[color=003333] "Christianity today is man-centered, not God-centered. God is made to wait patiently, even respectfully, on the whims of men. The image of God currently popular is that of a distracted Father, struggling in heartbroken desperation [b]to get people to accept a Savior of whom they feel no need[/b] and in whom they have very little interest. To persuade these self-sufficient souls to respond to His generous offers God will do almost anything, even using salesmanship methods and talking down to them in the chummiest way imaginable. This view of things is, of course, a kind of religious romanticism which, while it often uses flattering and sometimes embarrassing terms in praise of God, manages nevertheless to make man the star of the show." [i]-Man: The Dwelling Place of God, 27.[/i][/color]
[color=003333]If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.[/color]
Faith is the least self-regarding of the virtues. It is by its very nature scarcely conscious of its own existence. Like the eye which sees everything in front of it and never sees itself, faith is occupied with the Object upon which it rests and pays no attention to itself at all. While we are looking to God we do not see ourselves blessed riddance. The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ, the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him. It will be God working in him to will and to do.-The Pursuit of God, 83
_________________Danielle
[color=003333]"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'"[i]The Pursuit of God, 23[/i][/color]
[color=003333]"To be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with men."[i]Man the Dwelling Place of God, 114.[/i][/color]
[color=003333]"I find that many men and women are troubled by the thought that they are too small and inconsequential in the scheme of things. But that is not our real trouble -- we are actually too big and too complex, for God made us in His image and we are too big to be satisfied with what the world offers us!..Man is bored, because he is too big to be happy with that which sin is giving him. God has made him too great, his potential is too mighty."[i]Who Put Jesus on the Cross, 170.[/i][/color]
[color=003333] Dr.Tozer used to say so often, if you saw a man going down mainstreet in Jerusalim with a cross, you know some things about him:1) He wasn't coming back.2) He has no plans to the future.[/color]
