A Cloud by Day, a Fire by Night: Finding and Following God's Will for You

by A.W. Tozer

When we allow God’s Word to go beyond our ears and into our hearts, it stimulates us to do that which God is calling us to do.

To avoid wrong turns, we need to base every decision on the authority and wisdom of God’s Word.

It is the voice of God that will guide our way through our personal Jordan rivers and into the promised land. Without that voice of God, our Jordan will never open up, and we will never get across.

Nothing can ever happen to you or me but what God has prepared us to handle. This Angel before us is faithfully leading us to the place where God wants us to be.

Our final destination is “my Father’s house,” Jesus says in John 14:2.

God’s grace is not only for our imperfections and weaknesses and failures. His grace is a reflection of His character and His nature, not our weaknesses.

Faith takes the “I” out of the equation and brings God back to the center. If God said it, then it must be true, and if it’s true, then it’s true now, and if it’s true for someone else, it’s also true for me. Somehow, we have taken the Scripture and parsed it to mean “that one” when it means “this one.”

We need to be careful that we stay in His presence, and this is the work of faith.

If I think I can handle my own situation, I’m really going to be in trouble, but when I feel inferior, I can look to God and God can open up to me the riches of His grace.

First, it is to bring them out of the land of bondage, and second, it is to bring them into the land of promise. These two things go together.

If you want God to guide you, then God is going to guide you into places where you are not supposed to compromise in any regard.

Heavenly Father, lift my eyes to Thee, to Thy Son, Jesus Christ the Lord, who is above angels. Thou sittest at the right hand, and I pray, give to me a spiritual urgency, a longing that is more than human. Give to me the desire that is like a fire burning in my bones. O God, may I not be content with where I am and in what I am. But I pray that Thou wouldst stir up my heart with the longing and desire for Thee that can only be experienced in Thy presence. Lift up my heart unto Thee I ask, O Father, in Jesus’ name, amen.

Obedience is a primary ingredient of my service to God. A missing characteristic of Christian religion today is the knowledge that to obey is better than sacrifice. No matter what comes my way, obedience to God is the thing that is really important.

A man will live as long as God has work for him to do and as long as that man is really committed to that work. When my work is done and I have completed it as God wants me to, then my life is over.

think the majority of Christians are in that position today. They are in the desert wandering aimlessly, and before them is the promised land with all of the blessings and glory of God waiting for them. They see it, but they cannot quite understand it or reach it.

The deeper Christian life goes forward as God directs and leads us, and we depend upon God to deal with our enemies. God’s promise was that He would make Israel’s enemies His enemies and their adversaries His adversaries. Israel had nothing to lose in obeying God and everything to lose in disobeying Him.

Getting into the deeper life is a real trial, just like the children of Israel discovered. They left the desert, went into Canaan, and experienced battle after battle. But every battle made them stronger. Every battle prepared them for the next battle. And God was on their side, leading them, and they were walking by the cloud by day and the fire by night, and nobody could resist them. Coming into this Canaan experience is for every Christian who wants to know God better.

You see, when God led me to write that biography, He empowered me to write it. When God leads us to do something for Him, He always empowers us to do it. And this is where obedience comes from. I can only obey God when I know what He wants me to do. I may not understand all of the implications of what He wants me to do at the time, but I understand that He wants me to do something, and if He wants me to do something, He will give me the power and ability to do that something.

I cannot overemphasize this—what we seek is a gift to be received, not a reward to be earned. I am not working for my salvation, but I am accepting from God the blessing of being saved by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Everybody is as holy as he or she wants to be. Everybody is as full of the Holy Spirit as he or she wants to be.

Then those around us will notice a difference in our lives and a severe separation from the world around us.

We can become discouraged, but in that discouragement, we begin to see two things. First, our own weakness, and second, how God’s grace is applied to our lives in that weakness.

Dare to put the clouds of concealment under your feet and look into the sunshine to the Lord Jesus, not trying to tell Him what to do or how to do it. Just look on Him and let Him work.