Nothing Can Satisfy But the Word 12/30 Friday Faith

Wishing you a blessed new year. This is the last post until January 3.

You will find that there is no peace, no help, no source of strength, no power, no life, nothing can satisfy the cry of the child of God but the Word of God. God has a special way of satisfying the cry of His children. He is waiting to open to us the windows of heaven until He has so moved in the depths of our hearts that everything unlike Himself has been destroyed... God want s you to be filled. My brother, my sister, God wants you today to be like a watered garden, filled with the fragrance of his own heavenly joy, till at last you have touched immensity. The Son of God came for no other purpose than to lift and lift, to mold and fashion and remold, until we are just after His mind.

--Smith Wigglesworth

Satisfied With a Thimbleful 12/29 Thursday Thougths

Some people only come with a very small thought concerning God's fullness, and a lot of people are satisfied with a thimbleful, and you can just imagine God saying, "Oh, if they only knew how much they could take away!"  Other people come with a larger vessel, and they go away satisfied, but you can feel how much God is longing for us to have such a desire for more, such a longing as only God Himself can satisfy.


--Smith Wigglesworth

Enter Into the Promises 12/28 Wednesday Wisdom

Enter into the promises of God.  It is your inheritance.  You will do more in one year if you are really filled with the Holy Ghost than you could do in fifty years apart from Him.  I pray that you may be so filled with Him that it will not be possible for you to move without a revival of some kind resulting.


-- Smith Wigglesworth

Tell What God Has Done 12/27 Tuesday Truth

That is the way with people today.  They get saved and healed and they don't tell it out for the glory of God. How is it that people don't tell what God has done for them?

--Smith Wigglesworth

A Modern Christmas Story 12/23 Friday Faith

I'm going to break with my customary quotes and share this touching story from Assemblies of God missionaries to Germany, Steve and Astrid Dunn, about an encounter with a young Muslim refugee girl.

This will be my last post until Tuesday.  May God bless you and your family richly this Christmas season. 

 

Christmas Story:Remember *Ayshe, the little Kurdish girl from our last newsletter? On Friday we had our Royal Ranger Christmas meeting. Four of us leaders did a theater sketch. Three prophets came out of a tent portraying three prophets from the Old Testament. I was then the last person to come out of the tent and was a shepherd from Bethlehem. I explained what happened on that holy night so many years ago and how the shepherds shook with fear at the sight of the Angel of the Lord: “What could that be,” I shouted, “so big, so powerful, so bright?”

*Ayshe raised her hand excitedly and I was curious to hear what she would say. She shouted back with a questioning voice: “…a winter monster?” Everyone began to laugh. It was then that I realized that she had never heard the story before. Later, while everyone else was eating hotdogs, I saw *Ayshe kneeling alone before the manger scene that was in the tent. She held the plastic lamb figure on her lap and was tenderly stroking it. I went and sat next to her.

“Tell me the story again,” she asked. “Was the baby a boy or a girl?”
“He was a boy,” I answered.”
“What was his name?”
 “Jesus… and He loves you...”

Tomorrow it will be Sunday. We will be having our Christmas Brunch service at the Moosburg church. *Ayshe will be coming with her family and they are bringing two uncles and an aunt. *Ayshe asked me if I will be sharing the story on Sunday so they can hear it as well.
 
Christmas: it is all about the Story…
 
May the joy that the angels proclaimed and the peace that God did promise on that holy night so many years ago, be yours. We wish you God’s blessings for this Christmas season and the new year to come!
 
Love and greetings from Germany!
Steve and Astrid (Dunn)

My Heavenly Bank 12/22 Thursday Thoughts

My heavenly Bank, my Heavenly Bank,
The House of God's treasure and store;
I have plenty up there -- I'm a real millionaire,
And I will go poor no more.


---quoted by Smith Wigglesworth

Prayers in Vain 12/21 Wednesday Wisdom

Beloved, we should recognize that our prayers are in vain unless we really expect what we ask to be granted to us.  "The Word profited nothing, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it."

-- Smith Wigglesworth

Make Inroads Into the Devil's Camp 12/20 Tuesday Truth

(review and continuation from Monday):  The question is whether we are going to believe God, or the devil, or ourselves.  God says  [our sins] are [past], cleansed, gone!  You cannot go on with God till you stand on His Word as "cleansed," with the heart made pure.  Standing on this blessed Rock, you can step forward and make inroads into the devil's camp, and overthrow all his tactics, and bring desolation to his power as you realize that your sin is done and finished with.


--Smith Wigglesworth

God Has Forgotten Them 12/19 Monday Meditation

The devil brings back to people's minds those things which they did so long ago, and there they are, thinking about them day and night! There are two things certain, and a third thing which is more valuable than either of the two.  One is that you never forget them; and the third is that God has forgotten them.  The question is whether we are going to believe God, or the devil, or ourselves.  God says they are passed, cleansed, gone!   (to be continued)

-- Smith Wigglesworth

Changed by a Heavenly Power 12/16 Friday Faith

And now you become changed by a heavenly power existing in an earthly body; a power that can never die; it can never see corruption, and it cannot be lost.  If you are born of God, you  are born of the power of the Word and not of man.  I want you to see that you are born of a power which exists in you, a power of which God took and made the world that you are in.  It is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus that make us free from the law of sin and death.  Did you accept it?

--Smith Wigglesworth

Born of an Incorruptible Power 12/15 Thursday Thoughts

You are born of an incorruptible power -- the power of God's Word -- by His personality and His nature.  You are begotten of God and are not your own.  You are now incarnated; and you can believe that you have passed from death unto life and become an heir of God, a joint-heir with Christ, in a measure that you believe His Word.  The natural flesh has been changed for a new order.

--Smith Wigglesworth

To Will and To Do 12/14 Wednesday Wisdom

We must see that we live in the place where we say, "What wilt Thou have me to do?" and are in the place where He can work in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.


--Smith Wigglesworth

The Secret for the Future 12/13 Tuesday Truth

The secret for the future is living and moving in the power of the Holy Ghost.  One thing I rejoice in is that there need not be an hour or a moment when I do not know the Holy Ghost is upon me.  Oh, this glorious life in God is beyond expression; it is God manifest in the flesh... This should be our continual life.

--Smith Wigglesworth

The Work of Intercession 12/12 Monday Meditation

I believe we have yet to learn what it would be with a Pentecostal Church in England that understood truly the work of intercession.  I believe God the Holy Ghost wants to teach us that it is not only the people on the platform who can move things by prayer.  You people, the Lord can move things though you.  We have to learn the power of the breath of the Holy Ghost.  If I am filled with the Holy Ghost, He will formulate the word that will come into my heart. 

-- Smith Wigglesworth

Romans 8:26

Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Never Look Down 12/9 Friday Faith

Never look down, because then you will only see the ground and miss the vision.  All blessings come from above; therefore keep your eye on Jesus.  Never weary.  If you do not fall out by the way, He will be with you to strengthen you in the way.  Hallelujah!

