Re-reading AW Tozer's book titled The Pursuit of God with a couple other leaders from the Gathering ministry. His words are so fresh, even though they were written decades ago. So raw. So honest. I pray the words of his prayers at the end of each chapter as if I were their author. Thank you God for Tozer's servant-heart.
This chapter was about the struggle to be free from possessions. How it is possible to own many things/ideas and be blessed with friends/family, and yet your heart possesses none of these. And if something is to gain access to our heart's pedestal where we have rightfully placed God, we oftentimes find God Himself breaking that idol on the floor. (Just as He did when the Philistines captured the Arc of the Covenant and tried to incorporate it into their temple worship with their other gods.)
When we pray for God to purge unwanted baggage from our spiritual bodies, so often, it is difficult to remember how painful purification is. I see it as similar to cancer. Caught early, it is typically a simpler procedure with minimal side effects. But once cancer gains access to a blood supply, it grows quickly and spreads to distant sites.
If something sits next to God in our hearts, He being the Great Physician, must excise it from our spiritual flesh. And like our physical bodies, the painful incisions cut away at our own tissue as well. There is not exact cutting in cancer. Unfortunately, we will lose function in organs and extremities because the cancer has eroded them. Or, in order to ensure all the cancer cells have been removed, healthy tissue is removed as well.
So in our times of purification, be encouraged by prayers for renewal. Because unlike the human hands that slide the scalpel in the operating room, God is able to do abundantly more. In the same way he can create matter out of nothing, He is also able to make us like new.
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