June 15, 2011

A. W. Tozer

June: Worship

The whole import and substance of the Bible teaches us that the God who does not need any thing nevertheless desires the adoration and worship of His created children.

Whatever Happened to Worship?, 37.

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June 15

Worship: What Good Is It?

And one cried to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!"
--Isaiah 6:3

If you want to pray strategically, in a way which would please God, pray that God might raise up men who would see the beauty of the Lord our God and would begin to preach it and hold it out to people, instead of offering peace of mind, deliverance from cigarettes, a better job and nicer cottage....

What good is all our busy religion if God isn't in it? What good is it if we've lost majesty, reverence, worship--an awareness of the divine? What good is it if we've lost a sense of the Presence and the ability to retreat within our own hearts and meet God in the garden?
If we've lost that, why build another church? Why make more converts to an effete Christianity? Why bring people to follow after a Savior so far off that He doesn't own them?

We need to improve the quality of our Christianity, and we never will until we raise our concept of God back to that held by apostle, sage, prophet, saint and reformer. When we put God back where He belongs, we will instictively and automatically move up again; the whole spiral of our religious direction will be upward. The Attributes of God, 194-195.

"Lord, I do indeed pray this morning that You might 'raise up men who would see the beauty of the Lord our God and would begin to preach it and hold it out to people....' Help us to 'raise our concept of God back to that held by apostle, sage, prophet, saint and reformer.' Oh, Lord, help us to 'put God back where He belongs.'
Amen."