 

--Smith Wigglesworth

I Have a Jesus Like That 12/8 Thursday Thoughts

I HAVE A JESUS LIKE THAT, who can speak the word, and the thing is done; I have a Jesus indwelling me and vitalizing me with a faith that believes it is true; I have a Jesus within me who has never let me get faintheated or weary.  Let us press on in faith along the line of God's will, and the outpouring which we have longed to see will come. 

 

--Smith Wigglesworth

If You Have Lost the Vision 12/7 Wednesday Wisdom

To what profit will it be if we hold anything back from Him who gives us a thousand times more than ever He asks from us?  In Hebrews 2 He says He is going ot bring many sons to glory.  It means that He is going to clothe them with  His glory.  Let that be your vision.  If you have lost the vision, He is tender to those who cry to Him; from the broken heart HE NEVER TURNS AWAY, and they that seek Him with a whole heart will find Him.

 

-- Smith Wigglesworth

Vision of the Glory of God 12/6 Tuesday Truth

You have no need to be constantly talking of what you are going to appear like in the glory.  The chief thing you are to watch is that you realize within yourself a deeper manifestation of the power of God today than yesterday, that you have something more clear today of the mind of the Spirit than you had the day before, that nothing comes between you and God to cloud your mind.  You are to see a VISION OF THE GLORY OF GOD more today than yesterday, and to be living in such a state of bliss that it is heavenly to live.

--Smith Wigglesworth

Deluge of the Spirit 12/5 Monday Meditation

Some people get a wrong notion of the baptism [of the Holy Spirit].  The baptism is nothing less than the third person of the blessed Trinity coming down from the glory, the executive Spirit of the triune God indwelling your body, revealing the truth to you, and causing you to sometimes say "Ah!" till your bowels yearn with compassion, as Jesus yearned,  to travail as He travailed, to mourn as He mourned, to groan as He groaned.  It cannot be otherwise with you.  You cannot get this thing along a merely passive line.  It does not come that way.  But, glory be to God, it does come.  O that God might bring from our hearts the cry for such a DELUGE OF THE SPIRIT that we could not get away until we were ready for Him to fulfill His purpose in us and for us.

-- Smith Wigglesworth

This is my 1505th post.  (I forgot to watch when I was nearing 1500).  Plus I sent out Lep's Faith Quotes as an email for a few years before I began posting.


Nehemiah stood before the king because of trouble in Jerusalem which had nigh broken his heart.  He was sorrowful, and it affected his countenance; but he was so near to God that he could say:  "I have communed with the God of heaven."  And if we believers are to go forth and fulfill God's purpose with us, the Holy Spirit must be constantly filling us and moving upon us until our whole being is on fire with the presence and power of God.  That is the order of the baptism of the Holy Ghost.  The man is then ready for every emergency.

--Smith Wigglesworth

At Any Moment With God 12/1 Thursday Thoughts

... The Christian ought to have such an unction as to realize at any moment, whether in the presence of others or alone, that he is with God.  He can have a vision in the tramcar, or in the railway train, even if he has to stand with others in front or behind him; or he can have a vision if he is there alone.


-- Smith Wigglesworth

No Storm Can Move Me 11/30 Wednesday Wisdom

A man who is baptized with the Holy Ghost has a Jesus mission.  He knows his vocation, the plan of his life.  God speaks to him so definitely and really that there is no mistaking about it.  Thank God for the knowledge which fixes me so solidly upon God's Word that I cannot be moved from it by any storm that may rage.  The revelation of Jesus to my soul by the Holy Ghost brings me to a placed where I am willing, if need be, TO DIE ON WHAT THE WORD SAYS.

-- Smith Wigglesworth

Arranging Things 11/29 Tuesday Truth

Is God the Holy Ghost arranging things for you, or are you arranging things according to your own plan?  A man filled with the Holy Ghost has ceased to be, in a sense; he has come to a rest, he has come to where God is working, to a place where he can "stand still and see the salvation of the Lord."  What do I mean?  I mean that such a man has ceased from his own works and abilities and associations.  He will not trust his own heart; he relies only on the omnipotent power of the Most High, he is guided by Another.  The man baptized with the Holy Ghost will always KEEP IN TOUCH WITH THE MASTER.

-- Smith Wigglesworth

Smith Wigglesworth: Filled With God 11/28 Monday Meditation

I'm going to return to quoting Smith Wigglesworth (1859-1947), whom I had quoted in 2014.  Wigglesworth had a most unusual background.  He was a child laborer in England and did not receive an education.  After their marriage, his wife taught him to read.  He would read nothing but the Bible.   He didn't want anything to compromise his focus on God and his faith in God.  He became a preacher in his 50's when his wife (herself a preacher) forced him into the pulpit and made him preach.  He had one of the world's best-known evangelistic and healing ministries.  He wrote no books, but his sermons were transcribed into books.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_Wigglesworth

"Filled with God, yes, filled with God, pardoned and cleansed and filled with God." 

Filled with God leaves no room for doubting or fearing.  We have no idea of all that means, to be filled with God... It means you have no fear, for when you are filled with God you are filled with love, and perfect love casts out fear.

Holy Spirit Overlooked 11/24-25 Thursday-Friday Faith

This will be the last post for the week.   Happy Thanksgiving!

“A doctrine has practical value only as far as it is prominent in our thoughts and makes a difference in our lives.

By this test the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as held by evangelical Christians today has almost no practical value at all.
In most Christian churches the Spirit is quite entirely overlooked.
Whether He is present or absent makes no real difference to anyone.

Brief reference is made to Him in the Doxology and the Benediction. Further than that He might as well not exist.”

- A.W. Tozer, The Equality of the Three Persons

The Kind of God He Is 11/23 Wednesday Wisdom

"We wonder why we don't have faith;
the answer is,
faith is confidence in the character of God and if we don't know what kind of God God is, we can't have faith."

Aiden Wilson Tozer

Playing at Religion 11/22 Tuesday Truth

Most church people play at religion, as they play at their games!

Religion itself, is the one game most universally played.

The Church has its "fields" and "rules" and its "equipment" for playing the game of religion. It has its devotees, both laymen and professionals, who support the game with their money and encourage it with their presence — but who are no different in life or character from many who take no interest in religion at all!

As an athlete uses a ball — so do many of us use religious words. We throw them swiftly across the field — and learn to handle them with dexterity and grace. We gain as our reward, the applause of those who have enjoyed the game.

In the secular games which people play, there are no moral benefits. They simply are a pleasant activity which changes nothing, and settles nothing of any importance.

Sadly, it is much the same in the game of religion. After the pleasant meeting, no one is basically any different from what he had been before!

"How I wish one of you would shut the Temple doors so that these worthless sacrifices could not be offered! I am not pleased with you," says the LORD Almighty, "and I will not accept your offerings!" Malachi 1:10

 

- A. W. Tozer

Fear of the Holy Spirit 11/21 Monday Meditation

I'm going to use an A.W. Tozer quote that Pastor Dan used in his sermon on Christian and Missionary Alliance Core Values: "Without the Holy Spirit's Empowerment We Can Do Nothing":

One of the most telling blows which the enemy ever struck at the life of the church was to create in her a fear of the Holy Spirit. 

