A New Direction - An Introduction

We in the modern church place a huge amount of emphasis on doing. We have programs, dinners, we go to shelters and create groups and on and on. All of these things can be good, and often have good results, but they also often come dangerously close to transforming Christianity from a spiritual movement into a cultural one. It seems that the modern Christian's expectation is to move from conversion and bestowal of the Holy Spirit to immediately "winning" entire rooms or stadiums for Christ. We want spirituality, but we want it quick, we want it easy, and eventually we want it to come along with all of our normal creature comforts.

In a way its extremely understandable, I've felt similarly myself for much of my early time as a Christian. Suddenly, we feel that everything is changed and we need to immediately run out to write the song or start the group or sing in the church that will convert the lost and turn our society into a shining city on a hill that testifies to the awesome power of God.

So why do I (and not just I) say that this is an attempt at the short-cut to spiritual power? I think the answer lies in our understanding of Christian life and often our lack of adherance to it. We too often understand our faith on the most shallow of terms. As wonderful as the initial experience with the Spirit can be, it is just that - a singular experience. Tozer points out that we don't expect to have a singular phone conversation with someone and know them intimately, but yet we expect that after a singular encounter with God we can part waters and pronounce His will. It is not that much different from the soldier who picks up his first rifle and thinks he's going to win a war. It is the result of an admirable courage running headlong into a pronounced lack of experience, and in the flesh we call this naivete. It is on this subject that Tozer's writings and sermons become strangely prophetical. He found that even in his day Christians relied too much on the spiritual equivalents of quick fixes and 5 step plans. In one sermon he stated that we looked at the Holy Spirit like an Ovaltine commercial - it would give us a quick boost in the morning and help sooth us to bed at night.

If the comparison of the Spirit of the living God to Ovaltine disturbs you, good. It ought to. It is a trite comparison for what has become the superficial treatment of our greatest asset (possibly our only asset) as Christians - our fellowship with God. If the nature of the fall is indeed the seperation of man from the divine nature, then new life in Christ as cultivated by our relationship with the Holy Spirit is our redemption. Through it we can come to know God more intimately than even Moses and the Prophets, for what they saw with their eyes we can feel in our hearts.

However, if we think that we can be creatures of flesh one minute and then be instantly transformed into perfect spiritual mediums of the Will of God, then we have likely magnified ourselves. Yet again, relationships take time, and the one we have with God is no exception. God is indeed all around us be we have trained ourselves not to hear. This has lead many of us to a kind of half hearted Christianity, where we base our faith on already having all that there is to have spiritually, and thus we eschew the world and preach the gospel. Problem is that without the deeper searching for God we cannot know the things that would lead us to inner peace apart from what this world offers. We become trapped because we refuse the pleasures of the world but we don't know how to cultivate the joy of the Spirit.

This is not the way that God intended us to be, and the knowledge of that fact is enough reason to move away from such half-heartedness. But where do we move to? The answer to that is both wonderfully freeing and wonderfully singular. Simply towards God. Bend the knee, bow the head, knowing that the simple intention of better understanding our Creator is something that He delights in. No human frailty, no sin, no weakness of spirit is too much for God to overcome. the only responsibility we are given is to seek, to look longingly for a better understanding.

"Lord, teach me to listen. The times are noisy and my ears are weary with the thousand raucous sounds which continuously assault them. Give me the spirit of the boy Samuel when he said to Thee, "Speak, for thy servant heareth." Let me hear Thee speaking in my heart. Let me get used to the sound of Thy Voice, that its tones may be familiar when the sounds of earth die away and the only sound will be the music of Thy speaking Voice. Amen."

A. W. Tozer