Prayer in Private

A. W. Tozer wrote an interesting piece on prayer that has to do with our personal prayer times at home. This basically comes down to integrity, the man we desire to be when no one is looking. Look at Daniel as our example.

Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days.—Daniel 6:10

Thomas a’ Kempis wrote that the man of God ought to be more at home in his prayer chamber than before the public….

No man should stand before an audience who has not first stood before God. Many hours of communion should precede one hour in the pulpit. The prayer chamber should be more familiar than the public platform. Prayer should be continuous, preaching but intermittent.

It is significant that the schools teach everything about preaching except the important part, praying. For this weakness the schools are not to be blamed, for the reason that prayer cannot be taught; it can only be done. The best any school or any book (or any article) can do is to recommend prayer and exhort to its practice. Praying itself must be the work of the individual. That it is the one religious work which gets done with the least enthusiasm cannot but be one of the tragedies of our times.

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Sheep Are Led, Not Driven

I was recently reading some A. W. Tozer on leadership; very sobering and needed in American cultural Christianity…

Cattle are driven; sheep are led; and our Lord compares his people to sheep, not to cattle.
It is especially important that Christian ministers know the law of the leader—that he can lead others only as far as he himself has gone.

Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For he is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.—Psalm 95:6-7

The minister must EXPERIENCE what he would teach or he will find himself in the impossible position of trying to drive sheep. For this reason he should seek to CULTIVATE his OWN heart before he attempts to preach to the hearts of others.

If he tries to bring them into a heart knowledge of truth which he has not actually experienced he will SURELY FAIL. In his frustration he may attempt to drive them; and scarcely anything is so disheartening as the sight of a vexed and confused shepherd using the lash on his bewildered flock in a vain attempt to persuade them to go on beyond the point to which he himself has attained.

The law of the leader tells us who are preachers that it is better to cultivate our souls than our voices. It is better to polish our hearts than our pulpit manners, though if the first has been done well and successfully it may be profitable for us to do the second. We cannot take our people beyond where we ourselves have been, and it thus becomes vitally important that we be men of God in the last and highest sense of that term.

[ The Price of Neglect, 151-153 ]

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Happiness is Not Our Goal

This is a hard subject, but we in the West often believe that the primary goal of our life is to be happy. The Declaration of Independence for the United States of America promotes the concept that mankind is endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But is happiness the goal in life?

You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier. (2 Timothy 2:3-4)

The fact that we are born to be happy is rarely questioned by anyone. No one bothers to prove that fallen human beings have ANY moral right to happiness, or that they are any better off happy. The goal is often to get the most happiness out of life.

I was read A. W. Tozer and he writes that “the whole hectic scramble after happiness is an evil as certainly as is the scramble after money or fame or success….”

This can be easily discovered by simply reading the New Testament. The emphasis of God is not upon our happiness but upon our holiness. God is more concerned with the state of people’s hearts than with the state of their feelings.

The soldier does not seek to be happy in the field; he seeks rather to get the fighting over with, to win the war and get back home to his loved ones. When he gets home, it is there that he or she may enjoy life to the fullest. While the battle is raging, his most pressing job is to be a good soldier regardless of how he feels. (from “Of God and Men” pp. 48-49)

Ask yourself a few direct questions…

  1. Do you seek your holiness more than your happiness?
  2. Will you reorganize your priorities to reflect your commitment to Christ and his kingdom?
  3. Will you allow God to speak to you through your reading his Word, so you better know the leadership of the Holy Spirit in your life? [ Read the Bible in 2014 ]
  4. Who in your life will hold you accountable for the commitments you know that you need to make?

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