Worth Another Look: A.W. Tozer on the Holy Spirit

Here are a few beautiful portions from one of Tozer’s best-known works:

“A doctrine has practical value only as far as it is prominent in our thoughts and makes a difference in our lives. By this test the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as held by evangelical Christians today has almost no practical value at all. In most Christian churches the Spirit is quite entirely overlooked. Whether He is present or absent makes no real difference to anyone. Brief reference is made to Him in the Doxology and the Benediction. Further than that He might well as not exist. So completely do we ignore Him that it is only by courtesy that we can be called Trinitarian….

“…The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of life and light and love. In His uncreated nature He is a boundless sea of fire, flowing, moving ever, performing as He moves the eternal purposes of God. Toward nature He performs one sort of work, toward the world another and toward the Church still another. And every act of His accords with the will of the Triune God. Never does He act on impulse nor move after a quick or arbitrary decision. Since He is the Spirit of the Father He feels toward His people exactly as the Father feels, so there need be on our part no sense of strangeness in His presence. He will always act like Jesus, toward sinners in compassion, toward saints in warm affection, toward human suffering in tenderest pity and love.

“It is time for us to repent, for our transgressions against the blessed Third Person have been many and much aggravated. We have bitterly mistreated Him in the house of His friends. We have crucified Him in His own temple as they crucified the Eternal Son on the hill above Jerusalem. And the nails we used were not of iron, but of the finer and more precious stuff of which human life is made. Out of our hearts we took the refined metals of will and feeling and thought, and from them we fashioned the nails of suspicion and rebellion and neglect. By unworthy thoughts about Him and unfriendly attitudes toward Him days without end.”

Quotes are taken from The Divine Conquest (or, God’s Pursuit of Man), pp. 64-75

The Holy Spirit Heals

In Acts 2, we find Jesus’ disciples gathered. The city of Jerusalem is teeming with crowds for the feast of Pentecost, but Jesus’ followers are huddled privately, awaiting the arrival of a promised gift

We read that the gathering was interrupted by a wind that rattled their venue. Fire proceeded to appear before them and descend upon them, resulting in the inexplicable ability to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus in all the tongues of the known world. Guests to the city were stunned to hear this New-Life message being proclaimed in the dialects of home, wherever home might have been!

Some Bible readers have connected unusual dots in this story.

“Hmm. A story about a crowd of people speaking all the languages of the world. Hmm. I feel like I’ve seen this before.”

Within the earliest pages of the Bible, we read of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11). The story is bizarre for at least a couple reasons: 1) It describes a united humanity setting their sights upon building a tower that would reach the heavens, glorifying them to god-like status.  2) It responds to itself by describing God in a way that appears petty and insecure, as if he felt the need to defend heaven’s borders against the invasion of these ancient architects.

Zooming out from the oddness of either story, one sees a fascinating connection…

Pentecost redeems Babel.

Where diversity (seen in the languages) fractured humanity at Babel, diversity (seen again in languages) depicted God’s unifying of humanity at Pentecost. The Creator who loves diversity and labours for its unity works intensely to bridge gaps, wreck walls, and to execute His all-consuming plan: “to unite all things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph 1:10).

Babel displays the losses incurred when we are driven by a desire for personal greatness. In ways that we cannot fully grasp, this motivation fragments and divides, actually opposing the universal goals we find at the center of God’s will.

Conversely, Pentecost reveals an image of Christ-centeredness, a wildly submitted desire to see his name spread far and wide based on the conviction that profound blessing and deep life come with him.

Two stories of many mouths speaking many words. Babel’s abandoned tower shows a dust-dry site of no-life-here, despite the sweat and strain spent there. Pentecost invites us into a wind- and fire-charged environment where embracing God’s plan in Jesus Christ releases us into an existence and experience that extends to the ends of the world.

You Must Be Born Again (Part II)

In my LAST POST, we began looking at Jesus’ late-night dialog with Nicodemus (Jn 3). Highly educated and thoroughly trained, Nicodemus came curious about how one could function with the Kingdom Reign of God, of which Jesus spoke so often.

