The Emergence of Prayer to that of Tradition

Prayer is as vitally important to the Christian life as God's living presence is to that Christian life. When we speak to friends we develop a relationship that evolves over time with one another. It grows and seeks to establish a resonance between the two individuals involved. The how-and-why-and-what that creates relationship is mostly undefined and simply acknowledged as the mindful presence of the one person with the other. We don't normally try to define that presence when actively participating in it. We simply receive it as it grows and expands through love, and loving participation, of ourselves to another, and that other to ourselves.

 

At other times a relationship may experience struggle, disappointment, misunderstanding, and the many other things that may cause a relationship to become static or to loose traction. Mostly it is through the ill-communication of words, intents, actions, or misplaced expectations, hopes and dreams (however necessary or needful those may be; if unmet they can sour a relationship's progression). But those who will walk with us and wish to be in a relationship with us (of whatever kind) will abide throughout those times to some degree or manner - sometimes in full participation and sometimes not at all. But by communicating and staying in relationship with one another, many of those difficult times can become understood, with backward insight and invited relational dialogue about those events. Perhaps forgiveness will be required. Perhaps patience and trust during periods of trial and testing. Perhaps a personal accountability must occur. But overall, a relationship is allowed to scuff along until it either ends or can begin again in promised renewal.
 
Parents experience this with their children... more especially with the development of that child into a young adult where the latter years can strain a family relationship. Where both child and parent actively learn to adapt and change to one another through relational reassessment, engagement, and lively interpersonal dialogue in order for that final stage to find its fullest independence and continuance. Different children go through it differently. And the same with parents. Each must be willing to lay down what once was to what is now occurring. It can be a very difficult time. God does this with us. Even as we do with Him. He grows with us in our turmoils and struggles as we sort out our personal identity, meaning, validation, and purpose. It can be messy but staying in communication with God oftentimes helps, not hurts. (Unless it's our imperfect image of God that needs destruction and rebirthing into a truer picture of the God of the Bible... as we grow God grows with us and without this growth God may simply become a fake reality. However, it is we ourselves who have made God fake  - or perhaps allowed to become dissembled at the hands of other people's ideologies and belief structures grown static and impersonal, misleading or destructive, with time and tradition. God is as true as He ever was. It was we that have become untrue or have made Him untrue.)
 
Consequently, prayer is primarily about relationship. About presence. About sharing one's self with another and allowing that relationship to grow or die, to mature or break down, but through it all to attempt a kind of personal responsibility for that relationship. Many times children do not have mindful friends - they will play with anybody at any given time or place. They accept other children into their lives innocently and only withdraw through hurtful experiences or parental whisperings and warnings. By their teenage years children have grown up enough to have created a specialised array of guardedness and acceptance of others. They have been hurt often enough by disappointment or active harm to have a sophisticated set of personal barriers which a new relationship must march through in order to be safely accepted. By mid-life, and with maturity, those barriers may have been lowered as one's personal strengths, understanding, and bigotries have become lowered; or, has grown even higher, through personal mistrust, defeat, suspicion, or even because of the inability to handle any further disappointment.

 

This may result from an individual not having developed the personal tools of artful self-discrimination, self-love or self-acceptance. Later events and friendships might provide these tools and abilities for maturation and personal self-assessment and acceptance. But sometimes the damage has been so ingrained as to make progress practically impossible. Mostly because it is very difficult to love others when we cannot love ourselves. God's love for us is our beginning point. Understanding God's love for us can create a whole other reality that we have never known or believed possible.
 
This is the value of teaching the love of God in Jesus to others. Jesus' love was personal. It was sacrificial. Selfless. Atoning. Redeeming. Freeing. Liberating. Unbinding. Like fresh water to the thirsty. Like meat and bread to the hungry. It stands in our place against all our sin and lifts us up to God's very presence saying "This one is mine and so has this one become yours too." Jesus' love is kind, patient, long suffering. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things to those desperately needing God's love living on the edges of life's abandonment and dark hopelessness. It comes to the realization that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him, trusts in Him, accepts Him, or allows Him in, will not perish, but find resurrected hope and eternal life (John 3.16). This is a promise become a reality throughout this wicked world's history of pain and disappointment. A promise that makes all things new. Including ourselves. That sees the world remade in God's image of beauty and brightness. What once was godless is now filled with God's presence of life-giving promise, healing, and the certainty of His presence.

 

Overall, prayer is a two-way participation between God and ourselves. Just as a relationship is a participation between two individuals in the give-and-take roles that arrive at an intimate understanding of one another. The methodologies of communication will evolve over time but the primary methodology is that of speaking to one another and sharing one's thoughts, heart and mind. It may be in wordless conversation or in a spoken conversation (despite Roger Olson's article to the contrary posted below). But it is a communication that learns about the other person's desires, thoughts, heart, mind and soul. And in this case, when that presence and relationship is very God Himself, we learn to listen and take in what He has to say to us through His Word. For His divine presence is everyday around us - from the people we meet to the world we live in.
 
However, it should also be realized that though Churches and Christian fellowships pray to God, and pray to seek God's face, they each are transitioning in their understanding of God as well. No one body of believers can be absolute in their knowledge, in their beliefs, or in their dogmas. If they are than they have become stagnant and closed off to God's presiding Spirit ministering to mankind. To pretend that everything that has been said and can be known of God has occurred by 400 A.D. (the Apostolic Fathers era and closing of the Canon), or by 1054 A.D. (Eastern Orthodoxy's dissolvement of ecclesiastical ties to Rome), or by the 1600-1800's (the Reformational movement), or even more recently, by the 1980's with Evangelicalism's disposition upon "inerrancy" (and with it, some form of interpretive "traditional/classic Christian dogma) is preposterous. Yes, we must pay attention to what the Church of the past centuries has discovered and taught (which also includes Catholicism as well!), but to say that God cannot speak any longer is to have arrived at a closed Bible instead of an open Bible. A Bible that is evolving with mankind and ministering to societal needs today and not to yesteryear's more austere (or is it revered?) doctrines. The Bible has room to grow - and we with it - this is the nature of language, of communication, of presence. This is the nature of God's abiding communication and presence with us in the here-and-now.

