Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer

Chastisement is an act of God; cross carrying an act of the Christian. When God in love lays the rod to the back of His children He does not ask permission. Chastisement for the believer is not voluntary except in the sense that he chooses the will of God with the knowledge that the will of God includes chastisement. "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the...

It is time for us to reconsider this matter of the church. Most people think of the church as a familiar social fact. Their attitude toward Protestantism generally is that of a matter of course, and people, even average Christians, think they are in favor of the church. They favor the church much the same as they support motherhood, decency and sanitation. It is as accepted as a convention that we never question or doubt. If anybody does question or doubt, they are considered communists or...

A CELEBRATED AMERICAN PREACHER once advanced the novel theory that the various denominations with their different doctrinal emphases served a useful purpose as gathering places for persons of similar temperaments. Christians, he suggested, tend to gravitate toward others of like mental types. Hence the denominations.

Undoubtedly this is oversimplification carried to the point of error. There are too many persons of dissimilar temperaments in every denomination to support such a...

Again, that world-shaking event, the crucifixion of Christ, is stated in four words, "There they crucified him." One shudders to think what fanfare and buildup such a stupendous event would require if written by the shallow novelists or dramatists of our day. To represent such a solemn event on the stage would cost thousands of dollars and would require enough words to fill a dozen pages of script. The reason for the difference is of course that the evangelists felt the crucifixion and...

DEEP INSIDE EVERY MAN there is a private sanctum where dwells the mysterious essence of his being. This far-in reality is that in the man which is what it is of itself without reference to any other part of the man's complex nature. It is the man's "I Am," a gift from the I AM who created him.

The I AM which is God is underived and selfexistent; the "I Am" which is man is derived from God and dependent every moment upon His creative fiat for its continued existence. One is the...

Let me say this to any of you who are still trying to add up your human merits-look away in faith to the Lord of abundant mercy! Fixing yourself over and trying to straighten yourself out will never be sufficient-you must come to Jesus as you are! Our Lord told about two men who went up into the temple to pray. One said, "God, here I am-all fixed up. Every hair is in place!" The other said, "Oh God, I just crawled in off Skid Row. Have mercy on me!" God forgave the Skid Row bum, but sent the...

In the kingdom of God, the surest way to lose something is to try to protect it, and the best way to keep it is to let it go. This was the word of our Lord Jesus Christ: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross!" Christ turned from the fallen world of Adam and spoke about another world altogether, a world where Adam's philosophy is invalid and his technique inoperative. He spoke of the kingdom of God whose laws are exactly opposite to those of the kingdom of...

Fellowship, committees and clubs are all right under the right circumstances, but this kind of an answer to that kind of a problem presupposes that those who give the answer have misuderstood the problem. There are three things they misunderstand. First, they misunderstand the nature of Christian faith. Christian faith is inward, not outward. It is of the spirit and not of the flesh. The kingdom of God is within you, Christ dwells in your heart, and "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (

If you do not have this fascination, it could be that you are but another Esau. What a tragedy to be born of the red clay and live and die and be buried in the red clay. Shakespeare said of Caesar, "That though he be the emperor yet give nature time and nature will reduce him to a bit of clay that might be used to keep the wind away." The great Persian poet Omar Khayyam said, "When you drink out of that vessel, drink reverently; it may be your grandfaither's dust out of which it is made."...

I insist that the effective preaching of Jesus Christ, rightly understood, will produce Christian experience in Christian believers. Moreover, if preaching does not produce spiritual experience and maturing in the believer, that preaching is not being faithful to the Christ revealed in the Scriptures. Let me say it again another way: the Christ of the Bible is not rightly known until there is an experience of Him within the believer, for our Savior and Lord offers Himself to human...

Only a person with a perfect knowledge of mankind could have dared to set forth the terms of discipleship that our Lord Jesus Christ expects of His followers. Only the Lord of men could have risked the effect of such rigorous demands: "Let him deny himself!" Can the Lord lay down such severe rules at the door of His kingdom" He can-and He does! If He is to save the man, He must save him from himself. It is the "himself" which has enslaved and corrupted the man. Deliverance comes only by...

In the Old Testament, whenever the living God revealed Himself in some way to humankind, terror and amazement were the reactions. People saw themselves as guilty and unclean by comparison! In the book of Revelation, the Apostle John describes the overwhelming nature of his encounter with the Lord of glory. Although a believer and an apostle, John sank down in abject humility and fear when the risen, glorified Lord Jesus appeared before him on Patmos. Our glorified Lord did not condemn John....

The birth of Christ told the world something. . . . His coming, I repeat, told the world something; it declared something, established something. What was it"

That something was several things, and as Christ broke the loaves into pieces for greater convenience in eating, let me divide the message into parts the easier to understand it. The Advent established:

First, that God is real. The heavens were opened and another world than this came into view. A message came...

Millions who have rejected the Christian gospel have generally been too busy and too involved to ask themselves a simple question: "What really is God's intention toward me"" They could have found the plain and simple answer given by the Apostle John: "For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world: but that the world through him might be saved." This is a gravely significant message from the heart of God Himself! Yet, even in the full light it provides, people are indifferent....