Jesus’ answer: You must be born again.

Nicodemus’ reply: How is that possible?

Jesus’ response: Similarly to how your father impregnated your mother, you must conceive this new life via a fertilization by the Spirit of God.

If this seems abstract, look into the flesh face of someone. The offspring around the planet are your proof. You have come forth from the union of your father and mother, and you likely look the part!  Animals produce appropriate offspring; plants produce seeds to match. THIS begets THIS; THAT begets THAT.  Flesh begets flesh, and spirit begets spirit. (Jn 3:6)

So what would it take to produce a man or woman tightly tuned to the voice and moves of God?

What would be required to create a man or woman filled from and fueled by the infinite well of wisdom, grace, and love?

What would be necessary to bring forth a man or woman whose life had such substance as to send ripples through the spiritual realms?

That requires a work of the Holy Spirit, nothing less. In this sense, rebirth is not optional but rather non-negotiable. (Jn 3:7)

The Wind Blows

After speaking of the womb, Jesus moves to the wind. Those who live on the Canadian prairies know wind more than most. Yet even to us, Jesus says that this oh-so-familiar wind is filled with mystery. We may feel it and see its effects, but we are clueless to its origin or destination.

I used to think that Jesus was comparing the wind to the Spirit.

But he is not.

What he says is: “So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (Jn 3:8).” The wind’s mysterious nature speaks to the mysterious nature of those who live Spirit-filled lives.

As is the wind, so is the man or woman born of the Spirit.

You may have met such a man or woman. Their faith was alive in a way that was noticeable. A fire burned in them, but the blaze could not be accounted for by merely scanning their resume. Considering the sum of parts like personality, background, education, and experiences failed to square the equation. Some immeasurable force was involved. Something beyond calculation was blowing in this life.

The Spirit is that wind.

How Can This Be?

Nicodemus is struck dumb by this teaching: How can these things be?  Can it be that Jesus is right to speak of a realm far beyond ritual and regulation? Is divine fertilization really the game-breaker for our transformation and entry into Kingdom life?

Jesus’ answer: You’d better believe it!

In fact, Jesus now marvels (Jn 3:9-10). Is it possible that a teacher of God’s people does not grasp this truth that the Spirit alone births new creation?  The one who should be blazing trails for others and shining forth a guiding light is mystified by the vital and basic truth that the Spirit is front and center to the whole journey.

There is no question that God desires every redeemed life to be a model and an inspiration. There is no doubt that He wants every church to play such a role in their settings.  If we are play this part, it will be necessary to grasp one truth with two hands.

The Spirit Births

The Holy Spirit births life.

It is He who breathes it and brings it forth. The salvation of our city will not hinge on the number of our programs or quality of our preaching. The redemption of our region will not hang on our facility size or worship styles.  Of course, we are to strive for excellence in what we do as a church; less would be lazy.  And lazy would be unfaithful.

But more than exerting efforts, there is need to submit ourselves to the Spirit that churns under every surface.

Begin to attend to His movements in your little life, then stretch that attention to consider His movements in the little lives around yours.

Plead for stronger winds, tornado-force gusts capable of blowing down or tearing up the walls we build to take refuge from the Sheltering One.

Ask for spiritual fertilization and for healthy pregnancies. We do not want miscarriages or stillbirths on God’s work in our lives. We wish to see His wonders brought to term and maturing to multiply and fill the earth.

How It Is

Jesus closes the conversation (Jn 3:11) with Nicodemus by declaring that this view is not an opinion. Jesus is not hazarding a guess at how things work. He describes himself as a witness speaking of first-hand knowledge, perfect and complete.

He even says that it is not just HE who knows this, it is WE. Apparently, his followers are having firsthand experiences with the ways of the Spirit. They are tasting the wonder of rebirth for themselves.

I am praying today for you, my friends, that a similar sampling is being delivered into your homes and churches as well, even this very moment.

YOUR TURN: What have been your key takeaways from Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus? How do you grasp the process of “being born again”?

