May 14, 2005

• lately, i feel as if some friends of mine, even the Christians….are not so much really as close to me as i thought them to be. it is even harder to be around them and not in some way, be swayed into the world and what it has to offer. (how much easier it would be to go back to where you used to be…blending in with the rest of the world and lukewarm ‘Christianity.’) however, i see a separation…and, often it is hard not to feel sorry for yourself, not to throw a pity party, and say “hey! look at me…i’m alone and have no where to go…poor me…” you’ve got to get back up on your feet, understand that there are few, and continue on that narrow road. many times, i feel led to read tozer’s “the saint must walk alone…“
  
  
  “the loneliness of the Christian results from his walk with God in an ungodly world, a walk that must often take him away from the fellowship of good Christians as well as from that of the unregenerate world. his God-given instincts cry out for companionship with others of his kind, others who can understand his longings, his aspirations, his absorption in the love of Christ; and because within his circle of friends there are so few who share inner experiences, he is forced to walk alone.
  
  a certain amount of social fellowship will of course be his as he mingles with religious persons in the regular activities of the church, but true spiritual fellowship will be hard to find. but he should not expect things to be otherwise. after all he is a stranger and a pilgrim, and the journey he takes is not on his feet but in his heart. he walks with God in the garden of his own soul – and who but God can walk there with him?
  
  the lonely saint finds few who care to talk about that which is the supreme object of his interest, so he is often silent and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shoptalk. for this he earns the reputation of being dull and overserious, so he is avoided and the gulf between him and society widens. his loneliness makes him sympathetic to the approach of the brokenhearted and the fallen and the sin-bruised. because he is detached from the world, he is all the more able to help it.
  
  the weakness of so many modern Christians is that they feel too much at home in the world. in their effort to achieve restful “adjustment” to unregenerate society they have lost their pilgrim character and become an essential part of the very moral order against which they are sent to protest. the world recognizes them and accepts them for what they are. And this is the saddest thing that can be said about them. they are not lonely, but neither are they saints.
  
  always remember: you cannot carry a cross in company. though a man were surrounded by a vast crowd, his cross is his alone and his carrying of it marks him as a man apart. society has turned against him; otherwise he would have no cross. no one is a friend to the man with a cross. “they all forsook Him, and fled. (mark 14:50)”
  -a.w. tozer (the saint must walk alone)
  
  
  “whatever was to my profit i now consider loss for the
   sake of Christ. what is more, i consider everything a loss
   compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Jesus
  Christ my Lord, for whose sake i have lost all things.
   i consider them rubbish, that i may gain Christ and be found in Him,
   not having a righteousness of my own….” phil. 3:7-9
  
  Lord, please, break me, rearrange me, and take my mind off of me
  …i am but Your clay-mold me! i let go of all else…and hold on to You…

  
  

  • 6:28 pm
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