Tuesday, January 17, 2012

A Change of Kingdoms

Excerpt from Chapter 5 of The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges:


Many Christians have a basic desire to live a holy life, but have come to believe they simply cannot do it. They have struggled for years with particular sins or deficiencies of character. While not living in gross sin, they have more or less given up ever attaining a life of holiness and have settled down to a life of moral mediocrity with which neither they nor God are pleased. The promise of Romans 6:6-7 seems impossibly beyond them. The strong commands of Scripture to live a consistent holy life only frustrate them.


In what ways do you live a holy life? What mediocrities do you pray to overcome?

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Why We Must Think Rightly About God

Excerpt from Chapter 1 of The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer:


What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.


The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God.


For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech. She can never escape the self-disclosure of her witness concerning God.