Losing Faith (Part V): Invaded by an Uninvited One

This post is the fifth in a series on Losing Faith. All previous posts can be seen HERE, if context might prove helpful.

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Somewhere near the end of our time overseas, we were home to visit. I must have been expressing some aspect of my changing perceptions on the Christian life. My slightly-older, significantly-wiser friend responded with a question.

“You’re not a cessationist, are you?”

The term felt awkwardly unfamiliar upon my ears, and my face must have said so. He clarified.

“You don’t believe the gifts of the Spirit ended with the New Testament, do you?”

For the first time, my mouth stated with my spirit had long sensed.

“No, I guess I don’t.”

This confession surely sent a unseen tremor through my tightly-wrapped-in-rationalism faith—a suspect form of faith, if there ever was one.

A Spiritual Sprinkling

Far more recently, it has dawned on me that my past version of a “Christian worldview” was actually a thoroughly naturalistic view, with a side order of God. According to Wikipedia, “naturalism commonly refers to the viewpoint that laws of nature (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe.”

My particular version of naturalism was more personal in nature than Wikipedia’s. I have always been suspect of evolution as an adequate theory of how life originated, and I have long voiced that life’s richest realms are (relationships, art, love, dreams, morality, emotions, and more) fall somewhere beyond the horizons reached by verifiable facts.

My naturalism was a mutant.

I was convinced enough that God was real that He HAD to be part of my diagram, but I had no idea how to position the I AM within my tidy sketch.  So I simply placed Him on the fringe, where He wouldn’t mix up the other pieces.

And He had grown tired of that treatment.

Breaking Me by Breaking Free

In short, I have been forced, by a growing list of experiences and encounters, to acknowledge that my largely logical and rooted-in-reason approach to life is an insufficient processor for the reality in which I live. Its substance is too superficial, and it lacks the weight to grapple with life as I now know it. My former framework held fast so long as God respected my boundaries and operated within the office I had set up for Him. When He began to interact intimately with me and to surprise me through the lives of better-tuned instruments than myself, profound paradox unfolded. Logic imploded upon itself, as I was forced to admit my irrational inconsistencies, surely ever-present but now painfully exposed.

God of the Emoticon

In light of recent revelation, it would be intellectually irresponsible to insist upon the validity of my long-held worldview.

God has revealed Himself as undeniably present. In a shocking twist, the Supernatural invaded my naturalistic worldview, the world view that handed Him a long list of all He could not do.

In response, He has broken the door’s hinges with a one-line declaration: “Your naturalistic view is not nearly naturalistic enough, for it fails to handle life as you now know it. You will recalibrate, or your head will blow up and your spirit will bellow against you. But it’s your choice, right? Because you’re so in charge of what’s real and what’s not. ;-)”

(Yes, God used a winky emoticon.)
Imagine the unsettling nerve!

God showed up in ways that I could not explain and began threatening a cozy worldview, which had safe—and harmless—spots reserved for Him.

I have not simply lost my long-held faith; it was ripped from my hands!

 

Losing Faith (Part IV): A Bike and a Breath

This post is the forth under “Losing Faith”. They can easily be seen together HERE.

Upon graduation from seminary, my wife and I headed to Central China to be English teachers within a medical college. In retrospect, we have no doubt of the divine designs upon that season of life. Before we even began asking for His leading, God was silently setting a course upon which we were already walking. A one-year adventure evolved into a three-year residency, during which the Middle Kingdom became our training ground on living as residents of the Highest Kingdom. Beyond travel opportunities and delicious (and dirt-cheap) food, the years provided us with a wonderful marriage foundation, as we were forced to bond unusually tightly with home’s support systems and comforts stripped away. What a gift!

The highlight, however, was undoubtedly a special group of friends that developed. We worshiped together and studied together, and both Scripture and spiritual life opened anew for me during this span. We discovered hungry hearts to pour ourselves into, and spend ourselves upon.

By the end of the year two, I recall a real weariness.

Beyond Tired

More than a lack of sleep or energy, it felt deeply spiritual. My soul was tired. My well was drained to such an extent that refreshing seemed like fantasy. So intense was the sensation that I could hardly remember a feeling other than dry. Almost physically, I could perceive a shallowness of breath, a constricted cavity at the core of my being.

