Post by bondslavenchrist on Dec 9, 2007 12:33:55 GMT -5
THE CROSS 7/19/2006
Brothers and Sisters,
Perhaps, IF we are REALLY WILLING to listen to the Lord thru our brother, A W Tozer, He may have something to teach us. Do not discount these words because they were written over 50yrs ago. Do not casually read them or gloss over them lightly because you may have read them before.
INSTEAD, sit down and close your eyes. Submit your heart and mind unto the Lord. Be WILLING to be wrong about the cross. Be willing to have your ideas changed COMPLETELY! ASK the Lord by the Holy Spirit to teach you. Then LISTEN FOR HIM TO SPEAK!
I would like to EMPHATICALLY STATE that I do not follow Tozer or use his teachings as doctrine. He is a man. However, God spoke through him while he lived and the LORD still speaks through those words which Tozer penned. May I aslo say that we are NOT to believe someone just becuse we admire them. The Only reason I am quoting Tozer here is because what he says is in absolute agreement with the scriptures.
We all have ideas about the cross. Lay them down. Ignore your own thoughts about this subject. Listen PRAYERFULLY to what is written here. Allow the Holy Spirit to RADICALLY change everything you have ever thought about the Cross. Let Him RE-TEACH YOU, even if you have been to bible school or seminary; despite the fact that you may have many degrees behind your name that relate to biblical studies or theology. Lay down all those ideas.
Maybe, just maybe, we might REALLY come away changed; having died and have just a teeny bit of us resurrected in Him. Be willing!
a bondslave in Christ Jesus, Dirk
A.W. Tozer: "The old cross is a symbol of death. God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again in newness of life. God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death. It always stands at the far side of the cross."
A.W. Tozer: "Why do we build our churches upon human flesh? For we teach men not to die with Christ but to live in the strength of their dying manhood... If I see aright, the cross of popular evangelicalism is not the cross of the New Testament. It is, rather, a new bright ornament upon the bosom of a self-assured and carnal Christianity. The old cross slew men; the new cross entertains them. The old cross condemned; the new cross amuses. The old cross destroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it."
A.W. Tozer: "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 of judgment."
A.W. Tozer: "The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect... Christ calls men to carry a cross; we call them to have fun in His name... We want to be saved but we insist Christ do all the dying. No cross for us, no dethronement, no dying. We remain king within the little kingdom of Mansoul and wear our tinsel crown with all the pride of a Caesar; but we doom ourselves to shadows and weakness and spiritual sterility."
A.W. Tozer: "The man who is crucified is facing only one direction... He [cannot] look back. The crucified man on the cross is looking only one direction and that is the direction of God, and Christ and the Holy Ghost... The man on the cross... has no further plans of his own... Somebody else made his plans for him, and when they nailed him up there all his plans disappeared... When you go out to die on the cross you bid good-bye--you are not going back!
"If we would preach more of this and stop trying to make the Christian life so easy it's contemptible--we would have more converts that would last. Get a man converted who knows that if he joins Jesus Christ he's finished, and that while he's going to come up and live anew, as far as this world is concerned he is not going back--then you have a real Christian indeed."
"That this world is a playground rather than a battleground has now been accepted in practice by the vast majority of fundamentalist Christians. They are facing both ways, enjoying Christ and the world too."
A.W. Tozer: "Our uncrucified flesh will rob us of purity of heart, Christ-likeness of character, spiritual insight, fruitfulness; and more than all, it will hide from us the vision of God's face, that vision which has been the light of the earth and will be the completeness of heaven."
A.W. Tozer: "The man who takes his cross and follows Christ will soon find that his direction is away from the sepulcher. Death is behind him and joyous and increasing life before."
A.W. Tozer: "All unannounced, and almost undetected, there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles... The old cross would have no truck with the world. For Adam's proud flesh it meant the end of the journey. The new cross, if understood aright, is the source of oceans of good clean fun and innocent enjoyment. It lets Adam live without interference. His life motivation is unchanged; he still lives for his own pleasure.