Consequently, we must realize that our subcultural belief systems, our personal alienations, our skewed theologies, even the events in our lives, can speak imperfectly of God. That experience, tradition, or societal mores should never be the final word about God. We are imperfect individuals each with a rich tradition of personhood and heritage. It is both the Church's strength and the Church's weakness. But proper self-doubt is necessary when approaching God through the eyes of His fellowship. Sometimes we are fortunate and will have fallen into a fellowship that speaks God's word good enough (in the classic or traditional sense, but this can also be its own undoing, as we have just noted). More often is the case that the Church's fellowships are in the process of growing in their understanding of God just as much as we are ourselves on a personal level. And it is through the gifting of the body of Christ that God leads and directs His Church into the paths of His Word and unto the gifts of righteousness, wholeness and healing. And curiously, that spiritual gifting may be you, however young or inexperienced you are. You may be the key to your Church's spiritual vitality and health.
 
But it is vitally important to widely read everything from newspapers to best selling books, both popular and academic. And to widely study the traditions and the histories of the Church, of culture and society itself, and most importantly one's present era. And then to add to this wealth of knowledge the vitally important task of communicating with people - from the man on the street, to the person in the pew. To households and schools, to parents and children, teens and college students. To mechanics and pilots, businessmen and bankers, bluecollar workers, field hands and factory employees. To know and understand the very same people you wish to minister to. And to this effort one must research the newer theologies presently occurring. As is the case here in this Emergent blog with its emphasis upon the contemporary advancement of newly proposed theological ideas and researches that are occurring throughout various academic disciplines that are progressively evangelic, or what we are calling, emergent. Without new disciples the Church can (and will) stagnate and die. God's flock needs wise shepherds who can become good and wise leaders. Who can share the Way of Christ, or the Gospel of Jesus (or by whatever name we may call it) with others wherever they are on the road of life. Our belief structures (known as epistemologies) will change and perhaps must change. We are not God. Nor do we know everything about God. In fact, we know very little and must become as much disciples of Jesus, as we are to disciple Jesus to others. As Christians we are always in the process of growth and metamorphosis - learning to die to self while serving others. It is a hard road that often defeats us but must daily be encountered in the power of God and by His mighty Holy Spirit.

Prayer is but one of those relational tools that God has gifted mankind with through the presence of Himself by His Spirit. But that same divine relationship is everywhere around us in the daily events of our lives as we learn to listen and discern. God walks amongst us in the trials of the day and the beauties of the night. He is there. His loving guidance does not dim however harsh the paths of this frail life. However abandoned you may feel. God is there. However unheard you feel. God is listening. His love is yours - as fully in this life as it well be the next life hereafter. That faith-living requires living with some faith-tension. With the unknown. With the mysteriousness of God's plans and purposes. That we give up our desire for control and allow His will to be done. Not ours. And in return what does God promise? He promises to be always with us. He promises His presence in place of answers. He promises that He will walk through every dark valley and every high mountain with us. That He will never leave us nor forsake us. That the peace of His presence will be power enough to lead and to guide us.

And as we have the strength and ability, the gifting and resources, we must now share God's love to this world that does not know God to the furtherance of God's abiding Kingdom. For today is the day that we each must become like children of the Kingdom, seeking that our Father-God lead and guide us unto the giving of good gifts to those around us. Gifts that will birth life and not death. Hope in place of hopelessness. Fulfillment in place of disappointment and lost. For it is in the losses of life that we become rich. It is in the disappointments of life that we might grow. It is in the abandonment of life that we are delivered. Odd? Yes. But never so true as for the sinner saved by God's grace and the believer trying to live in the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

R.E. Slater

October 27, 2012

 

I am the vine; you are the branches.

Whoever abides in me and I in him,

he it is that bears much fruit....

                                                                       - John 15.5

 

1 Corinthians 13

English Standard Version (ESV)

 

The Way of Love

 

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³ If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,^[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.

 

⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;^{[b] 6} it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

 

⁸ Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ¹² For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

 

¹³ So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

 

Footnotes:

1. 1 Corinthians 13:3 Some manuscripts deliver up my body [to death] that I may boast
2. 1 Corinthians 13:5 Greek irritable and does not count up wrongdoing

 

 

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Musings about Prayer: What It Is and Does

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/10/musings-about-prayer-what-it-is-and-does/

 

by Roger Olson

October 26, 2012

Comments

 

Prayer is not exactly a controversial hot button issue, but maybe it should be. Not that I want it to divide people or want people to fight over it. My point is that people - and here I’m concerned mainly about Christians - should think about prayer as well as pray. Is everything called “prayer” really prayer in a biblical and theological sense? Does simply calling a practice prayer make it so? Also, can prayer actually change “things” (circumstances) or only the person praying? There’s an old saying that “Prayer doesn’t change things; prayer changes me.” Is that so?

 

I suspect most Christians will agree if I say that positive thinking is not prayer. The other day I saw another newspaper advertisement announcing a seminar on “prayer” with a “nationally recognized expert.” Only the fine print revealed that she is associated with a “church” that believes sin, sickness and even death can be conquered through positive thinking. That religious organization grew out of a 19^th century spiritual movement called New Thought that emphasized mind over matter—that people can change their life circumstances (poor health, poverty, etc.) through aligning their thoughts with the infinite mind of “God.” For most of them, “God” is not so much a person as the Mind or Spirit of the universe. Human beings can harness the power of God by tapping into his or her thoughts. Different New Thought religious groups have different spiritual techniques for this. Some call their technique “Affirmations” (positive sayings). In any case, what is being called “prayer” is really a form of magic—manipulating reality through powerful thoughts, rituals or techniques. There is no idea of a sovereign, personal God in most forms of New Thought. And yet it often goes under the name of “Christian.” In orthodox Christianity, prayer is not magic.

 

Now, having said that, I do not deny the power of positive thinking. What I deny is any guarantee that just the right positive thinking or speaking will manipulate God or Mind or Spirit or whatever to do one’s bidding. Books like Pray and Grow Rich abound in modern New Thought circles and among Christians influenced by New Thought. And I deny that positive thinking or even positive speaking (e.g., “I am a healthy and whole person loved by God who wills my total well being”) is prayer.

 

Now I suspect I’m going to touch a nerve and cause a bit more consternation among orthodox Christians when I say that, in my opinion, “wordless prayer” is also not prayer—at least not the heart of prayer. Much of what goes under the label “contemplative prayer” is wordless prayer. I prefer to call it meditation and wish Christians who exercise it in their spiritual lives would call it that instead of prayer.

 

During the past twenty to thirty years (at least), “contemplative prayer” has swept into evangelical Christian circles. Its sources are diverse. At least some are Catholic mystics and contemplatives. Two who have promoted wordless prayer and influenced evangelical Christians to practice it are Thomas Keating and Basil Pennington. I’ve read their books (at least some of them) and practiced their meditative practices with others in Bible study and prayer small groups. In fact, over the past two to three decades, it seemed sometimes that every time I engaged in spiritual, devotional practice with a group of fellow evangelical Christian educators wordless prayer has come into it at some point.

