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Friday, October 14, 2011

Desperate

"God wills that we should push on into His presence
 and live our whole life there. 
 This is to be known to us in conscious experience. 
It is more than a doctrine to be held;
 it is a life to be enjoyed every moment of every day."
A.W. Tozer, "The Pursuit of God"

By far this is my favorite book that I have read.  I have the privilege of going through this book with a friend.  Chapter by chapter we are pulling out truths in which the Holy Spirit is bringing conviction, encouragement, and correction to our life.  I wanted to share a brief summary from Chapter 3.

As the veil separated the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle of God, our fallen, fleshly nature separates us from the presence of God in our daily living.  The veil in the tabernacle and the veil of our fallen nature was removed by the rending of Christ's body on the cross.  So the question is, "Why are we content to abide all our days outside the Holy of Holies?"  Why do we not enter in and look upon God? 

Tozer shares:
"It is because the veil of  our fallen fleshly nature living within us unjudged, uncrucified, and unrepudiated.  It is the close'woven veil of the self-life which we have never truly acknowledged, of which we have have been secretly ashamed, and which for these reason we have never brought to the judgment of the cross.  This veil is woven of the fine threads of the self-life, the hyphenated sins of the human spirit.  They are not something we do, they are something we are, and therein lies both their subtlety and their power. To be specific, the self-sins are self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency,  self-admiration, self-love, and a host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them. Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us.  It can be removed only in spiritual experiences, never by mere instruction.  We may as well try to instruct leprosy out of our system.  There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free.  We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us.  We must bring our self-sins to the cross for judgement.  We must prepare ourselves for an ordeal of suffering in some measure like the that through which our Saviour passed when He suffered under Pontius Pilate. Let us be aware of tinkering with our inner life, hoping ourselves to rend the veil.  God must do everything for us.  Our part is to yield and trust.  We must confess, forsake, repudiate the self-life, and then reckon it crucified.  But we must be careful to distinguish lazy "acceptance" from the real work of God.  We must insist upon the work being done."

To be honest, I desire this.  I want to be taught in the secret by the wisdom of God to push through the veil of self-sins and look upon His face.  These are great thoughts and they can stir your heart up.  They can bring many Amens but unless you (me) are willing to endure the "flame of the fire" these are only words with emotion. I like the words/thoughts but to be honest, when I feel the heat, I tend to turn and run the other way.  The hard work of looking at my deep attitute of sin, acknowledging it openly before the Lord, and allowing Him to burn away the dross is painful. 

So the question I ask you and myself.  How desperate are we for God?

1 comment:

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