The Dangers of a Shallow Faith: Awakening from Spiritual Lethargy

by A.W. Tozer

Boredom with religion is conceivable, but being bored with God is not. Those who have encountered God and His mighty, awesome presence could never come to the point of boredom. Religion, however, with all of its tiresome dos and don’ts, sets us up for such boredom.

God is what He is, and we had better learn what God is and then conform our teachings to that truth. If we take away any of the attributes of God, we weaken our concept of God.

It is only as the Holy Spirit has unlimited sway within you that you are able to pray in the Spirit.

Dare to preserve truth without hurting people.

If God never answered another prayer for me as long as I live, I still want God to know that I want to serve Him until I die. If He never did another thing for me from this day on, if He withdrew His hand and let me go to pieces physically, mentally, emotionally, financially and every other way, I would still want Him to know I want to serve Him just because He is God.

Suppose you pray for something and do not get it, and it is obvious that you are not going to get it. Do not let that finish you off. Maybe you are not living right; maybe you are praying selfishly; maybe you have misunderstood the will of God. Go to the Scriptures, search it out, get right with God, give God a chance at you, then try it again and press on.

A discouraged heart always exaggerates everything. Do not trust a discouraged spirit, for it will never give you the true picture of you or your situation.

There are two kinds of unbelief. There is the outspoken unbelief, and there is the unbelief that is too cowardly to say, but the person never obeys, and therefore proves to be as bad a case of unbelief as the other. If I believe, I will do something about it. If somebody tells me there is a bomb in the room, and I believe it, I will get out of the room. If I do not believe it, I will stay. It depends upon whether I believe it or not. If I yell in the night, “Fire, get out of your house,” and you, my neighbor, do not believe what I am saying, you will turn over in bed and say, “That drunk man’s out there again.” It all depends upon whether you believe a thing or not. If you haven’t done anything about your salvation yet, then you don’t believe it in a “saving” way.

If you want to be holy—if you want to serve God—you have to give time to God. Grace and holiness take time, and the cultivation of the Spirit takes time. Do you want to be holy? Do you want a deep faith? Then you have to give God time, and not just intend to. You say, “I believe you, brother. I’m going to do it.” But you never do.

When you strip superstition away from a man, he feels terribly naked for a moment, but until we strip off our superstition the Lord cannot put on us a cloak of truth.