 

Let me make clear what I am NOT talking about under the category of wordless prayer. I am not talking about “lectio divina” which is meditating on a passage of Scripture and being open to hearing the voice of God speaking to one through the words of Scripture.

 

“Wordless prayer” is silently listening for the voice of God while abandoning all words and thoughts of one’s own. It is silencing what Buddhists call “the monkey mind” (thoughts jumping around in one’s mind) and emptying oneself of all thought in order to be more open to God entering into that silence to speak or influence one’s motives and intentions.

 

I have nothing against such practice; what I oppose is calling it “prayer” or allowing it to become the center of one’s spiritual life to the neglect of real prayer.

 

So far as I know and can think, nowhere does the Bible refer to non-verbal (as in using words even if silently) contemplation or meditation as prayer. Yes, of course, the Psalms mention meditating on God’s Word or God’s law, but that involves words. And it doesn’t (so far as I can recall) anywhere refer to that as “prayer.”

 

My favorite book on prayer (I’m not expecting it to be everyone’s) is Donald G. Bloesch’s The Struggle of Prayer (1988). Bloesch does not dismiss meditation or contemplation, but he argues, rightly I believe, that prayer is normally “dialogue with God.” He says “The thesis of this book is that true prayer will always give rise to words.” (p. 50) He elaborates: “There is no such thing as nonthinking prayer in the sense of prayer that is wholly divorced from rational intent. We will always have some intimation of our deepest concerns and needs, even though we may not comprehend them.” (p. 50) He acknowledges “inaudible prayer,” of course, but refers to wordless prayer, contemplation and meditation, as “preparation for prayer,” “aid for prayer,” etc.

 

Bloesch writes “While acknowledging the mystical dimension in true prayer, I basically stand in the tradition of the biblical prophets and the Protestant Reformation, which sees prayer not as recitation (as in formalistic religion) or meditation (as in mysticism) but as dialogue between a living God and the one who has been touched by his grace.” (p. vii).

 

I agree with Bloesch that we need to reserve the word “prayer” for "dialogue" with God in which words are involved and contemplation, meditation as preparation for prayer or aids to prayer.

 

Bloesch’s concern and mine is that wordless contemplation and meditation, especially when thought of as “prayer,” can lead to or be associated with belief in an impersonal divine or becoming one with the divine (or realizing one’s divinity). It can reduce the relationship with God to something impersonal and/or it can be spiritual therapy that has little to do with an I-Thou encounter with God in which the human subject is challenged, confronted, brought to his or her knees by God in conviction and repentance.

 

I resist the common saying that “Prayer doesn’t change things; it changes me.” Of course it does change me. That’s not the part to which I object. The part I object to is “Prayer doesn’t change things.” Scripture is filled with prayers that change circumstances, not by means of magic but by appealing to God who responds by changing circumstances. I have trouble even understanding why a person whose worldview and spirituality is shaped by the Bible would ever say that prayer doesn’t change things, it only changes him or her. Even Calvinists normally don’t say that prayer doesn’t change things (although that would seem to me to fit better with their deterministic theology).

 

I’ve tried to track down the origins of the saying that prayer doesn’t change things but only changes the person praying. One source seems to be Scottish theologian William Barclay whose little Bible commentaries (often referred to by young pastors as “Saturday night specials” because they’re handy for getting sermon ideas and illustrations) have been popular and influential. But I doubt he coined the saying. Whoever did coin it was, I suspect, influenced by liberal theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher who argued in The Christian Faith (his systematic theology) that petitionary prayer is immature prayer and should be abandoned. His reason was that it implies God’s dependence on us whereas true “God-consciousness” is based on the feeling of utter dependence on God. It was convenient that abandoning petitionary prayer fit with Schleiermacher’s deterministic (Newtonian) worldview in which nature is harmonious and closed to miracles or anything supernatural. (Although he admitted that miracles might happen, he said that they would already be built into the cause-and-effect network that is nature by God and not happen as interventions or responses to prayer not already planned and programmed into nature and history.)

 

I cringe whenever I hear evangelical Christians (really any Christians but especially evangelical ones!) say “Prayer doesn’t change things; it changes me.” I wonder why they are saying that. Is it to avoid the difficulty of having to think about why some prayers are not answered (at least the way they were prayed)? Do they still pray petitionary prayers? If so, how do they reconcile that practice with the first part of the saying? I suspect that for many evangelical Christians, attaching “If it be thy will” to the end of a prayer reconciles petitionary prayer with “Prayer doesn’t change things.”

 

I am personally opposed to attaching “If it be thy will” to every petitionary prayer. If the Bible says something is God’s will, then we should pray that he do it. What if He doesn’t? Then we live with the tension of that and acknowledge God’s sovereignty and higher wisdom. But to always attach “if it be thy will” to every prayer somehow weakens the prayer’s power. Jesus taught there is power in prayer and that we should expect answers to prayers unless they are prayed to fulfill our own selfish wants and wishes. (I am assuming here that James 4:3 echoes Jesus’ own sentiments.) The Bible encourages confident prayer, not weak praying that lacks confidence in God’s desire to heal, to provide and to save. So long as petitionary prayer is prayed with understanding of God’s superior wisdom and sovereignty, attaching “if it be thy will” doesn’t, in my opinion, serve any purpose when the prayer is for something God has revealed to be his will. That something is revealed to be God’s general will doesn’t necessarily mean he will do it in every case when prayer is offered for it. Only God knows the total circumstances and whether something is possible even for him. (I’m not talking about his power here; I’m talking about his plans and purposes.) Generally speaking, in Scripture, healing of bodies is God’s will. But we are told that total healing is eschatological. Nevertheless, the apostles’ prayers and Jesus’ prayers for others’ healings do not normally come with the caveat attached (if it be thy will).

 

When I pray for someone’s healing, especially if the person is suffering, I do not say “if it be thy will.” I understand that God doesn’t always heal in response even to powerful, confident prayer. God knows best; we simply have to rest in that at times. But Scripture models confident praying for healing. I would never presume to command God to heal a person (as some “faith healing evangelists” do). But to ask God please to heal someone is, I judge, thoroughly biblical. Adding “if it be thy will” implies that we’re not confident God wants to heal. Jesus always wanted to heal people, especially when they were suffering. Jesus is the revelation of the character of God. God’s character is that he wants to heal people. When he doesn’t, when we have prayed powerful, confident prayers on their behalf, we simply leave it in God’s hands and [leave it to] God why he couldn’t heal the person.