Seeking rest, we booked ourselves to escape to our favourite Chinese getaway for the one-week May holiday. The countryside of Guangxi brings me pleasure; with its right-out-of-the-paintings hills scattered amongst picturesque rice fields, this countryside of terraced land and winding rivers is unusually beautiful. And there is no better way to get lost in those inviting surroundings than to rent a bicycle and take the first exit off the highway.

Praying Poorly

On this particular day, we departed down a dirt path which was familiar from an earlier trip. The May sun was hot, and I recall a healthy sweat as I exerted myself to pull away from the group of bikers. When the gap was significant, I stopped to wait. With feet on ground and head on handlebars, I prayed. It may have been my tenth prayer or hundredth prayer thousandth prayer. For weeks, I had weakly expressed the weakness in which I found myself. I had asked for life, though my prayers were neither bold nor confident. So on this dusty road, with sweat dripping off my nose, I reservedly placed one more grain of sand on the scales of prayer, a confession that I had no life within myself. Either God would renew me, or I would remain as I was. This had been the prayer on my lips for months, and I was well into wondering whether God was listening at all.

He Was

And that’s when it happened.

There was no warning, no dramatic build. The difference between the previous moment and the upcoming moment was unobservable, but the difference between the two was undeniable.

A breeze.

A gentle breeze.

It cooled my skin, and then it kept going. Penetrating me, the wind appeared to gain access to my depths. Like water through cracks, this breath poured through the gaps of the dry broken shell in which I had been dwelling. Physically, I could perceive a lightening and an expanding. I was breathing more deeply, and my lungs where the least of the participants.

I dared not lift my head or look for my companions. The moment unfolding was clearly sacred, and I would not disturb it.

Recalling the event still ignites the memory with vividness. It was the first time I stared a miracle in the face, and what a faith-damaging miracle it was.

Apparently, the eternal Spirit of God, the same One credited with calming chaos at Creation, was still stirring and breathing in places that were void and empty. And if that were true, then the faith that I had carefully constructed was hopelessly hampering my interactions with Him.

For this fellow, a sweat was the least of what was breaking in the sticks of China that day. A sacred Wind had Jericho-ed my well-constructed walls, and a long-held faith was slipping through my fingers as subtly as its assassin had approached me on that unmapped dirt road.

My faith was being lost.

God of the Sucker Punch

I was recently studying at a local library, situated in a leisure center with a gym and pool. My concentration was cracked by a voice, unclear, almost animal-like.  Curiosity craned my neck and I saw a family (I presume) of three exiting the building. Between the parents was the owner of the voice. Barely a teenager, living with some form of handicap, he was visibly worked up. His distressed moans were expressing as much to the whole facility. I watched his parents hold of his arms in a gentle attempt to guide him from the building, but he was having none of it. Then he began to get violent, firing unpredictable kicks at his parents’ legs and digging in his heels against their guiding efforts.

I Had to Watch.

Now in full-blown “snoopy mode”, I was unable to stop watching this odd interaction, which now escalated significantly. Father and mother proceeded to tackle their son, placing him on the ground and restraining him under their own body weight. I hoped anxiously that an onlooker would not accuse them of attacking the boy. I also wondered how many times they had been forced into these roles before. What first-day parents dream of playing bouncer as they raise that little baby? What did it feel like to tackle one’s child in a public place? In the midst of their wrestling, were they self-conscious of onlookers’ gazes, or had such thoughts been beaten out of them years earlier in the parenting of this child?

For several minutes, the three of them remained on the floor. Occasionally, the teen struggled and then surrendered into whimpering and whining once again. His parents patiently held their positions, presumably whispering negotiations for peace in that boardroom, inches from the floor.

Eventually, the three of them arose and made progress toward the exit. At this point, I saw dad run into the parking lot to locate their vehicle and bring it toward the curb. The teen noted the now-one-on-one coverage and upped the attack against his mother. Parking lot onlookers now formed an uncomfortable audience. The teen’s kicks and shoves, while still lacking full coordination and force, were intensifying, as were the feelings within this observer.

