Tozer in the Morning – DO THINGS POSSESS US?
I think a lot of people in our congregations get confused when some learned brother advises us that we must all join in a fervent fight against “materialism.” If men and women do not know what materialism is, how can they be expected to join the battle? Materialism in its crisis form occurs when men and women created in the image of God accept and look upon matter as “the ultimate”-the only reality. The advice, “We must fight materialism,” does not mean that everyone should get a sword, and run after a fellow named Material, and cut him down. What it does mean is that we should start believing in the fact of God’s Creation and that matter is only a creature of the all-wise and ever-loving God! The believer is not deceived into believing that the physical things we know and enjoy are the ultimate end, in themselves.
Tozer in the Evening – GOD KNOWS MY PRAYER
We modern Christians seem to be a strange breed in many of our ways. We are so completely satisfied with earthly things and we enjoy our creature comforts so much that we would just rather stay on here for a long, long time! Probably most of us do not tell God about that kind of desire when we pray. But for years I have made a practice of writing many of my earnest prayers to God in a little book – a book now well worn. I remind God often of what my prayers have been. One prayer in the book – and God knows it well by this time – is an honest supplication: Oh, God, Let me die rather than to go on day by day living wrong. I do not want to become a careless, fleshly old man. I want to be right so that I can die right! Lord, I do not want my life to be extended if it would mean that I should cease to live right and fail in my mission to glorify You all of my days! I would rather go home right now than to live on-if living on was to be a waste of God’s time and my own!