The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing 3

REPRINTED FROM THE PURSUIT OF GOD BY A.W. TOZER

I have just read this chapter from the above mentioned book and felt it was worth sharing with you all. I will post it in 3 posts.

Post 3

I have said that Abraham possessed nothing. Yet was not this poor man rich? Everything he had owned before was still his to enjoy: sheep, camels, herds, and goods of every sort. He had also his wife and his friends, and best of all he had his son Isaac safe by his side. He had everything, but he possessed nothing. There is the spiritual secret. There is the sweet theology of the heart which can be learned only in the school of renunciation. The books on systematic theology overlook this, but the wise will understand. After that bitter and blessed experience I think the words “my” and “mine” never had again the same meaning for Abraham. The sense of possession which they connote was gone from his heart. Things had been cast out forever. They had now become external to the man. His inner heart was free from them. The world said, “Abraham is rich,” but the aged patriarch only smiled. He could not explain it to them, but he knew that he owned nothing, that his real treasures were inward and eternal. There can be no doubt that this possessive clinging to things is one of the most harmful habits in the life. Because it is so natural it is rarely recognized for the evil that it is; but its outworkings are tragic. We are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the Lord out of fear for their safety; this is especially true when those treasures are loved relatives and friends. But we need have no such fears. Our Lord came not to destroy but to save. Everything is safe which we commit to Him, and nothing is really safe which is not so committed. Our gifts and talents should also be turned over to Him. They should be recognized for what they are, God’s loan to us, and should never be considered in any sense our own. We have no more right to claim credit for special abilities than for blue eyes or strong muscles. “For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive?” The Christian who is alive enough to know himself even slightly will recognize the symptoms of this possession malady, and will grieve to find them in his own heart. If the longing after God is strong enough within him he will want to do something about the matter. Now, what should he do? First of all he should put away all defense and make no attempt to excuse himself either in his own eyes or before the Lord. Whoever defends himself will have himself for his defense, and he will have no other; but let him come defenseless before the Lord and he will have for his defender no less than God Himself. Let the inquiring Christian trample under foot every slippery trick of his deceitful heart and insist upon frank and open relations with the Lord. Then he should remember that this is holy business. No careless or casual dealings will suffice. Let him come to God in full determination to be heard. Let him insist that God accept his all, that He take things out of his heart and Himself reign there in power. It may be he will need to become specific, to name things and people by their names one by one. If he will become drastic enough he can shorten the time of his travail from years to minutes and enter the good land long before his slower brethren who coddle their feelings and insist upon caution in their dealings with God. Let us never forget that such a truth as this cannot be learned by rote as one would learn the facts of physical science. They must be experienced before we can really know them. We must in our hearts live through Abraham’s harsh and bitter experiences if we would know the blessedness which follows them. The ancient curse will not go out painlessly; the tough old miser within us will not lie down and die obedient to our command. He must be torn out of our heart like a plant from the soil; he must be extracted in agony and blood like a tooth from the jaw. He must be expelled from our soul by violence as Christ expelled the money changers from the temple. And we shall need to steel ourselves against his piteous begging, and to recognize it as springing out of self-pity, one of the most reprehensible sins of the human heart. If we would indeed know God in growing intimacy we must go this way of renunciation. And if we are set upon the pursuit of God, He will sooner or later bring us to this test. Abraham’s testing was, at the time, not known to him as such, yet if he had taken some course other than the one he did, the whole history of the Old Testament would have been different. God would have found His man, no doubt, but the loss to Abraham would have been tragic beyond the telling. So we will be brought one by one to the testing place, and we may never know when we are there. At that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices for us; just one and an alternative, but our whole future will be conditioned by the choice we make.
Father, I want to know Thee, but my coward heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival. Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there. In Jesus name Amen

The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing 2

 REPRINTED FROM THE PURSUIT OF GOD BY A.W. TOZER

I have just read this chapter from the above mentioned book and felt it was worth sharing with you all. I will post it in 3 posts.