How Are You Using Your Time? 11/18 Friday Faith

"How are you using your time? Life is short and very uncertain. You never know what a day may bring forth. Business and pleasure, money-getting and money-spending, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage—all, all will soon be over and done with forever. And you, what are you doing for your immortal soul? Are you wasting time, or turning it to good account? Are you preparing to meet God?"

- J. C. Ryle

God of the Humble 11/17 Thursday Thoughts

God is the God of the humble, the miserable, the afflicted,, the oppressed, the desperate, and those who have been brought to nothing.

-- Martin Luther

The Habit of Sinning 11/16 Wednesday Wisdom

The habit of sinning takes away the sense of it.  The course of the world takes away the shame of it.

-- John Owen

I Have All Things and Abound 11/15 Tuesday Truth

I have all things and abound; not because I have a good store of money in the bank; not because I have skill and wit with which to win my bread, but because the Lord is my Shepherd.

-- Charles Spurgeon

Increasing Levels of Intimacy With God 11/14 Monday Meditation

It is simply not enough to know about God.  We must know God in increasing levels of intimacy that lifts us up above all reason  and into the world of adoration and praise and worship.

-- A.W. Tozer

Preaching That Hardens Men 11/11 Friday Faith

I am certain that to preach the wrath of God with a hard heart, a cold lip, a tearless eye, and an unfeeling spirit is to harden men, not benefit them.

--Charles Spurgeon

Besetting Sin 11/10 Thursday Thoughts

Without a sincere and diligent effort in every area of obedience -- there will be no successful mortification of any one besetting sin.

-- John Owen

An Infinite God 11/9 Wednesday Wisdom

An infinite God can give all of Himself to each of His children.  He does not distribute Himself that each may have a part, but to each one He gives all of Himself as fully as if there were no others.

-- A. W. Tozer

It Costs to be a Christian 11/8 Tuesday Truth

It costs something to be a true Christian.  It will cost us our sins, our sins, our self-righteousness, our ease, and our worldliness.

-- J. C. Ryle

Jesus Christ Had Joy 11/7 Monday Meditation

The Bible talks plentifully about joy, but it nowhere talks about a "happy Christian."  Happiness depends on what happens; joy does not.  Remember, Jesus Christ had joy, and He prays "that they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves."

-- Oswald Chambers

No Comfort Like God's Love 11/4 Friday Faith

There is no comfort like the fact of God's infinite, unchanging and eternal love for us! If we can but get this truth into our minds and hearts--it will sustain us in every trial. All the universe is under God's personal sway, and He is our tenderest and dearest Friend, carrying each one of us close in His heart.

Providence is not merely the outworking of a mechanical system, or the beneficent operation of wise and good laws. It is rather--the thoughtful, sleepless, loving care of our Heavenly Father!

-- J. R. Miller

Object of Our Remembrance 11/3 Thursday Thoughts

Christians have many treasures to lock up in the cabinet of memory. They ought to remember their election - "Chosen of God ere time began." They ought to be mindful of their extraction, that they were taken out of the miry clay, hewn out of the horrible pit. They ought to recollect their effectual calling, for they were called of God, and rescued by the power of the Holy Ghost. They ought to remember their special deliverances - all that has been done for them, and all the mercies bestowed on them. But there is one whom they should embalm in their souls with the most costly spices - one who, above all other gifts of God, deserves to be had in perpetual remembrance.  ...   It is Christ's glorious person which ought to be the object of our remembrance. It is His image which should be enshrined in every temple of the Holy Ghost.

-- Charles Spurgeon "The Remembrance of Christ"

Schools Will Be the Gates of Hell 11/2 Wednesday Wisdom

A little break from my usual type of quote, for Reformation Day / All Saints Day / All Souls Day:

I am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the heart of the youth.

--Martin Luther

Imitating Truth 11/1 Tuesday Truth

So skilled is error at imitating truth that the two are constantly being mistaken for each other.  It is therefore critically important that the Christian take full advantage of every provision God has made to save him from delusion.  These are prayer, faith, constant meditation on the Scriptures, obedience, humility, hard, serious thought and the illumination of the Holy Spirit.  These are the times that try men's souls.

--A. W. Tozer

The Measure of Our Love 10/31 Monday Meditation

The measure of our love for others can largely be determined by the frequency and earnestness of our prayers for them.

-- A.W. Pink

Overwhelming Presence of God 10/28 Friday Faith

Very simply put, the great passion in the heart of every human being, who are created in the image of God, is to experience the awesome majesty of God's presence.  The highest accomplishment of humanity is entering the overwhelming presence of God.  Nothing else can satiate this burning thirst.

-- A.W. Tozer

Without Any Touch from the Holy Spirit 10/27 Thursday Thoughts

"I say that a Christian congregation can survive and often appear to prosper in the community by the exercise of human talent and without any touch from the Holy Spirit!
All that religious activity and the dear people will not know anything better until the great and terrible day when our self-employed talents are burned with fire and only that which was wrought by the Holy Ghost will stand forever!"
...

Tragedy in the Church: The Missing Gifts, ~~~ A.W Tozer

Stubborn and Firm on the Word 10/26 Wednesday Wisdom

Great saints have always been dogmatic.  We need a return to a gentle dogmatism that smiles while it stands stubborn and firm on the Word of God.

--A. W. Tozer

Practice Love Diligently 10/25 Tuesday Truth

Practice love diligently.  It is one of the graces, above all, which grow by constant exercise.  Strive more and more to carry it into every little detail of daily life.  Watch over your own tongue and temper through every hour of the day, -- and especially in your dealing with children and near relatives.

--J.C. Ryle

Strong Praying, Holy Living 10/24 Monday Meditation

Our praying, to be strong, must be buttressed by holy living.  The life of faith perfects the prayer of faith.  We cannot talk to God strongly when we have not lived for God strongly.  The closet cannot be make holy to God when the life has not been holy to God.

-- E. M. Bounds

When God Allows Us to Succeed 10/21 Friday Faith

God will allow His servant to succeed when he has learned that success does not make him dearer to God nor more valuable in the total scheme of things.  We cannot buy God's favor.

-- A.W. Tozer

Let Your Heart Be Employed 10/20 Thursday Thoughts

When you cease from labour, fill up your time in reading, meditation, and prayer:  and while your hands are laboring, let your heart be employed, as much as possible, in divine thoughts.

-- David Brainerd, missionary pioneer

God Will Not Be Used 10/19 Wednesday Wisdom

God must always be sought for Himself — never as a means toward something else. Whoever seeks God as a means toward desired selfish ends, will not find God. The mighty God, the maker of heaven and earth, will not be one of many treasures, not even the chief of all treasures. He will be all in all — or He will be nothing. God will not be used.
- A. W. Tozer

To Continue in the Power of the Spirit 10/18 Tuesday Truth

We must spend much time on our knees before God if we are to continue in the power of the Holy Spirit.


