Piper's Pen and Prose: Tozer's thoughts on Authors

Picture copyright 2014 Piper Green

For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. Isaiah 57:15

I was browsing a used bookstore recently, looking over some of the books that are popular today. I must confess I have never bought a book because it was popular. Sometimes the popular book is the most shallow, at least in my experience. 

Looking through these books, I noticed that even in them we have lost substance and have become entertainers. Look at what our Protestant fathers fed on. Many of them were not well educated, but the books they read were the high, holy and devout books written by men enthralled by the presence of God. 

They read Taylor’s Holy Living and Dying; Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and Holy War; Milton’s Paradise Lost. I blush today to think about the religious author that is now being handed out to our poor kids. 

I pray daily that the spirit of seriousness might fall upon the church once again to such an extent that we will have an insatiable appetite for not only the deep things of God, but for God Himself. When a person nourishes his soul on the high and lofty thoughts of God, he loses his appetite for the watered-down modern-day religion.  

A.W. Tozer My Daily Pursuit,  March 19 reading.

In His Grace,

Piper's Pen and Prose: Ash Wednesday

On this Ash Wednesday;  
Awe-Full- Frederick Ohler

Great and holy God awe and reverence fear and trembling do not come easily to us for we are not Old Testament Jews or Moses or mystics or sensitive enough. Forgive us for slouching into Your presence
with little expectation and less awe than we would eagerly give a visiting dignitary.  We need neither Jehovah nor a buddy – neither “the Great and Powerful Oz” nor “the man upstairs.” Help us to want what we need… You.

God and may the altar of our hearts tremble with delight at Your visitation amen.


In His Grace,

Sabbath Sanctuary: The Holiness of God's Name

Thus you are to be holy to Me, for I the LORD am holy; and I have set you apart from the peoples to be Mine. Leviticus 20:26

For the Scriptures say, You must be holy because I am holy. 1 Peter 1:16

Take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord;
Abide in Him always, and feed on His Word.
Make friends of God’s children, help those who are weak,
Forgetting in nothing His blessing to seek.

Take time to be holy, the world rushes on;
Spend much time in secret, with Jesus alone.
By looking to Jesus, like Him thou shalt be;
Thy friends in thy conduct His likeness shall see.

Take time to be holy, let Him be thy Guide;
And run not before Him, whatever betide.
In joy or in sorrow, still follow the Lord,
And, looking to Jesus, still trust in His Word.

Take time to be holy, be calm in thy soul,
Each thought and each motive beneath His control.
Thus led by His Spirit to fountains of love,
Thou soon shalt be fitted for service above.

~William D. Longstaff

~ Any form of holiness that leads to someone looking like they just drank a gallon of vinegar is not biblical holiness; it is more likely Pharisaism. The Church has lost something of this notion of holiness as happiness. We need to look at the Jews celebrating the Sabbath, their holiest of times. Men gather in the streets, linking arms and dancing. Home is turned into a place of wonder, mystery, and glory as families welcome the Sabbath. How much more should the Church now celebrate holiness joyfully, knowing that the Messiah Jesus has in one day, by his death for us at Golgotha, taken away all our sin? ~ Simon Ponsonby~The Pursuit of The Holy

Kedushat HaShem- Holiness of God’s Name 

Throughout all generations we will declare Your greatness, and to all eternity we will proclaim Your holiness. Your praise our God, shall never depart from our mouth, for You are a great and holy God and King. Blessed are You, O Lord the holy God. You are holy and Your Name is holy, and Your holy ones praise You daily (Selah). Blessed are You, Adonai, the God who is holy. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory (Isaiah 6:3). ~ The Amidah

Shabbat Shalom!

In His Grace,

 

Piper's Pen and Prose: The Pursuit of The Holy~ My longing is to see the Church transformed

The Pursuit of the Holy by Simon Ponsonby

Chapter One- The Longing to be Holy

~ No, my longing is to see the Church transformed so that we might transform society.

~ “The darkness is deepening.” So said Gandalf in Tolkien’s classic The Lord of The Rings Trilogy. And so it is for us. Faced with an unconvincing Church, society is looking to alternatives.

~ And yet, while sinners are certainly responsible for their own sin, I don’t entirely blame the world. They merely do what is in line with their natures: They Sin. You cannot be surprised when sinners act sinfully- they have no power to purify themselves. Can a godless society be expected to be godly without seeing what godliness is?

~ The Church has all too often blended in in with the world rather than revealed Christ and his ways to the world.

~ Somewhere along the line we have forgotten our vocation—to be a “chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9). Jesus said it is part of the Church’s role through conforming to him and conveying him to the world, to be a sanctifying, salting, influence in society (Matt. 5:13-16).

~ No one will listen to our gospel if we aren’t living it. We cannot influence or infect society with something that has not yet infected us. A saltless salt cannot savor and flavor. The Church cannot light a fire if she is not on fire.

~ We need reformation, a revival—and holiness will be at the heart of it. The Church must again find and follow Jesus—not as a doctrine to be believed but as a Lord to be served and a life to be lived.

~ A holy Church can influence an unholy world. Where Christ is seen, he is attractive, wooing and winning people to himself.

~ And as Paul said, “Through us [God] spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him” (2 Cor. 2:14).

~ The world looks on hateful, self-serving, undisciplined, greedy, impure people who never the less claim to be the people of God and says, “You lie.”

~ It is not as if we are addressing a marginal issue here—it is central. In the latest celebrated “revival” in the West, a feted evangelist suddenly walked off the stage and walked out on his wife. Claims of numerous extraordinary miracles could not be substantiated—not even one. I attended churches and watched ministers manipulate money out of church members for the promise of miracles. Pretense, fabrication, and nonsense were rife. Nothing new here, of course, but I groaned along with many others in the Church: where was the bride of Christ, making herself ready for Christ (Rev. 21:2)?

~ Isaiah spoke more about holiness than any other prophet. It was part of his ministry to call the nations to holiness.

~ The prophet had preached the nation’s guilt only to see his own.

~ And lest we be hypocrites, we ought not do that before we have applied the message to the sinfulness of our own hearts.

~ We must go on to know, as Isaiah knew, a deep cleansing from God’s fire and a commissioning for his service. I do not believe that Isaiah had been a hypocrite—he had said what he saw in the world and what he heard from God; but lest he fall, thinking he stood tall, God also showed him himself. Now his message could be tempered by self-awareness a much-needed humility in the face of burning-coal grace for the sinner.

~ I confess, I resign myself to the presence of sin and weakness rather than feeling wretched or wrestling against it.

~ God is holy. Holiness is his nature and character. It is not an attribute: it is who he is.

~ The language and practices of holiness have atrophied under the impact of modernity and secularization.

~ The holy life is a foretaste of heaven on earth. It is not God’s burden for us but God’s best for us.

~ Any form of holiness that leads to someone looking like they just drank a gallon of vinegar is not biblical holiness; it is more likely Pharisaism. The Church has lost something of this notion of holiness as happiness. We need to look at the Jews celebrating the Sabbath, their holiest of times. Men gather in the streets, linking arms and dancing. Home is turned into a place of wonder, mystery, and glory as families welcome the Sabbath. How much more should the Church now celebrate holiness joyfully, knowing that the Messiah Jesus has in one day, by his death for us at Golgotha, taken away all our sin?

~ The traditional places for the Jewish woman to articulate holiness were in her home and in her diet, making a distinction between the sacred and the profane, offering her life and work as worship to God.

~ Holiness is about having the right clothing to be with the King of Kings (Matt. 22:11-12).