the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer
Tozer in the Morning
Keeping Fresh
To stay free from religious ennui we should be careful not to get into a rut, not even a good rut. Our Lord warned against vain repetition. There is repetition that is not vain, but oft-repeated prayers become vain when they have lost their urgency. We should examine our prayers every now and again to discover how much sincerity and spontaneity they possess. We should insist on keeping them simple, candid, fresh and, original. And above all we should never seek to induce holy emotions. When we feel dry it is wise either to ignore it or to tell God about it without any sense of guilt. If we are dry because of some wrong on our part the Spirit through the Word will show us the fault. In short, we can keep from going stale by getting proper rest, by practicing complete candor in prayer, by introducing variety into our lives, by heeding God's call to move onward and by exercising quiet faith always.
Tozer in the Evening
Choosing God's Side
The points at which God's way and man's intersect are likely to be four (though there may be others), and we will usually find our differences with God to occur somewhere in these four areas. . . .
Second, our moral standards. There are probably as many ideas of righteousness as there are people in the world, and it would be futile to argue that one is better than another. The test is not which code is best but whether or not any code agrees with the Scriptures. In the Christian Scriptures, the Lord of the whole earth declares His own moral will for mankind, and it is profound wisdom to seek it and conform to it. Otherwise, we are at the mercy of our own deceitful hearts. For all men of faith, God's will is righteousness. The believing soul will not argue about it; he will accept it and bring the controversy to an end.
The third point of possible controversy is in our way of life. This embraces the whole of our lives on earth as decided by our basic moral ideas. Our way of life is simply our moral code in its daily outflow. p>The fourth is our plans. The Christian who has in principle accepted God's truth as his standard of conduct and has submitted himself to Christ as his Lord, may yet be tempted to lay his own plans and even fight for them when they are challenged by the Word of God or the inner voice of the Spirit. We humans are a calculating, planning race, and we like to say, "Tomorrow I will . . ." But our Heavenly Father knows us too well to trust our way to our own planning, so He very often submits His own plans to us and requires that we accept them. Right there a controversy is sometimes stirred up between the soul and God. But we had better not insist on our own way. It will always be bad for us in the long run. God's way is best.
