the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer
Tozer in the Morning
Religious Word-Rationing
Most religious people have been guilty of multiplying words as substitutes for worthy deeds, and of all such the writer of these lines is probably the worst offender. But because we have offended is not sufficient reason for our going on to repeat the offense. It is better that we face the whole thing with self-effacing humility and try to correct our fault.
It remains only to be said that where shallow eloquence is most out of place and where it is oftenest found is the prayer meeting. The most halting speaker seems to become unusually fluent when he kneels to pray, especially when he has an audience. I have heard much flowery speech in the prayer room, and I suppose I have uttered a good deal of it. But again, there is no reason for continuing to utter words without wisdom. A conscious sense of the presence of God is a wonderful cure for empty talk, whether in the pulpit or in the pew.
When the Holy Spirit falls on a man, he is likely to become strangely eloquent. Out of the awe and silence of the soul comes an uprushing of power-filled words that move the hearts of the hearers to tears and to action. Such eloquence as this is something else; of this we do not here speak. Of this latter we need a great deal more, but we can do with a lot fewer empty words in religious circles.
Tozer in the Evening
Trusting in His Unfailing Love
How long you continue in this night of the soul will depend upon a number of factors, some of which you may be able later to identify, while others will remain with God, completely hidden from you. The words ?The day is thine, the night also is thine? will now be interpreted for you by the best of all teachers, the Holy Spirit; and you will know by personal experience what a blessed thing is the ministry of the night. But there is a limit to man?s ability to live without joy. Even Christ could endure the cross only because of the joy set before Him. The strongest steel breaks if kept too long under unrelieved tension. God knows exactly how much pressure each one of us can take. He knows how long we can endure the night, so He gives the soul relief, first by welcome glimpses of the morning star and then by the fuller light that harbingers the morning.
