Speaking of the veil that covers our hearts and prevents us from approaching God, A.W. Tozer says the following in The Pursuit of God in Chapter 3, Removing the Veil:

This veil is not a beautiful thing and it is not a thing about which we commonly care to talk, but I am addressing the thirsting souls who are determined to follow God, and I know they will not turn back because the way leads temporarily through the blackened hills. The urge of God within them will assure their continuing the pursuit. They will face the facts however unpleasant and endure the cross for the joy set before them. So I am bold to name the threads out of which this inner veil is woven.

It is woven of the fine threads of the self-life, the hyphenated sins of the human spirit. They are not something we do, they are something we are and therein lies both their subtlety and their power.

To be specific, the self-sins are these: self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them. The grosser manifestations of these sins, egotism, exhibitionism, self-promotion, are strangely tolerated in Christian leaders even in circles of impeccable orthodoxy. They are so much in evidence as actually, for many people, to become identified with the gospel. I trust it is not a cynical observation to say that they appear these days to be a requisite for popularity in some sections of the Church visible. Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice.

One should suppose that proper instruction in the doctrines of man’s depravity and the necessity for justification through the righteousness of Christ alone would deliver us from the power of the self-sins; but it does not work out that way. Self can lie unrebuked at the very altar. It can watch the bleeding Victim die and not be in the least affected by what it sees. It can fight for the faith of the Reformers and preach eloquently the creed of salvation by grace, and gain strength by its efforts. To tell all the truth, it seems actually to feed upon orthodoxy and is more at home in a Bible Conference than in a tavern. Our very state of longing after God may afford it an excellent condition under which to thrive and grow.

Self is the opaque veil that hides the Face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction. We might as well try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us. We must bring our self-sins to the cross for judgment. We must prepare ourselves for an ordeal of suffering in some measure like that through which our Saviour passed when He suffered under Pontius Pilate.

Let us remember: when we talk of the rending of the veil we are speaking in a figure, and the thought of it is poetical, almost pleasant; but in actuality there is nothing pleasant about it. In human experience that veil is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free.

Let us beware of tinkering with our inner life in hope ourselves to rend the veil. God must do everything for us. Our part is to yield and trust. We must confess, forsake, repudiate the self-life, and then reckon it crucified. But we must be careful to distinguish lazy “acceptance” from the real work of God. We must insist upon the work being done. We dare not rest content with a neat doctrine of self-crucifixion. That is to imitate Saul and spare the best of the sheep and the oxen. (emphasis mine)

I have no words.

Read The Pursuit of God online.

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As I was listening to the introduction of the book, the narrator said:

Tozer literally wrote “The Pursuit of God” on his knees.
Dr. David J. Fant Jr.

I had to stop the book. How much time do I spend on my knees? Is my writing such a holy calling that I seek God earnestly before, during and after? Do I do this in my parenting? Do I do it with my job? What about my church responsibilities?

There have been times that I have sought God on my knees, but this is not the normal posture of my prayer. I do set aside time to write my prayers a few times a week. I pray in the shower, in the car, and throughout the day — but usually with distraction.

In that introduction, the narrator also said:
“With Tozer, seeking truth and seeking God were one in the same thing.”

I talked last week about wanting to be a truth-teller. If that’s the case, I must send more time in committed conversation with the giver of that truth.

The Pursuit of God is available online.

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The fourth small-community obstacle is a segmentation of the mission of God. The mission of small communities is not to teach the Bible only. Every expression of the church owns all the mission of God. Your smaller community owns the mission of God. You have been called and empowered. The danger of segmentation is great. The smaller communities say that is not their role. Our purpose is to get through the study, they think. (p 191)

Don’t miss this:  Every expression of the church owns all the mission of God. This includes my small group!

