God Wants To Make Us Righteous
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| example of the worldliness of evangelical music |
A. W. Tozer
"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost" (Titus 3:5).
A whole new generation of Christians has come up believing that it is possible to "accept" Christ without forsaking the world.
But what saith the Holy Ghost? "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God" (James 4:4). And "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1 John 2:15).
This requires no comment, only obedience.
It is an error to assume that we can experience justification without transformation. Justification and regeneration are not the same; they may be thought apart in theology, but they can never be experienced apart in fact!
When God declares a man righteous He instantly sets about to make him righteous.
The error today is that we do not expect a converted man to be a transformed man, and as a result of this error our churches are full of substandard Christians. Many of these go on day after day assuming that salvation is possible without repentance and that they can find some value in religion without righteousness.
A revival is, among other things, a return to the belief that real faith invariably produces holiness of heart and righteousness of life!
from Renewed Day By Day, Christian Publications, Camp Hill, PA, reading for Dec. 8th
