This is A.W. Tozer. While I have meant to read Tozer over the past few years, he's been one that has managed to escape me as I've been busy with other outstanding authors. I was finally able to catch up to him this past week, and I wasn't able to even read one chapter without being absolutely kicked in the head with insight and truth that Tozer saw coming long before it ever got here. In his book The Pursuit of God, chapter 1, he discusses the idea of following hard after God. He wrote this back in 1948. In chapter 1 he gets your attention by saying such provocative things as "The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless. Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego." He goes on further saying "Christ may be 'received' without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver...and is taught to be satisfied and encouraged to be content with little." Does this sound like our churches today? I would argue that unfortunately, it does. Much of evangelicalism teaches and preaches a form of "decisionism", a means of 'receiving' Christ after uttering or allowing someone else to utter a prayer after them. You make a decision to follow Christ, much like you would decide if you'll have fries or onion rings.
Tozer, however, looks at conversion in a vastly different, and dare I say biblical way. Tozer opens the chapter by commenting on the theology of 'prevenient grace', which means that before man can seek God, God must first have sought after the man. Man, in our fallen nature, doesn't have the moral capacity to choose God or search for the Kingdom, therefore our election is entirely dependent upon His grace and mercy to fulfill His purposes. We can take no credit for our salvation, therefore we have no reason to boast. We cannot look down our noses at lost people, frustrated with their lack of faith or understanding, because that would be equivalent to being angry at a blind man for being blind. In order to see God and love Him for who He is, He must first give you the gift of the Holy Spirit. Once we have the Spirit, we follow hard after Him, we cling to Him, we love Him in ways that we didn't know were possible. The problem Tozer addresses is the complete lack of following hard after the very God who has so graciously saved us. Our churches are full of warm bodies, that play church. They generally have little interest in pursuing after Him, and can hardly be bothered to show up on Sunday's for service. Here in the laughable "bible-belt" of Canada, we are worse off today than when Tozer wrote these words. We have a gospel with no teeth, we have pulpits that preach philosophy and story-telling, and our general knowledge of the bible is sorely lacking, and has been for decades.
One of the intriguing questions I have is "Is Canada any better off than Western Europe?" Western Europe is, and has been considered "post-Christian" for many years now. I believe Canada was recently put into the same category. This category generally means that Christianity is no longer a part of the fabric of everyday culture, and in some cases is considered irrelevant. Where is the church in Canada? Dr. Bibby from the University of Lethbridge recently released his findings on the importance of Christianity in Canada, and his numbers actually look positive. The unfortunate thing I found with the article was the line of questioning used. It was very general in nature, and had little pressing questions into what these people meant by their equally general answers. You can find all sorts of "Christians" out there that hardly qualify when pressed. George Barna's numbers show that less than 5% of evangelical Christians even have the basic understanding of the Christian faith. I think our churches are in far worse shape than what many want to believe.
Thanks to Dr. Frankie Rainey for preaching at Hill Country while I was on holidays. I will be back in the pulpit this weekend. Come join us Sunday, October 16th at 10am for coffee, 10:30 for the service. Also, there is an inter-denominational service being held at the Lutheran church in Cochrane on Saturday evening, 7:00pm, and the Helping Hands food drive is taking place Saturday morning. Come and help or just donate food (or both!) to a good cause.
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