Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer

It is fear of falling into the hands of God that makes us so eager to get things reduced to a formula. We feel that if we can learn the "secret" of salvation or the "steps" into the blessed life, we can control our future and (though we would not admit it) control God Himself to a large degree. This saves face and preserves our self-confidence, but it also mutes the voice of power in the gospel and weakens the operations of God in the soul. Only the despairing heart can know the inward...

The writer to the Hebrews gives us good New Testament counsel: "Let us run the race with patience." The Holy Spirit here describes Christian believers as runners on the track, participants in the race which is the Christian life. He provides both strong warning and loving encouragement, for there is always the danger of losing the race, but there is also the victor's reward awaiting those who run with patience and endurance. So, there are important things each of us should know and...

The Spirit of God has impelled me to preach and write much about the believer's conscious union with Christ-a union that must be felt and experienced. I will never be through talking about the union of the soul with the Savior, the conscious union of the believer's heart with Jesus. Remember, I am not talking about a "theological union" only. I am speaking also of a conscious union, a union that is felt and experienced. I have never been ashamed to tell my congregations that I believe in...

Surely God has that to say to the pure in heart which He cannot say to the man of sinful life. But what He has to say is not theological, it is spiritual; and right there lies the weight of my argument. Spiritual truths cannot be received in the ordinary way of nature. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians...

Our Lord said, I am the Truth, and again He said, The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. Truth therefore is not hard to find for the very reason that it is seeking us. Truth is not a thing for which we must search, but a Person to whom we must hearken. This is taught or taken for granted in the record of Gods dealings with men throughout the Sacred Scriptures. After the sin in Eden it was not Adam who cried O God, where art Thou" but God who cried Where art thou" as...

The last cause I shall name is nonobedience. Truth is given to be believed and obeyed. Certain truths can only be believed, the reason being that they are revelations of fact and contain no command or instruction to be carried out. Other truths must be obeyed or for the hearer they have no meaning.

"I will come back" (John 14:3) is a statement of fact which cannot in the nature of it be obeyed; there is nothing in it to obey; it can only...

To apply pressure, a person projects himself or herself into the minds and consciences of people made in the image of God and forces them psychologically to do something they have no particular reason for wanting to do. They are not basically interested in it and have no satisfactory reason for doing it, but they are under pressure. If they do not have a reason for doing what they are going to do, they will not know why they are invovled. Then when they get out they will not be sure that...

It is my experience that the totality of our Christian lives-our entire attitude as persons-must be towards the worship of God! If you do not know the presence of God in your office, your factory, your home-then God is not in the church you attend, either! I became a Christian when I was a young man working in a tire factory in Akron, Ohio. I remember my work there-but I remember my worship there, too! I had plenty of worshipful tears in my eyes. No one ever asked me about them, but I would...

Periods of staleness in the life are not inevitable but they are common. He is a rare Christian who has not experienced times of spiritual dullness when the relish has gone out of his heart and the enjoyment of living has diminished greatly or departed altogether. Since there is no single cause of this condition there is no one simple remedy for it. Sometimes we are to blame, as for instance when we do a wrong act without immediately seeking forgiveness and cleansing; or when we permit...

Much of our full gospel literature and much of our preaching tend to perpetuate a misunderstanding of what the Bible says about obedience and Christian discipleship. I think the following is a fair statement of what I was taught in my early Christian experience and before I began to pray and study and anguish over the whole matter: "We are saved by accepting Christ as our Savior." "We are sanctified by accepting Christ as our Lord." "We may do the first without doing the second." What a...

The question being discussed by many these days--why religion is increasing and morality slipping, all at the same time--finds its answer in this very error, the error of religious intellectualism. Men have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof. The text alone will not elevate the moral life. To become morally effective, the truth must be accompanied by a mystic element, the very element supplied by the Spirit of truth. The Holy Spirit will not be banished to a footnote without...

Mans nature indicates that he was created for three things: To think, to worship and to work. But thinking is not enough. Men are made to worship also, to bow down and adore in the presence of the Mystery inexpressible. Mans mind is not the top peak of his nature. Higher than his mind is his spirit, that something within him which can engage the supernatural, which under the breath of the Spirit can come alive and enter into conscious communion with heaven, can receive the divine nature and...

For those nations of the earth which have known the story of Jesus, Christmas is undoubtedly the most beautiful time of the year.

Though the celebration of the Savior's birth occurs in the dead of winter, when in many parts of the world the streams are frozen and the landscapes cold and cheerless, still there is beauty at the Christmas season--not the tender beauty of spring flowers or the quiet loveliness of the full-blown summer, or yet the sad sweet graces of autumn colors. It is...

Man is a worshiper and only in the spirit of worship does he find release for all the powers of his amazing intellect. A religious writer has warned us that it may be fatal to trust to the squirrel-work of the industrious brain rather than to the piercing vision of the desirous heart. The Greek church father, Nicephorus, taught that we should learn to think with our heart. Force your mind to descend into the heart, he says, and to remain there. . . . When you thus enter into the place of the...