Ours and His

The only sin that Jesus ever had was ours.

The only righteousness that we will ever have is His.

[A. W. Tozer]

Isaiah 53:5 ...  But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Romans 3:22-23 ...  Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; ❤

The Bird of Thought ~~~

What we think about when we are free to think about whatever we desire--that is what we are or will soon become.

Anyone who wishes to check on his true spiritual condition, may do so by noting what his voluntary thoughts have been over the last hours or days. What has he thought about, when free to think about whatever he pleased? Toward what has his inner heart turned, when it was free to turn wherever it desired?

When the bird of thought was let go, did it fly out like the raven to settle upon floating carcasses? Or did it like the dove circle and return again to the ark of God? Such a test is easy to run; and if we are honest with ourselves, then we can discover not only what we are; but what we are going to become. We will soon be the sum of our voluntary thoughts!

Long practice in the art of frequent, heartfelt prayers (that is, talking to God inwardly as we work or travel) will help to form the habit of holy thoughts. "For as a man thinks in his heart, so he is." (Proverbs 23:7)

"Oh, Lord, you know the constant struggle which we have with our thought life. You know how often our thoughts settle on rotten carcasses. Take control of my thoughts today and give me grace to develop the habit of spiritual mindedness. Amen."

[A. W. Tozer]

Hebrews 3:1 .... Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus;

2 Corinthians 10:5 ... Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

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The Ten-Cent Store Jesus ...

Unfortunately, the ten-cent-store Jesus being preached now by many is not the Jesus that will come to judge the world.

This harmless, plastic, painted Jesus who has no spine, nor justice, nor wrath but is a soft and pliant friend to everybody; if He is the only Christ, then we might as well close our Bibles, bar our doors and make a bakery or garage out of our church buildings!

The popular Christ being preached today is not the Christ of the Bible, nor the Christ who will be our final Judge.

Jesus Christ our Lord, the Judge with the flaming eyes is the one with whom we must deal. We cannot escape it.

[A. W. Tozer]

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Revelation 1:14-16 ... His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. 

Revelation 6:15-17 ... And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? ❤

Twice Born ~

 The once born will die twice.

~ AND ~

The twice born will die once.

[A. W. Tozer]

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Revelation 20:6 ... Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

Revelation 21:8 ... But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.

Romans 6:10-11 ... For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. ❤

The Great God Entertainment!

The only power God recognizes in His Church, is the power of His Spirit. Whereas the only power actually recognized today by the majority of evangelicals, is the power of man. God does His work by the operation of the Spirit; while Christian leaders attempt to do theirs, by the power of entertainment. 

Bright personality has taken the place of the Spirit's influence. But only what is done through the Holy Spirit, will abide eternally. For centuries the Church stood solidly against every form of worldly entertainment, recognizing it for what it was: a device for wasting time, a refuge from the disturbing voice of conscience, a scheme to divert attention from eternal realities. But of late she appears to have decided that if she cannot conquer the great god entertainment, then she may as well join forces with him and make what use she can of his trifles. 

Christianity is so entangled with the world, that millions never guess how radically they have missed the New Testament pattern. Compromise is everywhere! Evangelical Christianity is now tragically below the New Testament standard. Worldliness is an accepted part of our way of life. Our religious mood is social, instead of spiritual. We have lost the art of genuine worship. 

We are not producing holy people. Our models are successful businessmen, celebrated athletes and performers. We carry on our religious activities, after the methods of the modern advertiser. Our homes have been turned into theaters. Our desires are worldly, our literature is shallow, and our music borders on sacrilege. And scarcely anyone appears to care! 

[A.W. Tozer] 

Malachi 1:10 ... Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.

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Welcome 2026!

Of all persons the Christian should be best prepared for whatever the New Year brings. He has dealt with life at its source. In Christ he has disposed of a thousand enemies that other men must face alone and unprepared. He can face his tomorrow cheerful and unafraid because yesterday he turned his feet into the ways of peace and today he lives in God. The man who has made God his dwelling place will always have a safe habitation. 

[A.W. Tozer]

Psalm 4:8 ... I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.

~ Happy New Year 2026! ~

The Half-Converted Cowboy!

There is grief in my spirit when I go into the average church, for we have become a generation rapidly losing all sense of divine sacredness and reverence in our worship. God has been abridged, reduced, modified, edited, changed and amended until He is no longer the high and lifted up God whom Isaiah saw! We've reduced the God of Abraham and Jacob, to a "stuffed God" that can be appealed to by anybody at any time. The religious clown on the radio can break into his fun and say, "Now we will have a minute of prayer." 

