The Glory and Rubbish of the Universe

We are both the glory and the rubbish of the universe -- but we never would have been the rubbish of the universe if we had not chosen the gutter.  If sin had not entered the world and we had not fallen, we would never have been the rubbish of the universe.  When our Lord is finished with His redemptive work, He will have made His people again the glory of the universe.  He will come then to be admired in His saints and glorified in all them that seek Him.

Man is the weakest creature there is, but he is the only creature that knows how weak he is, and that's where his glory is.  He is able to know how weak he is, and no other creature has such knowledge.  If you were to ask a mosquito (which I consider to be a very weak creature -- touch him and he's dead), "Are you weak?" I do not suppose he would say, "Yes."  He does not know he is weak, and he could not answer you even if he did.  He would not even know what you had asked of him.  I suppose mosquitoes do not particularly like human beings.  If mosquitoes talked, they would call us "the animal that swats" because that is the only thing they know about us.  To mosquitoes, we are simply the creatures that swat them when they land on us.

Man is the unknown, the pitiful, the wonderful, the weak, the mysterious -- and yet he is the only creature who knows that he is all this.  Man is the only creature that sins, and yet he is the only creature that could know that he sins and laments his sin.  Man is the only creature that laughs; he is the only creature that knows how foolish and inconsistent he is, and laughs at himself.  He is the only creature that aspires because there's no other creature dissatisfied with himself.  Man alone is dissatisfied with what he is and longs to become something more.

Man can go up and around the earth now and look down on it -- because he is the only creature who aspires beyond present reality.  The other creatures are exactly as they ever were.  What does this indicate? It indicates that God made man in His own image.  Man bears the image and likeness of God, and of nothing else can that be said.

Man is also the only creature that prays.  God made man to worship; he is the only creature on earth made to commune with God in that way.  The lion roars for his prey, and the bird builds its nest in the thickets.  The stormy wind blows, and the snow falls, but snow does not pray, and neither does the bird, nor the lion, nor the stormy wind.

Seen as a minute physical creature in the vastness of the universe, man is small indeed.  Seen as a spiritual creature in the bosom of God, he is greater than all the winds that blow, all the mountains that rise, all the seas that flow, and all the rivers that run down to the sea.  He is great because God made him in His own image.  That's why the Son came among us as He did.  Why would the eternal Son become a man?  He was the Son of God.  Why did He become the Son of man?  Because the creature bearing the image of God had sinned; he had become the glory and the rubbish of the universe.

[excerpts from A.W. Tozer's God's Power For Your Life: How the Holy Spirit Transforms You Through God's Word]

Before or After?

The facts of Christ's eternity and incarnation give rise to any number of paradoxes.  From a historical viewpoint, this Christ that John is writing about is the "Son of David" -- and yet He antedates David.  This is the marvelous inconsistency we find when we look into the person of Jesus Christ.  How can a son born of a father go back prior to the birth of that father?  Oh, the delightful incongruities we stumble over as God tries to deal with man's limited understanding!  Only by faith can we wrap ourselves around this marvelous truth.

Then He is referred to as the "Seed of Abraham" -- but he was before Abraham as well.  Jesus said to the religious leaders, when they questioned Him, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58).  Imagine those old Pharisees, experts in the religious law, scratching their heads as they tried to figure out what Jesus had just said.

Christ is also referred to as the last Adam, but He dates back to before the first Adam.  Trying to pin Christ down with a time sequence is impossible, because He existed prior to time.  He rises above and beyond time.  It was time that flowed from the mouth of this One who is referred to as the Ancient of Days.

Christ derives no glory from David or Abraham or Adam.  All their glory comes from Him -- and in giving them glory, He does not deplete any of His own glory.  What He has, He has in unlimited supply.  What He gives does not in any way lessen what He has.  "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty" (Rev.1:8).

Christ is often likened to Aaron -- but this parallel breaks down rather quickly.

Aaron had a beginning,

   but Christ was "in the beginning."

