Committed to the whole message.

A few more extracts from A W Tozer for you.

"To many observing persons today it appears that conversion does not do for people as much as it once did. Too often the experience passes, leaving the seeker unsatisfied and deeply disappointed. Some who are thus affected and who are too sincere to play with religion walk out on the whole thing and turn back to the old life..............................Something is wrong somewhere."

"Could it be that the cause behind this undeniable failure of the gospel to effect moral change is a further back failure of the messenger to grasp the real meaning of his message?
To allow the gospel only in its etymological meaning of good news is to restrict it so radically as acutally to make it something it is not. That "Christ died for our sins" according to the scriptures is good news indeed. But to limit the Christian message to this one truth alone is to rob it of much of its meaning and create a bad misunderstanding among those who hear the resultant preaching."

"It is a message of pardon and for that God be praised; but it is also a message of repentance. It is a message of atonement but it is also a message of temperance and righteousness and godliness in this present world. It tells us to accept a Saviour but it tells us also that we must deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. The gospel message includes the idea of amendment, of separation for the world, of cross carrying and loyalty to the kingdom of God even unto death."

The heart that has felt the weight of its own sin and along with this has seen the dread whiteness of the Most High God will never believe that a message of forgiveness without transformation is a message of good news."

Tozer was writing in the 1950/60's. Do we still make the mistake he talks about and give a limited version of the gospel? I think it is an ever present danger. In fact I think the present church gets even further away from the whole truth because very often Christ is presented only as a person who is available to satisfy our emptiness and little is spoken about the need for pardon, let alone purity.

God bless

Carol