Obsession

My Lord, I will be obsessed with You.  My want for everyone.

 

Quote from AW Tozer:

You become like that which obsesses you, which occupies you. Is that not true? You see what people are occupied with, and you can see their character changing by their obsessions. They are becoming like the thing which is obsessing them; they are changing; they are becoming different. Something has got a grip on them; they can never think about anything else, talk about anything else; and it is changing their character. Now Paul said, "For me to live is Christ – being occupied with Him." It is the wrong word to use, but nevertheless it would be a good thing if He became our "obsession," our continuous occupation. As we steadfastly fix our gaze upon Him, the Spirit changes us into the same image.

By T. Austin-Sparks from: Men Whose Eyes Have Seen The King - Chapter 4

The Crucified Life - AW Tozer

As we contemplate Him, His death and resurrection, I was moved by this passage from Tozer.  Read, consider and lift your hands in praise of the life He has given us.  Amen.

Christ’s triumph over death, the foundation and fountain of our faith, was everything to the early enraptured believers. Christ’s rising from the dead was first an amazing thing, then it became a joyful wonder, and then a radiance of conviction supported by many infallible proofs, witnessed to by the Holy Ghost. This became to the first Christians the reason for everything. The battle cry of those early Christians was “He is risen,” and it became to them outright courage. In the first 200 years, hundreds of thousands of Christians died as martyrs. To those early Christians, Easter was not a holiday or even a holy day. It was not a day at all. It was an accomplished fact that lived with them all year long and became the reason for their daily conduct. “He lives,” they said, “and we live. He was triumphant, and in Him we are triumphant. He is with us and leads us and we follow.” They turned their faces toward an altogether new life because Christ was raised from the dead. They did not celebrate His rising from the dead and then go back to their everyday lives and wait for another year to pull them up from out of the mire . They lived by the fact that Christ had risen from the dead and they had risen with Him. “If ye then be risen with Christ . . .” That word “if” is not an “if” of uncertainty. The force of the word is “since ye are then risen with Christ.”

Tozer, A. W. (2011-09-09). The Crucified Life: How To Live Out A Deeper Christian Experience (Kindle Locations 396-407). Gospel Light. Kindle Edition.

Tozer - In Him we have All

A.W. Tozer – The Pursuit Of God, Following Hard After God

You and I are in little (our sins excepted) what God is in large. Being made in His image we have within us the capacity to know Him. The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition. That is the heavenly birth without which we cannot see the kingdom of God. It is, however, not an end but an inception, for now begins the glorious pursuit, the heart’s happy exploration of the infinite riches of the Godhead.   . . . mysterious depths of the Triune God neither limit nor end.

When the Lord divided Canaan among the tribes of Israel, Levi received no share of the land. God said to him simply, “I am thy part and thine inheritance,” and by those words made him richer than all his brethren, richer than all the kings and rajas who have ever lived in the world. And there is a spiritual principle here, a principle still valid for every priest of the Most High God.

The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One. Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness. Or if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss, for having the Source of all things he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight. Whatever he may lose has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately and forever.

Root before Fruit - Milt Rodriguez

The Lord has been showing me interesting writings on His presence and His love in our lives for the last few weeks. I read a blog post from Milt Rodriguez who has become a favorite blogger for me. 

He wrote on “Root Must Come Before Fruit.”  See link
In his post he states, “Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:4, 5

The Tree of Life

What the Lord is talking about here is not missions, evangelism, or social action. He is talking about Life! God’s life. Divine life. Where there is life, there will be fruit (at least eventually). We love to focus on the fruit, but it seems to me that God focuses on the life. That is, the life of His dear Son. He knows that if life is flowing in the tree, fruit will be produced naturally, organically.
There is a very important reason why the Lord used the metaphor of a tree (or vine). He wanted to convey the idea of internal life being expressed. There is life flowing inside of the tree! Please don’t get the idea that there is nothing happening inside of that tree. Where there is life, there is motion. The sap is flowing; the bark and the branches are growing. Leaves and flowers are developing. But the fruit comes last.”  End of Milt's quote http://miltrodriguez.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/root-before-fruit-2/

Prayer from A.W. Tozer from The Pursuit of God.
“O God, I have tasted thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O, God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my sould, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.” Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from the misty lowland when I have wondered so long.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

More on focusing on Christ and His life in the next few blogs. 
Grace and Peace

Obedience - Part 1

As I was sharing the quote seen below, which has already been used in a previous post, when I asked the question at the end, a young man stated he knew what we lacked. Instantly, I was taken back because I truly thought we did not lack anything as Christians. His answer took me by surprise and I have contemplated it over the years. As I have started reading and studying about obedience his answer came back to me.

