the Fourth Week after Easter
Daily Devotionals
Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer
Tozer in the Morning
Praying Women
It might be a humbling experience for some of us men to be allowed to see just how much of lasting spiritual value is being done by the women of the churches. As in the days of His flesh, Christ still has devout women who follow Him gladly and minister unto Him. The masculine tendency to discount these ?elect ladies? does not speak too well for the male members of the spiritual community. A little humility might better become us, and a bit of plain gratitude as well.
If prayer is (as we believe it is) an integral part of the total divine scheme of things and must be done if the will of God is to be done, then the prayers of the thousands of women who meet each week in our churches is of inestimable value to the kingdom of God. More power to them, and may their number increase tenfold.
Let us beware, as men, however, that we do not fall into the weak habit of depending upon the women of the church to do our praying for us. If our work prevents us, as it normally does, from having prayer meetings during the day, let us make up for it in some way and see to it that we pray as much as we should.
Tozer in the Evening
THE PROMISE OF THE SPIRIT
The miraculous events wrought in Jerusalem by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost indicated to the disciples that Jesus Christ, the Messiah-Savior, had indeed taken His place at the right hand of the Majesty on high. With Jewish critics all around, Peter lifted his voice and said that all who were in Jerusalem on that day were seeing the fulfillment of prophecy-the words of Jesus that He would send the Holy Spirit after His death and resurrection and exaltation. "Therefore," Peter cried, "let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36). Many, many have failed to note Peter's Pentecostal emphasis: the important thing in God's plan was the fact that Jesus had been exalted in heaven, and that His glorification there had been the signal for the coming of the promised Holy Spirit. What a lesson! The Spirit does not have to be begged - He comes when the Savior is honored and exalted!
