Many tender-minded Christians are afraid that they might "sin against Love" if they dare to question anything that comes wearing the cloak of Christianity and breathing the name of Jesus. They dare not examine the credentials of the latest "prophet" to hit their town lest they risk being guilty of questioning something that may be of God.
This is supposed to indicate a high degree of spirituality, But, in fact, it indicates NO SUCH THING! It may indeed be evidence of the absence of the Holy Spirit.
Gullibility is not synonymous with spirituality! Faith is not a mental habit that leads its possessor to open his mouth and swallow everything that appears to be supernatural. Faith keeps its heart open to whatever is truly of God...and rejects everything that is not of God, no matter how wonderful it seems.
Try the spirits is the command of the Holy Spirit to the believer in 1 John 4:1. We sin just as surely by approving the spurious as we do by rejecting the genuine. To appraise things with a heart of love, based on the Holy Scriptures...and then to act on the results is an obligation resting upon every Christian in the world.
A.W. Tozer
Contending for the Faith:
True faith requires that we believe everything God has said about Himself,
but also that we believe everything He has said about us.
Until we believethat we are as bad as God says we are, we can never believe that He
will dofor us what He says He will do.
Right here is where popular religion breaks down. It never quite
accepts theseverity of God or the depravity of man. It stresses the goodness of
God andman's misfortune. Sin is a pardonable frailty, they say, and God is not too much
concerned about it. He merely wants us to trust in His goodness.
To believe thus is to ground faith upon falsehood and build our eternal
hopeupon sand. No man has any right to pick and choose among revealed
truths. God has spoken . . . .
Faith in faith is faith astray. To hope for heaven by means of such
faith isto drive in the dark across a deep chasm on a bridge that doesn't quite
reach the other side.
---A. W. Tozer
PLEASURE OUTSIDE OF CHRIST?
by Charles Haddon Spurgeon
It is a great pity that so many who claim to be Christian people do not find their chief delights in God, and do not let their desires end in Him.This is a sad, sad thing. If there were a wife who found her greatest pleasure in somebody else's company rather than her husband's, it would be a very great disgrace to her; and it is a terrible dishonour to a Christian, when, in order to find his pleasures, he has to get out of the circle of communion with Jesus Christ. I have heard of such Christians. "Oh!" they say, "we try to be circumspect as a matter of duty, but isn't it all right if we enjoy ourselves?" Well, but where...WHERE? They do not like to say WHERE, and I will not press the inquiry, but there are some who enjoy themselves most when they are where Christ would never go...nay, where Christ would not have them go, and where they would not like Christ to come again and find them there! Now, they should question themselves whether they belong to Christ at all, if that is the case. For our sweetest pleasures, if we are true Christians, will be found when we are most conformed to Christ, doing His will most conscientiously in His sight, most denying ourselves, and most completely giving up our own will and wishes for His glory.
This is all my salvation and all my desire. Let others roam through the world as they may, but the soul of the Christian is satisfied at home. He can say with the words of the old hymn:
I need not go abroad for joy
I have a peace at home
My sighs are turned into songs
My heart has ceased to roam
Down from above the blessed Dove
Has come into my breast
To witness there eternal love
And give my spirit rest
So may it be with you.
"Are you sure you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit who, though He is like Jesus in His gentleness and love, will nevertheless demand to be Lord of your life? Are you willing to let your personality be controlled by another,even if that other be the Spirit of God Himself?
"If the Holy Spirit takes charge of your life, He will expect unquestioning obedience in everything. He will not tolerate in you the 'self-sins' even though they are permitted and excused by most Christians. By the self-sins I mean self-love, self-pity, self-seeking, self-confidence, self-righteousness, self-aggrandizement." (A.W. Tozer)
