God's Word on That

  • Let Us Ask To Be Taught Aright

    God is never irritated by the candle of an honest seeker. God reveals Himself to those who search for Him. So I have learned to stop analyzing the mystery and just sit at Jesus’ feet.

    Let us learn from the Master. Let us ask Him to teach us.

    Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God; let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground (Psalm 143:10).

    Teach me, O Lord, the meaning of Your statutes, and I will always keep them. Help me understand Your instruction, and I will obey it and follow it with all my heart (Psalm 119:33-34).

    Teach me Your way, O Lord, and I will live by Your truth. Give me an undivided mind to fear [only] Your name (Psalm 86:11).

    So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90:12). O that my ways may be established to keep Your statutes (Psalm 119:5).

    I have told [You] of my ways, and You have answered [and forgiven] me; teach me Your statutes. Make me understand the way of Your precepts, so I will mediate on Your wonders (Psalm 119:26-27).

    Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, for I delight in it (Psalm 119:35). Establish Your word to your servant who is devoted to fearing you. (Psalm 119:38).

    Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight (Proverbs 3:5-6). There is no wisdom and no understanding and no counsel that can succeed against the Lord (Proverbs 21:30).

    God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight (Ecclesiastes 2:26). Oh, that the Lord God may tell us the way in which we should walk and the thing that we should do (Jeremiah 42:3).

    Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become foolish that he may become wise [in spiritual things]. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written: He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness” (1 Corinthians 3:18-19).

    If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known it as he ought to know it (1 Corinthians 8:2). When I was a child, I spoke as a child, thought as a child, reasoned as a child; when I became a man, I put away childish things (1 Corinthians 13:11).

    Brothers, do not be children in your thinking; yet in evil be babes, but in thinking be mature (1 Corinthians 14:20).

  • Seek God In His Word

    Many seek the God they want, but do not know the God who is.

    The Christian soul… ought to go forward with her love, leaving all her understanding behind. Let her love God as He is in Himself, and not as her imagination says He is and pictures Him. (Michael de Molinos)

    Let us search God’s Word to find His knowledge and understanding.

    Yes, if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the Fear of the Lord and find knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom and from His mouth comes knowledge and understanding (Proverbs 2:3-6).

    This is what the Lord says to the [sleeping] house of Israel: “Seek Me and live!” (Amos 5:4)

    Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord (Lamentations 3:40). Come, let us return to the Lord… As surely as the sun rises He will appear. He will come to us… (Hosea 6:1, 3).

    Let my cry come before You, O Lord; give me understanding according to Your Word (Pslam 119:169).

    Deal with Your servant based on Your faithful love; teach me Your statues. I am Your servant; give me understanding that I may know Your decrees (Psalm 119:124-125). Give me understanding that I may live (Psalm 119:144).

    Send Your light and Your truth; let them lead me Let them bring me to Your holy mountain, to Your dwelling place (Psalm 43:3). Teach me good discernment and knowledge, for I believe in Your commandments (Psalm 119:66). I will praise the Lord who counsels me — even at night my conscience instructs me (Psalm 16:7).

    Now if I have indeed found favor in Your sight, please teach me Your ways, and I will know You, and find [more] favor in Your sight (Exodus 33:13).

    Oh that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men! For He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with good things (Psalm 107:8-9). Stop and consider God’s wonders! (Job 37:14)

    Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know (Jeremiah 33:3). O my God, teach me what I cannot see (Job 34:32).

    Therefore seek God with your heart and not your head.

  • Seeking God and His Godliness

    For many years I had taken note of verses and sayings from various people that pertained to practicing godly traits. In my notebooks of these keepsakes I always referred to them as “Way to Walk” verses. They have served to keep my mind on what is important. I pray they will do the same, if not more, for you.

    A road will be there and a way; it will be called the Holy Way (Isaiah 35:8).

    Let us seek the Lord’s path, for there are riches and pleasures there.