Because of these things, we are in the midst of the Great Falling Away!
a bondslave in Christ Jesus, Dirk
Brothers and Sisters,
Perhaps, IF we are REALLY WILLING to listen to the Lord thru our brother, A W Tozer, He may have something to teach us. Do not discount these words because they were written over 50yrs ago. Do not casually read them or gloss over them lightly because you may have read them before.
INSTEAD, sit down and close your eyes. Submit your heart and mind unto the Lord. Be WILLING to be wrong about the cross. Be willing to have your ideas changed COMPLETELY! ASK the Lord by the Holy Spirit to teach you. Then LISTEN FOR HIM TO SPEAK!
I would like to EMPHATICALLY STATE that I do not follow Tozer or use his teachings as doctrine. He is a man. However, God spoke through him while he lived and the LORD still speaks through those words which Tozer penned. May I aslo say that we are NOT to believe someone just becuse we admire them. The Only reason I am quoting Tozer here is because what he says is in absolute agreement with the scriptures.
We all have ideas about the cross. Lay them down. Ignore your own thoughts about this subject. Listen PRAYERFULLY to what is written here. Allow the Holy Spirit to RADICALLY change everything you have ever thought about the Cross. Let Him RE-TEACH YOU, even if you have been to bible school or seminary; despite the fact that you may have many degrees behind your name that relate to biblical studies or theology. Lay down all those ideas.
Maybe, just maybe, we might REALLY come away changed; having died and have just a teeny bit of us resurrected in Him. Be willing!
a bondslave in Christ Jesus, Dirk
A.W. Tozer: "The old cross is a symbol of death. God salvages the individual by liquidating him and then raising him again in newness of life. God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death. It always stands at the far side of the cross."
A.W. Tozer: "Why do we build our churches upon human flesh? For we teach men not to die with Christ but to live in the strength of their dying manhood... If I see aright, the cross of popular evangelicalism is not the cross of the New Testament. It is, rather, a new bright ornament upon the bosom of a self-assured and carnal Christianity. The old cross slew men; the new cross entertains them. The old cross condemned; the new cross amuses. The old cross destroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it."
A.W. Tozer: "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 of judgment."
A.W. Tozer: "The new cross does not slay the sinner, it redirects him. It gears him into a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect... Christ calls men to carry a cross; we call them to have fun in His name... We want to be saved but we insist Christ do all the dying. No cross for us, no dethronement, no dying. We remain king within the little kingdom of Mansoul and wear our tinsel crown with all the pride of a Caesar; but we doom ourselves to shadows and weakness and spiritual sterility."
A.W. Tozer: "The man who is crucified is facing only one direction... He [cannot] look back. The crucified man on the cross is looking only one direction and that is the direction of God, and Christ and the Holy Ghost... The man on the cross... has no further plans of his own... Somebody else made his plans for him, and when they nailed him up there all his plans disappeared... When you go out to die on the cross you bid good-bye--you are not going back!
"If we would preach more of this and stop trying to make the Christian life so easy it's contemptible--we would have more converts that would last. Get a man converted who knows that if he joins Jesus Christ he's finished, and that while he's going to come up and live anew, as far as this world is concerned he is not going back--then you have a real Christian indeed."
"That this world is a playground rather than a battleground has now been accepted in practice by the vast majority of fundamentalist Christians. They are facing both ways, enjoying Christ and the world too."
A.W. Tozer: "Our uncrucified flesh will rob us of purity of heart, Christ-likeness of character, spiritual insight, fruitfulness; and more than all, it will hide from us the vision of God's face, that vision which has been the light of the earth and will be the completeness of heaven."
A.W. Tozer: "The man who takes his cross and follows Christ will soon find that his direction is away from the sepulcher. Death is behind him and joyous and increasing life before."
A.W. Tozer: "All unannounced, and almost undetected, there has come in modern times a new cross into popular evangelical circles... The old cross would have no truck with the world. For Adam's proud flesh it meant the end of the journey. The new cross, if understood aright, is the source of oceans of good clean fun and innocent enjoyment. It lets Adam live without interference. His life motivation is unchanged; he still lives for his own pleasure.
Because of these things, we are in the midst of the Great Falling Away!
a bondslave in Christ Jesus, Dirk