1 See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we would be called children of God; and we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not been manifested as yet what we will be. We know that when He is manifested, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. 3 And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. 1 John 3:1-3 (LSB)
Over the last several weeks I have been led to read three books by A.W. Tozer. The first one I bought was The Essential Tozer Collection, which contains three of his books, The Pursuit of God, The Purpose of Man, and The Crucified Life. The second book I bought was The Pursuit of Christian Maturity. I devoured that book and had it read in about a week. After I finished that book, I went to Mardel’s and found a whole section of A.W. Tozer books….
I prayed that God would show me the one I should read next. There was a very small, thin, blue one that seemed to stand out from the rest. The title is The Deeper Life. Yeah, I bought it and am reading it now. The subtitle of this book is, “Go Beyond Knowledge to Experience Spirit-Filled Living.” Today, I read the chapter, “The Deeper Life: What it is Not”. As I read it, I kept saying, to myself, “Wait a minute, this is talking about me! He is talking about where I am in my walk right now!” What am I saying? Tozer talked about those great saints that came before us like the Apostles. Here is a direct quote, “It has been the unanimous testimony of the greatest Christian souls that the nearer they drew to God, the more acute became their consciousness of sin and their sense of personal unworthiness. The purest souls never knew how pure they were, and the greatest saints never guessed that they were great. The very thought that they were good or great would have been rejected by them as a temptation of the devil. They were so engrossed with gazing upon the face of God that they took scarce a moment looking at themselves. They were suspended in that sweet paradox of spiritual awareness where they knew that they were clean through the blood of the Lamb and yet felt that they deserved only death and hell as their just reward. This feeling is strong in the writings of Paul and is found also in almost all devotional books and among the greatest and most-loved hymns. Well, when I read this today, I dropped the book and said to my Lord, “This is exactly, where I am!” I feel worthless most of the time. I don’t see how God could love someone like me, yet he uses me and blesses me. <Continue reading post>