"Believing: Directing the Heart's attention to Jesus.
And looking upon Jesus as He walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God! John 1:36
The Hebrew epistle instructs us to run life's race "looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith,"
for faith is not a once-done act, but a continuous gaze of the heart at the Triune God!
Believing, actually is directing the heart's attention to Jesus. It is lifting the mind to "behold the Lamb of God," and never ceasing that beholding for the rest of our lives. Distractions may hinder, but once the heart is committed to Him, after each brief excursion away from Him the attention will return again and rest upon Him like a wandering bird coming back to its window.
I would emphasize this one committal, this one great volitional act which establishes the heart's intention to gaze forever upon Jesus. God takes this intention for our choice and makes what allowances He must for the thousand distractions which beset us in this evil world.
Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus.
When we lift our inward eyes to gaze upon God we are sure to meet friendly eyes gazing back at us, for it is written that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the earth. The sweet language of experience is, "Thou God seest me." When the eyes of the soul looking out meet the eyes of God looking in, heaven has begun right here on earth!"
I especially loved that phrase, "Faith is not a once-done act, but a continuous gaze of the heart at the Triune God!"
Things I want to share with you.
Showing posts with label daily devotional. Show all posts
Showing posts with label daily devotional. Show all posts
Thursday, 30 March 2017
Saturday, 28 January 2017
"Renewed Day by Day" entry for January 27th.
“Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation. For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness; neither shall evil dwell with thee” (Psalm 5:1, 4)
Among Christians of all ages and of varying shades of doctrinal emphasis there has been fairly full agreement on one thing: they all believed that it was important that the Christian with serious spiritual aspirations should learn to meditate long and often on God!
Let a Christian insist upon rising above the poor average of current religious experience and he will soon come up against the need to know God Himself as the ultimate goal of all Christian doctrine.
Let him seek to explore the sacred wonders of the Triune Godhead and he will discover that sustained and intelligently directed meditation of the Person of God is imperative. To know God well he must think on Him unceasingly. Nothing that man has discovered about himself or God has revealed any shortcut to pure spirituality. It is still free, but tremendously costly!
Of course, this presupposes at least a fair amount of sound theological knowledge. To seek God apart from His own self-disclosure in the inspired Scriptures is not only futile but dangerous. There must be also a knowledge of and complete trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Redeemer.
Christ is not one of many ways to approach God, not is He the best of several ways; He is the only way, “the way, the truth and the life.”
To believe otherwise is to be something less than a Christian!
~A. W. Tozer~
There's a challenge! "Think on God unceasingly." It may be costly, but it leads to eternal life.
"And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."(John 17:3)
Knowing God must surely lead to the highest degree of blessedness.
" that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection..." Philippians 3:10
How well do you know God?
Among Christians of all ages and of varying shades of doctrinal emphasis there has been fairly full agreement on one thing: they all believed that it was important that the Christian with serious spiritual aspirations should learn to meditate long and often on God!
Let a Christian insist upon rising above the poor average of current religious experience and he will soon come up against the need to know God Himself as the ultimate goal of all Christian doctrine.
Let him seek to explore the sacred wonders of the Triune Godhead and he will discover that sustained and intelligently directed meditation of the Person of God is imperative. To know God well he must think on Him unceasingly. Nothing that man has discovered about himself or God has revealed any shortcut to pure spirituality. It is still free, but tremendously costly!
Of course, this presupposes at least a fair amount of sound theological knowledge. To seek God apart from His own self-disclosure in the inspired Scriptures is not only futile but dangerous. There must be also a knowledge of and complete trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Redeemer.
Christ is not one of many ways to approach God, not is He the best of several ways; He is the only way, “the way, the truth and the life.”
To believe otherwise is to be something less than a Christian!
~A. W. Tozer~
There's a challenge! "Think on God unceasingly." It may be costly, but it leads to eternal life.
"And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."(John 17:3)
Knowing God must surely lead to the highest degree of blessedness.
" that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection..." Philippians 3:10
How well do you know God?
Thursday, 29 September 2016
Renewed Day by Day. Today's Tozer devotional.
"We should always seek to know Christ better.
"Seek ye the Lord, and his strength: seek His face evermore. Psalm 105:4"
"Are you aware that we have been snared in the coils of a modern spurious logic which insists that if we have found Christ we need no more seek Him.
This is set before us as the last word in orthodoxy, and it is taken for granted that no Bible-taught Christian ever believed otherwise. Thus the whole testimony of the worshipping, seeking, singing Church on that subject is crisply set aside.
The experiential heart-theology of of a grand army of fragrant saints is rejected in favor of a smug interpretation of Scripture which would certainly have sounded strange to an Augustine, a Rutherford or a Brainerd.
"Seek ye the Lord, and his strength: seek His face evermore. Psalm 105:4"
"Are you aware that we have been snared in the coils of a modern spurious logic which insists that if we have found Christ we need no more seek Him.
This is set before us as the last word in orthodoxy, and it is taken for granted that no Bible-taught Christian ever believed otherwise. Thus the whole testimony of the worshipping, seeking, singing Church on that subject is crisply set aside.
The experiential heart-theology of of a grand army of fragrant saints is rejected in favor of a smug interpretation of Scripture which would certainly have sounded strange to an Augustine, a Rutherford or a Brainerd.
In the midst of this great chill there are some, I rejoice to acknowledge, who will not be content with shallow logic. They will admit the force of the argument, and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray, "O God, show me thy glory." They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God.
I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted! Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain!"
Tuesday, 16 February 2016
J.R. Miller's "In Green Pastures" devotional for February 14th.
"The Value of the Reserve
There is a wide difference between worrying about a possible future of trial and being ready for it if it should come. The former we should never be; the latter we should always seek to be. It is he who is always prepared for emergencies, for the hard pinches, the steep climbing, the sore struggle, that gets through life victoriously. In moral and spiritual things it is the same. It is the reserve that saves us in all final tests - the strength that lies behind what we need in ordinary experiences. Those who daily commune with God, breathing his life into their souls, become strong with that secret, hidden strength which preserves them from falling in the day of trial. They have a "vessel" from which to refill the lamp when its little cup of oil is exhausted."
There is a wide difference between worrying about a possible future of trial and being ready for it if it should come. The former we should never be; the latter we should always seek to be. It is he who is always prepared for emergencies, for the hard pinches, the steep climbing, the sore struggle, that gets through life victoriously. In moral and spiritual things it is the same. It is the reserve that saves us in all final tests - the strength that lies behind what we need in ordinary experiences. Those who daily commune with God, breathing his life into their souls, become strong with that secret, hidden strength which preserves them from falling in the day of trial. They have a "vessel" from which to refill the lamp when its little cup of oil is exhausted."
Tuesday, 26 January 2016
Patient Love - today's excerpt from In Green Pastures daily devotional by J.R. Miller D.D
"As I have loved you" means love that is sweet, fragrant, and gentle to men who have may rudenesses and meannesses, who are selfish and faulty, with sharp corners and but partially sanctified lives and very vexing ways. If all Christian people were angelic, and you were too, it would not be hard to love all; but as many other people are not yet angelic, you will still have need of patience, even if you are angelic yourself, - which probably you are not."
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