The Good, Great and the Old to learn from.

Chuck Swindall, the great Bible teacher and author I admire wrote the following about the long gone authors and saints in his book " So you want to be like Christ?".

"Those long-ago authors took a lot of time to turn over a phrase in their mind. They held it up to the light to examine it from one angle, then got underneath it to look at it from the prospective, and then held it against the mirror of Scripture. They were meditating with ink on paper, and the result is marvelous! 
They didn't write to entertain the hurried reader. They couldn't have cared less if their book was marketed or if it sold a hundred copies. They didn't write to make a best seller list, they wrote in order to deepen. And you can tell it! They poured their thoughts on paper, assuming the reader would also take time to turn it over in his or her mind.

Alan Redpath in his book, Blessings Out of Buffeting, writes as follows:

"All the great men of God have been so simple, just as little children. I could bring in an array of them to your mind-Isaiah and Paul from the Word of God, Bunyan, William Carey, Handley Moule, Hudson Taylor, D.L.Moody, Adoniram Judson to mention just a few, but these men with brilliant minds were basically as simple as little children in their walk with God.
A man may be a saint without having many of the qualities which the world today rates very highly, but he will never be a saint without simplicity of soul, a simplicity that is in Christ. It was this that burned in the heart of Martin Luther in the days of the Reformation when he said, " Let us get through to God. Give us a basic, dynamic personal simplicity of faith in Jesus Christ." "

" Live with the steady superiority over life. Don't be afraid of misfortune. Do not yearn after happiness. It is , after all, all the same. The bitter doesn't last forever. And the sweet never fills  the cup to overflowing. It is enough if you don't freeze in the cold. And if thirst and hunger don't claw at your insides, if your back isn't broken, if your feet can walk and your arms can bend, if both eyes can see, if both ears hear, then whom...whom should you envy?"
                                                           Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Oh, my friends, don't we yearn to learn from these great saints of God and choose to slow down and simplify our lives in our ever hurrying and material consuming  world we live in.
I truly yearn to be like the authors of the old who Swindall writes about-the Christian author who don't write to make a best seller list and cared less about how many copies his book got sold. Instead, I want to be the author who wants to deepen the faith and strengthen the walk of the readers with God. But, to make my want and wishing to become a reality, I need to examine the depth of my devotion to God. Otherwise, I become a hypocrite. My knowledge of scripture and life experiences and writing skill may carry me some distance to earn dollars and reputation. But, to dig deep and bring out beautiful outcome of Christlikeness, my heart need to burn with passion for Christ and have the depth I strive to bring in my readers.

Prayers with no asking

O God, my hope, my heavenly rest
   My all of happiness below
Grant my important request
   To me, to me, Thy goodness show;
Thy beatific face display
The brightness of eternal day.

Before my faith's enlightened eyes
   Make all Thy gracious goodness pass
Thy goodness is the sight I prize;
  O might I see Thy smiling face
Thy nature in my soul proclaim,
Reveal Thy love, Thy glorious name.

                             Charles Wesley




 Lord of all being, throned afar
Thy glory flames from sun and star
Center and soul of every sphere
Yet to each loving heart how near!

Lord of all life, below, above
Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love
Before thy ever-blazing throne
We ask no luster of our own.

                             Oliver Wendell Holmes

Self-Sufficient God needs no helpers nor defenders!

" The problem of why God created the universe still troubles thinking men; but if we cannot know why, we can at least know that He did not bring His worlds into being to meet some unfulfilled need in Himself....The word necessary is wholly foreign to God...As no one can promote Him, so no one can degrade Him.

Were all human beings suddenly to become blind, still the sun would shine by day and the stars by night, for these owe nothing  to the millions  who benefit from their light. So, were every man on earth to become atheist, it could not affect God in any way.

 He is what He is in Himself without regard to any other. To believe in Him adds nothing to His perfections: to doubt Him takes nothing away.

The picture of a nervous, ingratiating God fawning over men to win their favor is not a pleasant one: yet if we look at the popular conception of God that is precisely what e see. Twentieth century Christianity has put God on charity.

Probably the hardest thought of all for our natural egotism to entertain is that God does not need our help. We commonly represent Him as a busy, eager, somewhat frustrated Father hurrying about seeking help to carry out His benevolent plan to bring peace and salvation to the world...The God who worketh all things surely needs no help and no helpers.

Too many missionary appeals are based upon this fancied frustration of Almighty God...I fear that thousands of younger persons enter Christian services from no higher motives than to help deliver God from the embarrassing situation. His love has gotten Him into and His limited abilities seem unable to get Him out of.

Again, God needs no defenders. He is the eternal Undefended.

To be right we must think worthily of God. It is morally imperative that we purge from our minds all ignoble concepts of the Deity and let Him be the God in our minds that He is in His universe."

(Taken from the book,The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer)

N:B

I say amen to all what Tozer had put in words above. Because I cannot think, say or write so beautifully and affirmatively as Tozer who dwells endless hours in commune with God, I choose to share his knowledge of the Holy with those who read my blog so that they too will be blessed and put aright in their concept of God.

The Unfathomable One

                                                   

                                            The Unfathomable One


The words below are not my own. They are taken from the chapter of the Self Existence of God in the book of The Knowledge  of the Holy by A.W. Tozer, who stands high in my evaluation in his ardent devotion to God.

Enjoy the beauty and wisdom of the words as I have and fall prostrate before God Almighty in utter humility to admit that you are nothing without Him and you know nothing of Him unless He in His grace reveals to you in the way He chooses to do so.

"The human mind being created has an understandable uneasiness about the Uncreated.We do not find it comfortable to allow for thepresence of One who is wholly outside of the circle of our familiar knowledge. We tend to be disquieted by the thought of One who does not account to us for His being, who is responsible to no one,who is self-existent, self-dependent and self-sufficient.