Aaron offered a sacrifice for his own sins,

   while Christ offered Himself for the sins of the world.

Aaron took his glory from the priesthood,

   but Christ gave of His glory to others, such as Aaron.

Aaron's priesthood came to an end,

   but Christ has a priesthood that is forever and ever -- a priesthood that extends far into the unsearchable aspects of eternity, up in the rarefied atmosphere where time has no effect.

Whenever we tell a story, it always has three elements: the beginning, the middle and the end.  When we come to the story of Christ, it is impossible to start from the beginning.  John uses the word "beginning in order to communicate to his readers some idea of what he is trying to say.  Jesus Christ was from the beginning in the sense that He was before anything else began.

[excerpts from A.W. Tozer's God's Power For Your Life: How the Holy Spirit Transforms You Through God's Word]

Seeing Pleasure Through a Demon’s Eyes

Seeing Pleasure Through a Demon’s Eyes from Desiring God on Vimeo.

Red Mountain Church - He Rescued Me / My Jesus, I Love Thee

Preaching: Truth Divorced From Life

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.—James 1:22

There is scarcely anything so dull and meaningless as Bible doctrine taught for its own sake. Truth divorced from life is not truth in its Biblical sense, but something else and something less....

No man is better for knowing that God in the beginning created the heaven and the earth.

The devil knows that, and so did Ahab and Judas Iscariot.

No man is better for knowing that God so loved the world of men that He gave His only begotten Son to die for their redemption. 
In hell there are millions who know that.

Theological truth is useless until it is obeyed. The purpose behind all doctrine is to secure moral action....

Any man with fair pulpit gifts can get on with the average congregation if he just "feeds" them and lets them alone. Give them plenty of objective truth and never hint that they are wrong and should be set right, and they will be content.

On the other hand, the man who preaches truth and applies it to the lives of his hearers will feel the nails and the thorns. He will lead a hard life, but a glorious one. May God raise up many such prophets. The church needs them badly. Of God and Men, 25-28.

"Lord, I want to be one of those bold prophets, faithfully declaring Your word, no matter the consequences. Enable me, by Your Spirit, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen."

It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me, the hope of glory.

The great deterrent to victorious Christian living is the idea that once we accept Jesus Christ as Savior and believe that John 3:16 is all there is to it, our life now is on automatic pilot and we can just sit back and enjoy the ride.  This is the source of a great deal of disillusionment that leads to discouragement in the Christian life.

There is no such thing as automatic pilot in our Christian experience; every step is an operation of faith that will be fiercely contested by the enemy of our soul.  This kind of automatic pilot thinking leads to spiritual lethargy.  Breaking out from the tyranny of spiritual lethargy -- whatever the cost -- should be the number-one priority of every Christian.

Begin with your own shortcomings.  The first thing is to recognize the danger of spiritual lethargy.  If you do not know something is dangerous, you are not going to stay away from it.  Your attitude will be rather careless and indifferent, which is the perfect formula for a condition of spiritual lethargy.  The Holy Spirit is faithful in exposing your spiritual condition.  Your responsibility is to listen to the Holy Spirit and follow through on His action.

When the Holy Spirit begins to move in our life, we believe that we can change the Christian community.  As always, it backfires on us, allowing the community to change us and set our standards.  Mob psychology sometimes infests even the Christian community, which may explain all the dead churches in our country today.

You cannot change the community, but you can change yourself.  Or rather, you can allow the Holy Spirit to change you, and that change takes place at the very core of your life.  Then that inward change will slowly begin affecting the outside.  The right kind of change can affect everyone around you.  Spiritual awakening is not dependent on the community, but it can drastically affect the community.  Like a fire that starts small can inflame everything around it, the fire of spiritual awakening within can flow through us and touch everyone around us, in effect, changing our community.