The Knowledge of the Holy, The Wisdom of God by A.W. Tozer
“With the goodness of God to desire our highest welfare, the wisdom of God to plan it, and the power of God to achieve it, what do we lack?”

His answer - OBEDIENCE
More tomorrow.

Who God Is? Tozer

There are two Tozer quotes which have touched my heart for many years. This morning I was able to locate them in his books so I can feel good quoting them on this blog. They are delightful in reference to what the Lord means to me and you.

The Knowledge of the Holy, The Wisdom of God
“With the goodness of God to desire our highest welfare, the wisdom of God to plan it, and the power of God to achieve it, what do we lack?”

The Pursuit of God, Removing the Veil
God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can without anything other than Himself meet and overflow the deepest demands and longings of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is.”

My prayer is that everyone reading this blog will allow these words to penetrate their mind and their heart, bring them into their spirit where the Lord lives in them, and to continually practice His Presence and exercise their spirit. Amen!!!!

The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing (Part 2)

A.W. Tozer The Pursuit of God
Chapter 2, The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing (Part 2)
Tozer writes, “I have said that Abraham possessed nothing. Yet was not this poor man rich? Everything he had owned before was his still 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. . . . 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. His inner heart was from 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 external."
Amen.

The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing (Part 1)

If you read this blog very long, you will figure out quickly, I appreciate the writings of A.W. Tozer. I would like to spend a few blogs sharing one of my favorite chapters from Tozer.

A.W. Tozer - The Pursuit of God
Chapter 2, The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing (Part 1)
. . . 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.
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. These are the “poor in spirit.”

Later in the chapter Tozer states, “As is frequently true, this 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.”

Tozer goes on to describe in how Abraham became a ‘love slave of his son.’ He writes, “As he watched him grow from babyhood to young manhood the heart of the old man was knit closer and bordered upon the perilous. It was then that God stepped in to save both father and son from the consequences of an uncleansed love.

Tozer continues by describing the story in Genesis 22 of Abraham and Isaac going to the mountain to offer a sacrifice with the idea that Isaac was going to be the one sacrificed, however after Abraham was obedient enough to perform the sacrifice, the Lord provided a different sacrifice. During this time, Abraham surrendered his love for Isaac to obey the Lord. Tozer writes, “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.”
Stay tuned

Joy of the Lord

Tozer Devotional
Collective Writings from the Books of A.W. Tozer
Sunday, October 07, 2007
The Next Chapter after the Last Chapter # Fifteen
The Christian's Obligation to Be Joyful

The Joy of the Lord
The Christian owes it to the world to be supernaturally joyful. In this day of universal apprehension when men's hearts are failing them for fear of those things that are coming upon the earth, we Christians are strategically placed to display a happiness that is not of this world and to exhibit a tranquillity that will be a little bit of heaven here below. All this takes for granted that sin has been dealt with by sincere repentance and thorough amendment of life. It assumes that we are walking in the light of truth, for true joy cannot be artificially induced. The "keep smiling" school of applied psychology is not even remotely related to the true faith of Christ. The chief fun of the comedian and the good humor of the wit who is the life of the party are like flowers growing on old graves, briefly interesting, but evanescent and always touched with sadness. But the fountain of Christian joy flows out from the throne of God, pure, refreshing and sweet everlastingly.
Prayer
O Lord, the reality of being Yours opens my heart to the flow of Your joy. Thank You!
Scripture
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
— John 15:11
Thought
It was Tertullian who said that the Christian saint is hilarious. The closer one comes to God, the more joy is experienced. Joy based not on circumstances or passing emotion but the joy of the Lord that comes from knowing Him.

Located at
http://www.cmalliance.org/devotions/tozer/tozer.jsp

Anticipation in Worship

I have for many years enjoyed reading A.W. Tozer’s books and sermons. Let us meditate on the quote below and as we go meet with the Church tomorrow (Sunday) please let the anticipation of meeting with Him and the saints bring us a feeling of anticipation and all we can bring to it and receive from it.

Tozer from “God Tells the Man Who Cares” Pages 168,170
"One characteristic that marks the average church today is lack of anticipation. Christians when they meet do not expect anything unusual to happen; consequently only the usual happens, and that usual is as predictable as the setting of the sun... We need today a fresh spirit of anticipation that springs out of the promises of God. We must declare war on the mood of nonexpectation, and come together with childlike faith. Only then can we know again the beauty and wonder of the Lord's presence among us."
Amen!