Tozer commentary

"The gospel can lift this destroying burden from the mind, give beauty for ashes, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. But unless the weight of the burden is felt, the gospel can mean nothing to the man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and no burden. Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them."

"The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him."

The Gospel has been a recurring theme in my life over the past nine months or so. It's the foundational principle for the Christian faith - the reason for salvation the motivation for us to worship God, the only way we are able to live in accordance with His will. All too often, I feel that I probably hold a low view of God in that I allow myself to be overcome with uncertainties and fears. I don't spend enough time worshiping Him or even just being with Him. When I allow my schedule to be consumed with doing things, even good things, and don't set aside that amount of time to be with the Lord, I am telling Him that busywork is more important than my relationship with Him. I am confirming that my plans are more important than listening to Him. I am telling God I don't need Him as much as I truly do, and I am denying my need for Him. The Gospel loses its place in my ministry and in my day-to-day life. The Gospel-Centered Life study says that the Gospel is not only on the door to salvation, but it is the path we should walk on every day, and a low view of God is deciding to walk on my own path.



"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."

"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."

When I was in elementary school, I bought this little card at a Christian bookstore that was printed with John 3:16, yet in the place of "the world," my name was inserted so it read, "For God so loved SAM that He gave..." I remember Sunday school teachers telling me that God loved me so much that, even if I was the only person in the world, He still would have sacrificed Jesus. While I don't doubt the love of God, I do think there is something wrong with an exalted view of ourselves. We are not born inherently good. My camp boss always used the example of two year olds - no one taught them to be selfish, but every undisciplined child's instinct is to say "MINE" and not share with another child. And that selfishness continues in life, no matter how much time we spend with the Lord. Our fleshly instinct is to sin. Without God, we have no great value. Any success we can achieve on our own is temporary.

I believe we have to understand the truth about our nature in order to begin to understand the truth about God's nature. Not that we will ever fully comprehend God, but the Gospel (there it is again!) is only understood as necessary when we see how short we fall and how much we need God. Then, from there, we can begin to be used by God because we know our place in the situation. It's amazing that God chooses to use us. He is none the worse without us and none the advanced with us. Tozer also wrote, " A God who must be defended is one who can help us only while someone is helping Him." That's not the kind of God I serve. The God is serve is all-powerful and all-sufficient. The only reason I am a part of His plan is because He loves me and sees potential for His power through me.



" To be made for eternity and forced to dwell in time is for mankind a tragedy of huge proportions."

I feel it. There is a restlessness in my soul. I am never satisfied with the present. I am never content, but instead always longing for more. I want permanence to life, but cannot count on that ever happening. A certain stability will hopefully be reached, but it is not without its faults. We are made for heaven yet living here on earth, destined for perfection and surrounded by everything but. The only solution is to find more value in the eternal than in the temporal, and live in light of that. I so often lose sight of that, and I allow my happiness to be determined by this world, but it always brings me back to the disillusionment of where I am and the hope of where He is taking me.