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First Nazarene Church of Amarillo

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Devotions - Tozer

Tozer - January 31st, 2010

Thoughts from A.W. Tozer


How to Have a Personal Revival
Determined Implementation of Change
Steps to Spiritual Growth

 

Deliberately narrow your interests. The jack-of-all-trades is the master of none. The Christian life requires that we be specialists. Too many projects use up time and energy without bringing us nearer to God.


Begin to witness. Find something to do for God and your fellow man. Refuse to rust out. Make yourself available to your pastor and do anything you are asked to do. Do not insist upon a place of leadership. Learn to obey. Take the low place until such time as God sees fit to set you in a higher one. Back your new intentions with your money and your gifts, such as they are.


Have faith in God. Begin to expect. Look up toward the throne where your Advocate sits at the right hand of God. All heaven is on your side. God will not disappoint you.

 

 

Thought
God knows how desperately the church needs a spiritual resurrection. And it can only come through the revived individual.

 

Scripture For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. 2 Timothy 1:7

 

Prayer Of God, I trust You for determination and enablement to implement the changes You want me to make. In Jesus’ name.

 

 

Tozer - January 24th, 2010

Thoughts from A.W. Tozer

How to Have a Personal Revival
Self-examination
Steps to Spiritual Growth

 

 

 

 Bring you life into accord with the Sermon on the Mount and such other New Testament Scriptures as are designed to instruct us in the way of righteousness. An honest man with an open Bible and a pad and pencil is sure to find out what is wrong with him very quickly. I recommend that the self-examination be made on our knees, rising to obey God’s commandments as they are revealed to us from the Word..

 

Be serious-minded.  The devil’s ideals, moral standards and mental attitudes are being accepted by you without your knowing it.  And you wonder why you can make no progress in your Christian life. Your interior climate is not favorable to the growth of spiritual graces. There must be a radical change in your habits or there will not be any permanent improvement in your interior life 

 

 

Thought
Personal revival will mean thoughtful personal application of God’s Word and counter-culture living. Living counter to the world about us but, in some instances, counter to current evangelical culture, as well.

 

Scripture

Search me, O Lord and know my heart

Psalm 139:23-24

 

Prayer

Father, show me what must be discarded from my present life patterns and what needs to be added

 

 

Tozer - January 17th, 2010

Thoughts from A.W. Tozer

How to Have a Personal Revival
Serious Repentance and Restitution
Steps to Spiritual Growth

 

 

 

Put yourself in the way of the blessing.  It is a mistake to look for grace to visit us as a kind of benign magic, or to expect God’s help to come as a windfall apart from conditions known and met. There are plainly marked paths which lead straight to the green pastures; let us walk in them.  To desire revival, for instance, and at the same time to neglect prayer and devotion is to wish one way and walk another.

 

 Do a thorough job of repenting.  Do not hurry to get it over with.  Hasty repentance means shallow spiritual experience and lack of certainty in the whole life.  Let godly sorrow do her healing work. Until we allow the consciousness of sin to wound us, we will never develop a fear of evil. It is our wretched habit of tolerating sin that keeps us in our half-dead condition 

 

Make restitution whenever possible.  If you owe a debt, pay it, or at least have a frank understanding with your creditor about your intention to pay, so you honesty will be above question. If you have quarreled with anyone, go as far as you can in an effort to achieve reconciliation. As fully as possible make that crooked things straight.

 

ThoughtRepentance and restitution result when we seriously reflect on what God shows us in His Word. What is it of which we need to repent and is there restitution to be made?

 

Scripture

Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.—Matthew 3:8

 

Prayer

My tendency, Lord, is not to take seriously my sin that hurts other people and to leave unrepaired the damage I have left in the lives of others. Make me sensitive, Lord!

 

 

Tozer - January 10th, 2010

Thoughts from A.W. Tozer

Seeking God with ALL Our Heart
How to Have a Personal Revival—Steps to Spiritual Growth 

Get thoroughly dissatisfied with yourself.  Complacency is the deadly enemy of spiritual progress.  The contented soul is the stagnant soul.  When speaking of earthly goods Paul could say, “I have learned to be content” (Philippians 4:11); but when referring to his spiritual life he testified, “I press on toward the goal” (3:14).  “So stir up the gift of God that is in thee” (2 Timothy 1:6, KJV).

Set your face like a flint toward a sweeping transformation of your life.  Timid experimenters are tagged for failure before they start.  We must throw our whole soul into our desire for God.  “The kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold our it” (Matthew 11:12). 

Thought
A holy dissatisfaction arises when we look in the mirror of God’s Word.  What He has for us is far beyond what we have so far experienced.  But when we seek to know God with all our heart, He will be found. 

Scripture
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.—Jeremiah 29:13 

Prayer
Lord, I want to grow not just tomorrow or in the years ahead but now, today.  Show me what it means to seek You with all my heart.