Worship, I say, rises or falls with our concept of God .... and if there is one terrible disease in the Church of Christ, it is that we do not see God as great as He is.
Interpretation
Our perception of God shapes our worship, and many fail to fully grasp His greatness.
Aiden Wilson Tozer emphasizes that the quality of worship within the Church is directly tied to how we perceive God's greatness. If believers fail to understand and appreciate God's true nature and majesty, their worship can become shallow and ineffective, highlighting the need for a deeper understanding of the divine to enhance spiritual practices.
In practice
In a sermon on the nature of God, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of a correct understanding of divinity.
Peace of heart that is won by refusing to bear the common yoke of human sympathy is a peace unworthy of a Christian. To seek tranquility by stopping our ears to the cries of human pain is to make ourselves not Christian but a kind of degenerate stoic having no relation either to stoicism or Christianity.
The average Christian is so cold and so contented with His wretched condition that there is no vacuum of desire into which the blessed Spirit can rush in satisfying fullness.
Let a man set his heart only on doing the will of God and he is instantly free. If we understand our first and sole duty to consist of loving God supremely and loving everyone, even our enemies, for God's dear sake, then we can enjoy spiritual tranquility under every circumstance.
The church that can't worship must be entertained. And leaders who can't lead a church to worship must provide the entertainment.
Before the Christian Church goes into eclipse anywhere there must first be a corrupting of her simple basic theology. She simply gets a wrong answer to the question, ‘What is God like?’ and goes on from there. Though she may continue to cling to a sound nominal creed, her practical working creed has become false. The masses of her adherents come to believe that God is different from what He actually is; and that is heresy of the most insidious and deadly kind
People who are crucified with Christ have three distinct marks: 1. they are facing only one direction, 2. they can never turn back, and 3. they no longer have plans of their own.
God's ways do not change... Still he shows his freedom and lordship by discriminating between sinners, causing some to hear the gospel while others do not hear it, and moving some of those who hear it to repentance while leaving others in their unbelief, thus teaching his saints that hew owes mercy to none and that it is entirely of his grace, not at all through their own effort, that they themselves have found life.
I am too much in love with my lies and hypocrisies not to confess them fervently.
Indeed, I cannot think why the whole bed of the ocean is not one solid mass of oysters, so prolific the creatures seem. Ah, I am wandering! Strange how the brain controls the brain! What was I saying, Watson?
I believe it is universally understood and acknowledged that all men will ever act correctly, unless they have a motive to do otherwise.
What I'm saying to you this morning is that Communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social, and the Kingdom of Brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of Communism nor the antithesis of capitalism but in a higher synthesis.
Our beliefs do not sit passively in our brains waiting to be confirmed or contradicted by incoming information. Instead, they play a key role in shaping how we see the world.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.