The Dangers of a Shallow Faith: Awakening from Spiritual Lethargy

by A.W. Tozer

See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. EPHESIANS 5:15

Christians are not to become so conscious of the wind and the clouds that they do nothing. On the other hand, if we are unaware of danger, we increase that danger a hundredfold and almost guarantee disaster.

God the Creator made man in His image and made him to be something of a creator too.

The words “sorrow,” “thorns,” “thistles” and “sweat” were added when man sinned. Work is not a result of man’s sin; working in sorrow is a result of man’s sin. To work with thorns and thistles around you is the result of man’s sin. To work until we sweat for our daily labor is a result of man’s sin. God made us to be workers.

Idleness is un-Christlike—our Savior was a worker—and contrary to the high will of God, for it voids our commission to replenish the earth and subdue it, and it is an invitation to temptation.

The idle Christian is in great danger, because he is unlike his Savior.

Our Lord went about doing good, and He chose industrious men for His disciples.

God made us for creative activity. If you want to live closer to the way that God commissioned you in the book of Genesis, I recommend you make yourself available—that you be ready to do anything.

But any Christian worth his salt will find something to do in the kingdom of God.

Do not fear wearing yourself out. The devil is a master of strategy, and when a child of God gets busy, he whispers in the ear, “Watch it, because you’re going to have a nervous breakdown.” I am positively sure that nervous breakdowns do not come from working in the easy yoke of Jesus Christ. They come from frustrations, hidden sins, stubbornness, refusing to hear God and wanting your own way; but they do not come from working. “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:30).

Our human weaknesses and faults cause us to break down, and we end up not working the service of the Lord.

There is plenty of work in the Church.

There is singing to be done.

The Scripture in Ecclesiastes does not say there is a time for idleness, but there is a time for relaxation.

There is no time for idleness, because idleness assumes lack of purpose.

There is no place for that in the kingdom of God, but there is a time to cease activities.

Daniel prayed three times a day; the prophets sought the silence. You will find that God looked for His men in the silence.

It is only out of the silence that the Word speaks.

The prophets sought the silence; and in the silence, they learned what to say.

So let us learn the scriptural silence.

He said, “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” (Matt. 6:6).

It is a testimony and enables the man to get into the house of God and mingle and raise his voice in the songs of Zion with the people of God.

If you are too busy in the Lord’s work to spend time in the Lord’s presence, you are too busy in the Lord’s work.

There is a time for everything. We wait on God to renew our batteries, and then when they are up to full power, we turn them loose into the work of God.

Let us ask God for wisdom, not to be idle ever, but to be inactive sometimes, for the sake of renewing our batteries and relaxing our nerves and quieting our minds and, above all things, seeing visions of God.

Work, for the Night Is Coming Anna L. Coghill

When a man rises and says, “I believe the Bible” and then ignores the teachings of the Bible on his own pet subjects, he is rejecting the Word more insidiously than outright disbelief. We are all likely to do that.

We tend to trust in God when we have nothing else in which to trust.

“Be honest, holy, hardworking, frugal, saving, get all you can, then give it all away, and that way you’ll never backslide. Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can.”

Prosperity is dangerous for a Christian.

Thank God reverently.

Share it generously.

The bigger the bank account, the smaller the heart, unless you share it so generously

that your conscience feels good about it and G...

Walk circums...

If you have plenty, thank God reverently, share it generously and...

If he allows his heart to be overcharged, overwhelmed with these earthly things, the day of Christ shall come upon him unawares.

Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man” (Luke 21:35-36).

“Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: Lest if I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain” (Prov. 30:8-9).

Too much prosperity will make you soft.

While David was ill, he had time to think it over and pray and wait on God, and he used his affliction as a means of grace.

Get Thoroughly Detached from Earthly Possessions

Blessed is the man who possesses nothing. If we possess nothing, God will allow us to have plenty.

Break the Grip of the World’s Philosophies

A true Christian has said goodbye to the philosophies of the world

The glory lies in giving not one care to either, but saying, “I’ll live decently and respectably and strike a happy medium and go my way, and I don’t care what the world says.”

Prosperity, if you have it, will kill you; and adversity, if you have it, will grind you.

If you will get free from the world’s philosophies and dare to be a Christian, standing on your own feet, thanking God for what you have and being an independent Christian, neither one of them will harm you.

If God gave you possessions, thank God for them. But break with the grip of the world’s philosophies and make God

everything. If God is everything to you, you can have anything else and it will not hurt you. If God is little or nothing to you, anything will hurt you.