the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Morning and Evening with A.W. Tozer
Tozer in the Morning
Stumble Causers
When we are first converted, especially if we come from a non-Christian background, we are likely to be almost too naive for our own good. The wondrous experience through which we have just passed, or perhaps I should say into which we have entered, has predisposed us to believe in everybody. Our trust in other Christians is likely to be boundless. That there could be hypocrites, double-minded professors, religious pretenders, carnal camp followers, never once enters our minds. The result is that our first encounter with a worldly church member comes as a frightful shock to our sensitive minds. Some never recover from this shattering of their confidence. They become religious cripples. Their growth is stunted and their usefulness destroyed, or at the least greatly hindered from that moment on.
That I speak truly here may be proved by everyday experience; but there is a more sure word of Scripture: "But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin [shall offend any one of these, KJV] it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea" (Matthew 18:6).
When we learn that the word offend actually means cause to stumble or to sin, we know how serious the whole thing is. Better to die than to imperil the faith of a weak disciple. Christ's words may mean more than that, but they can hardly mean less.
Tozer in the Evening
THE WINSOME SAINTS
Much of Christianity overlooks the fact that if we are led by the Spirit of God and if we show forth the love of God this world needs, we become the "winsome saints." The strange and wonderful thing about it is that truly winsome and loving saints do not even know about their attractiveness. The great saints of the past did not know they were great saints. If someone had told them, they would not have believed it, but those around then knew that Jesus was living His life in them. I think we join the winsome saints when God's purposes in Christ become clear to us. We join them when we begin to worship God because He is who He is! Brethren, God is not a charity case-He is not some frustrated foreman who cannot find enough help. Let us remember that God has never actually needed any of us-not one! But we pretend that He does and we make a big thing of it when someone agrees "to work for the Lord." God is trying to call us back to that for which He created us-to worship and to enjoy Him forever!
