have to be old to be spiritual, and we do not have to live through the decades in order to find this out. It is too bad that it is so for most people. I wonder if it is not because we have assumed that our young people are all about half-cracked and that in religious things they have to be clowned to, played down to, talked down to, teased along, amused and entertained. The result is that for the first years of their life until gray hairs begin to appear, we entertain them, tease them along and amuse them; and then when they get so they do not care for that amusement and entertainment anymore, then we say now they will become saints. I think it is a wretched way to treat young men and women.”

― A.W. Tozer

A.W. Tozer

A.W. Tozer (1897 - 1963)

A "20th-century prophet" many called him during his lifetime. For 31 years A.W.Tozer was pastor of Southside Alliance Church in Chicago. He was involved in the missionary alliance movement for most of his pulpit life. A.W. Tozer lived in the presence of God he saw clearly and he spoke as a prophet to the church. He sought for God's honor with the zeal of Elijah and mourned with Jeremiah at the apostasy of God's people.

Leonard Ravenhill was a close friend of pastor and writer A. W. Tozer and spoke of him as one of the most influential voices in the Church in America. A.W. Tozer's materials are a mainstay in Evangelical churches in our day and he is one of the most quoted authors. He was a prophet in his day and his writings are even more influential in our day. One of his books: The Pursuit of God, has had over 1 million copies sold world-wide.

Recommends these books by A.W. Tozer:
The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God by A.W. Tozer
Crucified Life: How To Live Out A Deeper Christian Experience by A.W. Tozer
The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer

Aiden Wilson Tozer was born April 21, 1897 on a small farm in Western Pennsylvania, the third of six children. And although he would inspire millions with his preaching and writing, he was given very little education during his childhood.

A. W. Tozer was 66 when he died of a heart attack on May 12, 1963. Buried in a small cemetery in Akron, his tombstone simply and appropriately reads, "A Man of God." He left behind many books that continue to give Christians encouragement and guidance. His writings are as fresh today as when he was alive. His honest and colloquial humor has been known to sweep up congregations in gales of laughter. And his wisdom has left them silent and stunned. For almost 50 years Tozer walked with God, and even though he is gone, he continues to minister to those who are eager to experience God.

A 20th-century prophet" they called him even in his lifetime. For 31 years he was pastor of Southside Alliance Church in Chicago, where his reputation as a man of God was citywide. Concurrently he became editor of Alliance Life, a responsibility he fulfilled until his death in 1963.

His greatest legacy to the Christian world has been his 30 books. Because A.W. Tozer lived in the presence of God he saw clearly and he spoke as a prophet to the church. He sought for God's honor with the zeal of Elijah and mourned with Jeremiah at the apostasy of God's people.

But he was not a prophet of despair. His writings are messages of concern. They expose the weaknesses of the church and denounce compromise. They warn and exhort. But they are messages of hope as well, for God is always there, ever faithful to restore and to fulfill His Word to those who hear and obey.

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