Post 2

As is frequently true, this New Testament principle of spiritual life finds its best illustration in the Old Testament. In the story of Abraham and Isaac we have a dramatic picture of the surrendered life as well as an excellent commentary on the first Beatitude. Abraham was old when Isaac was born, old enough indeed to have been his grandfather, and the child became at once the delight and idol of his heart. From that moment when he first stooped to take the tiny form awkwardly in his arms he was an eager love-slave of his son. God went out of His way to comment on the strength of this affection. And it is not hard to understand. The baby represented everything sacred to his father’s heart: the promises of God, the covenants, the hopes of the years and the long messianic dream. As he watched him grow from babyhood to young manhood the heart of the old man was knit closer and closer with the life of his son, till at last the relationship bordered upon the perilous. It was then that God stepped in to save both father and son from the consequences of an uncleansed love. “Take now thy son,” said God to Abraham, “thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” The sacred writer spares us a close-up of the agony that night on the slopes near Beersheba when the aged man had it out with his God, but respectful imagination may view in awe the bent form and convulsive wrestling alone under the stars. Possibly not again until a Greater than Abraham wrestled in the Garden of Gethsemane did such mortal pain visit a human soul. If only the man himself might have been allowed to die. That would have been easier a thousand times, for he was old now, and to die would have been no great ordeal for one who had walked so long with God. Besides, it would have been a last sweet pleasure to let his dimming vision rest upon the figure of his stalwart son who would live to carry on the Abrahamic line and fulfill in himself the promises of God made long before in Ur of the Chaldees. How should he slay the lad! Even if he could get the consent of his wounded and protesting heart, how could he reconcile the act with the promise, “In Isaac shall thy seed be called”? This was Abraham’s trial by fire, and he did not fail in the crucible. While the stars still shone like sharp white points above the tent where the sleeping Isaac lay, and long before the gray dawn had begun to lighten the east, the old saint had made up his mind. He would offer his son as God had directed him to do, and then trust God to raise him from the dead. This, says the writer to the Hebrews, was the solution his aching heart found sometime in the dark night, and he rose “early in the morning” to carry out the plan. It is beautiful to see that, while he erred as to God’s method, he had correctly sensed the secret of His great heart. And the solution accords well with the New Testament Scripture, “Whosoever will lose... for my sake shall find...” God let the suffering old man go through with it up to the point where He knew there would be be no retreat, and then forbade him to lay a hand upon the boy. To the wondering patriarch He now says in effect, “It’s all right, Abraham. I never intended that you should actually slay the lad. I only wanted to remove him from the temple of your heart that I might reign unchallenged there. I wanted to correct the perversion that existed in your love. Now you may have the boy, sound and well. Take him and go back to your tent. Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing that thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me.” Then heaven opened and a voice was heard saying to him, “By myself I have sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.” The old man of God lifted his head to respond to the Voice, and stood there on the mount strong and pure and grand, a man marked out by the Lord for special treatment, a friend and favorite of the Most High. Now he was a man wholly surrendered, a man utterly obedient, a man who possessed nothing. He had concentrated his all in the person of his dear son, and God had taken it from him. God could have begun out on the margin of Abraham’s life and worked inward to the center; He chose rather to cut quickly to the heart and have it over in one sharp act of separation. In dealing thus He practiced an economy of means and time. It hurt cruelly, but it was effective.

The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing 1

REPRINTED FROM THE PURSUIT OF GOD BY A.W. TOZER

I have just read this chapter from the above mentioned book and felt it was worth sharing with you all. I will post it in 3 posts.

Post 1

 

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. — Matthew 5:3
Before the Lord God made man upon the earth He first prepared for him by creating a world of useful and pleasant things for his sustenance and delight. In the Genesis account of the creation these are called simply “things.” They were made for man’s uses, but they were meant always to be external to the man and subservient to him. In the deep heart of the man was a shrine where none but God was worthy to come. Within him was God; without, a thousand gifts which God had showered upon him. But sin has introduced complications and has made those very gifts of God a potential source of ruin to the soul. Our woes began when God was forced out of His central shrine and “things” were allowed to enter. Within the human heart “things” have taken over. Men have now by nature no peace within their hearts, for God is crowned there no longer, but there in the moral dusk stubborn and aggressive usurpers fight among themselves for first place on the throne. This is not a mere metaphor, but an accurate analysis of our real spiritual trouble. There is within the human heart a tough fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess. It covets “things” with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns “my” and “mine” look innocent enough in print, but their constant and universal use is significant. They express the real nature of the old Adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do. They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease. The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God’s gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution. Our Lord referred to this tyranny of things when He said to His disciples, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.” Breaking this truth into fragments for our better understanding, it would seem that there is within each of us an enemy which we tolerate at our peril. Jesus called it “life” and “self,” or as we would say, the self-life. Its chief characteristic is its possessiveness: the words “gain” and “profit” suggest this. To allow this enemy to live is in the end to lose everything. To repudiate it and give up all for Christ’s sake is to lose nothing at last, but to preserve everything unto life eternal. And possibly also a hint is given here as to the only effective way to destroy this foe: it is by the Cross: “Let him take up his cross and follow me.” The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul-poverty and abnegation of all things. The blessed ones who possess the Kingdom are they who have repudiated every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing. They are “poor in spirit.” They have reached an inward state paralleling the outward circumstances of the common beggar in the streets of Jerusalem; that is what the word “poor” as Christ used it actually means. These blessed poor are no longer slaves to the tyranny of things. They have broken the yoke of the oppressor: and this they have done not by fighting but by surrendering. Though free from all sense of possessing, they yet possess all things. “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Let me exhort you to take this seriously. It is not to be understood as mere Bible teaching to be stored away in the mind along with an inert mass of other doctrines. It is a marker on the road to greener pastures, a path chiseled against the steep sides of the mount of God. We dare not try to bypass it if we would follow on in this holy pursuit. We must ascend a step at a time. If we refuse one step we bring our progress to an end.

No other way, Trust and Obey.

