Following Hard After God

Some of the highlights from The Pursuit of God, by A.W. Tozer (Chapter 1: Following Hard After God)

Christian theology teaches the doctrine prevenient grace, which, briefly stated, means that before a man can seek God, God must have sought the man.

Before a sinful man can think a right thought of God, there must have been a work of enlightenment done within him.

We pursue God because, and only because, he has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit.

The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after him.

God is always previous.

[The following quote is with regard to the church of today... which was 1948 when Tozer wrote this. How much more true today] Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego. Christ may be “received” without creating any special love for him in the soul of the receiver. The man is “saved,” but he is not hungry nor thirsty after God.

We have almost forgotten that God is a person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can. …but full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter. It is only after a long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of both can be explored.

The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition. That is the heavenly birth without which we cannot see the kingdom of God. It is, however, not an end but an inception, for now begins the glorious pursuit, the heart’s happy exploration of the infinite riches of the Godhead.

To have found God and still to pursue him is the soul’s paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too easily satisfied religionists, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart.

Complacency is a deady foe of all spiritual growth.

[In his day... and in ours]… are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart.

When religion has said its last word, there is little that we need other than God himself. The evil habit of seeking God-and effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation.

Click here to read the prayer that goes with this chapter. It is truly beautiful.

Read Full Post »

Today Matters (Key Ideas) by John Maxwell

I wrote the following post last year, but as I find myself reading Maxwell’s book again, I thought I would share this again. I mentioned yesterday that I was planning on having my two oldest children (15 and 13) read this book. Maxwell was once asked which of his books he would recommend for younger students and this was his top choice (if memory serves). At any rate, the fact that I find myself reading it year after year around New Year’s speaks volumes to me. I really have found it to be a “go to” resource.

By the way, I also just started reading The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy, which hits on similar themes, but is by no means the same book as Maxwell’s. I hope to soon share some key ideas that I learn from that book soon.

Hope you find it helpful,
Dale

Key Ideas from Chapter 1 of John Maxwell’s Today Matters

Everything underneath my signature below comes directly from Chapter 1 of Maxwell’s book, Today Matters. I read it seven years ago and picked it up again last week and started reading it.

It’s a powerful book that emphasizes the importance of making and then managing daily choices. I have said often that the hardest part about life or about parenting is that it’s so daily. It’s that daily faithfulness and consistency and intentionality and discipline that enables us to make incremental, yet positive changes in our lives. Conversely, it’s the lack of faithfulness, consistency, intentionality, and discipline that moves us, ever so slowly, in the wrong direction in our lives.

Maxwell’s book does an excellent job of highlighting the various spheres of  life and shows us how we can add value in our own lives and in the lives of others in those spheres. It’s not a hard read at all. In fact, it takes no time to read through a chapter. However, don’t be tempted to “read for speed.” Take your time and ponder the ideas that he shares (and the great illustrations and examples).

I don’t want to twist Joshua’s words at the end of the biblical book that bears his name, but there is a real sense in which we must “choose this day” whom or what we will serve. And while Joshua was declaring that he and his household would serve (worship, obey, follow) the one true God, I think we can certainly say that each day are we called to wake up and “choose this day” what road we will walk down. And then, the next day, we have to wake up and choose yet again… and then do it. We must be purposeful and intentional. We can’t just go with the flow. We can’t just let others decide who we will be and what we will do. We must live our own lives and that living begins with intentional choices.

Enjoy the following key ideas from Maxwell. They are worth thinking about.

Grace and Truth,
Dale

The way you live today impacts your tomorrow.

The problem is that we want the rewards of success without paying the price.

“You don’t win an Olympic gold medal with a few weeks of intensive training,” says Godin. “There’s no such thing as an overnight opera sensation. Great law firms or design companies don’t spring p overnight… Every great company, every great brand, and every great career has been built in exactly the same way bit by bit, step by step, little by little.”

The truth is that people who do nothing more than wait for an opportunity won’t be ready to capitalize on one if it does appear. As basketball legend John Wooden says,” When opportunity comes, it’s too late to prepare.” And for those who receive their wish – of a promotion, start-up money or anything else – it rarely changes anything in the long term if they haven’t already done all the groundwork to be successful.

…real, sustainable change doesn’t happen in a moment. It’s a process.

Growth comes from making decisions and following through on them.

People create success in their lives by focusing on today. It may sound trite, but today is the only time you have. It’s too late for yesterday. And you can’t depend on tomorrow. That’s why today matters.

