Author Archives: Jerry Wierwille
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“As we move farther on in the Christian life we may expect to encounter increased hostility from the enemy of our souls. Although this is seldom presented to Christians as a fact of life it is a very solid fact indeed as every experienced Christian knows, and one we shall learn how to handle or stumble over to our own undoing. If Satan opposes the new convert he opposes still more bitterly the Christian who is pressing on toward a higher life in Christ. The Spirit-filled life is not, as many suppose, a life of peace and quiet pleasure. It is likely to be something quite the opposite. Satan hates the true Christian for several reasons. One is that God loves him, and whatever is loved by God is sure to be hated by the devil. Another is that the Christian, being a child of God, bears a family resemblance […]
“God being who He is must always be sought for Himself, never as a means toward something else. Whoever seeks other objects and not God is on his own; he may obtain those objects if he is able, but he will never have God. Whoever seeks God as a means toward desired 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! His mercy and grace are infinite and His patient understanding is beyond measure, but He will not aid men in their selfish striving after personal gain. He will not help man to attain ends which, when attained, usurp the place He by every right should hold in their interest and affection. Yet popular Christianity has as one of its […]
“The Christian should always be aware that the devil’s master strategy against us is to destroy our power to wage spiritual warfare! And he has been succeeding, we must add. The average Christian these days is a harmless enough thing, God knows. He is a child wearing with considerable self-consciousness the harness of the warrior; he is a sick eaglet that can never mount up with wings; he is a spent pilgrim who has given up the journey and sits with a waxy smile trying to get what pleasure he can from sniffing the wilted flowers he has plucked by the way. Such as these have been reached! Satan has gotten to them early. By means of false teaching or inadequate teaching, or the huge discouragement that comes from the example of a decadent church, he has succeeded in weakening their resolution, neutralizing their convictions, and taming their original urge […]
“What is generally overlooked among humankind is that truth as set forth in the Christian Scriptures is a moral thing; it is not addressed to the intellect only, but to the will also. It addresses itself to the total man, and its obligations cannot be discharged by grasping it mentally. Truth engages the citadel of the human heart and is not satisfied until it has conquered everything there. The will must come forth and surrender its sword. It must stand at attention to receive orders, and those orders it must joyfully obey. Short of this any knowledge of Christian truth is inadequate and unavailing. Bible exposition without moral application raises no opposition. It is only when the hearer is made to understand that truth is in conflict with his heart that resistance sets in…Much that passes for New Testament Christianity is little more than objective truth sweetened with song and […]
“Too many people consider Jesus Christ a ‘convenience.’ We make Him a lifeboat to get us to shore, a guide to find us when we are lost. We reduce Him simply to a Big Friend to help us when we are in trouble. That is not biblical Christianity! Jesus Christ is Lord, and when a man is willing to do His will, he is repenting and the truth flashes in. For the first time in his life, he finds himself willing to say, ‘I will do the will of the Lord, even if I die for it!’ Illumination will begin in his heart. That is repentance—for he has been following his own will and now decides to do the will of God. Before the Word of God can mean anything inside of me there must be obedience to the Word. Truth will not give itself to a rebel. Truth will […]
“What is overlooked in all this is that faith is good only when it engages truth…For it is not enough that we believe; we must believe in the right thing about the right One. True faith requires that we believe everything God has said about Himself and also that we believe everything He has said about us.” ~A. W. Tozer, Of God and Men I have heard it long said that “You just need to believe!” What I ask in return is, “What do I need to believe?” What we believe is just as crucial as the fact that we do believe, but the two cannot be divorced from each other. You cannot have empty faith; your faith has to be in something. Knowing what you believe defines the content of your faith; it is the brick and mortar that gives substance to your convictions. If you don’t know what […]
“For a long time I have believed that truth, to be understood, must be lived; that Bible doctrine is wholly ineffective until it has been digested and assimilated by the total life. The essence of my belief is that there is a difference, a vast difference, between fact and truth. Truth in the Scriptures is more than a fact. A fact may be detached, impersonal, cold, and totally disassociated from life. Truth on the other hand, is warm, living, and spiritual. A theological fact may be held in the mind for a lifetime without its having any positive effect upon the moral character, but truth is creative, saving, transforming, and it always changes the one who receives it into a humbler and holier man. At what point, then, does theological fact become for the one that holds it a life-giving truth?—At that point where obedience begins.” ~A. W. Tozer, That […]
“Yet for all God’s good will toward us, He is unable to grant us our heart’s desires till all our desires have been reduced to one. When we have dealt with our carnal ambitions; when we have trodden upon the lion and adder of the flesh, have trampled the dragon of self-love under our feet and have truly reckoned ourselves to have died unto sin, then and only then can God raise us to newness of life and fill us with His blessed Holy Spirit. For everyone that actually crosses over into the Promised Land there are many who stand for a while and look longingly across the river and then turned sadly back to the comparative safety of the sandy wastes of the old life!” ~A. W. Tozer, Born After Midnight Oh how foolish our heart is! We pray to God to fill our cup with his goodness, mercy, and […]
“We can hold a correct view of truth only by daring to believe everything God has said about Himself.” ~A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy “Much of our difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify Him and to bring Him nearer to our own image.” ~A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God I think one of the most uncomfortable things a Christian can come across while reading Scripture is a verse that states something that is contrary to what they want to believe or have traditionally believed for a long time. A dark cloud of dissonance forms within their mind and they scramble for any suitable explanation to dismiss the words in order to relax their taut nerves. Most Christians do not have the backbone to stand up and examine […]
Psalm 108:1-5 ESV (//Ps 57:8-11) My heart is steadfast, O God! I will sing and make melody with all my being! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn! I will give thanks to you, O LORD, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your steadfast love is great above the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth! For years the haze of mediocrity loomed over me. I was resting in the ease and security of complacency and enjoyed the sweet caress of comfortability. Who was I…I was just another face in the crowd, another body trying to fit in and do what everyone else was doing. It was a dull pattern of conformity that left me feeling empty inside. The pangs of hunger never abated and I carried on in […]