    O God, You are my God — earnestly I seek You. My soul thirsts for You; my body longs for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no [other like You] (Psalm 63:1).

    God did this so men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us (Act 17:27).

    Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His face evermore (1 Chronicles 16:11). Seek the Lord, all you meek of the earth, who have upheld His justice (Zephaniah 2:3).

    Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call on Him while He is near (Isaiah 55:6).

    But [if] from there you seek the Lord your God you will find Him if you look for Him with all your heart and with all your soul (Deuteronomy 4:29).

    Seek and you will find… for everyone who seeks finds (Matthew 7:7, Luke 11:9-10).

    You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:13).

    The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him (Lamentations 3:25).

    The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble; those who know Your name will trust in You; for You, O Lord, have never forsaken those who seek You (Psalm 9:9-10).

    One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His holy temple (Psalm 27:4).

    Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men! For He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with good things (Psalm 107:8-9).

    But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believer (1) that God exists and (2) that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).

  • The Pursuit of Holiness

    The Christian life is all paradox!!!  Think about it.  The goal of the Christian life is death, not success.  The first will be last, death is in return for life, as life for death, and we are encouraged to offer praise and thanksgiving to God to overcome any spirit of heaviness or depression!

    Our life as a Christian is a paradox.

    We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that sin’s dominion over the body may be abolished, so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, since a person who has died is freed from sin’s claims (Romans 6:6-7). I discover this principle: when I want to do good, evil is with me (Romans 7:21). I have to [keep remembering and thinking of] myself dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus, to not let sin reign in my mortal body, to obey its desires… but as those who are alive from the dead, I offer to God all the parts of my body as weapons for Him to use (Romans 6:11-13).

    It does take time to be holy.  It takes time to cultivate a walk with the Lord that will begin to flow naturally – because the enemy is so much more assertive and powerful than we are…  And so creative, so full of new ideas on how to derail us and demoralize us.  We need to look to the power that comes from God’s presence and invite Him to make us holy vessels (Jeff Bridges).

    If we live according to the flesh, we are going to die. But if by the Spirit we put to death the deeds of the body, we will live (Romans 8:13). God’s promise.

    The pursuit of holiness deals largely with putting off the old self -– dealing with sinful patterns in our lives.  To put on the new self is to develop Christ-like character traits.  It is just as important to put on the new self as it is to put off the old.  The practice of godliness would then be our next endeavor.

    So put to death whatever in you is worldly (Colossians 3:5). Train yourself in godliness (1 Timothy 4:7).

    We are seeking to grow in our devotion to the most wonderful Person in all the universe, the infinitely glorious and loving God.  Nothing can compare with the privilege of knowing Him in whose presence is fullness of joy and in whose hand there are pleasures forever more!

    Since we have such promises [from God], we should wash ourselves clean from every impurity of flesh and spirit, making our sanctification complete in the fear of God (2 Corinthians 7:1). The Kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever serves the Messiah in this way is acceptable to God (Romans 14:17-18).

  • Called To A Holy Priesthood

    In his book, With Christ in the School of Prayer, Andrew Murray incites us to take up our noble calling to be priests and intercessors for the world around us. He calls it “our circle” — the people that we influence and care for personally. Since each believer has his own individual circle, the world is in need of intercessors that can reach more of the lost and the hurting — the world needs you. To be a priest for the people is not only for the Church in general, but for your particular area of influence as well. I will try and sum up what Andrew Murray says of our duty.

    You are a light for the world; let us rejoice to be so.

    As every son of Aaron, so every member of Jesus’ body has a right to the priesthood. It is the highest privilege of a child of God, the mark of greatest nearness and likeness to Him. Every priest is ordained for men in things pertaining to God (Hebrews 5:1; see also Deuteronomy 10:8; Deuteronomy 21:5; Deuteronomy 33:10).

