the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer
Tozer in the Morning
The One Before Whom All Shall Bow
The cure for superstition is an increased appreciation of the being of God: not names only, but character and being. The idea that the devil is afraid of a word or a gesture is pure superstition. He is not afraid of any name, not even the name Jesus. There are thousands of little boys in Latin America who bear that name, and surely Satan does not stand in fear of them. No, it is not a combination of letters that strikes terror to the heart of Satan. It is the glorious Person who bears the name Jesus whom he fears. To the name Jesus God has added the titles 'Lord and Christ,' and this means that all power has been given unto Him in heaven and in earth. Back of the name is the sovereign Person of God's Son, our Savior. From this Person Satan flees, but it is a waste of time and effort to try to impress him with mere words and phrases.
In the degree that we know God Himself, we shall be free from superstitious fears; and in the degree that we are affected by signs, gestures, phrases and 'religious objects' (as they are naively called), we are in the bonds and snares of superstition.
Tozer in the Evening
Believing Prayer
Men may, and often do, pray without faith (though this is not true prayer), but it is not thinkable that men should have faith and not pray. The biblical formula is The prayer of faith. Prayer and faith are here bound together by the little preposition of, and what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Faith is only genuine as it eventuates into prayer. When Tennyson wrote More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, he probably uttered a truth of vaster significance than even he understood. While it is not always possible to trace an act of God to its prayer-cause, it is yet safe to say that prayer is back of everything that God does for the sons of men here upon earth. One would gather as much from a simple reading of the Scriptures. What profit is there in prayer? Much every way. Whatever God can do faith can do, and whatever faith can do prayer can do when it is offered in faith. An invitation to prayer is, therefore, an invitation to omnipotence, for prayer engages the Omnipotent God and brings Him into our human affairs. Nothing is impossible to the man who prays in faith, just as nothing is impossible with God. This generation has yet to prove all that prayer can do for believing men and women.