- R.A. Torrey

Wilderness Experiences 10/17 Monday Meditation

Be assured the day will come, when these mysteries in your present lot will extract nothing from your lips but grateful praise; when you shall joyfully testify—'Had it not been for these wilderness experiences; that lengthy illness, that loss of worldly position, the death of that dear relative or friend, I would still have been clinging to earth as my portion, content with the polluted stream and the broken cistern, instead of drawing water out of the wells of salvation.


--John MacDuff

Reducing God to Manageable Terms 10/5 Wednesday Wisdom

Left to ourselves we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms.  We want to get Him where we can use Him, or at least know where He is when we need Him.  We want a God we can in some measure control.

-- A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy

THIS WILL BE MY LAST POST UNTIL OCTOBER 17, AS WE WILL BE ON A TOUR OF THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS.

Come to the Water 10/4 Tuesday Truth

~~~ COME TO THE WATER ~~~
" There flows from Calvary a stream
 For every sinner's pain,
 And he that drinketh, Jesus said,
 Shall never thirst again.
This stream from Calvary still flows
 To bless and cleanse and heal,
 And he that drinketh, Jesus said,
 New life and rest shall feel. "
--A.W.Tozer 

THE HOLY SPIRIT IS A PERSON 10/3 Monday Meditation

Spell this out in capital letters:
THE HOLY SPIRIT IS A PERSON.
He is not enthusiasm. He is not courage. He is not energy. He is not the personification of all good qualities like Jack Frost is the personification of cold weather....
... He is a person, just the same as you are a person, and He has all the qualities of a person.
He has substance but not material substance.
He has individuality.
He is one being and not another.
He has will and intelligence.
He has hearing.
He has knowledge and sympathy and ability to love and see and think.
He can hear, speak, desire, grieve and rejoice.
He is a person.
​
-- A.W. Tozer


Advance notice:  I will be on vacation October 5-15 and will not be posting. 

We Please Him Most 9/30 Friday Faith

We please Him most, not by frantically trying to make ourselves good, but by throwing ourselves into His arms with all our imperfections and believing that He understands everything and still loves us.


--A. W. Tozer

The Rich Church 9/29 Thursday Thoughts

"It is hard for a rich church to understand that her Lord was a poor man.
Were He to appear today on our city streets as He appeared in Jerusalem, He would in all probability be picked up for vagrancy.
Were He to teach here what He taught the multitudes about money, he would be blacklisted by churches, Bible conferences and missionary societies everywhere as unrealistic, fanatical and dangerous to organized religion."


-- A. W. Tozer

Sinning by Silence 9/28 Wednesday Wisdom

Could it be that too many of God's true children, and especially the preachers, are sinning against God by guilty silence?  ... I for one am waiting to hear the loud voices of the prophets and reformers sounding once more over a sluggish and drowsy church.  They'll pay a price for their boldness, but the results will be worth it.


- A.W. Tozer

The Essence of Surrender 9/21 Wednesday Wisdom

The essence of surrender is getting out of God's way so that He can do in us what He also wants to do through us.
--A.W. Tozer


​THIS WILL BE THE LAST LEP'S FAITH QUOTE FOR A WEEK, AS I WILL BE ON VACATION.

Living With Unholiness 9/20 Tuesday Truth

We have learned to live with unholiness and have come to look upon it as the natural and expected thing.

--A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy

Careless About Keeping Our Souls 9/19 Monday Meditation

When we grow careless of keeping our souls, then God recovers our taste of good things again by sharp crosses.

Richard Sibbes (or Sibbs) (1577–1635) was an Anglican theologian.

Faith Benefits 9/16 Friday Faith

IN THE DIVINE SCHEME OF SALVATION the doctrine of faith is central...
Every benefit flowing from the atonement of Christ comes to the individual through the gateway of faith. Forgiveness, cleansing, regeneration, the Holy Spirit, all answers to prayer, are given to faith and received by faith. There is no other way.

-- A.W.Tozer:  Man - The Dwelling Place of God

Greatness and Goodness of God 9/15 Thursday Thougths

The greatness of God rouses fear within us, but His goodness encourages us not to be afraid of Him.  To fear and not be afraid -- that is the paradox of faith.

--A.W. Tozer

Know God in Increasing Levels 9/14 Wednesday Wisdom

It is simply not enough to know about God.  We must know God in increasing levels of intimacy that lifts us up above all reason and into the world of adoration and praise and worship.
-- A.W. Tozer

A Choice Between God and... 9/13 Tuesday Truth

Millions call themselves by His name, it is true, and pay some token homage to Him, but a simple test will show how little He is really honored among them. Let the average man be put to the proof on the question of who or what is ABOVE, and his true position will be exposed.
Let him be forced into making a choice between God and money, between God and men, between God and personal ambition, God and self, God and human love, and God will take second place every time.
Those other things will be exalted above. However the man may protest, the proof is in the choice he makes day after day throughout his life.
 

― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

The Church That Forgets to Pray 9/12 Monday Meditation

The church that is not jealously protected by mighty intercession and sacrificial labors will before long become the abode of every evil bird and the hiding place for unsuspected corruption. The creeping wilderness will soon take over that church that trusts in its own strength and forgets to watch and pray.

-A. W. Tozer

Christians Must Simplify 9/9 Friday Faith

We Christians must simplify our lives or lose untold treasures on earth and in eternity.  Modern civilization is so complex as to make the devotional life but impossible.  The need for solitude and quietness was never greater than it is today.

--A.W. Tozer

What God Declares 9/8 Thursday Thoughts

What God declares, the believing heart confesses without the need of further proof.
Indeed, to seek proof is to admit doubt, and to obtain proof is to render faith superfluous.

Everyone who possesses the gift of faith will recognize the wisdom of those daring words of one of the early Church fathers:
“I believe that Christ died for me
because it is incredible; I believe that he rose
from the dead because it is impossible.”

A.W. Tozer: The Knowledge of the Holy

Theologians or Saints? 9/7 Wednesday Wisdom

“God will not hold us responsible to understand the mysteries of election, predestination, and the divine sovereignty.
The best and safest way to deal with these truths is to raise our eyes to God and in deepest reverence say, "0 Lord, Thou knowest."
Those things belong to the deep and mysterious Profound of God's omniscience. Prying into them may make theologians, but it will never make saints.”

― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

A Real Christian 9/6 Tuesday Truth

A real Christian is an odd number anyway.  He feels supreme love for One whom he has never seen, talks familiarly every day to Someone he cannot see, expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another, empties himself in order to be full, admits he is wrong so he can be declared right, goes down in order to get up, is strongest when he is weakest, richest when he is poorest and happiest when he feels worst.  He dies so he can live, forsakes in order to have, gives away so he can keep, sees the invisible, hears the inaudible and knows that which passeth knowledge.

--A. W. Tozer

Misled Christians / Committed Christians 9/5 Monday Meditatoin

