the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer
Tozer in the Morning
Joy or Burden?
I think we make two mistakes in our attitude toward our Christian leaders, one in not being sufficiently grateful to them and the other in following them too slavishly.
The first is a sin of omission, and because it is something that is not there it is not so likely to be noticed as a sin that is plainly present. For instance, it is a sin to be ungrateful to a man who has befriended us, but it is not as bad or as obvious a sin as stealing his pocketbook.
To be grateful to God's servants is to be grateful to God. The benefits we receive from them result from God's working through them, but as free agents they could have refused to cooperate. That they cheerfully yielded their members to the Spirit for our good puts us under continual obligation to them. Because they are so many, and because the vast majority of them have long fallen asleep we cannot make a like return to them in person; the only way we can discharge our obligation is to be thankful. Gratitude is an offering precious in the sight of God, and it is one that the poorest of us can make and be not poorer but richer for having made it.
Tozer in the Evening
Moral Physicians
In the previous chapter I said that truth should not be passed out indiscriminately, but suited to the circumstances and needs of the hearers.
From the prophets we learn this and from the apostles, as well as from our Lord Himself. These were never bound by a mechanical religious ?curriculum? which dictated unintelligently that certain doctrines were to be taught at certain times regardless of conditions. They prescribed truth as a divine medicine to be proclaimed with emphasis when the needs of the people called for it. They preached hope when the morale of the nation was low, obedience when the people grew careless, purity when their morals began to sag, humility when they became proud and repentance when they fell into sin. All was in accord with the total body of revealed truth, but the moral skill of these men of God enabled them to fit the message to conditions. Otherwise a vast amount of truth could have been wasted and a world of prayer and hard labor rendered ineffective.
Today the religious situation cries out for the skilled moral physician who can diagnose our ills and prescribe wisely for our cure. It is not enough simply to repeat correct doctrinal cliches. It is imperative right now that we have the benefit of the piercing discernment of the Spirit. We must not only know what God has said; we must hear what God is now saying.
