The Pursuit of God by Tozer - Reflections (15)

 

“Now he was a man who possessed nothing. He had concentrated his all in the person of his dear son, and God had taken it from him” (page 27).

 

“I have said that Abraham possessed nothing. Yet was not this poor man rich? Everything he had owned before was his still to enjoy…He had everything, but he possessed nothing. There is the spiritual secret. There is the sweet theology of the heart which can be learned only in the school of renunciation” (page 27).

 

We are generally told that as long as our treasures are “good” that we can set our hearts upon them, that we can make them the center of our lives, that we can bring them into the shrine of our hearts. We make gods of our families, of our children, of our jobs, of our 401ks, of our houses and cars and boats and travel experiences and positions of influence and of hobbies. We can make idols of pretty much anything. Again, my idols are probably not your idols.

 

Consider that John concludes his first letter with, “Little children, guard yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21).

 

Congregations can have idols, denominations and parachurch ministries can have idols, colleges and seminaries can have idols – idols are insidious. I could write that idols are always knocking at the door of our hearts, but that is not true. More often than not idols are attempting to seduce us, they do not knock, they whisper, they coo, they offer comfort, they stroke our egos, they appeal to what we consider our better selves. They can be pragmatic and they can also be altruistic.

 

But the blessedness of possessing nothing is not really about idols, it is about loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength; it is about being conformed to the image of the Firstborn Son, it is about being the sons and daughters of our Father in heaven (Romans 8:29; Matthew 5:43 – 48).

 

In offering Isaac, Abraham was being conformed to the image of our Father, who gave His Only Begotten Son. In Abraham we see our Father, and in Isaac we see the Son. We are called to both, we are called into the fellowship of the One who gives His Son, and into the fellowship of the One who gives Himself according to His Father’s will, for the life of the world.

 

There ought to be only One Light in our lives, One Light in our City, that of the Father and the Lamb (Revelation 21:23).

 

Paul wrote concerning himself and his coworkers that they were, “As poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing all things” (2 Corinthians 6:10).

 

When we experience trials some of us may retain positions and possessions, and others may not. Whatever the case may be, we are called to trust our kind and loving heavenly Father.

 

“I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need” (Philippians 4:12).

 

It seems to me that we tend to play the part of Peter in Matthew 16:21 – 23, we want others to avoid the Cross. In other words, rather than present the call of Jesus in Matthew 16:24 – 26 to take up the cross and deny ourselves, our churches and message are designed to have us avoid the Cross and self-denial and the offering of our Isaacs. We think we know better than Jesus Christ, for we think that if we proclaim what Jesus commands – the Cross and self-denial and faithful witnessing – that people won’t come to church and won’t come back; yet, it was the Gospel of Jesus and the call to discipleship that changed the world, not a message that catered to our whims and fancies and self-indulgence.

 

People are transformed by the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ, not by Christian entertainment, therapy, sociology, or an appeal to their superficial needs.

 

“After that bitter and blessed experience I think the words my and mine never again had the same meaning for Abraham. The sense of possession which they connote was gone from his heart. Things had been cast out forever. They had now become external to the man” (pages 27 – 28).

 

“We are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the Lord out of fear for their safety. This is especially true when those treasures are loved relatives and friends. But we need have no such fears. Our Lord came not to destroy but to save. Everything is safe which we commit to Him, and nothing is really safe which is not so committed” (page 28).

 

Can we trust Jesus and our Father with our obedience?

 

Are there things or people in our hearts and souls upon which we have hung signs that say to God, “Hands off! Do not touch!”?

 

 

The Pursuit of God by Tozer - Reflections (14)

 

Now we come to a section of the chapter, The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing, that shocked me and made me ashamed when I read it. It also brought me back to my previous reflection on how things have changed in the professing church in the seventy-seven years since Tozer wrote The Pursuit of God.

 

“Abraham was old when Isaac was born, old enough indeed to have been his grandfather, and the child became at once the delight and idol of his heart. From the moment he first stooped to take the tiny form awkwardly in his arms, he was an eager love slave of his son. God went out of His way to comment on the strength of this affection. And it is not hard to understand. 

"The baby represented everything sacred to his father’s heart: the promises of God, the covenants, the hope of the years and the long messianic dream. As he watched him grow from babyhood to young manhood, the heart of the old man was knit closer and closer with the life of his son, till at last the relationship bordered upon the perilous. It was then that God stepped in to save both father and son from the consequences of an uncleansed love." (Page 24).

 

“Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take now you son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.”” (Genesis 22:1 - 2).

 

When I was a young Christian, this passage was often referred to in the things I read, in conversation, and in teaching. My early mentor, George Will, spoke of it often as a central element of the working of the Cross in our lives and in our following Jesus. There was a time, when those who desired to go deeper into Jesus knew that Genesis 22:1 - 2 was a situation they would all face, they knew it was a Way of Life that they were called to - and they taught this Way to others. 

Unlike our own day, they did not teach that our calling is to accumulate things and possessions and to fill our hearts with idols (which can include people, which can include family), but rather that our calling is to follow Jesus and His Way of the Cross, denying ourselves. It was once taught that God alone ought to be in the sanctuary of our souls and hearts, that God alone ought to be worshipped.