Christians have been misled by a generation of soft preachers.  They would have us believe that to be good Christians we must be able to purr softly and accept everything that comes along with tolerance.  Such ministers never mention words like conviction, commitment, and standing on the truth.  I am convinced that a committed Christian will show a strong desire for the cause of truth and will stand for Christ.

--A.W. Tozer

No Limit 9/2 Friday Faith

There is no limit to what God can do through us if we are a yielded and purified people.

-- A. W. Tozer

The Most Important Thing About You 9/1 Thurs. Thoughts

The most important thing about you is what comes to your mind when you think of God.

--Aiden Wilson Tozer

Sanctuary of Our Thoughts 8/31 Wednesday Wisdom

God tells us to make a sanctuary of our thoughts in which He can dwell.

--Aiden Wilson Tozer

The Meek 8/26 Friday Faith

Jesus calls us to his rest, and meekness is His method. The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort.

― A.W. Tozer, Pursuit of God


I will not be posting for Monday and Tuesday, as I will be on vacation.

Only the Redeemed 8/25 Thursday Thoughts

Only the redeemed have the ability to like what God likes and to be pleased with what pleases God.    -- A.W. Tozer

The Highest Accomplishment of Humanity 8/24 Wednesday Wisdom

The highest accomplishment of humanity is entering the overwhelming presence of God.

-- A.W. Tozer:  Experiencing the Presence of God

Believe the Right Thing 8/23 Tuesday Truth

"I do not recall another period when ‘faith’ was as popular as it is today.
‘If only we believe hard enough we'll make it somehow.’
So goes the popular chant.
What you believe is not important. Only believe...
What is overlooked in all this is that faith is good only when it engages truth;...
when it is made to rest upon falsehood it can and often does lead to eternal tragedy.
For it is not enough that we believe; we must believe the right thing about the right One."

 --A.W. Tozer

 [ Gems from Tozer: Selections from the Writings of A.W. Tozer ]

God Is Not Your Servant 8/22 Monday Meditation

God is not a railway porter who carries your suitcase and serves you. God is God. He made heaven and earth. He holds the world in His hand. He measures the dust of the earth in the balance. He spreads the sky out like a mantle. He is the great God Almighty. He is not your servant. He is your Father, and you are His child. He sits in heaven, and you are on the earth. 

--A.W. Tozer

Man-Centered Christianity 6/19 Friday Faith

Christianity today is man-centered, not God-centered.

God is made to wait patiently, even respectfully, on the whims of men.

-- A. W. Tozer, Daily Inspirations from Great Christians

Bible Widens and Deepens 8/18 Thursday Thoughts

Many books in my library are now behind and beneath me. They were good in their way once, and so were the clothes I wore when I was ten years old; but I have outgrown them. Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.

--Charles Spurgeon

The Person of Christ 8/17 Wednesday Wisdom

Popular fundamentalist theology has emphasized the utility of the cross rather than the beauty of the One who died on it... The "work" of Christ has been stressed until it has eclipsed the person of Christ.
.
Aiden Wilson Tozer [ Evenings with Tozer: Daily Devotional Readings ]

The Best Book and Best Writer 8/16 Tuesday Truth

 "In our serious reading we are likely to be too greatly influenced by
the notion that the chief value of a book is to inform; and if we were talking of textbooks of course that would be true, but when we speak or write of books we have not textbooks in mind.

The best book is not one that informs merely, but one that stirs the reader up to inform himself. The best writer is one that goes with us through the world of ideas like a friendly guide who walks beside us through the forest pointing out to us a hundred natural wonders we had not noticed before. So we learn from him to see for ourselves and soon we have no need for our guide. If he has done his work well we can go on alone and miss little as we go."
A.W.Tozer: ( Man - The Dwelling Place of God )

A Short Time 8/15 Monday Meditation

God hath given to man a short time here upon earth, and yet upon this short time eternity depends.
If we refuse mercy here, we shall have justice in eternity.

--Jeremy Taylor, 1613-1667

No Greater Happiness 8/12 Friday Faith

There's no greater lifestyle and no greater happiness than having a continual conversation with God.   --Brother Lawrence

The Highest Activity 8/11 Thursday Thoughts

Prayer is beyond any question the highest activity of the human soul.  Man is at his greatest and highest when upon his knees he comes face to face with God.

-- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Prayer Produces Fruit 8/10 Wednesday Wisdom

"The Christian's heart must be soaked in prayer before the true spiritual fruits begin to grow."
 -- A.W. Tozer  (Tozer for the Christian Leader: A 365-Day Devotional)

We Please God Most... 8/5 Friday Faith

We please [God] most, not by frantically trying to make ourselves good, but by throwing ourselves into His arms with all our imperfections, and believing that He understands everything and loves us still.
--A.W. Tozer


I will not be posting Monday or Tuesday as I will be on vacation.

Opiate for the Conscience 8/4 Thursday Thoughts

The vague and tenuous hope that God is too kind to punish the ungodly has become a deadly opiate for the conscience of others.    -- A. W. Tozer

The Shortest Route to Spiritual Perfection 8/3 Wednesday Wisdom

“The Word of God well understood and religiously obeyed is the shortest route to spiritual perfection. And we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian."


-- A.W. Tozer

What Passes for the Gospel 8/2 Tuesday Truth

"I am positive that much that passes for the gospel in our day is very little more than a very mild case of orthodox religion grafted on to a heart that is sold out to the world in its pleasures and tastes and ambitions."

A. W. Tozer, How to Be Filled with the Holy Spirit

In Trouble With Men 8/1 Monday Meditation

To be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with men.   --A.W. Tozer

Stand Up for the Real Jesus 7/29 Friday Faith

Wherever I am, whatever I am doing, I hope and pray to God that I will have the courage to stand up for the real Jesus of the New Testament, regardless of whom I offend.

--A.W. Tozer

Face of God / Face of Man 7/28 Thursday Thoughts

He who comes forth fresh from beholding the face of God will never fear the face of man.  

-- Charles Spurgeon

Political Reality 7/27 Wednesday Wisdom

It is a profound political reality that Christ now occupies the supreme seat of cosmic authority. The kings of this world and all secular governments may ignore this reality, but they cannot undo it. The universe is no democracy. It is a monarchy. God himself has appointed his beloved Son as the preeminent King. Jesus does not rule by referendum, but by divine right. In the future every knee will bow before him, either willingly or unwillingly.  - R. C. Sproul

Feel the Breath of God 7/26 Tuesday Truth

As I'd warned, I did not get out a Monday post due to too many family and best friend events going on.

“We should discipline ourselves to read the Word until it comes alive…until we can almost feel the breath of God.” —A. W. Tozer

Seems Strange 7/22 Friday Faith

Does it not seem strange that the generation with the most advanced technology and the easiest-to-read Bible translations is the weakest generation of Christians in the history of our country?  Church attendance has never been lower, and the Christian influence in our culture never weaker.

--A.W. Tozer, The Crucified Life

Pray for Your Preacher 7/21 Thursday Thoughts

Do you pray for your preacher?  The praying ones are to the preacher as Aaron and Hur were to Moses.  They held up his hands and decided the issue that is so fiercely raging around them.
--E. M. Bounds  (1835-1913)

Prayer Degeneration 7/20 Wednesday Wisdom

Prayer is always in danger of degenerating into a glorified gold rush. How to get things from God occupies most [books].

Aiden Wilson Tozer: ( Tozer Devotional
