Tag: Church

Heart Health Food or Just Tasty Snacks

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A.W. Tozerby A.W. Tozer

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders performed by the apostles. Acts 2:42–43

Dr. Samuel Johnson, the famous English sage, once said that one of the surest evidences of intellectual immaturity is the desire to startle people. Yet there are Christians who have been fed upon the odd, the strange and the curious so long and so exclusively that they have become wholly unfitted spiritually to receive or to appreciate sound doctrine. They live to be startled by something new or thrilled by something wonderful. They will believe anything so long as it is just a little away from the time-honored beliefs of sober Christian men. A serious discourse calling for repentance, humbleness of mind, and holiness of life is impatiently dismissed as old-fashioned, dull, and lacking in “audience appeal.” Yet these things are just the ones that rank highest on the list of things we need to hear, and by them we shall be judged in that great day of Christ. A church fed on excitement is no New Testament church at all. The desire for surface stimulation is a sure mark of the fallen nature, the very thing Christ died to deliver us from. A curious crowd of baptized “worldlings” waiting each Sunday for the quasi-religious needle to give them a lift bears no relation whatsoever to a true assembly of Christian believers. That its members protest their undying faith in the Bible does not change things any. “Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.”

by A.W. Tozer

The Psychology of Impermanence

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A.W. Tozerby A.W. Tozer

Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria—enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers. Acts 9:31

Time may show that one of the greatest weaknesses in our modern civilization has been the acceptance of quantity rather than quality as the goal after which to strive. This is particularly evident in the United States. Costly buildings are constantly being erected with no expectation that they shall last more than one short generation. Not only in our architecture but almost everywhere else is this psychology of impermanence found. A beauty salon ad recently defined a term that has long needed clarification. It read: “Permanent Waves. Guaranteed to last three months.” So, permanence is the quality of lasting three months! These may be extreme cases, but they illustrate the transiency of men’s hopes and the brevity of their dreams apart from God.

The church also is suffering from a left-handed acceptance of this philosophy of impermanence. Christianity is resting under the blight of degraded values. And it all stems from a too-eager desire to impress, to gain fleeting attention, to appear well in comparison with some world-beater who happens for the time to have the ear or the eye of the public. This is so foreign to the Scriptures that we wonder how Bible-loving Christians can be deceived by it. The Word of God ignores size and quantity and lays all its stress upon quality. Christ, more than any other man, was followed by the crowds, yet after giving them such help as they were able to receive, He quietly turned from them and deposited His enduring truths in the breasts of His chosen 12. He refused a quick shortcut to the throne and chose instead the long painful way of the cross. He rejected the offers of the multitude and rested His success upon those eternal qualities, which He was able to plant in the hearts of a modest number of redeemed men. The ages have thanked God that He did.

by A.W. Tozer