    In the Old Testament, the walk of the priesthood was in harmony with its work — as God is holy, so the priest was to be especially holy. This means not only separated from everything unclean, but holy unto God, being set apart and given up to God for His possession. Their life was to be one of total faith — they were to live on Him as well as for Him.

    All this is the emblem of what the character of the New Testament priest is to be. Our priestly power with God depends on our personal life and walk. We must prove that our consecration to be HOLY TO THE LORD (Exodus 28:36; Zechariah 14:20-21) is whole-hearted and entire. This marks the true priest, the man who only lives for God and his fellow man.

    Are you willing to offer yourself for this holy work? You know the surrender it demands — nothing less than the Christ-like giving up of all, no longer content to have salvation and just do work enough to keep warm and lively. Thoughts of unworthiness or unfitness need not restrain you. The Blood provides an infinite worthiness to make your prayers most acceptable; and the Spirit provides a divine fitness, teaching you to pray according to the will of God.

    You will not only join in the general prayers of the Church for the world, but will also be able in your own circle/sphere to take up your special work in prayer — as priests, to transact requests with God, to receive and know the answer, and so to bless in His Name.

    Come and be a priest, only priest, all priest. Seek now to walk before the Lord in the full consciousness that you have been set apart for the Holy Ministry of Intercession. This is the true blessedness of conformity to the image of God’s Son.

  • God Calls Us To Holiness

    We all know God is holy; He is totally set apart from everything else. There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides You, O God (1 Samuel 2:2). His name is holy and awe-inspiring (Psalm 111:9). Exalt the Lord our God; bow in worship at His holy mountain, for the Lord our God is holy (Psalm 99:9). You are to regard only the Lord of Hosts as holy; only He should be feared; only He should be held in awe (Isaiah 8:13). The holy God [of the old and new Israel] is distinguished by righteousness (Isaiah 5:16).

    Only God can direct us to living holy.

    Jesus, too, is called holy: The Holy One (Luke 1:35); Holy and Righteous One (Acts 3:14); Holy Servant (Acts 4:27,30). Jesus is our High Priest, our Commander, our Role Model in this life of absolute surrender. For He is the kind of High Priest we need: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens (Hebrews 7:26).

    In his book, The Pursuit of Holiness, Jeff Bridges points out a very intriguing point:

    Any farmer knows that unless he diligently pursues his responsibilities to plow, plant, fertilize and cultivate, he cannot expect a harvest.  Farming is a joint venture between God and the farmer.  The farmer cannot do what God must do, and God will not do what the farmer should do.  The pursuit of holiness is also a joint venture between God and the Christian.  God has made it possible for us to walk in holiness, but He has given us the responsibility of doing the walking.

    So we are to rely on His work in us to teach us how to walk in holiness and to live a holy life. And we do this to please Him because we owe Him so much gratitude and praise, and because we have surrendered our life to Him and He cannot accept any sinful thing. Our duty then is to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading and live a sanctified and holy life.

    As obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance but, as the One who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct (1 Peter 1:14-15). For this is God’s will, your sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:3). You took off your former way of life, the old man that is corrupted by deceitful desires, and you are being renewed in the spirit of your minds; you put on the new man, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth (Ephesians 4:22-24). For God has not called us to impurity, but to sanctification (1 Thessalonians 4:7).

    This is what the Lord God says: When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples where they are scattered and demonstrate My holiness through them in the sight of the nations (Ezekiel 28:25), when I bring them back from the peoples and gather them from the countries of their enemies, I will demonstrate My holiness through them in the sight of many nations (Ezekiel 39:27). They will honor My holiness and stand in awe of the God of Israel (Isaiah 29:23). I will show My holiness to those who are near Me (Leviticus 10:3).

    Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness — without it no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14). Holiness for us is not an option, but a command.

  • Our Need For Holiness

    According to A. W. Tozer, in his book on The Knowledge of the Holy, he tells us of God’s holiness and of the reason for His redeemed ones to be holy as He is holy.

