[b]Accenting the Inner Life[/b]

Retire from the world each day to some private spot, even if it be only the bedroom (for a while I retreated to the furnace room for want of a better place). Stay in the secret place till the surrounding noises begin to fade out of your heart and a sense of God’s presence envelops you. Deliberately tune out the unpleasant sounds and come out of your closet determined not to hear them. Listen for the inward Voice till you learn to recognize it. Stop trying to compete with others. Give yourself to God and then be what and who you are without regard to what others think. Reduce your interests to a few.… Learn to pray inwardly every moment. After a while you can do this even while you work. Practice candor, childlike honesty, humility. Pray for a single eye. Read less, but read more of what is important to your inner life. Never let your mind remain scattered for very long. Call home your roving thoughts. Gaze on Christ with the eyes of your soul. Practice spiritual concentration. ([i]Of God and Men[/i], p. 106)

Let’s practice the art of Bible meditation. But please don’t grab that phrase and go out and form a club — we are organized to death already. Just meditate. Let us just be plain, thoughtful Christians. Let us open our Bibles, spread them out on a chair and meditate on the Word of God. It will open itself to us, and the Spirit of God will come and brood over it.

I do challenge you to meditate, quietly, reverently, prayerfully, for a month. Put away questions and answers and the filling in of blank lines in the portions you haven’t been able to understand. Put all of the cheap trash away and take the Bible, get on your knees, and in faith, say, “Father, here I am. Begin to teach me!” ([i]The Tozer Pulpit[/i], Book 2, p. 117)

_________________
Mike Balog

Quietness. Concentration.

Those words seem almost forgotten in this day and age in which we live.

There is noise all around us everywhere, everyday.

Noises outside the home and in the home too.

However, we can follow the example that Jesus gave us, by rising early, resorting to mountains and gardens to spend time with God.

We too can shut out the world, and spend time with the word.

If we want to, we can.

Trust in the Lord, with all of your heart, with all of your mind, and with all of your Soul. Do not lean on your own understanding, but in all of your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path.

Meditate in the Word of God day and night according to his Psalms 119. And then rise up and wage a war, for you are not of this world, though you may live in this world you are not of this world! Your citizenship is in Heaven. If a thousand arise on one side, and ten thousand on your right non shall come near you, for his rod and his staff they comfort you.

Your steps are ordered by the Lord, his Word, is a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path.

I love Tozer. He brings things home to my shoes. I couldn't but think of Television, though. With the effect of constantly moving screens, and the visual aspects of real people and the speech, and the constant music....This is 1000 times more potent than any newspaper or novel.


I was raised in the Midwest in the early 50s. We were the very first people to buy a TV, and to put up an antenna. It was as normal to me, as chicken for dinner.


My parents were not Believers, and my Mom was a stay at home Mom, just like everyone else. She watched a TV show, called, "AS the World turns." I think it was the grandaddy of the Soap Opera.


She was consumed with the lives of the Characters there, so devoted, that she believed they were real people! And to make it worse, she thought these actors were her friends! Somehow she vicariously shared their romance, and tragedies! She would gleefully rejoice with the new baby, and weep when her heroine was rejected by her then lover.[all very, very, tame..]


My mother was not alone in this nuttiness. Millions were into TV similarly. To keep the interest alive, for people don't buy boring, they have had to expand the limitations, and break the More's continually.


My point is this: Tozer is concerned about any distraction, even reading a newspaper. He lived a life that sought to bring each thought under captivity to Christ. How many Christian's can say before Christ Jesus, that they seek Jesus, meditate upon Him, and pray, more than they sit in front of Television,,,,which by the way, has evolved into a perfect representation of SODOM itself.



Maybe the only redeeming factor about it is the News, and the Weather, and what history you may glean in your life, that is beneficial. Then you have to endure commercials.


It is a destroyer of the Spiritual man inside of you, for you cannot have the mind of Christ, and the mind of Oprah, dwelling in the same body! It is all about Sodom, and reflects everything that she is. All of it!



You may say; "Physician, Heal thyself!...I have struggled with this for many years. I have given away a lot of TVs. I have discovered this about my Spiritual life. It is like a garden, and the weeds have to be pruned. Sometimes the thorny cactus has a beautiful flower, but it must go, along with the thorns.



I have numbed my mind out much, on the tube to my shame. It does this; this is it's job. It is called, [b]Entertainment[/b] , and takes away a place that should be reserved as a Temple for God alone to dwell in.


I am currently tv free, and holding...It is very addicting...I also am trying to recover a devotional life that I once lived in. Tozers counsel will change your life, and for those with a pure heart, will lead you into His presence.

Amen. This word from Tozer brings a reality to me. It reminds me of what I hear Keith Daniel say often, "You are as holy as you want to be."

If that is in fact true, then what the Lord our God says about Holiness is weightier. (That may not even be a legal word) But, if we are in fact as holy as we want to be then the standard is God Himself. O, lets seek Him while He may be found...

_________________
RICH

[b]Consecration Is Not Difficult[/b]

Consecration is not difficult for the person who has met God. Where there is genuine adoration and fascination, God’s child wants nothing more than the opportunity to pour out his or her love at the Savior’s feet. ([i]Whatever Happened to Worship?[/i], p. 89)

[b]Unhealthy Attitudes[/b]

The amount of loafing practiced by the average Christian in spiritual things would ruin a concert pianist if he allowed himself to do the same thing in the field of music. The idle puttering around that we see in church circles would end the career of a big league pitcher in one week. No scientist could solve his exacting problem if he took as little interest in it as the rank and file of Christians take in the art of being holy. The nation whose soldiers were as soft and undisciplined as the soldiers of the churches would be conquered by the first enemy that attacked it. Triumphs are not won by men in easy chairs. Success is costly.

If we would progress spiritually, we must separate ourselves unto the things of God and concentrate upon them to the exclusion of a thousand things the worldly man considers important. ([i]We Travel an Appointed Way[/i], pp. 26-27)

[b]Critque of Meaningless Activity[/b]

Our religious activities should be ordered in such a way as to leave plenty of time for the cultivation of the fruits of solitude and silence. It should be remembered, however, that it is possible to waste such quiet periods as we may be able to snatch for ourselves out of the clamorous day. Our meditation must be directed toward God; otherwise, we may spend our time of retiral in quiet converse with ourselves. This may quiet our nerves but will not further our spiritual life in any way. ([i]That Incredible Christian[/i], p. 137)

Let a Christian insist upon rising above the poor average of current religious experience and he will soon come up against the need to know God Himself as the ultimate goal of all Christian doctrine. Let him seek to explore the sacred wonders of the Triune Godhead and he will discover that sustained and intelligently directed meditation on the Person of God is imperative. To know God well he must think on Him unceasingly. Nothing that man has discovered about himself or God has revealed any shortcut to pure spirituality. It is still free, but tremendously costly. ([i]That Incredible Christian[/i], p. 135)

Neglected Christian truths can be revitalized only when by prayer and long meditation we isolate them from the mass of hazy ideas with which our minds are filled and hold them steadily and determinedly in the focus of the mind’s attention. ([i]The Divine Conquest[/i], p. 20)

_________________
Mike Balog

These are words to be taken to heart from one of my favorite men of God.

_________________
Demetrius

_________________
TJ

Oh yeah brother. It crushed mines

_________________
Demetrius