I know I have been quiet this week on my blog, so today I thought I should share with you what I received from Tozer this morning. Powerful stuff!!!
November 7
Spiritual Warfare and Sin: Our Old Nature
Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth:
fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and
covetousness, which is idolatry.
–Colossians 3:5
There are a lot of people trying to get away with the old man. What do I mean by the old man? I mean your pride, your bossiness, your nastiness, your temper, your mean disposition, your lustfulness and your quarrelsomeness. What do I mean, Reverend? I mean your study, your hunting for a bigger church, being dissatisfied with the offering and blaming the superintendent because you cannot get called. The reason you cannot get called is nobody wants you. That is what I mean, Reverend.
Deacons, what do I mean? I mean sitting around in board meetings wearing your poor pastor out, because you are too stubborn to humble yourself and admit you are wrong.
What do I mean, musicians? I mean that demeanor that makes you hate somebody that can sing a little better than you can. I mean that jealousy that makes you want to play the violin when everybody knows you can’t, especially the choir director. You hate him, wish he were dead, and secretly pray that he would get called to Punxsutawney.
That is what I mean. All of this may be under the guise of spirituality and we may have learned to put our head over on one side, fold our hands gently and put on a beatific smile like St.
Francis of Assisi, and still be just as carnal as they come.
Success and the Christian, 42-44.
“Wow! Tozer pulls no punches this morning, Lord! May Your Holy Spirit bring the proper conviction and repentance to my heart and give me victory over any of these carnal thoughts that might be mine today. Amen.”
Kind of jives with something that’s been central to our last 2 40 DOC home meetings…this tendency to “qualify” the spirit and intent of what Jesus is trying to get to in each of us.
Things like:
I have to forgive, but I don’t have to forget.
There’s a point where I have to stop enabling bad behaviors.
How many times do I have to take that from that person?
Seems we’re willing to lower the standard sufficiently that we hope to hop on over the bar rather than aim high for the standard that Jesus set and fall short of that.
We’ll always fall short and that makes the resurrection completely vital to us. We have to claim mercy and grace to get “over the bar”. But we seem more comfortable to aim low and fail to achieve even that.
As humans, we will ALWAYS err. How much better to “err” (if that’s possible) on the side of grace rather than settle for so much less than the image we were created in.
Tozer’s a man for our times. Thanks for this one Todd. Definitely meshes with our home group’s challenges these past 2 weeks.
Oh…and Punxsutawney isn’t that bad a place either!!