I call this influence intentional Christian living.  By that, I mean we are living out the commands of Scripture, intentionally and purposefully.  Spiritual lethargy results in a Christian lifestyle that is haphazard and lazy.  We are not to look like or act like other people; rather, we are to look like and act like Christ.  We are to do the things that Christ would do in the power of the Holy Spirit.  We are a separated people, separated from the world unto God.  Several things are important in maintaining an intentional Christian lifestyle.

Faith

Faith is not a magical formula or ritual, but rather it is a result of a consistent commitment to Bible reading and prayer.  Much is being said of faith these days that is not the focus of the Scriptures.  Faith is not some magical formula or wish that no matter who uses it, saved or unsaved, God has to act upon it.  Such is religious lunacy and borders on witchcraft.  True faith rises in the soul of the man or woman who will fall on his or her face before and open Bible and allow God to be God in any way He chooses.

Obedience and Surrender

In order to obey, you must hear the voice of God clearly.  Again, this is rooted in my relationship to the Word of God.  If we are to live a life of obedience, we must have "ears to hear." Along with this matter of obedience is surrender.  Surrender is a clear act of obedience to the Word of God.  Some would give God as much as 99 perfect of their life, but they want to hold on to the last 1 perfect.  Either God is the Lord of all, or He is not Lord at all.  Our Father does not want a partial surrender.  He is jealous toward us -- all of us.

Purity

An important aspect of intentional Christian living is purity.  This purity is the absence of additives.  The evangelical church has become most ingenious in this area of additives.  The intentional Christian life is not diluted with elements of culture or religion.  The purity of our life is simply the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.  As I intentionally live the Christian life, I am focused on His purity, and He is living His life through me unencumbered by other things or interests.

On the surface, this looks absolutely impossible to do.  And quite frankly, it is impossible in the flesh.  The more I try to live the Christian life, the more I am bogged down in exterior trappings.  When I put these aside and refuse to be affected or influenced by them, I then give way for God to work through me according to His agenda and His purpose.  The apostle Paul said it this way: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20).  It is no longer me; it is Christ in me, the hope of glory.

Enjoying God's Favor

Those of us who are utterly committed to living an intentional Christian life have one great advantage.  This advantage is the way God thinks about us.  God has our best in mind for the longest period of time.

What God is doing in your and my life today has implications for eternity.  When Christ was on the cross, we were on His mind.  The tears that flowed on Calvary were because of us.

The writer of Hebrews refers to the fact that Jesus endured the cross because of the joy before Him: "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2).  What was that joy?  It was all those who would put their faith and trust in Him and become part of the Bride of Christ.  We are always on His mind.

God desires to bring our lives into the full sunlight of His favor.  That requires not serving ourselves or pleasing others or ourselves, but giving ourselves completely, in absolute surrender, to God through the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.  The end result is living the intentional Christian life.

Tozer, A.W. "Living as an Intentional Christian" The Danger of a Shallow Faith: Awakening from Spiritual Lethargy, pg. 205-211

Preaching: A Sense of Inadequacy

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God....—2 Corinthians 3:5

I believe I had anticipated that it was going to be a pleasure to expound this beautiful and high soaring Gospel of John. However, I must confess that in my preparation and study a sense of inadequacy has come over me—a feeling of inadequacy so stunning, so almost paralyzing that I am not at this juncture able to call it a pleasure to preach.

Perhaps this will be God's way of reducing the flesh to a minimum and giving the Holy Spirit the best possible opportunity to do His eternal work. I fear that sometimes our own eloquence and our own concepts may get in the way, for the unlimited ability to talk endlessly about religion is a questionable blessing....

None of us can approach a serious study and consideration of the eternal nature and person of Jesus Christ without sensing and confessing our complete inadequacy in the face of the divine revelation. Christ the Eternal Son, 3,9.

"Lord, I've so often been at that place of total inadequacy. I've learned that that is so healthy, because then I step aside, I quit relying on my own 'eloquence,' and I allow the Holy Spirit to take over and do what only He can do anyway! Use me today in my weakness. Amen."