 

I know many people recoil at the word “couldn’t” in such a sentence. Can’t God simply do whatever he wants to do? Well, yes, if we mean “has the power to.” But, I believe, in his wisdom, God, and sometimes only God, knows why it would not be best to heal someone or answer another prayer that accords with his general character and desires for people. The apostle Paul reports that God simply said “no” in answer to his prayer for healing. Does that falsify everything I’m saying here? I don’t think so. We should always be prepared to accept a clear “no” from God. But to anticipate God’s “no” is, I think, wrong. James says that “the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man [person] avails much.” He also says “the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up.” My point is that petitionary prayer, in Scripture, is said to change things, not just the person praying, and that anticipating a “no” when we pray is likely to reduce the power of the prayer. Saying “if it be thy will” does not seem consistent with the clear Scriptural instructions about praying. But I also know that there are no guarantees that God will, for example, heal. We have to live in the tension of powerful, fervent, confident prayer (for things God has revealed He wants to do and give) and the lack of response to the prayer as it was prayed.

 

To think that a certain kind of praying guarantees the response one wants is to reduce prayer to magic. To think that praying does not change circumstances but only “me” is to reduce prayer to spiritual therapy.

 

Now, of course, someone is going to ask about Jesus’ prayer in the garden “Not my will but thine be done.” I believe that, at that point, Jesus knew what God’s will was. As God, it was also his will. But, in the moment of human weakness and fear, he was conflicted. I don’t think it’s a sin to pray “not my will, but thine be done,” of course, but neither do I think it is something we need to or should attach to every prayer, especially when we don’t already know (as Jesus did) what God’s special will is in a particular case.

 

Those are my musings about prayer. Don’t carve them in stone and come back to me a year from now and say “But on such-and-such a day you said….” Context is so important in these matters (of musings). If a year from now I’m in a context where everyone around me is demanding that God do their bidding (as one person I knew a long time ago said “I confront God with his Word….”) I might write about acknowledging God’s sovereignty in prayer. I doubt that I will change my mind about not always praying “if it be thy will” in petitionary prayers, but I might emphasize the importance of resting in God’s wisdom and sovereignty. In brief, the majority of evangelicals need to learn to pray more powerfully and fervently and confidently. The majority of charismatics and traditional Pentecostals need to learn to acknowledge God’s sovereignty more.

Continue to -

 

Index to past articles on "An Open Faith and Open Theology"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forgiveness, by Peter Enns

 

Forgiveness

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2012/10/forgiveness/

by Peter Enns
October 22, 2012
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Followers of Jesus are commanded by him to forgive others, even those…especially those…who have wronged us. He commands us to do so, because, when we forgive, especially those who have wronged us terribly, we are most like God.

 

Forgiveness does not mean that we make believe the injustice never happened, or make light of it. It does not mean we leave ourselves open to abuse. It means we cease harboring ill against the other. We let it go.

 

Forgiveness does not depend on our ability to bring the other to the same realization. Our forgiveness must commence regardless of the other. We can only make the decision for ourselves to move to the center. We cannot force the other to take that same step. We cannot control the other. We can only control ourselves.

 

Forgiveness is not for the weak, for it means letting go of our need for justice. It is easier to forgive if we feel some guarantee that justice will be delivered in the near future. But that is not forgiveness.

 

Forgiveness looks only within, what we can do. It does not think of what should be done to the other.

 

When we focus on the injustice that has been done, it will become the dominant thought, and so we might be tempted to be God’s instrument of justice, to help things along. That makes forgiveness impossible.

 

If we call upon God to bring justice, he will begin with us, not with the other. So, we should not call down justice upon the other. The role we have been given is to forgive. Justice is what God will do, mercifully.

 

When we forgive, we are reminded of the mercy that has been shown to us. When we forgive even the most malicious of acts, we begin to see–only then can we see–how we have been forgiven.

 

When we forgive, we know God more clearly.

 

Even when the wrong done to us carries with it such an overpowering sense of malice, when we are filled with disgrace, humiliation, isolation–even then we forgive. Especially then.

 

Because,

 

When we feel this way, we have the privilege of experiencing something of what Jesus felt–disgrace, humiliation, isolation.

 

 

Jesus forgave, and when we forgive, we are most like him.

 

Following Jesus means forgiving.

 

Forgiveness is about deciding what kind of person you want to be, what path you will walk, what kind of life you want to live. It is a decision to conform to the image of Christ. That decision is before us moment by moment, and more often than we might think.

 

 

 

10 Suggestions for Spirit Borne Revival of the Church

Today's blog by Tom is a perfect lead-in to the several postings I've presented here recently these past several weeks. Here is yet another voice (in this case, a Nazarene voice) crying in the wilderness for change in the Church of God. Change that can only be Spirit-borne and Spirit-led when illuminated to the magnitudes that must occur if God's people are to share Jesus with the rest of the world beyond their own numbers. At heart the Church must be missional and without missional acts of charity and kindness the Christian faith is hollow. A social club and no more. But when one enacts the words of Jesus to the communities around them then, and only then, does Jesus become interesting, borne of the wings of prayer, good works, faith, and the Gospel's call to missional discipleship. Let us take care to enact the voice of Jesus today in all that we say and do.

 

R.E. Slater

October 23, 2012

 

 

Open the Windows of the Church

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/open_the_windows_of_the_church1/

 

by Thomas Jay Oord

October 8, 2012

Comments

 

Fifty years ago this month, Pope John XXIII initiated the Second Vatican Council. He said it was time to “throw open the windows of the church and let the fresh air of the spirit blow through.” It’s time to throw open the windows again!

 

The Roman Catholic Church has changed in dramatic ways in the last fifty years. Many people say they’d like to have seen even more change, however. No matter what one’s views, it seems clear that the Catholicism today is significantly different thanks to the Second Vatican Council.

 

The task for renewal in the Church never stops, of course. But there are some moments when the need for renewal seems more palpable, more urgent, more real. We live today in such a moment.

 

I’ve been thinking about the church globally, including its denominations, groups, and movements. Some amazing things are occurring, as creatures cooperate with the work of our Creator. But there are also reasons to seek change.

 

Change in the Church of the Nazarene

 

I want to step out on a limb in this short essay. I suggest ten ways the windows of the church might be thrown open so that the wind of the Spirit might blow through.

Much of what I propose applies to the Church generally. But because I know my own denomination -- the Church of the Nazarene -- much better, this essay is aimed at this collection of about 2.5 million Nazarenes across the world.