I realized when reading this chapter, that my experience attending small groups has been terrible, especially in adulthood.  With one wonderful exception, the small group was where a lesson was taught before real church got started.  All of the following behaviors have happened in small groups I’ve attended in the past:

• Women have competed for who can bring the best breakfast
• The wife of the small group leader declared,  “I hate the Old Testament”
• Senior adult ladies complained about the arrangement of furniture in the sanctuary
• Prayer time has turned into gossip hour

My terrible experience attending small groups has led to a misunderstanding of the purpose of a small group.  As a leader, I’ve tried hard not to repeat the bad behaviors I’ve seen in the past, however I’ve missed the mark in guiding my group to own the full mission of God.

It’s the time of year for small group restructuring in our church.  As we make changes, I’m going to develop a plan to better lead my small group to express the full mission of God.  This includes deeper personal spiritual growth for each of my group members, but expands to having a mission in our community.  I must lead our group to engage people far from God and foster times of genuine fellowship with one another.

What have you done or experienced in your small group that has contributed to expressing the “full mission of God?”

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I just finished the book, The Case for a Creator: a Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence that Points Toward God by Lee Strobel.  Actually, for the sake of full disclosure, I finished the audiobook.  This book explores the scientific evidence that points to an intelligent designer of the universe.  Although I am an analytical thinker, I am not a scientist.  Much of the content of this book sounds good, and makes sense to me, but the details are way over my head.

As I considered the arguments in this book ranging from anti-Darwinian theories, evidence from cosmology, physics, astronomy, and biochemistry, Lee Strobel makes a compelling case.  The combined evidence of the Cambrian explosion, the Big Bang (and the gravitational singularity), and the bacterial flagellum give credence to the argument that (1) our universe had a beginning and (2) there was intelligence involved in the creation of life.

Does the book present a compelling argument that proves the universe was created?  No.  However, does it provide enough evidence that the universe could have been created by a transcendent being and that all life may be infused with biological information that came from source other than chance?  Yes, I believe it does.

In pondering the scientific realities presented in this book, my mind drifted to individuals I know that are analytical, scientifically-minded, and who also question either the reality of God in our world or the reality of the Christian faith (that Christ was born, lived a perfect life, died on the cross and was raised again to life eternal).  I realized that none of these individuals question that fact that our world was made.  They question the person of God as expressed in the trinity (God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit) and the relevance of this God in their lives.

In a new way, the importance of the resurrected Christ became apparent.  If Christ was not indeed raised from the dead, then his teachings have no more value than any other “spiritual leader.   We would be free to take what sounds good to us, and discard the rest.  For the first time, I finally understood what Paul meant when he said in 1 Corinthians 15:14:

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. (ESV)

The most compelling argument for the person of Christ that I have ever heard was offered by C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity.  Read his argument below.  Which alternative do you choose to believe about Christ:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

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How do we deal with these questions?  God offers us assuring answers in the Bible.  However, we must also ask, “If God Word is really true, where is the evidence?”  If God’s word is true, I should be able to see evidence of that truth in the world around me.  If it is only a theoretical truth, and cannot be actively demonstrated in this world, then it might as well be a fairy tale.

Some will answer these questions by saying, “Well, we just have to have faith.”  But in response, one could ask, “Faith in what?  Faith that God is there, but he really doesn’t do anything and really won’t intervene in the world?  What good is that?”  The ‘faithful’ may respond with mumblings and a few cryptic-sounding verses, but in the end it all sounds hollow.

I have seen God act radically in the lives of people in answers to prayer.  But sometimes, I need a reminder of how powerful he is and what he will do in the lives of those that are completely committed to him.

I’ve just finished reading George Müller, Delighted in God by Roger Steer for the second time.  Every time I read it, God uses a message from this book to speak to me in a new and fresh way.

Müller set out to display the power of God in our world by establishing a home for orphans purely and simply by relying on God.  He took in the first handful of orphans in April of 1836 and by the time of his death 62 years later, he had cared for 10,000 children and had been given nearly £1,500,000 for the work.   He also sponsored missionaries all over the world and distributed millions of Bibles, Testaments, and religious books.   He had no active profession that paid a salary; he depended solely on God to provide for his needs.  Here is his mission in his own words:

Now, if I, a poor man, simply by prayer and faith, obtained without asking any individual, the means for establishing and carrying on an Orphan-House; there would be something which, with the Lord’s blessing, might be instrumental in strengthening the faith of the children of God, besides being a testimony to the consciences of the unconverted, of the reality of the things of God. (p. 237)

There is so much to say about his life, but this particular interchange is what has captured my attention:

‘What is the secret of your service for God?’ someone once asked Müller.