God's Gentle Whisper)

Imperfect... but Perfect in Christ 7/19 Tuesday Truth

I may not be able to post every day this week, as my daughter and granddaughter will be here from Florida, our son's family is moving from Kansas to Toledo, and we have some vacation activities planned.
 

"Do you not feel in your own soul that perfection is not in you? Does not every day teach you that? Every tear which trickles from your eye weeps "imperfection;" every harsh word which proceeds from your lip, mutters "imperfection." You have too frequently had a view of your own heart to dream for a moment of any perfection in yourself. But amidst this sad consciousness of imperfection here is comfort for you - you are "perfect in Christ Jesus."
-Charles Spurgeon

We had better explain... 7/17 Monday Meditation

"To accept Christ is to know the meaning of the words 'as he is, so are we in this world.'
We accept his friends as our friends, his enemies as our enemies, his ways as our ways, his rejection as our rejection, his cross as our cross, his life as our life and his future as our future
If this is what we mean when we advise the seeker to accept Christ, we had better explain it to him. He may get into deep spiritual trouble unless we do"
.
Aiden Wilson Tozer:
...

The Best of A. W. Tozer Book One

Expect Little, Content With Little 7/15 Friday Faith

Arthur Walkington Pink (1886 – 1952) was a Black English Bible teacher who sparked a renewed interest in the exposition of Calvinism. Virtually unknown in his own lifetime, Pink became "one of the most influential evangelical authors in the second half of the twentieth century.

 Most Christians expect little from God,  ask little and therefore receive little, and are content with little.

--A. W. Pink

If We Understand... 7/14 Thursday Thougths

 If we understand that everything happening to us is to make us more Christlike, it will solve a great deal of anxiety in our lives.

--A.W. Tozer

Not Hearing God's Voice 7/13 Wednesday Wisdom

Most Christians don't hear God's voice because we've already decided we aren't going to do what He says.
--A.W. Tozer

God Has Never Surrendered 7/12 Tuesday Truth

While it looks like things are out of control, behind the scenes there is a God who hasn't surrendered His authority.
--A. W. Tozer

Remarkable Answers 7/11 Monday Meditation

We cannot leave out any part of the gospel without weakening all the rest, and if there ever was an age when the world needed the witness of God's supernatural working, it is this day of unbelief and satanic power.  Therefore, we may expect as the end approaches, that the Holy Ghost will work in healing of sickness, casting out of demons, in remarkable answers to prayer, in special and wonderful providences, and in such forms as may please His sovereign will -- to prove to an unbelieving world that the power of Jesus' name is still unchanged.

--A.B. Simpson 

Invasion of Power 7/8 Friday Faith

We may be sure of one thing, that for our deep trouble there is no cure apart from a visitation, yes, an invasion of power from above.  Only the Spirit Himself can show us what is wrong with us and only the Spirit can prescribe the cure.  Only the Spirit can save us from the numbing unreality of Spiritless Christianity.

--A.W. Tozer 

Is This You ??? 7/7 Thursday Thoughts

In the average church service the most real thing is the shadowy unreality of everything.  The worshiper sits in a state of suspended mentation; a kind of dreamy numbness creeps upon him; he hears words but they do not register, he cannot relate them to anything on his own life-level.  He is conscious of having entered a kind of half-world; his mind surrenders itself to a more or less pleasant mood, which passes with the benediction, leaving no trace behind.  It does not affect anything in his everyday life.  He is aware of no power, no Presence, no spiritual reality.  There is simply nothing in his experience corresponding to the things which he heard form the pulpit or sang in the hymns.

--A. W. Tozer 

The Need in the Church Today 7/6 Wednesday Wisdom

I think there can be no doubt that the need above all other needs in the church of God at this moment is the power of the Holy Spirit.  More education, better organization, finer equipment, more advanced methods -- all are unavailing.

-- A. W. Tozer 

Live Like the World? 7/5 Tuesday Truth

You can be sure, the Holy Spirit never enters a man and lets him live like the world.
--A. W. Tozer

A Variety of Writers 7/4 Monday Meditation

I have finished quoting Watchman Nee.  I'm going to make a switch to very brief quotes from a variety of Holiness preachers and writers of the late 19th through mid-20th Centuries. 
You will never know the fullness of Christ until you know the emptiness of everything but Christ.

--Charles Spurgeon

God Accepts One Thing Only 7/1 Friday Faith

For if we are really led forward by God, we will surely discover that He hates our works as much as our sins.  To those who sin, they must perish; to those who depend on their own works, they cannot be saved.  God rejects our works just as he repudiates our sins.  He accepts one thing only, and that is His Son Jesus Christ.  It is Christ who becomes all things to us.  Thank God, it is the Lord and not I.

--Watchman Nee 

Life of a Christian is Christ 6/30 Thursday Thoughts

We should understand that Christianity is Christ, and the life of a Christian is also Christ. Do not pile up a thousand good items and view that heap as Christian life.  Were you able to gather up all the humilities on earth as well as assemble tens of thousands of other good traits, you still could not create a Christian.  

--Watchman Nee 

In My Daily Living He Is All 6/29 Wednesday Wisdom

Hereafter I can truly say that the Lord is all and in all.  I can testify that in my daily living He is all.  If today I am patient, it is not I but He who lives in me who is patient.  If today I love, it is not because I try my best to love, for the power of love is not in me; but it is because there is One who loves in me.  If today I forgive, it is not due to my generosity or effort or ability, it instead is purely due to the One who lives in me and always forgives.

--Watchman Nee

What We Really Seek 6/28 Tuesday Truth

In encouraging people, you can only stir them to self-action.  But when God opens their eyes, they will know Christ; this alone is effective.  Words such as these may be repeated for a hundred times without any result, until God opens our eyes to see that Christ is what we really seek.  

--Watchman Nee 

Christ Is All 6/27 Monday Meditation

Let me tell you that in bygone days God seemed to give you a gift, a power by which to be patient, so that you almost thought your problem of being patient was solved.  You then turned to deal with humility, and again God appeared to give you a gift, a power by which to be humble, so that you began to feel your problem of humility was settled.  Next you realized yet another problem in your life, for which you asked of God a solution.  Each day you tried to solve one or two problems -- yet what you were doing was solving fractional problems.
Brethren, God will take away all things in order to give you one Person who is to be simultaneously your humility, your patience, your gentleness, and your love.  For Christ is all.  And this is what Christianity actually is.   God builds incessantly until finally even this universe must confess that Christ is indeed all.  Today God desires to work out in us this confession that Christ is all.

--Watchman Nee 

Daily Destroying and Building 6/24 Friday Faith

God engages in a destroying work daily in the lives of His children that He may also do the work of a daily building up.  Daily destroy "things" and daily build up Christ.  This is God's way with His children.

--Watchman Nee

I AM 6/23 Thursday Thoughts

Today we are Christians.  We are saved, and God has given Christ to us to be our life.  Nevertheless, we are continually asking God for one thing, two things, three things, ten things, fifty things, a hundred things, ten thousand things, a million things, a billion things.  We think these actually count.  But God shows us that Christ is our all.