 

There are many facets to Genesis 22, for not only do we see Abraham tested, but we also see the Father offering His Son, and the Son being a willing offering from the Father. We also see Isaac becoming the resurrected seed of New Creation, a picture of Christ Jesus, the grain of wheat falling into the ground, dying, and coming forth in much fruit, the Risen Holistic Body of Christ (John 12:20 – 26).

 

I am shocked and ashamed that I have not preached on this passage with this emphasis of God “saving both father and son from the consequences of an uncleansed love,” and have not thought about it for many, many years. Considering that Abraham is our father of faith, and considering that we see the Cross of Christ working within our inner sanctuary in this passage, this is inexcusable.

 

We can make people our idols just as we can make things our idols, and this is something we do not want to hear in our age of self-focus, self-improvement, of Sunday morning gatherings which are often group therapy sessions more than anything. We don’t want to hear that we can make marriage, family, and children idols – even when this is all under the label “Christian.” God, and God alone is to be within our inner sanctuary.

 

“He that loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 10:37 – 39).

 

This is hardly “seeker sensitive.”

 

Yet, let’s remember that when God fills our inner sanctuary that we lay down our lives for others, including our spouses, our children, our families, our brothers and sisters in Christ, and our neighbors – as our Way of Life. (John 13:34 – 35; 15:12 – 13; 1 John 3:16; Mark 12:31).

 

All love requires cleansing at the Cross, a death and a resurrection in Jesus Christ. And consider that Isaac was a gift from God, Isaac was the fulfillment of a promise, a grand and glorious promise – we can make the promises of God and their fulfillment our idols, we can worship them rather than God.

 

Somewhere Oswald Chambers writes about us using others as an excuse for disobedience. He says that when God commands obedience that we tell Him that if we obey that others won’t understand it, that it will adversely affect others, and that therefore we can’t do what He commands. We think that God does not know the effects of our obedience on others.

 

Surely if anyone could have made this argument with God it was Abraham.

 

Tozer writes, “Possibly not again until One greater than Abraham wrestled in the Garden of Gethsemane did such mortal pain visit a human soul” (page 25).

 

“God let the suffering old man go through with it up to the point where He knew there would be no retreat, and then forbade him to lay a hand upon the boy. To the wondering patriarch He now says in effect, “It’s all right, Abraham. I never intended that you should actually slay the lad. I only wanted to remove him from the temple of your heart that I might remain unchallenged there. I wanted to correct the perversion that existed in your love"” (page 26).

 

While we will pick Abraham and Isaac back up in our next reflection in this series, I will point out two things in closing.

 

The first is that only God knows our inner sanctuary, and I think we must respect this with one another. The principle of the Cross is the same with each of us, but the working of the Cross is individual. My idols are not necessarily your idols, my possessiveness is likely not your possessiveness. Let’s also keep in mind that our idols are often good things and good people, professing Christians generally do not worship overt evil and ugliness – though they can slide into these things. Our idols can be wonderful religious things, as in Abraham’s case, our idols may even be the promises of God and their fulfillment, they may be the very gifts that God has given us.

 

The second thing is that when God’s Word is living within us, it will pierce deeply, even to dividing soul and spirit – penetrating into our inner sanctuary (Hebrews 4:12 – 13). We have become such a superficial and soulish people that we seldom experience the deep working of the Word, and when we do we run from it rather than submit to the Holy Spirit. We simply can’t imagine that God would bring discomfort to us, that He would require anything from us that would lead to the Cross, to our own crucifixion, to us actually experiencing distress in our minds and hearts and souls in order to purify our love and form us into the image of Jesus.

 

We are all about the group hug. God is all about the Cross.

 

How are you experiencing Genesis Chapter 22?

 

Are there Isaacs in my life?

 

In your life?

The Pursuit of God by Tozer - Reflections (13)

 

 

“Our Lord referred to this tyranny of things when He said to His disciples, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matt. 16:24-25).

 

“It would seem that there is within each of us an enemy which we tolerate at our peril. Jesus called it “life” and “self,” or as we would say, the self-life. Its chief characteristic is its possessiveness: the words gain and profit suggest this. To allow this enemy to live is, in the end, to lose everything. To repudiate it and give up all for Christ’s sake is to lose nothing at last, but to preserve everything unto life eternal.” (pages 22 – 23).

 

As I ponder what Tozer says, I wonder if I missed this as a pastor and Bible teacher. While I emphasized the intercessory life, while time after time I recited Jesus’ call to take up our cross, deny ourselves, and follow Him, did I fail to make the connection for others that this directly affects our attitude toward possessions? While I did teach about us being stewards of all that God has given us, did I fail to explicitly challenge my people concerning the idolatry of possessions?

 

I have often thought about reading Ron Sider’s, Rich Christians In An Age of Hunger, and then asking the leader of a marketplace ministry about the book. It seemed to me natural that we’d want to introduce successful businesspeople to Sider’s challenge. I was told that if the ministry did that it would lose many of its participants.

