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  LOVING WORSHIP
  by A.W. Tozer
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Summary: Christ's love is a complex and multifaceted emotion that wounds
and heals, fascinates and frightens, and kills and makes alive.

Topics: "The Love of Christ", "Adoration and Worship"
Scripture References: Psalm 42:1-2, Matthew 22:37, John 15:13, Romans 5:5, 2 Corinthians 5:14, Ephesians 3:17-19, Philippians 1:9, Colossians 3:14, 1 Peter 1:8, 1 John 4:19

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DESCRIPTION
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A.W. Tozer explores the profound duality of Christ's love, which both
wounds and heals, captivating and unsettling the soul. He emphasizes
that a deep, painful adoration for Christ can lead to a transformative
experience, purging the heart while simultaneously providing
satisfaction. Tozer highlights the moral fragrance of this love, evident
in the lives of saints throughout history, including Augustine, whose
writings reflect a blend of passionate love and holy fear. This radiant
love for Christ serves as the true measure of belonging to the universal
Church, transcending theological differences and social barriers.

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CONTENT
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The love of Christ both wounds and heals, it fascinates and frightens,
it kills and makes alive, it draws and repulses, it sobers and
enraptures. There can be nothing more terrible or more wonderful than to
be stricken with love for Christ so deeply that the whole being goes out
in a pained adoration of His person, an adoration that disturbs and
disconcerts while it purges and satisfies and relaxes the deep inner
heart. This love as a kind of moral fragrance is ever detected upon the
garments of the saints.

In the writings of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, for instance, this
fragrance is so strong as to be very nearly intoxicating.

There are passages in his Confessions so passionately sweet as to be
unbearable, yet so respectful and self-effacing as to excite pity for
the man who thus kneels in adoring wonder, caught between holy love and
an equally holy fear. The list of fragrant saints is long. It includes
men and women of every shade of theological thought within the bounds of
the orthodox Christian faith. It embraces persons of every social level,
every degree of education, every race and color. This radiant love for
Christ is to my mind the true test of catholicity, the one sure proof of
membership in the Church universal.

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Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/aw-tozer/loving-worship/
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