Paul N.
F.
"OBEDIENCE: A
NEGLECTED
DOCTRINE"
This
article by
Tozer should be read and reread over, to be certain of
grasping what
the Lord wants us to understand clearly.
I often see
a
parent telling their children to mind and let it go at
that.
Instead of following through with their orders, they let
the child do
what they wanted to, while the parent go to their
tasks. The
idea is to finish your job completely and correctly.
There are a
few that do believe in the importance of OBEDIENCE, but
far too
few.
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OBEDIENCE: A NEGLECTED DOCTRINE
By A. W. Tozer
There is what
William James
called "a certain blindness in human beings"
that prevents us from seeing what we do not want to see.
This, along
with the
direct work of the devil himself, may account for the fact
that the
doctrine of
obedience is so largely neglected in modern religious
circles.
That God
expects us to be
"obedient children" is admitted, of course, but
it is seldom stressed sufficiently to get action.
Many
people seem to feel that our
obligation to obey has been discharged by the act of
believing on
Jesus Christ
at the beginning of our Christian lives.
We should
remember that
"the will is the seat of true religion in the soul:"
Nothing genuine has been done in a man or woman's life
until his or
her will
has been surrendered in active obedience. It was
disobedience that brought
about the ruin of the race. It is the "obedience
of faith"
that brings us back
again
into
divine favor.
A
world of
confusion and disappointment results from trying to
believe
without obeying. This puts us in the position of a bird
trying to fly
with one
wing folded. We merely flap in a circle and seek to
cheer our
hearts with the
hope that the whirling ball of feathers is proof that a
revival is
under way.
A good deal of praying at our camp meeting altars has the
identical
effect of
a good cry. It releases pent-up emotions and relaxes
tense
nerves. The
smile that follows is accepted by the eager helpers as
evidence that a
deep
spiritual work has been done. This can be for some
people a
tragic error,
resulting in permanent injury and loss to the spiritual
life.
A mere passive
surrender
may be no surrender at all. Any real
submission to the will of God must include willingness to
take orders
from
Him from that time on. When the heart is irrevocably
committed to
receiving
and obeying orders from the Lord Himself, a specific
work has been
done,
but not until then.
We are not
likely to see
among us any remarkable transformations of
individuals or churches until the Lord's ministers again
give to
obedience
the place of prominence it occupies in the
Scriptures.
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Yours in Christ,
Paul N. F.