It is for this reason that God reveals in His word that Christ's name is "I AM".  We need to understand and experience more of this blessed name.

--Watchman Nee

Truth Becomes Weak? 6/22 Wednesday Wisdom

Friends, why is it that after many days the truth of God seems to lose it power, becoming so weak that it cannot touch us?  For no other reason than that it has become too much doctrine, too much theological knowledge!

--Watchman Nee 

If We Dispense the Light 6/21 Tuesday Truth

If doctrine is what we preach, doctrine will be received by people; but this is a dead object, not the light of life.  If the light of life is what we dispense, it will not only enlighten people's life, it will also be shone through them.  We must realize that since light was concrete and practical in the life of our Lord Jesus, it ought to be the same in our lives.

--Watchman Nee 

This Is Light 6/20 Monday Meditation

Many possess a rough and tough character.  They have never been broken by the Lord; neither themselves nor anybody else can deal with them.  Then the light of the Lord shines on them.  As soon as they see the light, they become broken vessels.  A person who sees the Lord is definitely weakened and broken.  No one is able to live after beholding the Lord.  This is light. 
--Watchman Nee

The Light of Life 6/17 Friday Faith

Many people mistake knowledge, doctrine, theology, and teaching as the light of life.  Some will even say they get light, though theirs is not necessarily the light of life.  What they consider light is only some interpretation regarding a certain passage of Scripture or a kind of teaching about the Bible.  The real light is not mere knowledge.  It is none other than the Lord himself.  The Lord emphatically declares that He is the light of life.

--Watchman Nee

Empty or Satisfied? 6/16 Thursday Thoughts

Oftentimes we do what we think is good and spiritual without knowing the Lord's mind, consequently we feel empty afterwards.  It is only when we follow the Lord that we achieve satisfaction.

--Watchman Nee

Feel Full Within 6/15 Wednesday Wisdom

It is the Lord who works in us.  Having touched the Lord, we will not feel empty but instead feel full upon finishing our work.  How mistaken we are if we regard rest or the hearing of a sermon or participation in a spiritual retreat as the means  of being filled.  To obtain food and spiritual nourishment is to allow the Lord to work out in us whatever He wishes to do.  The Lord who dwells in us allows us to touch His life, and this alone causes us to feel full within.

--Watchman Nee

Our Savior and Our Salvation 6/14 Tuesday Truth

...Of all God's grace there is only one grace, of all God's gifts there is only one gift.  That grace is Christ, that gift is also Christ.  Thank God, day after day He is showing us how Christ is all-inclusive.  Formerly we thought of the Lord as our Savior; now we can say He is not only our Savior but also our salvation.  

--Watchman Nee

More of His Life 6/13 Monday Meditation

Let us pray that we may truly know Christ to be our resurrection as well as our life.  May the Lord eliminate many of our "things" from us.  May He not only cause us to have more of His life but also less of ourselves.  How often we live according to the natural, neither knowing God's discipline nor the cross.  We need to ask the Lord to be merciful to us that the natural may gradually be decreased in us while the resurrected may be increasingly manifested.

--Watchman Nee 

The Church Is Not the Place 6/10 Friday Faith

The church is not the place where you bring in something of your cleverness and I bring in something of my tactfulness.  The church hs not built by your contributing a little bit of some natural thing and my contributing a little bit of some other natural thing.  The church shuts all the natural out and accepts only the resurrected.  Whenever the natural enters, the church loses its character.  There can be no unresurrected element in the church. 
--Watchman Nee

The Giver Is the Gift 6/9 Thursday Thoughts

Many Christians tend to talk about the Giver and His gifts separately.  But one day we find out that the Giver is himself His gift.  For God does not bring out many and various items to give to us in fragments; what He gives is Christ.  It is well if one day our eyes are opened to recognize this -- that all things are in Christ.

--Watchman Nee

His Doing Is Based on His Being 6/8 Wednesday Wisdom

What we admire and anticipate is that God will do more for us. Frequently our prayers and expectations before God are for the promise that the Lord will do thus and so for us.  Yet the Lord especially wishes us to see that it is not what He can do but what He himself is, for His doing is based on His being.

--Watchman Nee 

Working All the Time? 6/7 Tuesday Truth

When we first became a Christian, we were inclined to do everything ourselves, fearing lest nothing would ever be done or matters would fall to pieces if we did not do them.  Hence we were working all the time.  Later, in having seen the Lord to be our  life, we know that all is of Christ and not of us.  Consequently, we learn to rest and to look to Him.

--Watchman Nee 

Our Power Is Christ 6/6 Monday Meditation

To have the Lord as our life means to be given power by Him to do good.  Nevertheless, God shows us that our power is not a thing; it is simply Christ.  Our power is not the strength to do things; rather, it is a Person.  Life to us is not only power but also a Person.  It is Christ who manifests himself in us, instead of our using Christ to display our good works.

--Watchman Nee 

To Forgive or Not? 6/3 Friday Faith

Once a person wrote to a brother as follows:  "A brother has sinned against me, and I am not clear whether I should forgive him.  I therefore ask you to instruct me. My heart is quite composed before God. If you say I should forgive, I will forgive him.  If you think I should not, then I will not forgive him."  Brethren, what is your opinion about such a Christian?  

Suppose the one dearest to me is dead and so I write a letter to another person inquiring thus:  "He who is dearest to me is dead; should I therefore mourn?  If you say I should cry, I will cry; but if you say no, then I will not cry."  Most certainly you will laugh at such an inquiry, for it is absurd. If a person cries or does not cry according as he is told, neither his mourning nor his lack of mourning is real.  Both are false, and are therefore dead works and not life.  With your brother, you either forgive or you do not forgive.  Whenever you act on dead doctrine it is pretension.

--Watchman Nee

Christ Is Life 6/2 Thursday Thoughts

Many concede that to be a Christian is a difficult task.  This is especially true with young believers.  The more they try, the more difficult it becomes.  Upon having tried for a length of time, they still bear no resemblance to a Christian.  Brothers and sisters, if Christ is not life, we have to do the work; but if He is life, then we do not need to struggle.  Repeatedly we say that life is Christ himself, and work can never substitute life.

--Watchman Nee 

Unanswered Prayers 6/1 Wednesday Wisdom

The reason for many unanswered prayers and ineffective testimonies is found in our not touching the Lord.  We have merely copied the method of others; we have not touched the Lord himself.

--Watchman Nee 

Born, Not Taught 5/31 Tuesday Truth

Every spiritual thing outside of Christ is dead.  Let us underscore this well.  Some brothers and sisters are inwardly wondering: "How strange that another person believes God and his prayer is answered, while I too believe and yet am not heard.  Why is God gracious to him and not to me?"  They seem to charge God with partiality, not realizing that what they believe is but a thing, and therefore dead.  Neither formula nor method works;  only Christ is living.  Even if one has learned a whole set of methods, he is not therefore educated to be a Christian, because God's children must be born, not taught.

