“The
Christian who is alive enough to know himself even slightly will recognize the symptoms
of this possession malady, and will grieve to find them in his own heart. If
the longing after God is strong enough within him, he will want to do something
about the matter. Now, what should he do?” (pages 28 – 29).
“First
of all, he should put away all defense and make no attempt to excuse himself
either in his own eyes or before the Lord. Whoever defends himself will have
himself for his defense, and he will have no other. But let him come
defenseless before the Lord and he will have for his defender no less than God
Himself. Let the inquiring Christian trample under foot every slippery trick of
his deceitful heart and insist upon frank and open relations with the Lord”
(page 29).
Our
Father and Lord Jesus want the best for us, and that includes setting us free
from being possessed by possessions, whether material or otherwise. As Tozer
writes on page 22, “There is within the human heart a tough, fibrous root of a
fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess” (italics
mine). As we’ve pointed out, what this looks like in my life is probably not
what it looks like in your life, our calling is not to evaluate one another, it
is to stand before Jesus Christ and ask Him to search us and try us, to shine
His Light upon us, and to ensure that only God is worshipped within the Holy of
Holies of our hearts and souls.
I
wonder how it is possible to have this conversation in the world and church in
which we live, it is like speaking a different language; more than that, it is
speaking a different language within an alien culture, one with different
values than our own.
We
exalt worldly success within the professing church, we talk about money as a
central benchmark of our congregational health (and we are adept at justifying
this focus), we justify hoarding money while neighbors are hungry and homeless,
we are more interested in our children and grandchildren having well – paying jobs
than knowing Jesus and living godly lives, we know the composition of our 401ks
but not our Bibles, we are more prone to speak to one another of the financial
markets at church than of how Jesus is revealing Himself to us.
We
forget, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for
your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich” (2
Cor. 8:9).
I
find it hard to conceive that in a society and a church that is obsessed with
money and things and power and pleasure that we can even begin to approach the problem of the insidious
idols within us; all the more reason to cry out to Jesus for mercy and help.
For
sure, as Tozer writes, we must put away all defense and excuses – and this goes
against our grain, for again we live in a church and society that tells us we
deserve the best, that we deserve all that we can obtain. We can’t do this
without the grace of Jesus, and we need His grace every day to do it. Only the Holy Spirit can enable us to “trample
under foot every slippery trick” of our deceitful hearts.
What
a challenge this can be in the face of churches and so-called ministries that
exalt material prosperity, that teach us to avoid the Christ of the Cross and
laying down our lives for Christ and others.
Tozer
writes that we ought to, “Insist that God accept his [our] all, that He take
things out of his [our] heart and Himself reign there in power” (page 29). We
ought not to be among those “Who coddle their feelings and insist upon caution
in their dealings with God” (page 29).
Will
we take the walk of Abraham with our Isaac up Mt. Moriah and offer to God that
which is most precious to us? Will we say with David, “Whom have I in heaven but
You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth” (Psalm 73:25)? Will we allow
God to reorient our hearts and minds from the earthly and self-centered to the
heavenly and Christ-centered?
Tozer
says that we must experience this work of God in our hearts, that it is not a
truth to be intellectually learned. He writes that we must “live through
Abraham’s hard and bitter experiences if we would know the blessedness which
follows them. The ancient curse will not go out painlessly…” (page 29).
I
have never preached this nor taught it, and this shames me. O yes, I have
preached the Way of the Cross, I have taught the intercessory life, I have
quoted Mark 8:34 – 38 times without number. But O how I wish I could go back
and lead my people with Abraham up Mt. Moriah, how I wish I could ask each one
of us to bring our Isaacs to offer to God, how I wish we could ponder each
step, one foot in front of the other, allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to us
and to work deep within our hearts and souls.
Even
now I am not sure I understand the depth of what Tozer is writing, I have been
in the religious opium den too long. What was once familiar to me was lost in
layer after layer of pragmatic American religion. Have we not become like Peter
in trying to shield Jesus from the Cross, from His calling and destiny and
glory? (Matthew 16:21 – 23). And let’s not forget, one minute Peter confessed Jesus,
the next he played the role of Satan!
Do
we not strive to shield one another from Mt. Moriah, from the Cross of Christ?
“If
we would indeed know God in growing intimacy, we must go this way of renunciation.
And if we are set upon the pursuit of God, He will sooner or later bring us to
this test” (page 30).
Does
this make any sense to you?
The
Lord willing, we’ll take one more look at this before we conclude Tozer’s chapter
on, The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing.
What
might the “way of renunciation” look like in our lives?