Anger was Stirring.

I knew nothing about the medical history or the family dynamics, but I was mad to watch such blatant rebellion. With father nowhere to be seen, my mind debated whether I should join the fracas as a reinforcement. Part of me wanted to swing my first “haymaker” and see what Ali felt like when he stood over Sonny Liston.

Here Comes the Boom.

And then I got sucker-punched.

A sucker punch is a punch made without warning, allowing no time for preparation or defense on the part of the recipient. (So says Wikipedia.)

I was neither prepared, nor defended. In a vulnerable position, I was a wide receiver stretching to expose his ribs to the defender. I was the chess player so blindly bent on creating checkmate that I lost my queen. More accurately, I was King David so engrossed in a tale that I was deaf to the Jaws theme music rising to deafening volume.

“You are that man.”  That’s what David heard.

“You are that aggravating adolescent who needs an adjustment,” was more like my message.

Crystal Clear.

I have come to learn that the Spirit of God is the perfect communicator. He is as nuanced and feather-fingered or as forceful and non-negotiable as need be. His fingers can apply pressure with deadly precision to adjust exactly what is out of line.

His tone in the library did not match the anger that I had been feeling toward the parking lot punk. There was no frustration, not even impatience in the sucker punch. Rather, it struck like a sigh-filled inquiry:

“Jason, why do you battle me? Why do you fear that I might lead you astray? Why do your heels dig in? Why do you hesitate? Since the day of your birth, have I done anything to make you question My motives, as if I were out to harm you? I am capable of putting you on the ground if need be, but I would rather just walk with you in peace, with me as Parent and you as child.”

Muhammad Ali could never match the force of that gentle rebuke.

I had no answer worth speaking. I continue without one.

But I am trying to pick up my heels. The One leading me is loving and kind, and I would rather hold His hand than lie beneath His weight.

A Two-Word Spiritual Secret

If God would answer any one prayer of yours, what would you ask for?

What if He gave it to you? Removed it for you? Placed you there? Granted your request?

How satisfying would that be? How fulfilling or relieving? How would you revel in the experience of God’s obvious blessing upon you?

In the past year of life, two words have come to be key in my understanding of how AND why God works in our lives. The words are SO THAT.

Spoken another way, God works in YOUR life for way MORE than YOUR life.

Scripture attests to this.

Abraham longed for a child, for an heir. And God responded, but not merely because Abraham’s possessions needed a landing spot after his death nor because Abraham and Sarah’s home would be happier, filled with the cooing and cuddling that an infant brings.  No, God spoke of all the nations receiving blessing through this longed-for child. He blessed Abraham SO THAT…

Moses should have been a grateful man. Shrewd scheming by his mother and sister allowed him enough life to learn how to walk. Then compassion in the heart of an Egyptian princess entitled him to a privileged upbringing within the ruling house of an ancient superpower. All of this was far beyond earning; it appeared to gifted, for no obvious reason. Then surprisingly, a wilderness exile helped him escape a murder charge and enrolled him into a forty-year leadership course, under the tutelage of father-in-law Jethro, numerous sheep, and the patient instruction of the desert. And all of this appears to be kindness spent on Moses for his sake until a shrub ignites and the Sacred Infinity says otherwise: “Your life, Moses, has not been about your life. All of this has taken place SO THAT…

The first disciples were terrified. Their leaders had crucified their Leader, and there was no telling how many of them were destined for similar fates. Drowning in despair and filled with fear, they locked themselves away to weather the storm. But the drama of an untimely death was about to be vaporized by the reality of resurrection. Appearing among his followers, Jesus provoked in them a reinterpretation of all they thought they knew. He then urged them to wait in Jerusalem for the further wonder of the Spirit. God made these moves in the lives of the inner circle, with His eyes beholding a whole lot more… than the inner circle.  Fire fell from heaven as more than an encouragement to Jesus’ friends. God was moving SO THAT…

By nature, our gaze is narrow. But the tightening of our focus upon ourselves actually serves to rob us, for the glory of what God is up to is typically brightest in the “SO THAT” seen far beyond the borders of our lives.