“Yesterday Ended Last Night.” …no matter how badly I might have failed in the past, it’s done, and today is a new day.

Hoping for a good future without investing in today is like a farmer waiting for a crop without ever planting any seed.

Benjamin Franklin asserted, time is “the stuff life is made of.” Today is the only time we have within our grasp, yet many people let it slip through their fingers. They recognize neither today’s value nor its potential.

If we want to do something with our lives, then we must focus on today. That’s where tomorrow’s success lies.

Here’s the missing piece: The secret of your success is determined by your daily agenda.

It all comes down on what you do today. When I talk about your daily “agenda,” I don’t mean your to-do list. …I’m focusing on something bigger. I want you to embrace what may be a whole new approach to life.

Make the Decision Once… Then Manage It Daily

If you make decisions in those key areas once and for all – and then manage those decisions daily – you can create the kind of tomorrow you desire. Successful people make right decisions early and manage those decisions daily.

Benjamin Franklin rightly observed, “One today is worth two tomorrows what I am to be, I am now becoming.”

Read Full Post »

Spiritual Life Checkup

Over the years I’ve shared a variety of spiritual life checkups. They have been very helpful to the folks I serve… and certainly to me.

This is one that I’ve printed before and shared it with some of the classes I teach at church. It’s a good resource to use as you think about your spiritual health as well as what areas you would like to work on in the new year. I highly recommend taking a look at it and thinking through it. I hope you find it useful. Here’s the introduction to it…

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.  All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.”  Matthew 22:37-40

Each year many of us will go through a physical check-up, perhaps do a financial check up at year’s end or at tax time, and perhaps do a performance review at our workplace.   But how often do we take time to review our spiritual life?

Those who are saved by grace are called to grow in grace (2 Pet. 3.18).  As disciples of Jesus, we are to live a life of love – love for God and love for our neighbor, in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Too often, in the busyness of our day-to-day lives, we let other priorities crowd out the two highest priorities Jesus gave us.   The following questions are designed to help you examine your spiritual life over the past year and to prayerfully seek God’s help in areas where you desire to grow in the New Year.

Click here to read or download the whole checkup.

Blessings,
Dale

Read Full Post »

God’s Purpose for Your Marriage

A little over a year ago, our church’s men’s discipleship groups studied a video curriculum by Gary Thomas called, Sacred Marriage. It is a series that’s for husbands and wives to both be a part of, but I thought it would still be useful to study it with just the men. It was fantastic. The study is based on the book by the same name. I have recently begun reading the book and, like the video series, it’s great.

One of the things that struck me as I watched the video, discussed it with our men, and have now been reminded of as I read through the book, is how Thomas focuses on the foundation (you could say, the theology) of marriage and what God’s ultimate purpose is in marriage. The book is not, as he puts it, a three, seven, or ten-step program for a better, happier marriage. Instead, he does some of the hard work of looking at God’s real purpose of marriage… which is to make us holy… not necessarily happy. That’s a hard message to sell… especially in the era of romantic comedies and the Hallmark and Lifetime television channels.

In the first chapter of the book Thomas puts it this way…

…there’s a deeper question that needs to be addressed beyond how we can “improve” our marriage: What if God didn’t design marriage to be “easier”? What if God had an end in mind that went beyond our happiness, our comfort, and our desire to be infatuated and happy as if the world were a perfect place?

What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?

As Thomas will go on to say in the chapter, holiness and happiness aren’t necessarily contradictory, but a person’s happiness becomes illusory if they think a.) that it’s the sole purpose of the marriage, and b.) that their spouse is the one in whom they will find such ultimate purpose.

The real intention of the book, for Thomas, is to show his readers that marriage, in the same way as abstinence for celibates and isolation for hermits, is a context for spiritual growth. He writes that marriage can become the means by which we can “grow in our service, obedience, character, pursuit, and love of God.”

If I might put it in Wesleyan terminology, marriage is a means of grace by which we draw closer to God and conform more to the likeness of Christ. That’s not a bad deal.

I’ve only just begun the book, so I’m certain there is plenty ahead that will challenge, guide and encourage me. I’ll keep you posted on what I learn. Pray that my wonderful wife might see “in action” what I’m learning from the book as well.