Philosophy and science have not always been friendly toward the idea of God, the reason being that they are dedicated to the task of accountng for things and impatient with anything that refuses to give an account of itself. The philosophers and the scientists will admit that there is much that they do not know, but this is quite another thing from admitting that there is something which they can never know, which indeed they have no technique for discovering.

To admit that there is One who lies beyond us who exists outside of all our categories,who will not be dismissed with a name,who will not appear before the bar of our reason,nor submit to our curious inquiries;this requires a great deal of humility,more than most of us possess,so we save face by thinking God down to our level,or at least down to where we can manage Him.

Yet,how He eludes us! For He is everywhere while He is nowhere,for "where" has to do with matter and space,and God is independent of both.  He is unaffected by time or motion,is wholly self-dependent and owes nothing to the worlds His hands have made."

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan:
The proper study of mankind is man.

The Cry of a Saintly Man

   
                              The cry of a saintly man


Up now, slight man! Flee for a little while thy occupations;
hide thyself for a time from thy disturbing thoughts.
Cast aside now thy burdensome cares, and put away thy toilsome business.

Yield room for a some little time to God
and rest for a little time in HIm.
Enter the inner chamber of thy mind;
shut out all thoughts save that of God and such as can aid thee in seeking Him.
Speak now, my whole heart!
Speak now to God, saying I seek Thy Face,
Lord will I seek.

                   Anselm

The Unseen Universe

The Unseen Universe-yes, that's the title of the chapter on the story of Job I'm reading today. The writer is none other than my favorite teacher Oswald Chambers.

As we all know by experience, how much the book of Job bring consolation  when we go through great trouble and sadness. For long we have been bought into the belief that as long as we trust in  God and live according to His ways, nothing could go wrong. If a person suffers, then there must be a good reason for it- either the person had done something wrong to bring down such a punishment or the person is somehow getting perfected by going through such suffering.

However, Job's story contradicts all such thinking. According to the Bible, Job was perfect in every way before suffering touched his life. God, Himself had given the highest rapport about him-" Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." (Job 1:8) Job didn't do any harm to get punished nor he deserved to go through pain and suffering to get perfected. Yet, Job underwent severe physical suffering, mental agony, the death of sons and daughters and the loss of his property and herds. And God chose to keep out of sight during all this time.

It is easy for us to get mad at God when troubles come our way. Most of us who live in the western world somehow think that we are entitled to have a trouble free life. And that's why we begin to grumble, groan and complain no sooner any kind of pain or sorrow come our way. Even a sprinkle of rain and cloudy sky for a day or two in Southern California where I live could make people grumpy and mournful.

" The man who knows that there are problems and difficulties in life is not easily moved. Most of us get touchy with God and desert Him when He does not back up our creed." writes Chambers in this chapter. He further goes on to write," There are things in our heavenly Father's dealings with us which have no immediate explanation.There are inexplicable providence which test us to the limit, and prove that rationalism is a mere mental pose."

In the first chapter of the Book of Job, we come upon a scene where God and Satan make a challenge over Job's faithfulness. Job had no clue of what's going on up in heaven. Suddenly, without any warning or permission asked,  he was pushed into an arena to encounter suffering after suffering.  Being unable to watch him suffer in pain from head to foot, his wife asked him to give up on God and die cursing Him. His three friends on whom Job relied for support and comfort further added to his agony by their reasoning and judgement. Any other person would have turned his back on God, but not Job. Instead of cursing as his wife suggested,  Job uttered amidst his pain," Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." That is faith sounding its bells for Almighty to beam with pride and rejoice over His servant's faithfulness.

We have no clue why bad things happen to good people or how bad people get away unpunished? We are incapable of detecting what's happening in the unseen universe either. Like Job, if we could persevere the tough times in steadfast faith, we could also make our Maker beam with pride.***

Getting ahead of God

" Beware of getting ahead of God by your very desire to do His will. We run ahead of Him in a thousand  and one activities, becoming so burdened with people and problems that we don't worship God and fail to intercede." Oswald Chambers.

How very true and what a great warning this man of God gave to his hearers and readers in his days. Even today, his devotional, My Utmost for His Highest is considered to be a classic and read by believers all over the world.

I wonder what Chambers would have written today in our busyness driven, twitter ridden world. Who knows, he might have even given up writing completely so that he could be on his knees all day long to intercede for us, Christians, so that we could be brought  back to our knees and spend quality time with God.
 
No doubt Chambers would have definitely chosen to do that, because he was someone who knew his priority in the right order. His words were direct, blunt and wholesome.  How else, could a man after God's own heart, like Chambers  translates what's burning in his heart other than telling it as it is. He could have tempered it down to please his audience, but his priority was to please the One, whose audience Chambered sought the most.

Today, seldom a Christian preacher or writer want to convey the message in the way Chamber did. No one wants to upset or offend their audience.  People pleasing rather than God pleasing has become the style of this Christian era. Result- Celebrity status craving is creeping into whatever we venture in. Sadly, we have bought into the misconception that whatever we do are mostly for the benefit of God; in other words- for the glory of God.

It is here, we need to pause, take a step back and assess our doings.  If we are running ahead of God to fulfill His plan in my life and for this world, I need to slap myself to waken me up and realize that I'm not God, but He is.

It is His story we are called to play a part. It is He, who decides how big or small our part is going to be. All what He expects from us-availability, obedience and commitment. In His hand a twig could gain an oak like strength and a mount-height oak could disappear without a trace.

So, let us minding our minute status before God, watch our steps and words in following Him,  rather than running ahead of Him with our plans and projects for His glory.