Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer

It should always be kept in mind that the Church is a divine family and that its loyalties sometimes cut sharply across the ties that bind earthly families together.

The cross is a sword and often separates friends and divides households. The idea that Christ always brings peace and patches up differences is found nowhere in His own teachings. Quite the contrary is true. For a man to cast in his lot with Christ often means that he will be opposed by his blood relatives and will find...

. . . People in the rut never know when the last leaves are falling for them. Why are people in the rut" There are several possibilities. They may never have been truly converted at all, and this is one of our great problems now. We have a dozen ways of getting people into the kingdom of God, when the Lord said there was only one. They leak in, ooze in, come in by osmosis and get in by marriage—just get in by any kind of way. But there is only one true way. When people find that after being...

The nearer we draw to the heart of God the less taste we will have for controversy. The peace we know in God's bosom is so sweet that it is but natural that we want to keep it unbroken to enjoy as fully and as long as possible. The Spirit-filled Christian is never a good fighter. He is at too many disadvantages. The enemy is always better at invective than he will allow himself to be. The devil has all the picturesque epithets, and his followers have no conscience about using them. The...

Sometimes our trouble is not moral but physical. As long as we are in these mortal bodies our spiritual lives will be to some degree affected by our bodies. Here we should notice that there is a difference between our mortal bodies and the 'flesh' of Pauline theology. When Paul speaks of the flesh he refers to our fallen human nature, not to our physical bodies, which are the temples of the Holy Spirit. Through the power of the Spirit there is deliverance from the propensities of the flesh,...

True faith is not the intellectual ability to visualize unseen things to the satisfaction of our imperfect minds; it is rather the moral power to trust Christ. To be contented and unafraid when going on a journey with his father the child need not be able to imagine events; he need but know the father. Our earthly lives are one shining web of golden mystery which we experience without understanding, how much more our life in the Spirit. Jesus Christ is our all in all. We need but trust Him...

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Matt.5:5A

A fairly accurate description of the human race might be furnished one unacquainted with it by taking the Beatitudes, turning them wrong side out and saying, `Here is your human race.' For the exact opposite of the virtues in the Beatitudes are the very qualities which distinguish human life and conduct.

In the world of men we find nothing approaching the virtues of which Jesus spoke in the opening words...

ALL UNANNOUNCED AND MOSTLY UNDETECTED there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles. It is like the old cross, but different: the likenesses are superficial; the differences, fundamental.

From this new cross has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life, and from that new philosophy has come a new evangelical technique-a new type of meeting and a new kind of preaching. This new evangelism employs the same language as the old, but its content is...

The book that informs us without inspiring us may be indispensable to the scientist, the lawyer, the physician, but mere information is not enough for the minister. If knowledge about things constituted learning, the encyclopedia would be all the library one needed for a fruitful ministry. The successful Christian, however, must know God, himself and his fellow men. Such knowledge is not gained by assembling data but by sympathetic contact, by intuition, by meditation, by silence, by...

How then shall unbelief be cured and faith be strengthened" Surely not by straining to believe the Scriptures, as some do. Not by a frantic effort to believe the promises of God. Not by gritting our teeth and determining to exercise faith by an act of the will. All this has been tried—and it never helps. To try thus to superinduce faith is to violate the laws of the mind and to do violence to the simple psychology of the heart. What is the answer" Job told us, Acquaint thyself with him and...

It is a typical and accepted teaching in Christian churches today that Moses and the Old Testament knew only God's law, and that Christ and the New Testament know only God's grace. I repeat: that is the "accepted" teaching of the hour - but I also hasten to add that it is a mistaken concept, and that it was never the concept held and taught by the early Christian church fathers. God has always been the God of all grace, and He does not change. Immutability is an attribute of God; therefore...

Faith honors God by accepting the biblical revelation of the divine character. Faith lets God be what He says He is and adjusts its concepts accordingly. Superstition degrades the reputation of God by believing things unworthy of Him. One rests upon fact and the other upon fancy.

As I said before, there is probably a streak of superstition in everyone, even in the genuine Christian. Any notions we may have of God that have not been corrected and purified by the Word and the Spirit are...

THE MAN WHO IS SERIOUSLY CONVINCED that he deserves to go to hell is not likely to go there, while the man who believes that he is worthy of heaven will certainly never enter that blessed place.

I use the word "seriously" to accent true conviction and to distinguish it from mere nominal belief.

It is possible to go through life believing that we believe, while actually having no conviction more vital than a conventional creed inherited from our ancestors or picked...

Our Lord Jesus Christ called men to follow Him, but He plainly taught that "no man can come unto me, except it were given him of my Father" (John 6:65). It is not surprising that many of His early followers, upon hearing these words, went back and walked no more with Him. Such teaching cannot but be deeply disturbing to the natural mind. It takes from sinful men much of the power of self-determination. It cuts the ground out from under their...

"Faithful are the wounds of a friend," says the Holy Spirit in Proverbs 27:6. And lest we imagine that the preacher is the one who does the wounding, I want to read Job 5:17,18: "Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty: for he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole."

You see, the one who does...