In the religious concert, the half-converted cowboy dressed like an idiot will say after he's twanged out some catchy numbers, "Now I'll do a holy number for you." The God of today's Christianity is a weakling a little cheap, palsied God that you can pal around with. He's the "man upstairs." He's the fellow that can help you when you're in difficulty and not bother you too much when you're not. It is a major tragedy in the life of any man, to live in a church from childhood to old age with nothing more than some synthetic God compounded of sentimentality and logic but having no eyes to see, no ears to hear and no heart to love the holy God of Scripture! 

In the majority of our church meetings, there is scarcely a trace of reverence, little sense of the divine Presence, no solemnity, no awe, no holy fear. But so often there is a dull or a breezy song leader full of awkward jokes, in an effort to make everything hold together. The most pressing need just now is that we who call ourselves Christians should frankly acknowledge to each other and to God that we are gone far astray. We should confess that we are worldly, that our moral standards are low, and that we are spiritually cold and lethargic. We need to cease our multitude of unscriptural activities, and cease trying to sanctify carnal and worldly projects by promoting them "in the name of the Lord" and "for the glory of God." 

We need to return to the message, methods and objectives of the New Testament! We need boldly and indignantly to cleanse the church of all who sell cattle in the holy place; and overthrow the tables of the moneychangers! This must be done in our own lives first and then in the churches of whom we are a part. We need men and women who love the Savior, until adoration becomes the music of their soul until they don't have to be fooled with entertainment and amusement! 

[A. W. Tozer] 

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2 Timothy 4:3-4 ... For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

Romans 12:1 ... I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Psalm 29:2 ... Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. ❤

The God of Contemporary Christianity!

The God of contemporary Christianity is only slightly superior to the pagan gods of ancient Greece and Rome if indeed He is not actually inferior to them, in that He is weak and helpless while they at least had some imagined power. 

Among the sins to which the human heart is prone, hardly any other is more hateful to God than idolatry; for idolatry is at bottom a libel on His character. The idolatrous heart assumes that God is other than He is in itself a monstrous sin and substitutes for the true God, one made after its own likeness. Always this god will conform to the image of the one who created it and will be base or pure, cruel or kind, according to the moral state of the mind from which it emerges. 

The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. Wrong ideas about God are not only the fountain from which the polluted waters of idolatry flow they are themselves idolatrous. The idolater simply imagines things about God and acts as if they were true. If we insist upon trying to imagine Him we end with an idol, made not with hands but with thoughts. And an idol of the mind, is as offensive to God as an idol of the hand! 

Before a Christian Church goes into a decline, there must first be a corrupting of her Scriptural thoughts of God. She simply gives a wrong answer to the question, "What is God like?" and goes downhill from there. Though she may continue to cling to a sound nominal creed - her practical working creed has become false. The masses of her adherents come to believe that God is different from what He actually is and that is heresy of the most insidious and deadly kind! The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God, until it is once more worthy of Him and of her! 

[A. W. Tozer]

Psalm 50:21 ... These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.

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A Time For Everything ...

A Time to Think: We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thought.

A Time to Act: Express your gratitude for something good that has come your way.

A Time to Pray: Lord, help me to see the blessings that might come from my difficulties. Amen.

[A.W Tozer]

Ephesians 5:16 ... Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 ... To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

Philippians 4:8 ... Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. ❤

Worshippers ...

Worshippers never leave church. We carry our sanctuary wherever we go. We are His witnesses; we are His Church. 

Let us therefore go out and be the church as we carry the gospel to the world. 

[A. W. Tozer]

Isaiah 43:10 ... Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.

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The Error of Textualism

The doctrine of the inability of the human mind to understand divine teaching, and the need for divine illumination, is so fully developed in the New Testament, that it is nothing short of astonishing that we should have gone so far astray concerning the whole issue. Evangelicalism has stood aloof from Liberalism in self-conscious superiority; and has on its own part fallen into the error of textualism, which is simply orthodoxy without the Holy Spirit. 

Everywhere among Conservatives we find people who are Bible-taught, but not Spirit-taught. They conceive truth to be something which they can grasp with the mind. If a man holds to the fundamentals of the Christian faith, then he is thought to possess divine truth. But that is an incorrect assumption. The Bible is a supernatural book and can be understood only by supernatural aid! 

Conservative Christians in this day are stumbling over this truth. We need to re-examine the whole thing. We need to learn that truth consists not in correct doctrine, but in correct doctrine plus the inward enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. A re-preachment of this vital truth could result in a fresh breath from God upon a stale and suffocating orthodoxy. 

Most Christians see Bible knowledge as something to be stored away in the mind, along with an inert mass of other facts. The modern scientist has lost God, amid the wonders of His world. And we Christians are in real danger of losing God, amid the wonders of His Word! Scripture truths must be experienced, before we can really know them. 

Prayer: "Lord, I do believe in the authority of the Scriptures, and thank You for that foundation of truth. But I need to remember that even the inspired text is not alive, until the Holy Spirit takes it and enlightens the recipients. May the Spirit indeed take what I teach and embed it in the hearts and minds of my hearers. Amen." 