To be sure, God IS working in your life. But the more wonderful truth is that He is working in your life, not merely for your life. The Holy One is the master of the SO THAT!

When the Invisible One Makes Things Visible

In Daniel 2, a deadly decree was issued.  The wise men of Babylon were collectively condemned and sentenced to death for their perceived failure to faithfully serve the king, Nebuchadnezzar.

Their shortcoming?

They were unable to make sense of the king’s troubling dreams.  But even that isn’t the whole story.  In a mistrust-motivated move, Nebuchadnezzar demanded that these sages do their work “blindfolded”–he would not tell them the content of the dream.  They were to provide him with both the material and the meaning.

Daniel learned all this, only once the arrest warrant was already at his door.  Requesting time to pray, he and his faithful friends–Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah–sought revelation from the God of heaven.

How would you prayer go if your life depended upon receiving an answer you could not begin to dream up?  (The next question might be: What keeps you from always praying with that sense? But that’s another post.)

Daniel and his friends pleaded for nothing less than divine revelation. And it was received!

Their rightful response:

“Blessed be the name of God forever and ever,to whom belong wisdom and might.

He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding; he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him. 

To you, O God of my fathers, I give thanks and praise, for you have given me wisdom and might, and have now made known to me what we asked of you,for you have made known to us the king’s matter.” (Daniel 2:20-23)

God’s role as Revealer is wondrous!  My experiences with revelation–albeit not exactly of visions interpreted–have astounded me in a couple ways:

1. God’s provision is precise.

   Both timely and measured, divine revelation is not unlike the message Neo receives from the Oracle, in the Matrix.  On one level, it appears inadequate and inconsequential, even unhelpful.  On another level, it is exactly–and not a hair more–what he needs to take his next step.

2. God’s means are many.

   A friend’s words, a Scripture message, song lyrics, movie lines, and more–sometimes it’s actual words expressed, other times the truth is found in the spaces between those words.  But the Living God has no need of language either.  To me, He has also revealed through insights I could not generate, emotions I could not ignore, dreams I could not forget, and circumstances I could not concoct.

And every experience of revelation leads one into a Daniel-mode of worship, though seldom so vividly verbalized, for who cannot enter a mode of wonder at a One who knows all things and shares them succinctly yet shockingly when we seek Him?

Revelation is one of the wonders of the Christian experience, undeniable and unexplainable, a glorious form of spiritual feeding.

Those moments of seeing are a most beautiful thrill in one’s walk with the Unseen One.

Blessed be the name of God forever and ever,to whom belong wisdom and might.

The Spirit in the Silence

Last night, I was reading in bed as my wife slept quietly beside me.  The book in my hand was speaking of the Holy Spirit and of the vital need for Him in the lives of God’s people.  It resonated and wrangled, leaving me silent and sighing.  The moments that followed felt like something of a revelatory experience–those brief periods of slippery clarity, during which you SEE something that you’ve not seen before, but if you try to “grab it” or “search it” too deeply, it will vanish like a frightened animal in a clearing.

Spirit

Here’s a few more beauties from N.T. Wright, this time about the Spirit in the lives of God’s people…

“One key element of living as a Christian is learning to live with the life, and by the rules, of God’s future world, even as we are continuing to live within the present one…

That is why Paul speaks of the Spirit as the guarantee or the down payment of what is to come. The Greek word he uses is arrabon, which in modern Greek means an engagement ring, a sign in the present of what is to come in the future.

God doesn’t give people the Holy Spirit in order to let them enjoy the spiritual equivalent of a day at Disneyland. Of course, if you’re downcast and gloomy, the fresh wind of God’s Spirit can and often does give you a new perspective on everything, and above all grants a sense of God’s presence, love, comfort, and even joy. But the point of the Spirit is to enable those who follow Jesus to take into all the world the news that he is Lord, that he has won the victory over the forces of evil, that a new world has opened up, and that we are to help make it happen.”

Bam!