--Watchman Nee 

Intro to Watchman Nee 5/30 Monday Meditation

Watchman Nee (1903-1972) was a Chinese Christian church planter, pastor, and author.  He was imprisoned for his faith the last twenty years of his life and died a prisoner.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchman_Nee

The characteristic of Christianity lies in the fact that its source, depth, and riches are involved with the knowledge of God's Son.  It matters not how much we know of methods or doctrines or power.  What really matters is the knowledge of the Son of God.  Knowing God's Son is the way, knowing God's Son is the truth, and knowing God's Son is the life.  Our power comes from knowing His Son.  All that God gives to us is His Son, not a lot of things.  Hence, the whole question lies in knowing God's Son.

Man With Christ Is Greater 5/27 Friday Faith

This will be the last John G. Lake quote for a few months.  I will be switching on Monday to an author whom I have not quoted previously.

The man with Christ in him, the Holy Ghost, is greater than any other power in the world.  All other natural and evil powers are less than God; even Satan himself is a lesser power.  Man with God in him is greater than Satan.  That is the reason that God says to the believer, he shall cast out devils.  (See Mark 16:17).  The  Christian, therefore, is a ruler; he is in the place of dominion, the place of authority, even as Jesus was.

--John G. Lake 

A Separated Man 5/26 Thursday Thoughts

The real Christian is a separated man.  He is separated forever unto God in all the departments of his life, and so his body and his soul and his spirit are forever committed to God.  Therefore, from the day that he commits himself to God, he can go to no other power for help or healing, except to God.   

-- John G. Lake

Secret of How to Live 5/25 Wednesday Wisdom

(continued from Mon. & Tues.):  
Jesus gave us the secret of how to live this kind of life.  Jesus showed us that the only way to live this life was to commit oneself, as He did, to the will of God and not walk in his own ways at all, but walk in God's ways.  So the one who is going to be a Christ-man in the best sense and let the world see Jesus in him, must walk in all the ways of Jesus and follow Him.  He must be a Christ-man, a Christian, or Christ-one.

--John G. Lake

A Christ-man 5/24 Tuesday Truth

(continued from Monday):  When one gives himself to the Lord and becomes a child of God -- a Christian -- he is a Christ-man.  All that he does and all that he says from that time on should be the will and the words and the doings of Jesus, just as absolutely, just as entirely as He spoke and did the will of the Father.   (to be continued) 

-- John G. Lake

Jesus in a "sort-of" way ?? 5/23 Monday Meditation

A low standard of Christianity is responsible for all the shame and sin and wickedness in the world.  Many Christians think it is all right if they pattern after Jesus in a sort-of way.  They imitate Him and they do the things which He did; that is, they outwardly do them.  They perform kind acts and they do other things which Jesus did.  But the secret of Christianity is not doing, the secret is in being.  Real Christianity is in being a possessor of the nature of Jesus Christ.  In other words, it is being Christ in character, Christ in demonstration, Christ in agency of transmission.  (to be continued)

-- John G. Lake

Authority and Power 5/20 Friday Faith

And the Church will never be a real Church, in the real power of the living God again, until she comes back again to the original standard, where Jesus was.
Jesus said, "Behold, I give you authority."  What authority?  "Against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease"  (Matthew 10:1).  Jesus has vested that authority in you.  You say, "Well, Lord, we understand the authority that is in your Word, but we haven't the power."  But Jesus said, "Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you" (Acts 1:8).

--John G. Lake 

God Without Limitations 5/19 Thursday Thoughts

The struggle of the centuries has been to free the soul from narrow interpretations.  Jesus has sometimes been made to appear as a little bigot; sometimes as an impostor.  The world is still waiting to see Him as He is.  Jesus the magnificent, Jesus the giant, Jesus the dynamic -- the wonder of the centuries.

Take the shackles off God.

Let Him have a chance to bless mankind without limitations.

-- John G. Lake

The Church Has Been Robbed 5/18 Wednesday Wisdom

We contend, by the Word of God, that the world and the Church has been robbed of the presence, power, and blessing of Jesus Christ -- a present healer -- because the Church has falsely taught that the days of miracles are past.  The days of miracles never passed, only in the soul that lost its faith in God.  Where faith is, there ever will be the evidence of God's mighty power to save and heal.

--John G. Lake  

My Grace Is Sufficient (pt. 2) 5/17 Tuesday Truth

(continued from Monday)"or, it seemed like a little mouse in the granaries of Egypt, after the seven years of plenty, fearing it might die of famine.  Joseph might say, 'Cheer up, little mouse, my granaries are sufficient for thee.'  Again, I imagined a man away up yonder, in a lofty mountain, saying to himself, 'I breathe so many cubic feet of air every year, I fear I shall exhaust the oxygen in the atmosphere.'  But the earth might say, 'Breathe away, O man, and fill the lungs ever, my atmosphere is sufficient for thee.'  Oh, brethren, be great believers!..."   (quoting Charles Spurgeon)

--John G. Lake 

My Grace Is Sufficient (pt. 1) 5/16 Monday Meditation

"My grace is sufficient for thee." (2 Corinthians 12:9) I reached home and looked it up in the original, and at last it came to me in this way, 'My grace is sufficient for thee,' and I said, 'I should think it is, Lord,' and burst out laughing... It seemed to make unbelief so absurd.  It was as though some little fish, being very thirsty, was troubled about drinking the river dry, and Father Thames said, 'drink away, little fish, my stream is sufficient for thee.'   (to be continued)

-John G. Lake 

Lost the Old-Time Faith 5/13 Friday Faith

Is He with us still?  Yes, bless God.  Is He changed?  No. "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8).  "I am the Lord, I change not" (Malachi 3:6).  "For the gifts and calling of God are without repentances" (Romans 11:29).  God has never repented of having placed the gifts of the Holy Ghost in the Church.  In the name of Jesus Christ, I challenge any man to show by the Word of God that the gifts and power of God were withdrawn.  We have lost the old-time faith, that is where the trouble is!  Having forsaken God to lean upon the arms of flesh, and the fountain of living waters for broken cisterns that can hold no water.  (Jeremiah 2:13)  Let us honestly acknowledge our sin and return to the Lord our God.

--John G. Lake

Fruitful Spirit Life 5/12 Thursday Thoughts

(continued from yesterday)On the other hand, you spirit life is fruitful and built up and enriched by communion with the Father and by reading His Word.  And your spirit becomes strong and vigorous.  There issues from it a faith that is triumphant and creative.  I venture to say this:  The men and women who are weak in faith, that once were mighty in faith, are so because they have stopped feeding on the Word of God and stopped close, intimate fellowship with the Father.

--John G. Lake

Depleted Spirits 5/11 Wednesday Wisdom

The reason people do not have rich, beautiful faith is because their spirit is denied the privilege of communion and fellowship with the Father.  You understand me?  You don't read your Bible; you don't pore over it; you don't live in it; you don't spend any time in fellowship with the Father.  Consequently your spirit is depleted and weakened.  Faith springs out of it and the faith that grows out of it is a sickly plant.   (to be continued) 

--John G. Lake