[A. W. Tozer] 

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1 Corinthians 2:14 ... But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Psalm 119:18 ...  Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.

John 16:13 ... Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

John 14:26 ... But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

Luke 24:45 ...  Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, ❤

Trusting God!!

What we need very badly these days is a company of Christ’s followers prepared to trust God as completely now as they must do at the last day! For each of us, the time is surely coming when we shall all have nothing but God. To people of pseudo-faith, that is a terrifying thought. For true faith, it is either God or total collapse.

We can prove our faith by our committal to it and in no other way.

[A. W. Tozer]

Proverbs 3:5-6 ... Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

Psalm 11:1 ... In the Lord put I my trust: how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?

Nahum 1:7 ... The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him. ❤

When The Bird of Thought is Let Go

Anyone who wishes to check on his true spiritual condition may do so, by noting what his voluntary thoughts have been over the last hours or days. What has he thought about, when free to think of whatever he pleased? Toward what has his inner heart turned, when it was free to turn wherever it desired? 

When the bird of thought was let go, did it fly out like the raven to settle upon floating carcasses or did it like the dove circle and return again to the ark of God? Such a test is easy to run, and if we are honest with ourselves, we can discover not only what we are, but what we are going to become. We will soon be the sum of our voluntary thoughts! 

 [A. W. Tozer]

Matthew 6:21 ... For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Romans 12:2 ... And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. ❤

Blessings!!

In trying to count our many blessings the difficulty is not to find things to count, but to find time to enumerate them all.  

[A.W. Tozer]

Psalm 23:5 ... Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.❤

Committed Christians

Christians have been misled by a generation of soft preachers. They would have us believe that to be good Christians we must be able to purr softly and accept everything that comes along with tolerance and understanding. Such ministers never mention words like commitment and conviction and standing on the truth. I am convinced that a committed Christian will show a strong desire for the cause of truth. He or she will live with a set of spiritual convictions taken from the Bible. They will be the toughest to move in their stand for Christ. 

[A. W. Tozer]

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Psalm 16:8 ... I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.

1 Corinthians 16:13 ... Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.

1 John 4:1 ... Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.❤

In Christ Alone.

It is Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ alone, who makes sense out of everything in this world.

[A. W. Tozer]

Hebrews 1:3 ... Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high:

Colossians 1:17 ... And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

Acts 17:28 ... For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.❤

Reflects.

Worship is no longer worship when it reflects the culture around us more than the Christ within us.

[A. W. Tozer]

John 4:24 ... God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

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Talk About Him.

Let us resolve to talk more to believers about the Bible when we meet them. Alas, the conversation of Christians, when they do meet, is often sadly unprofitable. How many frivolous, and trifling, and uncharitable things are said! Let us bring out the Bible more, and it will help to drive the devil away, and keep our hearts in tune.

[J.C. Ryle]

Philippians 1:27 ... Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;❤

The Harmless Brand

We have developed in recent times a peace-loving, soft-spoken, tame and harmless brand of Christian of whom the world has no fear and for whom it has little respect. We are careful, for instance, never to speak in public against any of the false cults lest we be thought intolerant. We fear to talk against the destructive sins of modern civilization for fear someone will brand us as bigoted and narrow. Little by little we have been forced off the hard earth into a religious cloud-land where we are permitted to wing our harmless way around, like swallows at sundown, saying nothing that might stir the ire of the sons of this world. That Neo-Christianity, which seems for the time to be the most popular (and is certainly the most aggressive), is very careful not to oppose sin. It wins its crowds by amusing them and its converts by hiding from them the full implications of the Christian message. It carries on its projects after the ballyhoo methods of American business.

Well might we paraphrase Wordsworth and cry, "Elijah, thou should be living at this hour; America has need of thee." We stand in desperate need of a few men like Elijah who will dare to face up to the brazen sinners who dictate our every way of life. Sin in the full proportions of a revolution or a plague has all but destroyed our civilization while church people have played like children in the marketplace. What has happened to the spirit of the American Christian? Has our gold become dim? Have we lost the spirit of discernment till we can no longer recognize our captors? How much longer will we hide in caves while Ahab and Jezebel continue to pollute the temple and ravage the land? Surely we should give this some serious thought and prayer before it is too late if indeed it is not too late already.

[A.W. Tozer]

2 Timothy 4:3 ... For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

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Pseudo-Faith

What we need very badly these days is a company of Christ’s followers prepared to trust God as completely now as they must do at the last day! For each of us, the time is surely coming when we shall all have nothing but God. To people of pseudo-faith, that is a terrifying thought. For true faith, it is either God or total collapse. We can prove our faith by our committal to it and in no other way.

[A. W. Tozer]

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