 

While I did not press the issue with my friend, our interchange helped convince me that all ministry, including marketplace ministry, must have its nexus in the Cross.

 

I am not sure that we would have lost folks if we had presented Sider’s book, after all, the men and women we were serving were professing Christians and the very reason we were connected to them was because they wanted to go deeper with Jesus.

 

Yet, I also recall a response to some Bible teaching of mine (I don’t recall the specific teaching), some people were concerned that I was saying they couldn’t seek profits and wealth and possessions – in other words, they wanted to avoid the Cross working these things out in their lives, they wanted easy answers and they weren’t getting them from me.

 

It is good to remind ourselves that we ought to desire God to reveal our hearts to us and that we ought not to judge others, we can’t really know the hearts of others. For that matter, we can’t really know our own hearts, which is why we must seek the Holy Spirit and the Word of God and trust our Father to reveal to us what we need to see, trusting God to give us grace to respond to Him in obedience.

 

A person with many possessions may have God in the shrine of his heart, and the possessions may be external to his soul. A person with few possessions may worship them as idols and may have placed them in the depths of his heart, and God may be on the outside.

 

What we do know is that we live in a society obsessed with possessions. We are obsessed with the stock market, with economic reports, with investments, and with the accumulation of things. We check the financial markets the way a sports fan checks the Super Bowel score – except we do it as a way of life, not one day a year for a few hours.

 

“There can be no doubt that this possessive clinging to things is one of the most harmful habits in life. Because it is so natural, it is rarely recognized for the evil that it is. But its outworkings are tragic” (page 28).

 

Jesus says, “Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). Jesus then proceeds to tell the story of a rich man planning to build bigger barns to store his increasing harvest. God calls him a “Fool!” Jesus then says, “So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:16 – 21).

 

We measure life by money and possessions, and as Tozer says, it is “so natural,” and yet, isn’t it also so foolish?

 

Many churches and church leaders measure themselves by how much money they bring in and by their physical campus. I can’t count the number of times over the years friends and acquaintances have told me how big their capital campaign was, how much their new building cost, how much they spent on a new multimedia system.

 

I recall having lunch with an associate pastor at a church we were attending. Vickie and I had been bombarded with building fund marketing, as had the entire congregation. I said to the pastor, “Since this capital campaign began some months ago, I don’ recall one time we were told by church leadership that this is a result of prayer, or that leadership sensed God was leading them and the congregation in this direction. All we have heard is that consultants recommended we build a new building.”

 

The pastor thought for a few moments and then said, “You are right. This has not been about prayer or our sense of God’s direction.”

 

I guess everyone assumed that the more we had, the more money, the more buildings on campus, the more space, the better off we would be as a congregation. Bigger must be better.

 

Why don’t we speak of our pursuit of God? Why don’t we talk of loving Jesus more today than yesterday? Why don’t we rejoice in the members of our congregations growing in the Word, sharing the Word with one another, sharing the Gospel with those who don’t yet know Jesus, praying for one another, becoming a mature Body of Christ Jesus?

 

“The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and abnegation of all things. The blessed ones who possess the Kingdom are they who have repudiated every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing…These are the “poor in spirit.”

 

“These blessed poor are no longer slaves to the tyranny of things. They have broken the yoke of the oppressor; and this they have done not by fighting but by surrendering. Though free from all sense of possessing, they yet possess all things. “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”” (page 23).

 

To teach such things today seems impossible in our nation and in our churches. For pastors it would be a sure way to lose your job.

 

This is a result of us making conversion mechanical (as Tozer has pointed out) and of our failure to make disciples in obedience to the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18 – 20). Instead of asking people to “receive Jesus,” we are to call people to Jesus as Jesus calls people to Himself, “If anyone desires to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel’s will save it” (see Mark 8:34 – 38).

 

As Tozer writes, the root of possessiveness is the self-centered life, the selfish soul which is as a black hole, pulling all things into its dense self-centered gravity. Arguments, broken relationships, anger, emotional and mental problems, divorce, wars, fraud, the list of the poison fruit of the “self” and possessiveness is endless – when we make ourselves gods we make the world hell.

 

We are drunk with the hemlock of profit and gain and consumption and we can’t get enough, perhaps we should take a good look at Revelation Chapter 18 and see that we are not only fools, but that we are dancing with demons.

 

What have we done with our lives? With our marriages and families? With our churches? With our nation? With our world?

 

Might not the fact that what Tozer says is so foreign to our experience, that it is so impractical, that it seems like it is from another world, indicate how far we have departed from the Gospel and the Word of God and the Cross of Jesus Christ?

 

Well, for sure it is from another world, it is from heaven. Since we are to be citizens of heaven (Phil. 3:20), perhaps we ought to pay attention to it.

 

Tozer has more to show us in the blessedness of possessing nothing, there is more to come, including a way out of our dilemma.

 

O dear friends, let us remember that life is about knowing Jesus, loving Him more today than yesterday, and being the Presence of Christ to those around us. As Jesus laid down His life, we are to lay down our lives for others. What a blessed calling, and what a glorious future obedience to this calling assures us.

 

“Yet not I, but Christ,” (Galatians 2:20).

 

Shall this be our testimony today?