    Holiness simply means set apart.

    Holy is the way God is. To be holy He does not conform to a standard. He is that standard. He is absolutely holy with an infinite, incomprehensible fullness of purity that is incapable of being other than it is. He has made holiness the moral condition necessary to the health of His universe. Whatever is holy is healthy; evil is a moral sickness that must end ultimately in death.

    Since God’s first concern for His universe is its moral health, that is, its holiness, whatever is contrary to this is necessarily under His eternal displeasure. To preserve His creation, God must destroy whatever would destroy it.

    God is holy with an absolute holiness that knows no degrees, and this He cannot impart to His creatures. But there is a relative, a contingent holiness which He shares by imputation and by impartation, and because He has made it available [to His redeemed ones] through the blood of the Lamb, He requires it of them.

    We must hide our unholiness in the wounds of Christ as Moses hid himself in the cleft of the rock. We must take refuge from God in God. We must believe that God sees us perfect in His Son while He disciplines and chastens and purges us that we may be partakers of His holiness.

    After reading all this, now I find myself in a quandary. A long while ago I studied to gain from God’s Word verses that would help me live a more pleasing life to the Lord my God, a holy life as I had believed He wanted from me. But recently I found this quote in Andrew Murray’s book on divine healing.

    The Christian life is no longer the vain struggle to live right, but the resting in Christ and finding strength in Him as our life – to fight the fight and gain the victory of faith. (Andrew Murray)

    So now I see that our absolute surrender must be followed by total “abiding” in Jesus, and trusting Him to keep us and direct us in how to live a holy life. Since everything we do is “nothing good”, we can actually do nothing to help ourselves. To simply follow verses on our own strength only results in a “vain struggle”. Our faith in our sovereign Lord is all that we need to follow the holiness pathway that God has set down for us. Trusting and living in Jesus is actually the only way to stay on that path.

    Christianity must change human nature. If it does not, then it has no more power than a good set of morals (Jesse Duplantis).

    So I will include the verses I have gleaned from God’s Word on the Holiness Walk, not that they can help us or lead us on a life of holiness by our own efforts, but because they are good verses to have handy when the devil tries to talk us into falling from that path.

    The Spirit-filled walk demands that we live in the Word of God as a fish lives in the sea (A. W. Tozer).

  • Our Place In God

    God honored man above all other beings by creating him in His own image. Man is dependent each moment for his existence upon the One who created him — not man only but everything that exists.

    Everything that exists exists to show God glory.

    Because man is born a rebel, he is unaware that he is one. It is only when in the gospel the soul is brought before the face of the Most Holy One without the protective shield of ignorance that the frightful moral incongruity is brought home to the conscience. To save us completely Christ Jesus must reverse the bent of our nature; He must plant a new principle within us so that our subsequent conduct will spring out of a desire to promote the honor of God and the good of our fellow men. The old self-sins must die, and the only instrument by which they can be slain is the Cross of Christ.

    The simple truth is that the miracle of perpetuation of life is in God, known as the Eternal Continuum. All life is in Him and out of Him, flowing from Him and returning to Him again; a moving indivisible sea of which He is the fountainhead. No creature has life in itself; all life is a gift from God. The correct way to think of God is as the One who contains all, who gives all that is given, but who Himself can receive nothing that He has not first given.

    Nothing is above God, nothing beyond God. No one can promote Him, so no one can degrade Him. Were every man on earth to become atheist, it could not affect God. To believe in Him adds nothing to His perfections; to doubt Him takes nothing away. God is not greater for our being, nor would He be less if we did not exist. That we do exist is altogether of God’s free determination. Man’s only claim to importance is that he was created in the divine image.

    Final assessment: God exists for Himself and man for the glory of God.

    In His love and pity God came to us as Christ. For the blessed news is that the God who needs no one has in sovereign condescension stooped to work by and in and through His obedient children. He needs no one but when faith is present He works through anyone.