 

Here, then, are ten ways the windows of the Church of the Nazarene might be thrown open to let the Spirit blow through the church. I could probably write a book on each one, but I’ve limited myself to a few sentences.

 

I list these in no particular order:

 

1. Engage contemporary theology. Theological scholars in the colleges and universities sponsored by the Church of the Nazarene explore a variety of theological ideas. Theology in the denomination is significantly different today than it was fifty years ago. And that’s to be expected. Unfortunately, however, pursuing new forms of Wesleyan-Holiness theology in dialogue with these contemporary theological ideas is not encouraged as it should be. I believe the Spirit intends to do new things and guide the denomination in new ways theologically.

 

2. Embrace the wisdom of the wider Christian tradition. The Church of the Nazarene is but one small part of a much larger Christian family. And that family has much to teach Nazarenes. Sometimes Nazarenes forget their indebtedness to the wider Christian tradition. The result is impoverished liturgy, worship, theology, and practice. The Church of the Nazarene can embrace the wisdom in other Christian traditions without losing its identity.

 

3. Reexamine what makes the Church of the Nazarene unique and affirm elements helpful for today. The denomination’s own history offers a rich resource. Of course, there are also aspects in its history better left in the past. I know of no one, for instance, who thinks we should return to the practice of forbidding members to attend baseball games. But other elements in our history can help us live faithfully today. As a denomination, we must do the hard work of gleaning wheat and leaving chaff.

 

4. Support the poor, powerless, and deprived. From its beginning, the Church of the Nazarene has felt especially called to help those most in need. Such help can be financial, emotional, intellectual, etc. I find many young Nazarenes wanting to affirm this history of helpfulness, although today these issues typically are called matters of “social justice.” The wind of the Spirit in the Church seems to be calling us to renew our resolve to act for the good of the least of these.

 

5. Embrace knowledge offered in the sciences, humanities, and arts. As important as the Bible is for Nazarenes, we have never been a “Bible only” people. Leaders from the beginning understood, for instance, the importance of liberal arts university education. Unfortunately, however, those who embrace the knowledge found in the sciences, humanities, and arts are sometimes deemed as “liberal” or concerned with peripheral issues. The windows of the Church are not opened wide for the Spirit if we ignore some portions of God’s truth.

 

6. Create space in positions of leadership for non-North Americans and minority voices. We’re already behind the curve when it comes to having good representation in leadership of non-white Nazarenes. The denomination is growing fastest outside the U.S., and many more Nazarenes live outside North America than in it. And yet our leadership at denominational headquarters – top to bottom – is by far dominated by white males. Perhaps embracing diversity will require decentralization, but it at least involves diverse representation at the leadership level.

 

7. Promote an evangelistic/missional strategy of love toward nonChristians. Unfortunately, some act as if befriending those of different religious traditions -- without the relentless goal of converting them -- is unwise. But we are called first to love, and that may or may not involve inviting others to embrace the Christian faith. In a world of increasing religious diversity, we should affirm the universality of God’s prevenient grace toward all peoples. And this affirmation need not lead to pluralism or extreme relativism.

 

8. Reestablish the power and number of women in leadership. Many members of the Church of the Nazarene happily note that while the Roman Catholic church has not embraced the Spirit’s move to establish women in the highest positions of leadership, Nazarenes have affirmed this throughout their history. And yet a very small percentage of Nazarene pastors are women. And leadership in various denominational sectors is dominated by men. Steps must be taken to encourage Nazarene members to promote women into positions of leadership.

 

9. Change the leadership General Superintendent structure. Since its early days, the Church of the Nazarene has elected beginning with three and then six leaders to the highest position of leadership: General Superintendent. When the denomination numbered a few hundred thousand, this was a sufficient number of leaders to fulfill the tasks assigned the position. While the denomination has grown ten times bigger in the last sixty years, the same number of general superintendents is called to govern. We either need a single bishop with dozens of key leaders under her to fulfill the tasks of leadership, or we need 18-20 general superintendents located in and representing various parts of the world. The denomination cannot function well in its current leadership format.

 

10. Engage culture rather than simply condemn it. I recently read the Pew Research Center study of religion among the American “millennial generation.” I was struck by how young people think about issues of religion and culture. In particular, most younger Americans think differently than their parents about abortion, evolution, the influence of Hollywood, homosexuality, and the proper size of government. This, of course, doesn’t mean that their views are better or should necessarily change the positions of the denomination. But it does mean that the Church of the Nazarene must engage culture – American and other cultures – to discern what should be embraced and what should be rejected. Besides, it’s quite clear that the denomination changed its views on many issues – e.g., dancing, wearing rings, movies, sports – as cultures changed in the last century.

 

Conclusion

 

One of the theological presuppositions of Pope John XXIII’s statement about “throwing open the windows of the church” is that what we do influences what the Spirit does. That’s a presupposition that fits well in Wesleyan theology. And it rightly puts responsibility on our shoulders to cooperate with what God might want to do in our world today.

 

I remain optimistic about the future of the church, in general, and the Church of the Nazarene, in particular. My optimism is grounded in God’s grace. But I also believe we as a church and as individuals must heed the call for a fresh anointing of the Spirit in our lifetime.

 

 

 

Updated - The Knowledge of the Holy, by A.W. Tozer [.pdf]

 

 

 

One of the first theology books I came across in my college years was by A.W. Tozer who spoke warmly of God and all that God was in the Bible. It was not an easy read as I remember it mostly because Dr. Tozer packed a lot of ideas into a single sentence and paragraph (now-a-days we call these "dense reads"). And to get through a couple pages, let alone a chapter of five or six pages, seemed nearly impossible to me each night during devotions as I tried to work out his exquisite theological expressions of our Almighty God. And yet, as I learned to adapt to Tozer's style of writing, and to think like he was thinking, I became deeply inspired by God's passionate devotion to His creation, His praise-worthiness, and incredible love for us. It drew me nearer to God and nearer to His Word. I discovered a deep awareness - an overwhelming majesty - about God previously unthought and inexperienced before this time in my life.

Consequently, I would like to share this devotional booklet online as a very well-written example of Classical Theism (CT) so that at a later date, when we investigate Process Thought (PT) - which is the polar opposite to CT - we would have a more solid basis to compare each theological system to the another. Overall, it is my wish to synthesize each system towards a third alternative. One that I've been calling Relational Theism (RT), with the hope that in the journey we may discover that somewhere someone has already completed this eclectic effort. To some degree I've already uncovered a few theologians who have moved towards this positional theology affectively but am still not sufficiently acquainted in their backgrounds to fully determine how completely their teaching might be in-line with what I have in mind. Nor am I convinced that this middling RT position might be satisfactory to myself as I learn more about it... perhaps I may wish to shade it more-or-less towards one direction or another* (based upon my background it may lean more towards CT than PT I'm afraid).

However, whatever develops, it must assist in the holistic foundation of Emergent Christianity. To the degree that it does this, then to that degree I will find it more palatable. For I'm afraid that I cannot take the more pious position of saying, "I have no position but that of God's," because that can never be true of any informed theologian or biblical teacher. Every theologian develops their theology within a given frame of reference which later becomes colored-in by critique and historical movement. And if a theologian lives long enough, they might experience a movement that may directly challenge any prior theological commitments, thus forcing a reconstruction either to, or from, their current position. You see this even in the reading of the Old Testament as the various books transition from era-to-era within Israel's constructed history of herself. And not only within the books themselves, but within their very passages, from passage to passage. And so, theological reflection and critique, movement and assessment, does - and well - change, even today as it did in biblical times. Why? Because God is that big, that awesome, that our finite perception of God must also evolve even as we evolve ourselves (this is the idea lying behind "Open Theology").

By way of personal example, when first starting out in the faith of Jesus I entered into a moderately conservative, Fundamental, Christian movement (the General Association of Regular Baptists, otherwise known as the GARB) that understood God and His Word within certain cultural, and theological, traditions -  mostly warm, pious, reverent, etc. Later, I transitioned for various reasons (mostly marriage and teaching opportunities) towards a conservative, Evangelical, Christianity that was less judgmental than my former church traditions, and more progressive in the ways of the world (my wife could work and pursue her career and not be seen as disobedient to God). In subsequent years I have transitioned again into yet another theological position which I would describe as an Emergent form of Christianity. A form that was even more progressively minded than my past, previous, church traditions. (This latter move occurred when my current church naively begat a more youthful, radical form of itself, not understanding how drastically different it would become... much like our own families as our kids take possession of themselves and radically re-express their lives on their terms and vision.) Apparently, with age and temperament, an informed student of the Word (and, for that fact, a trained theologian) may purposely change their viewpoint - sometimes radically, or moderately, or perhaps not at all. (Sometimes these are academic but more often they result from a life experience, or from societal revelation, a death, birth, marriage, injury, or burden.) But in order for transition to occur one must also have a historical awareness to any fundamental shifts occurring within the Church and society itself. For without an outside "criticizing" (or dissenting) disruptive force, a theologian will have no advantage in judging the pertinence, completeness, or sufficiency of his enculturated church tradition's academic reach, validity, or even social relevancy. Or, in lay terms, whether he or she should change-or-not from prior positional commitments.

Moreover, whenever I hear of change occurring in a theologian's (or pastor's) academic position, I lately have taken the additional step of being more generously compassionate to that mindful theologian "caught between the traces" of a particular philosophical or theological debate or movement. In an earlier life (or version of myself) I would not have been so generous, nor so graciously permitting, for my traditions had taught me to be wary, critical, and unduly judgmental. Not necessarily good traits in broadening one's perspective of God, or of learning of His mysterious ways. Although in a positive sense, it did seek to lean on orthodox Christian tradition (but in a way that was selective within its perceived notions of orthodoxy), and to stay true to one's historical roots. While at the same time not realizing that orthodoxy must-and-will change even as the philosophical movements within society change (as Charles Jencks' diagram below shows, societies usually are dealing with more than one type of change within themselves). And as we change, so too will God's Word and commands change in measured response to societal perspectives and historical human transition and development:

 

Click to Enlarge

 

"The Century is Over" - Evolutionary Tree of Twentieth-Century Architecture with its attractor basins,

by Charles Jencks, Architectural Review, July 2000, p. 77 - http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/10/charles-jencks-look-at-modernism.html

 

What does this mean? That a Greek-based, Hellenistic (as versus Semitic) orthodoxy, grasped by the early-to-late Church Fathers through to the Medieval periods, can give rise to an anti-Catholic, pro-Lutheran understanding in the Reformation Age. That then transitions again under the Reformed and Enlightenment movement of the 16-17th Centuries into a variety of Modernistic expressions of orthodoxy today. Pick any biblical theme, or any subject matter, and perform a historic study of that theme and subject matter, and you will quickly understand how people's perspective of God's Word changes from era-to-era, culture-to-culture, respective to the deep changes occurring in their own lives. This is not new news. Only new news to those traditionalists who assume man stays the same - and his God with him. And if we change, then we err, because it is assumed that God cannot change... that He stays impassively the same from generation to generation. Which would be to confuse His divine attributes with His economic relationship with the world. And even then, to naively assume we have said all we can say after 2000 years of church studies and confessions about this Redeemer-Creator God we think we know. Statedly believing that God must always remain the same as defined by our "classically-reinforced" descriptions of Himself (whatever those may be dependent upon the era-and-culture you may find yourself in).

Consequently, whether at one time the church may have spoken effectively to one generation or not, it now may be speaking even less effectively if it does not first adapt and synthesize its "biblical" message. But more-often-than-not, churches lean on their traditions to interpret their view of the world - and God's pre-supposed response to it - not realizing that those views can be unnecessarily restrictive to the urgent needs of their generation languishing for lack of a relevant gospel message. Instead, we give to society our selective version of the gospel that makes us feel comfortable with ourselves, rather than tempering our traditions and dogmas so that God may speak both to us - even as He does to this lost world we live in. Change must be embraced, not refused and condemned. And with change will come changes to traditions and dogmas - which in the church's case, it fears most, making of it a religious institution rather than a living faith fellowship.

And yet, in reality, change is the hardest thing to do - especially for a pastor or an academic scholar - dependent upon funding for life and ministry. If they change, then they may lose their ministry. Especially if that change is perceived as too radical. (I recently listened to a faithful Christian friend declare with religious zeal-and-fervor her perceived rightness of a Christian professor's tenured dismissal from a local Christian college for his heresy to God's Word.... A heresy I might add that we support here at Relevancy22. The heresy? Evolution and Science.... I am constantly amazed how benighted we can become by our own dictates and whimsies all in the name of God). So that, because of one's training and background; the brevity of academic life or ministry; the stubbornness of one's pride, or previous commitments, or accomplishments; or the awkwardness of public scrutiny ill-favoring any type of fundamental change; or even because of one's resume, status, or location, each of these social warrants may inhibit the necessary growth-and-change required to make a transformation forward towards theological relevancy - and away from the irrelevancy of one's favored interpretations of God's Word.

For some reason, as humans we don't like change. And when we do change it can disrupt us, sometimes greatly. But if the pace of societal shift has become so aggressively pronounced, then our former position may have to change as aggressively as well lest it die altogether in the streams of yesteryear's fast-fading eve of well-intentioned thoughts. Thus ideas and observations by classicists like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; or philosopher's like Nietzsche, Kant, and Kierkegaard; or even theologians like Augustine, Calvin, Barth, or N.T. Wright; will ebb-and-flow from century-to-century, era-to-era. Sometimes arriving as a heavy-handed disruptive event. And sometimes with hardly any disruption at all. Admittedly, nothing stays static. Not even theology. Though we piously quote to ourselves "God's Word never changes," while all-the-while suggesting by this fickled statement our firm resistance to change. And although we may think this to be true, we neglect to comprehend that it is we ourselves who are the one who must ultimately change. For if we do not, we become legalistic, or religious, and die to the living Word of God as it moderates our understanding with God's own understanding of His revealing Word. Moreover, our language and communications with one another must grow and adapt if God's Word is to live. And even our collective perspective as a church in its living witness within this world's ever-turbulent events and ideas must also evolve and accommodate lest that church dies as an irrelevant (if not irreverent) institution rather than as a living body of Jesus followers . For if we do not learn to re-learn, than we are judged to have failed, to be naive,  judgmental, unloving, or in grievous personal disrepute with the Word itself as it reaches out to save all men - and not just some according to our own religious rules and dogmas.

In summary, please enjoy these classical readings by A.W. Tozer, and through them become more accommodative to the necessary adaptation to ideas about God towards a more updated form of Christianity known as Emergent (or Postmodern) Christianity. A transitionary form that will carry with it its own disciplines of theology, doctrine, and dogma (as much as I hate to admit it). Why? Because we are symbolic beings whose ideas must become visualized and enacted. And as much as I would like to encourage abstract theology it is without practicality to the masses dependent upon regionally translated form and shape. By which we get doctrine and dogma. But, the key to all of this is to be always willing to allow God to reshape our doctrines and dogmas as His Word must demand in order to speak afresh to the masses of the world around us. Should it not, than all of our creeds and confessions will become meaningless rather than timeless. And timeless because we each live within a generation or two of growth where our effectiveness slowly must change with the changes of humanity. Nothing can last for long, as evidenced by the names of the movements I have mentioned above (not even Reformed, Evangelical, Christianity). But that does not mean that we don't appreciate the importance of the Church set in place by God to minister to that time-and-era. But to keep in remembrance that all things change. And it is mostly ourselves, and our societies, that gives to us our finite incompleteness before the Holy One of Israel become our Redeemer Savior.

Consequently, it's important to know your theological history. To know how theology has changed and adapted through the eras of the Church. And to discern what is to be kept and not kept. Not simply by degrees but perhaps by envisioning whole new ages - which is what I suspect is now happening within the Church today as it transitions from denominational Christianity to an Emerging form of Christianity that may be denominational. Or regional. Or even pluralistic and multi-cultural (I think all of the above). Historically, fundamental theologic change seems to occur every 500-1000 years: the Reformation would be one such event; the Middle Ages another such event. But as this world grows older and closer in our communities with one another, we should not be surprised if this were to occur again today as we transition from the 20th to the 21st century - caught in the swift-and-deep currents of public policy, trade, and societal uplift and transformation. These are the fundamental shifts that we are witnessing and caught up within. Shifts that come-and-go with amazing rapidity (cf. Jencks' philosophical map again for the breadth of change these past 100 years as brought!) but can be fundamentally described and understood through an evolving apprehension for their broader movement.

And yet, it is vitally important that the Church knows how to speak God's word afresh to the world around us. However set in its ways. However unpersuaded, or doubtful, of its timely forward movement. Or however uncertain and threatening it may feel. Still, as leaders and shepherds of the Church, as good and faithful guides to Jesus' flock, as patient disciplers and mentors to the future generations of leadership, the Church must be willing to bend and change while ever remaining faithful to God's message of love and grace unto salvation and good works. We are not bound by law. Nor bound by tradition. Nor by men's ideas. But we are bound to be pleasing to God's open heart of love and mercy to all men so that peace, justice, and goodwill be present everywhere. Let this temperance then be our ready guide and ever faithful companion. And until that day let us pursue a growing, discerning theology that would not hinder God's revelation to man. Amen.

R.E. Slater

October 21, 2012
revised, August 6, 2013

*Postscript: Relational Theology expressed within an Open Theology
has become very satisfying as you will discover as I write about each
in the months and years ahead. - res, 8.6.2013

 

The Knowledge Of The Holy

by

A.W. Tozer

 Table of Contents - http://www.full-proof.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Tozer-Knowledge-Of-The-Holy-b.pdf

CONTENTS

The links have been refreshed and updated per

http://www.heavendwellers.com/hdt_chapter_8_koh.htm

As always, turn on your malware when linking anywhere. 

The links below work and should be safe. - re slater

Next time they don't work please notify us. Thank you.

re slater, feb 2024

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1 Why We Must Think Rightly About God

CHAPTER 2 God Incomprehensible

CHAPTER 3 A Divine Attribute: Something True About God

CHAPTER 4 The Holy Trinity

CHAPTER 5 The Self-existence Of God

CHAPTER 6 The self-sufficiency Of God

CHAPTER 7 The Eternity Of God

CHAPTER 8 God’s Infinitude

CHAPTER 9 The Immutability Of God

CHAPTER 10 The Divine Omniscience

CHAPTER 11 The Wisdom Of God

CHAPTER 12 The Omnipotence Of God

CHAPTER 13 The Divine Transcendence

CHAPTER 14 God’s Omnipresence

CHAPTER 15 The Faithfulness Of God

CHAPTER 16 The Goodness Of God

CHAPTER 17 The Justice Of God

CHAPTER 18 The Mercy Of God

CHAPTER 19 The Grace Of God

CHAPTER 20 The Love Of God

CHAPTER 21 The Holiness Of God

CHAPTER 22 The Sovereignty Of God

CHAPTER 23 The Open Secret

Chris Tomlin - Holy Is The Lord (Audio)

christomlinmusic  |  Jan 13, 2022  |  4:12

Quotes by A.W. Tozer

http://home.earthlink.net/~covenantcomputing/sealed/AWTozer.htm

 

---

"If there's anything necessary to your eternal happiness but God, you're not the kind of Christian that you ought to be. For only God is the true rest." A.W. Tozer, Attributes of God, (c) 1997, pg. 30"

 

Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines Him to bestow benefits upon the undeserving. It is a self- existent principle inherent in the divine nature and appears to us as a self-caused propensity to pity the wretched, spare the guilty, welcome the outcast, and bring into favor those who were before under disapprobation" A. W. Tozer, "Knowledge of the Holy", pg. 93

 

Sometimes I go to God and say, "God, if Thou dost never answer another prayer while I live on this earth, I will still worship Thee as long as I live and in the ages to come for what Thou hast done already. " God’s already put me so far in debt that if I were to live one million millenniums I couldn’t pay Him for what He’s done for me. (Worship: The Missing Jewel, 24).

 

Looking at what John wrote, I wonder how so many present – day Christians can consider an hour of worship Sunday morning as adequate adoration of the holy God who created them and then redeemed them back to Himself…

 

God is please with His people when His praise is continually and joyfully on their lips. The heavenly scene John describes is the unceasing cry of the adoring living creatures, "Holy, holy, holy!" They rest not, day or night. My fear is that too many of God’s professing people down here are resting far too often between their efforts at praise. (Jesus is victor! 67, 68).

There is a point in true worship where the mind may cease to understand and goes over to a kind of delightful astonishment---probably to what Carlyle described as "transcendent wonder," a degree of wonder without limit and beyond expression!….

 

It is always true that an encounter with God brings wonderment and awe! (Renewed Day by Day, Volume 1, Feb. 8).

 

It is delightful to worship God, but it is also a humbling thing; and the man who has not been humbled in the presence of God will never be a worshiper of God at all. He may be church member who keeps the rules and obeys the discipline, and who tithes and goes to conference, but he’ll never be a worshiper unless he is deeply humbling. (Worship: The Missing Jewel, 4,5).

 

I can safely say, on the authority of all that is revealed in the Word of God, that any man or woman on this earth who is bored and turned off by worship is not ready for heaven. (Whatever Happened to Worship? 13)

 

In my opinion, the great single need of the moment is that light-hearted superficial religionists be struck down with a vision of God high and lifted up, with His train filling the temple. The holy art of worship seems to have passed away like the Shekinah glory from the tabernacle. As a result, we are left to our own devices and forced to make up the lack of spontaneous worship by bringing in countless cheap and tawdry activities to hold the attention of the church people. (Keys To The Deeper Life, 87 & 88).

In the majority of our meetings there is scarcely a trace of reverent thought, no recognition of the unity of the body, little sense of the divine Presence, no moment of stillness, no solemnity, no wonder, no holy fear. (God tells the Man who Cares 4,5).

I refer to the loss of the concept of majesty from the popular religious mind. The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshipping men…

 

With our loss of the sense of majesty has come the further loss of religious awe and consciousness of the divine Presence. We have lost our spirit of worship and our ability to withdraw inwardly to meet God in adoring silence. (The Knowledge of the Holy, viii, viii).

 

Now we were made to worship, but the Scriptures tell us something else again. They tell us that man fell and kept not estate; that he forfeited the original glory of God and failed to fulfill the creative purpose, so that he is not worshipping now in the way that God meant him to worship. All else fulfills its design; flowers are still fragrant and lilies are still beautiful and the bees still search for nectar amongst the flowers; the birds still sing with their thousand voice choir on a summer’s day and the sun and the moon and the stars all move on their rounds doing the will of God.

 

And from what we can learn from the Scriptures we believe tat the seraphim and cherubim and powers and dominions are still fulfilling their design – worshipping God who created them and breathed into them the breath of life. Man alone sulks in his cave. Man alone, with all of his brilliant intelligence, with all of his amazing, indescribable and wonderful equipment, still sulks in his cave. He is either silent, or if he opens his mouth at all, it is to boast and threaten and curse; or it’s nervous, ill-considered laughter, or it’s humor become big business, or it’s songs without joy. (Worship: The Missing Jewel, 6,7).

 

"The Chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever."…

 

Yes, worship of the loving God is man’s whole reason for existence. That is why we are born and that is why we are born again from above. That is why were created and recreated. That is why there was a genesis at the beginning re-genesis, called re-generation. (Whatever Happened to Worship? 56, 57).

 

The purpose of God in sending His Son to die and rise and live and be at the right hand of God the Father was that He might restore to us the missing jewel, the jewel of worship; that we might come back and learn to do again that which we were created to do in the first place – worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, to spend our time in awesome wonder and adoration of God, feeling and expressing it, and letting it get into our labors and doing nothing except as an act of worship to Almighty God through His Son, Jesus Christ. (Worship The Missing Jewel 7,8).

 

But a man who has passed the veil and looked eve briefly upon the holy face of Isaiah’s God can never be irreverent again. There will be a reverence in his spirit and instead of boasting, he will cover his feet modestly. (The Tozer Pulpit, Volume 1 Book 1 57,58).

 

But thinking is not enough. Men are made to worship also, to bow down and adore in the presence of the mystery inexpressible. Man’s mind is not the top pea, of his nature. Higher than his mind is his spirit, that something within him which can engage the supernatural, which under the breath of the Spirit can come alive and enter into conscious communion with heaven, can receive the divine nature and hear and feel and see the eneffable wonder that is God….

 

The wise of the world who have not learned tow worship are but demi-men, unformed and rudimentary. Their further development awaits the life – giving touch of Christ to wake them to spiritual birth and life eternal. (The Set of the Sail, 59).

 

Ultimately Abrahma discovered that only God matters….

 

Abraham was completely satisfied with God’s friendship. He becomes to us a faithful example in his willingness to put God first. With Abraham, only God mattered…

 

In Abraham’s encounter with God he learned why he was here upon earth. He was to Glorify God in all things and to continually worship… (Men who met God, 29, 30).

 

There is a necessity for true worship among us. If God is who He says He is and if we are the believing people of God we claim to be, we must worship Him….

 

Oh, how I wish I could adequately set forth the glory of the One who is worthy to be the object of our worship! I do believe that if our new converts – the babes in Christ—could be made to see His thousand attributes and even partially comprehend His being, they would become faint with a yearning desire to worship and honor and acknowledge Him, now and forever. (Whaterver Happened to Worship? 118).

 

God wants worshippers before workers; indeed the only acceptable workers are those who have learned the lost art of worship. It is inconceivable that a sovereign and holy God should be so hard up for workers that He would press into service anyone who had been empowered regardless of his moral qualifications. The very stones would praise Him if the need arose and a thousand legions of angels would leap to do His will.

Gifts and power for service the Spirit surely desires to impart; but holiness and spiritual worship com first. (That Incredible Christian, 37). 

 

 

Continue to -

 

Index to past articles on "An Open Faith and Open Theology"