Grace and Truth,
Dale

Read Full Post »

The Root of the Righteous

A man shall not be established by wickedness: but the root of the righteous shall not be moved. (Proverbs 12:3)

I love A.W. Tozer, my brother in the Fellowship of the Burning Heart… though he’s often hard to read because of how convicted I usually feel afterward. One of the best collections of his is entitled, The Root of the Righteous. It is well worth getting and reading… and then reading again. By the way, it was first published in 1955. (That fact will explain why he’s often called a modern-day prophet.)

Here are a few quotes from the first chapter, also entitled, The Root of the Righteous…

One marked difference between the faith of our fathers as conceived by the fathers and the same faith as understood and lived by their children is that the fathers were concerned with the root of the matter, while their present-day descendents seem concerned only with the fruit.

Our fathers looked well to the root of the tree and were willing to wait with patience for the fruit to appear.

[Impatient Christians today] imitate their fruit without accepting their theology or inconveniencing ourselves too greatly by adopting their all-or-nothing attitude toward religion.

The bough that breaks off from the tree in a storm may bloom briefly and give to the unthinking passerby the impression that it is a healthy and fruitful branch, but its tender blossoms will soon perish and the bough itself wither and die. There is no lasting life apart from the root.

Much that passes for Christianity today is the brief, bright effort of the severed branch to bring forth its fruit in its season. But the deep laws of life are against it. Preoccupation with appearances and a corresponding neglect of the out-of-sight root of true spiritual life are prophetic signs which go unheeded.

A church that is soundly rooted cannot be destroyed, but nothing can save a church whose root is dried up. No stimulation, no advertising campaigns, no gifts of money and no beautiful edifice can bring back life to the rootless tree.

In every generation the number of the righteous is small. Be sure you’re among them.

Read Full Post »

How to Turn Curses into Blessings

Nehemiah 13:2 – “Our God, however, turned the curse into a blessing.”

What the devil and the world mean for evil, God can use for good. He is a Romans 8:28-kind-of-God. He can turn curses, ill-will, and hate-filled words, thoughts and actions aimed at us into blessings. But to be honored in such a way, we must honor him (1 Samuel 2:30).

The priests in Malachi 1 and 2 did not honor God in such a way. Thus, God vividly reminded these “spokesmen and ministers of his” that blessings can also be turned into curses. In Malachi 2:1-2, God declares…

“And now this admonition is for you, O priests. If you do not listen, and if you do not ‘I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not set your heart to honor me.’”

A covenantal relationship involves God’s promises of blessings and curses. To even be offered a covenantal relationship with Almighty God is an expression of grace.

Why, then, do we dishonor God? Why do we show contempt for his blessings? Why wouldn’t we want to experience all that he has to offer those who honor him?

Lord, I’m a fool. Forgive me for not honoring you with everything I say, do and think. Enable me, by the power of your Spirit, to honor you in every sphere of my life and with all that I am. Amen.

Grace and Truth,
Dale

Read Full Post »

Continuing in Christ: The Pilgrim’s Progress

Colossians 2:6

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, [7] rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

We start off so well. With great gratitude and enthusiasm we bow before the throne of our King. Upon placing our trust in Christ alone – “receiving” him – we take on the world in his name.

But motivation and inspiration can wane. That which is not a habit or done out of obedient self-discipline, very often, will not be sustained for the long haul. That is why church history is littered with travelers who fell by the wayside on the narrow road to the celestial city.

Thus, Paul exhorts us to “continue to live in him.” This is much more than simple encouragement to attend church and have your quiet time (both of which are good). Paul is saying that we are to persevere in self-discipline and faithfulness. But more than that, he’s declaring that our very power source is our Lord himself. He is our power, our foundation, our anchor, our compass, our all in all. Jesus is not to be sprinkled on our lives to add a little flavor to an already okay meal. He is to be our life. We died with him in his crucifixion and were raised with him in his resurrection. The life we now live we live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us.

I love the following supporting language that Paul uses to undergird his thesis. He adds that we are to be “rooted and built up in him.”

Jesus is the root system of the mighty oak tree. He is our vine. Apart from him, he tells us, we can do nothing. If we would bear fruit, he must be our root. For it is only then that he will bear fruit through us.

Changing our imagery once again, Jesus is our chief cornerstone and we are to be built up in him. He is our only sure foundation. All else is shifting sand. And if we are not built up in him, not only will we not bear fruit, but we will also crumble during the storms of life.

And so be encouraged this week. You have the greatest resource at God’s disposal to enable you to bear much good and lasting fruit in your life – Christ Jesus our Lord and the power of his Spirit. Without him, you cannot do anything. With him, all things are possible.

Grace and Truth,
Dale

Read Full Post »