‘There was a day when I died, utterly died,’ he replied, and as he spoke he bent lower and lower until he almost touched the floor, ‘died to George Müller, his opinions, preferences, tastes and will — died to the world, its approval or censure — died to the approval or blame of even my brethren and friends — and since then I have studied to show myself approved only unto God.’ (p. 227)

Müller’s response brings to mind the words of Jesus from the book of John:

John 12:24: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. (ESV)

John15:4-5: Remain in me, and I will remain in you.  No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.  Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.  I am the vine; you are the branches.  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

And also the words of Paul in Galatians 2:20:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

I don’t yet know the answer to how one dies to self.  But I do know that every mightily-used servant of God has done it.  Oddly, none of them provide any details on how it happened, just that it did indeed happen.  Lord Jesus, show the way.

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I love biographies.  Especially stories of people whose radical faith has impacted the world around them.    I am currently reading ”The Shadow of the Almighty: The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot” written by his wife Elisabeth Elliot.  Jim was one of 5 christian missionaries martyred in the Equadorian jungle by the native tribe they were trying to reach with the gospel.  Their story is also told in another wonderful work by Elisabeth Elliot, “Through the Gates of Splendor”.    Both of these books are a life changing read.  I encourage you to read them.

Jim once said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot loose. (p 144)“ What an amazing statement from a 22 year old young man whose life was completely devoted to God.

I will quote here from “The Shadow of the Almighty” as it is recorded from Jim’s personal journal:

One does not surrender life in an instant. That which is lifelong can only be surrendered in a lifetime. Nor is surrender to the will of God (per se) adequate to fullness of power in Christ.  Maturity is the accomplishment of years, and I can only surrender to the will of God as I know what that will is.  Hence, the fullness of the Sprit is not instantaneous but progressive, as I attain fullness of the Word, which reveals the Will.If men were filled with the Sprit they would not write books on that subject, but on the Person whom the Spirit has come to reveal. Occupation with Christ is God’s object (p 121-122).

And the following one-sentance journal entry that was his prayer:  “Lord, give me firmness without hardness, steadfastness without dogmatism, love without weakness. (p 148)”

These tiny bits from Jim Elliot’s life are profound.  There are many more.

So often, the only examples set before us are those who have risen to power and fame.  Glamorous lives are plastered on magazine covers and their images broadcast into our homes.  Watching them leads one to believe that our heroes ought to be self-made, self-driven, and self-determined.  We are told that success is gained by winning power, money, and fame.  Selfishness is a virtue and arrogance a skill.  These lives are displayed as the example of the ultimate in American achievement.

I want to encourage you to look outside of the mainstream for lives of those who you admire not for their glamor, their fame, or their self-indugence.  Find those whose lives mirror the person you want to be, who had a purpose beyond themselves, whose desire was to seek and honor God not themselves.

Read their stories and be encouraged.  Draw inspiration.  Learn from their example.  Look for similarities and differences.  See how God works in our time and our day.  In short, stand on their shoulders.  Below are a few of the giants who have inspired me and the books that tell their stories.

• Shadow of the Almighty:  The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot
• Through the Gates of Splendor
• George Muller:  Delighted in God
• The Hiding Place : The life of Corrie Ten Boom, a christian interned in a Nazi concentration camp for helping Jews
• Evidence Not Seen: A Woman’s Miraculous Faith in the Jungles of World War II : The experiences of missionary Darlene Deibler Rose
• Charles G. Finney Autobiography, the complete text available online here.  Finney was a revivalist preacher in the 1800′s.
• Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire: What Happens When God’s Spirit Invades the Heart of His People : The story of Jim Cymbala and the phenomenal Brooklyn Tabernacle

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