    [adapted from The Knowledge of the Holy, by A. W. Tozer]

  • Knowing The God We Serve

    Another book that is out on public domain is A. W. Tozer’s Knowledge Of The Holy. In it we get a very good idea of the God we are supposed to be worshiping, the God we just surrendered ourselves to. I will try to sum up Tozer’s thoughts on this subject.

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

    The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God. We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence. It is impossible to keep our moral practices sound and our inward attitudes right while our idea of God is erroneous or inadequate. If we would bring back spiritual power to our lives we must begin to think of God more nearly as He really is. Let us be encouraged to begin the practice of reverent meditation on the being of our God.

    A right concept of God is basic… to practical Christian living. The man who comes to a right belief about God is relieved of ten thousand temporal problems, for these [any temporal problems] have to do with matters which at the most cannot concern him for very long. But one mighty single burden of eternity begins to press down upon him: his obligation to God.

    No matter how we try to perceive God, He is still God and we are not. We must forever remember the original — and still primary — sin was to try to become like God in terms of knowledge and understanding. We are to get to know God, but we will never fully know [everything there is to know] about Him. We are to take on His character, but we cannot approach His majesty. This is both exciting and frustrating. But the promise remains that one day we will be like Him and see Him as He is.

    The philosopher and the scientist will admit that there is much that they do not know; but that is quite another thing from admitting that there is something which they can never know. To admit that there is One who lies beyond us, who exists outside of all our categories, who will not be dismissed with a name, who will not appear before the bar of our reason, nor submit to our curious inquiries — this requires a great deal of humility.

    We are the handiwork of God; all our problems and their solutions are theological. Some knowledge of what kind of God it is that operates the universe is indispensable to a sound philosophy of life and a sane outlook on the world.

  • God Blesses Your Surrender

    A life of absolute surrender has two sides — on the one side, absolute surrender to do the work that God wants you to do; on the other side, to let God work what He wants to do in you.

    O the joys that follow the surrendered heart!

    Give up yourself absolutely to the will of God. You know something of that will; not enough, far from all. But still, you know some. Say “Lord God, not a word upon my tongue but for Your glory, not a movement of my temper but for Your glory, not an affection of love or hate in my heart but for Your glory, and according to Your blessed will.”

    God wants to bless you in a way even beyond what you expect. It is God who will enable you to carry out the surrender. He is waiting to help you do it. Come and say: “I give myself absolutely to You, God, to let You work in me to will and to do of Your good pleasure, as You have promised to do.” Only let your absolute surrender be one of simple, childlike, and unbounded trust.

    God wants us to be separate from the world; we are called to come out from the world that hates God. You have been praying for blessing. But do remember there must first be absolute surrender. At every tea-table you see it. Why is tea poured into that cup? Because it is empty and given up for the tea. But put vinegar into it, and one cannot pour tea into it. Can God fill you, can God bless you if you are not absolutely surrendered to receive from Him?

    Let us believe God has wonderful blessings for us, if we will but stand up for God and say, be it with a trembling will, yet with a believing heart: “O God, I am Yours and all that I have is Yours. Absolute surrender is what my soul yields to You.” As you bow before Him, just accept God’s teaching that in your flesh “there dwells no good thing,” and that nothing will help you except another life which must come in. You must deny self, and then Christ will come in and take possession of you.

    As the Spirit reveals Christ Jesus to us, Christ comes to live in our hearts forever, and the self-life is cast out. Separation and death — separation from the world and death to self. Surely one ought to say: “Anything is good that brings me to separation and to death, for a life of full fellowship with God and Christ.”

    Cast this self-life and flesh-life at the feet of Jesus. Then trust Him. Do not worry yourself with trying to understand all about it, but come in the living faith that Christ Jesus will come into you with the power of His death — and the power of His life; and then the Holy Spirit will bring the whole Christ – Christ crucified and risen and living in glory – into your heart.

    [adapted from Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray]