Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer

The miraculous events wrought in Jerusalem by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost indicated to the disciples that Jesus Christ, the Messiah-Savior, had indeed taken His place at the right hand of the Majesty on high. With Jewish critics all around, Peter lifted his voice and said that all who were in Jerusalem on that day were seeing the fulfillment of prophecy-the words of Jesus that He would send the Holy Spirit after His death and resurrection and exaltation. "Therefore," Peter cried,...

It might be a humbling experience for some of us men to be allowed to see just how much of lasting spiritual value is being done by the women of the churches. As in the days of His flesh, Christ still has devout women who follow Him gladly and minister unto Him. The masculine tendency to discount these "elect ladies" does not speak too well for the male members of the spiritual community. A little humility might better become us, and a bit of plain gratitude as well.

If prayer is (as...

For all his faults, or perhaps because of them, Peter could do one thing superbly: he could shed tears of grief when he had offended his Savior. The ability to repent is a sweet treasure, and one that is rare among us these days. If we had Peter's penitent heart, we might go on to have his purity and his power. Should the contemplation of Peter's faults give aid and comfort to an impenitent heart, then that heart has only itself to blame. God never intended that we should hide our...

It is hardly possible to overstress the importance of unceasing inward prayer on the part of the one who would live the God-conscious life. Prayer at stated times is good and right; we will never outgrow the need of it while we remain on earth. But this kind of prayer must be supported and perfected by the habit of constant, unspoken prayer. But someone may question whether in a world like this it is possible to think of God constantly. Would it not be too great a burden to try to keep God...

Let me caution you about the attitudes of some of the bubbly "happy! happy!" people in our congregations who will insist that the Word of God can never be anything but honey sweet! Fellow believers, when we digest, absorb and soak up the Word of the Lord, it becomes part and parcel of our daily lives. It is our delight. It is indeed honey and sweetness. But as we share that same Word in our witness to lost men and women, we will know something of bitterness and hostility, even enmity. It...

It is sad indeed to know that there are Christian leaders among us who are too timid to tell the people all the truth. They are now asking men and women to give to God only that which costs them nothing! The contemporary moral climate does not favor a faith as tough and fibrous as that taught by our Lord and His apostles. Christ calls men to carry His cross; we call them to have fun in His name! He calls them to suffer; we call them to enjoy all the bourgeois comforts modern civilization...

Excerpted from Of God and Men

To talk of "better" Christians is to use language foreign to many persons. To them all Christians are alike; all have been justified and forgiven and are the children of God, so to make comparisons between them is to suggest division and bigotry and any number of horrible things.

What is forgotten is that a Christian is a born-one, an embodiment of growing life, and as such may be retarded, stunted, undernourished or injured very much as any...

What are the terms of discipleship" Only one with a perfect knowledge of mankind could have dared to make them. Only the Lord of men could have risked the effect of such rigorous demands: Let him deny himself. We hear these words and shake our heads in astonishment. Can we have heard aright" Can the Lord lay down such severe rules at the door of the Kingdom" He can and He does. If He is to save the man, He must save him from himself. It is the himself which has enslaved and corrupted the...

In a friendly conversation with a Catholic priest I learned from the lips of this appointed spokesman of the Roman Church the philosophy of the Mass.

He started with the blood offering of Abel and traced the practice of propitiatory sacrifice down through the Scriptures to the cross. "There must always be a sacrifice," he said, "and in the Mass the sacrifice is repeated each time the bread and wine are consecrated on the altar. At each celebration of the Mass the sacrifice of Christ...

Do we really believe that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is something more than making us the "happiest fellows in the Easter parade"" Are we just to listen to the bright cantata and join in singing, "Up from the Grave He Arose," smell the flowers and go home and forget it" No, certainly not! It is truth and a promise with a specific moral application. The resurrection certainly commands us with all the authority of sovereign obligation-the missionary obligation! I cannot give in to the...

Whenever and wherever there is a controversy between God and a man, God is always right and the man always wrong. "So that you may be proved right in your words and prevail in your judging" (Psalms 51:4).

The only way any man can be right is to come over onto God's side. Whoever sticks to his own side is forever wrong.

The points at which God's way and man's intersect are likely to be four (though there may be others), and we...

What is the present condition of the evangelical church" The bulk of Christians are asleep. I do not mean that the bulk of Christians who come to evangelical churches are not converted, because if I meant that I would say they were dead and never had been born again. But I say they are asleep. It is possible to be morally asleep yet mentally, intellectually, physically and theologically alert. The present condition is that we are asleep. These sleeping Christians do two things that God must...

Remember that faith is not a noble quality found only in superior men. It is not a virtue attainable by a limited few. It is not the ability to persuade ourselves that black is white or that something we desire will come to pass if we only wish hard enough. Faith is simply the bringing of our minds into accord with the truth. It is adjusting our expectations to the promises of God in complete assurance that the God of the whole earth cannot lie. A man looks at a mountain and affirms, "That...

The man of true faith may live in the absolute assurance that his steps are ordered by the Lord. For him, misfortune is outside the bounds of possibility. He cannot be torn from this earth one hour ahead of the time which God has appointed, and he cannot be detained on earth one moment after God is done with him here. He is not a waif of the wide world, a foundling of time and space, but a saint of the Lord and the darling of His particular care.

All this is not mere dreaming, not a...