by Vance Havner
Except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. John 6:53
Many dear people have a lovely doctrine or theory of the victorious life or the indwelling Christ or the Spirit-filled life, and they try to live on their theory, but thy do not feed on Christ. They are like a man trying to live on a cook book instead of food, chewing on a seed catalogue instead of on vegetables. They may be very orthodox Bible students, but they do not chew and digest the words which are spirit and life.
It is tragic to go through our days making Christ the subject of our study but not the sustenance of our souls. It is not the Word hid in the head but in the heart that keeps from sin. To appropriate Christ Himself, the Bread of Life, is to live by faith and grow. You can starve reading books on bread. You can search the Scriptures and not come to Him for life.
by Vance Havner
by A.W. Tozer
The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" Luke 17:5
To receive in a measure more in keeping with God’s liberality five things are necessary. The first is faith. We must be convinced that God is kind, generous, goodhearted and ready to bestow His blessings upon His people with the bounty of a king. To have faith we must immerse ourselves in the Scriptures. And faith must be exercised if it is to be effective. Faith, like a muscle, grows by stretching. The second is capacity. That we differ from each other in spiritual capacity is too evident to need proof; but the reason is a great mystery and lies too deep for our understanding, certainly too deep for discussion here. It is enough to say that whatever his capacity each man can increase it if he will. The human soul is not a hard-baked vessel with a fixed size; it is a living thing capable of growth and expansion as it interacts with the gracious actions of the Holy Spirit.
by A.W. Tozer
by A.W. Tozer
Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Luke 6:38-39
Since God is infinite, whatever He is must be infinite also; that is, it must be without any actual or conceivable limits. The moment we allow ourselves to think of God as having limits, the one of whom we are thinking is not God but someone or something less than and different from Him. To think rightly of God we must conceive of Him as being altogether boundless in His goodness, mercy, love, grace and in whatever else we may properly attribute to the Deity. It is not enough that we acknowledge God’s infinite resources; we must believe also that He is infinitely generous to bestow them. The first is not too great a strain on our faith. Even the deist will admit that the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth, must be rich beyond the power of man to conceive. But to believe that God is a giver as well as a possessor takes an advanced faith and presupposes that there has been a divine revelation to that effect which gives validity to our expectations. Which indeed there has been. We call this revelation the Bible. Believing all this, why are we Christians so poverty stricken? I think it is because we have not learned that God’s gifts are meted out according to the taker, not according to the giver. Though almighty and all-wise, God yet cannot pour a great gift into a small receptacle.
by A.W. Tozer
by Oswald Chambers
Because you have kept My command to persevere . . . —Revelation 3:10
Perseverance means more than endurance— more than simply holding on until the end. A saint’s life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, but our Lord continues to stretch and strain, and every once in a while the saint says, “I can’t take any more.” Yet God pays no attention; He goes on stretching until His purpose is in sight, and then He lets the arrow fly. Entrust yourself to God’s hands. Is there something in your life for which you need perseverance right now? Maintain your intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through the perseverance of faith. Proclaim as Job did, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
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by Vance Havner
I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. 2 Timothy 1:12
Paul’s confidence in Christ led to committal. In the home town of my boyhood days we had two banks. I had confidence in both, but committed my money to only one. A man might have utmost confidence in a bank but it will not keep his money until he deposits it. Paul made the deposit.
The housewife who, when told to endorse a check, wrote, “I heartily endorse this check,” was not unlike some of us in spiritual matters. We endorse the Bible as God’s Word and Jesus as God’s Son, but we do not actually “sign our name,” we do not make it personal. We believe, but we do not commit all we are and have to it.
Have you made the deposit? He will keep what you commit. Be sure your faith is confidence plus committal.
by Vance Havner
by A.W. Tozer
We live by faith, not by sight. 2 Corinthians 5:7
True faith is not the intellectual ability to visualize unseen things to the satisfaction of our imperfect minds; it is rather the moral power to trust Christ. To be contented and unafraid when going on a journey with his father the child need not be able to imagine events; he need but know the father. Our earthly lives are one shining web of golden mystery which we experience without understanding, how much more our life in the Spirit. Jesus Christ is our all in all. We need but trust Him and He will take care of the rest. Possibly it is because of my own innate dullness that I have found such deep satisfaction in these words of the prophet:
"I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them" (Isa. 42:16).
God has not failed me in this world; I can trust Him for the world to come.
by A.W. Tozer
by Yeshua (Jesus) Is Lord
To love means loving the unlovable.
To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable.
Faith means to believe the unbelievable.
Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.
[Gilbert K. Chesterton]
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by Vance Havner