Re post from Chris Gnanakan
"Trust and Obey!" http://feedly.com/k/19wBtFK

The Unexpected Christ

THE UNEXPECTED CHRIST

(Written By Howard Kelly)

The Lord has been speaking to me about the way He interacts with us and the way He can direct and challenge us. I’ve been impressed and encouraged by the fact that when God enters our lives (either for the first time, or to those of us who already know Him), many of His dealings, though unexpected, are always positive and affirming in the end.

Key aspects of the story of Jesus illustrate this truth:

He proves to be a Saviour Who comes to the ordinary – shepherds simply doing their job. Busy with their routine, suddenly, unexpectedly, the Word of God came with the gospel message of Peace and direction to a Saviour. He was the antidote to all sin; the antidote to despair; the antidote to death, and He was announced to shepherds!

He invades lives unexpectedly and offers transformation. His first direct word to men in Mark’s gospel is “Follow Me and I will make you become...” In the middle of the strain and stress of work, fishermen are challenged by a Teacher Who offers to make them to become something different, with a wholly new purpose in life. When they obeyed, they walked away from one life into a whole new adventure with Jesus.

In John 4 a women desperate for love and in a downward spiral of sexual failure, going about her ordinary (and lonely) daily life, is met and challenged and offered freedom by Jesus, Who was already there waiting for her. She had been to the well many times before, but on that particular day the Saviour was waiting – unexpectedly – to offer Living Water springing up into everlasting life. He had an appointment with her that she had known nothing about, and the new beginning He offered would completely wash away all of her sexual failure!

In resurrection, He comes through locked doors into the room where the frightened, failed, and disillusioned disciples were hiding, and presents Himself as the One Who brings peace and forgiveness and empowerment. His new beginning is greater than all their previous failure! This breaking into the disciples’ lives came at the moment of their extreme despair and disappointment. Whether they felt fear or anger or hurt, they were suddenly faced by One Who broke into everything, and destroyed the concept of closed doors forever. (I love the contrast this offers with the other vision the same writer had later, of Jesus standing at the door, knocking… Here, in that resurrection moment in Jerusalem, He didn’t ask permission!)

Wonderfully, He never speaks condemningly of any of the characters’ failures or previous life. Even with Thomas, He only directs him to stop being faithless, and enables him to see a new way – with eyes of faith. I’ve been really excited by the truth of His new beginnings: He comes unexpectedly to do the unexpected!

In 2013 I believe God wants us to be ready to make progress: to have new beginnings. We can look forward to His doing things which have never been done before; things that break out of natural laws and experiences into the supernatural laws of God.

Living with God 9

Lesson 9 (Know who sustains us)

Deuteronomy 8:3 "And He humbled you and allowed you to hunger, and then He fed you with manna, which you did not know, neither did your fathers know it, so that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone. But by every word that comes out of the mouth of the LORD man shall live.

God wants us to live for Him, to rely on Him and to live in Him. God deals with us to mould us and transform us into something that He is able to use. When I read this passage I find that it is not me who has to humble myself but God who humbles me. That is saying that every situation I find myself, almighty God has allowed it for my good and His purpose.

It is interesting to note that when we are hungry, when we are at our lowest, God feeds us (I am talking here about our whole being, not just an isolated part of us).

He provides manna from heaven to sustain us. He wouldn't do this if He had no purpose for us. God wants to bring us to the place where He provides for us and to that place where we know He provides for us. Are we prepared to abide in that place and pick up the manna, the food that God has loving provided for us?

Or are we going to waste lots of our energy rushing about, in the wilderness, looking for something to satisfy us that doesn't exist?

Lord help me to hear your voice and then apply the words from your mouth so that I may realise that "Man does not live by bread alone" Amen

Living with God 8

Lesson 8 (Remember what God has done)

Deuteronomy 8:2 "And you shall remember all the way which the LORD your God led you these forty years in the wilderness in order to humble you, to prove you, to know what is in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

Why does God have to "prove us and to know what is in our hearts"?

It is not as if the writer is saying this is what it is like being a Christian, God spying on my life, it is the writer saying REMEMBER every where you went God went with you.

God deals with us all in different ways and at different times in our lives. It is not that He is trying to prove anything but that He wants us to learn how to trust Him.
Remember, reflect on how God led you through the difficult times. Did He neglect you? It may have seemed like He had, yet the whole purpose was to know what was in our hearts, to know whether we really meant what we said at the outset of our Christian walk. "I will follow you all my days", "I will serve you".

Personally this post is very true for me at the moment. Whilst I can read the words of this text and say yes it is true "God has led me throughout my life", sometimes it is hard to appreciate in the moment that God is still with me. I can read all the passages in the Bible which say that God loves, cares and watches over me etc etc. yet I can still be all at sea.

What I am learning and what I am asking God for is to teach me to live a life that reflects His steadfastness and His faithfulness.

God of grace and mercy please remind me of you faithfulness, compassion, grace and mercy so that I might remember that you have kept me in all my ways. Oh Lord help me to receive strength from this very act of remembrance so that I can draw strength to live through my present troubles and despair knowing that you will bring me through. Amen.