That Incredible Christian: How Heaven's Children Live on Earth by A. W. Tozer

Author:A. W. Tozer [Tozer, A. W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Published: 2008-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

Affirmation and Denial

T

he notion that we enter the Christian life by an act of acceptance is true, but that is not all the truth. There is much more to it than that. Christianity involves an acceptance and a repudiation, an affirmation and a denial. And that is not only at the moment of conversion but continually thereafter day by day in all the battle of life till the great conflict is over and the Christian is home from the wars. To live a life wholly positive is, fortunately, impossible. Were any man able to do such a thing it could be only for a moment. Living positively would be like inhaling continuously without exhaling. Aside from its being impossible, it would be fatal. Exhalation is as necessary to life as inhalation.

To accept Christ it is necessary that we reject whatever is contrary to Him. This is a fact often overlooked by eager evangelists bent on getting results. Like the salesman who talks up the good points of his product and conceals its disadvantages, the badly informed soul winner stresses the positive side of things at the expense of the negative.

Let us not be shocked by the suggestion that there are disadvantages to the life in Christ. There most certainly are. Abel was murdered, Joseph was sold into slavery, Daniel was thrown into the den of lions, Stephen was stoned to death, Paul was beheaded, and a noble army of martyrs was put to death by various painful methods down the long centuries. And where the hostility did not lead to such violence (and mostly it did not and does not) the sons of this world nevertheless managed to make it tough for the children of God in a thousand cruel ways. Everyone who has lived for Christ in a Christless world has suffered some losses and endured some pains that he could have avoided by the simple expedient of laying down his cross.

However, the pains are short and the losses inconsequential compared with the glory that will follow, “for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17). But while we are here among men with our sensitive hearts exposed to the chilly blasts of the unbelieving and uncomprehending world it is imperative that we take a realistic view of things and learn how to deal with disadvantages. And it is important that we tell the whole truth to those we are endeavoring to win.

The astute Mark Twain once pointed out that some churches actually fail to gain members because they make the way too easy, and conversely the church that is hard to get into is the one that is likely to prosper numerically. The experienced missionary knows that the book or Scripture portion that is given away free will be less valued by the receiver than if a small price had been paid for it. And the higher the price the more precious the possession.

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