A.W. Tozer (1897-1978), The Knowledge of the Holy

“Philosophy and science have not always been friendly toward the idea of God, the reason being that they are dedicated to the task of accounting for things and are impatient with anything that refuses to give an account of itself. …. To admit that there is One who lies beyond us, who exists outside of all our categories, who will not be dismissed with a name, who will not appear before the bar of our reason, nor submit to our curious inquiries; this requires a great deal of humility, more than most of us possess, so we save face by thinking God down to our level, or at least down to where we can manage Him. Yet how He eludes us!

“It is not a cheerful thought that millions of us who live in a land of Bibles, who belong to churches and labor to promote the Christian religion, may yet pass our whole life on this earth without once having thought or tried to think seriously about the being of God. Few of us have let our hearts gaze in wonder at the I AM, the self-existent Self back of which no creature can think. Such thoughts are too painful for us. We prefer to think where it will do more good – about how to build a better mousetrap, for instance, or how to make two blades of grass grow where one grew before. And for this we are now paying a too heavy price in the secularization of our religion and the decay of our inner lives…”

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)

“The main subject of these songs were the glorious things of the Gospel, as is evident by the interpretation that is often put upon them, and the use made of them, in the New Testament. For there is no one Book of the Old Testament that is quoted in the New as is the Book of Psalms.” [i] Quoted in E.S. McKitrick, “Christ in the Psalms,” in The Psalms in Worship, John McNaugher, ed. (Edmonton: Still Waters Revival Books, 1992 [1907]), p. 228.

Chuck Colson (1931-2012), Loving God

The biblical word for repentance is “metanoia” in the original Greek.  Meta means “change” and noia means “mind,” so literally it means “a change of mind.”  One church scholar describes it as “that mighty change in mind, heart, and life, wrought by the Spirit of God.”  Thus repentance is replete with radical implications, for a fundamental change of mind not only turns us from the sinful past, but transforms our life plan, values, ethics, and actions as we begin to see the world through God’s eyes rather than ours.  That kind of transformation requires the ultimate surrender of self.

Jonathan Edwards

Monday: Read Romans 8:18-30

Jonathan Edwards suggests that because being without a body is in itself an evil, our salvation will only be complete when the Lord gives us a new body. Contemporary Christians sometimes overlook this important aspect, focusing exclusively on the salvation of the soul. Some Christian writers have even gone so far as to suggest that our spirits will never be reunited with our body, but that we will be non-corporeal throughout all of eternity. How does this passage from Romans, particularly verse 23, help us to think rightly about this topic?

“The idea that all you have to do is to accept Christ and you are in is a great mistake. It leaves people with the impression that if they accept Christ they have no fight to fight, no warfare, no job to do and no temptations. They are just in. When you accept Christ rightly as your Lord and Savior you are in, but to be honest, you have just started to fight. People get converted and we do not tell them that they must fight all the way through to heaven because of the spirit of degeneration and the tendency to deteriorate. They must fight, pray through, suffer it out, and live in praise and worship, because if they do not they will deteriorate.”
A.W. Tozer (1897-1963), Rut, Rot, and Revival

Monday: Ephesians 6:10-20
Like Tozer, Paul uses warfare imagery to describe the battle Christians are in.  What role does each piece of armor play in our ability to live godly lives?  Do you make it a mental exercise to “put on your armor” every morning?  Why might this be a good idea?  How could it help you resist a "spirit of degeneration"?

Jonathan Edwards

“Tis a most evil and pernicious practice in meditations on afflictions, to sit ruminating on the aggravations of the affliction, and reckoning up the evil, dark circumstances thereof, and dwelling long on the dark side; it doubles and trebles the affliction.

“If we dwelt on the light side of things in our thoughts, and extenuated them all the possibly we could, when speaking of them, we should think little of them ourselves; and the affliction would really, in a great measure, vanish away.”