Alive in the Spirit , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - A.W. Tozer

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

93 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Dynamic, Never-Before-Published Work on the Holy Spirit from A.W. TozerWhat does it mean to have the Holy Spirit in our lives? Many look to extraordinary experiences and manifestations as evidence of the Spirit. But what happens when the event is over? How can we experience the Holy Spirit in the ordinary, everyday world? How can we be filled with the Spirit?In this material taken from Tozer's sermons, he answers these questions and explores life in the Spirit from a balanced perspective. The church needs the gifts of the Spirit--all of them--or it will never be what God intends it to be. But this has to happen in wisdom and humility.Many people talk about being filled with the Holy Spirit, but very few accept the conditions for being filled. Tozer lays down requirements for the Holy Spirit to come into our lives and transform us into Spirit-filled people. Though every Christian has the Holy Spirit, not every Christian is filled with the Holy Spirit. He explains the difference and how it could change the evangelical church of today.

Sujets

Philosophie et théologie

Christian theology

Informations

Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 novembre 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441230485
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0432€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

© 2016 by James L. Snyder
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016942353
ISBN 978-1-4412-3048-5
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture quotations marked ASV are from the American Standard Version of the Bible.
Cover design by Rob Williams, InsideOutCreativeArts
James L. Snyder is represented by The Steve Laube Agency.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Introduction
1. My Experience With the Holy Spirit
2. My Perception of the Holy Spirit
3. My Warning to the Church
4. My Awareness of the Holy Spirit
5. The Threefold Foundation for Trusting the Holy Spirit
6. The Penetrating Voice of the Holy Spirit
7. The Dissimilarity the Holy Spirit Emphasizes
8. The Vitality of the Holy Spirit in the Church
9. A Portrait of the Spirit-Filled Church
10. The Harmony of the Spirit-Filled Church
11. The Holy Spirit: An Uncomfortable Presence
12. The Holy Spirit at Work in the Church
13. Standing in the Power of the Spirit-Filled Life
14. The Fruit of the Spirit Sustains the Church
15. Spiritual Gifts: The Function of the Local Church
16. The Gifts of the Spirit Are Essential to the Church Today
17. Our Personal Pursuit of the Holy Spirit
18. My Daily Walk With the Holy Spirit
About the Author
Books by A.W. Tozer
Back Adds
Back Cover
Introduction
T he subject of this book, Alive in the Spirit , is a very crucial theme for the day in which we live. No other subject could be as controversial as dealing with the Holy Spirit.
One of the things that impressed me as I collected A.W. Tozer’s sermons in preparation for this book is that Tozer says the evangelical church of his day treated the Holy Spirit as the liberal modernistic church did the person of Jesus Christ.
The liberals did not deny Jesus; they more or less ignored him. And the evangelicals in Tozer’s day did not deny the Holy Spirit; they more or less ignored Him and His rightful position in the church. His observations are still true today.
Tozer implies that the evangelical church is going down the same path that the liberal churches did. That being said, he offers a possible solution to bring our churches back under the authority of the Holy Spirit.
The authority of the Holy Spirit must begin with the individual Christian and then flow over into the local congregation. Our strategies are backward. Local church leaders and even denominational leaders are trying to set the tone for the congregations to follow. They have boiled it down to a despicable term (from Tozer’s perspective)—a formula . All you need is the right formula and everything will be all right.
The focus in this book is on the individual. Yes, there are some encouragements for local assemblies, but the emphasis is on the individual Christian. The local church comprises individual Christians, and as those individual Christians go, so goes the local church.
This was Tozer’s passion and it is shown here in this book. He bemoans the fact that the evangelical church has been so divided that it has lost its influence in the culture. Instead of the church influencing the culture, culture is not only influencing the church, it is taking over the church. Tozer declares that what we find in the world we also find in the local church. This ought not to be so.
Tozer’s presentation does not go to extremes. The problem is that one group goes to a far extreme and another group goes to the opposite far extreme—the exhibitionists on one end and the cessationists on the other. This has done critical damage in the church, as Tozer notes. The only way to remedy this is to put the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in its proper perspective. That is what this book does.
In one chapter, he talks about his love of great paintings and says that a painting is not comprised of just one brushstroke, but of many. When you look at that painting you are not conscious of one brushstroke. When you become conscious of one brushstroke, you lose the picture altogether. This, Tozer says, is what has happened concerning the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
To understand the Holy Spirit and His rightful place of authority in the life of the believer, and then in the life of the congregation, we have to surrender personal opinions and prejudices. It is critical to check everything with the Word of God.
Tozer often proposes that people can take a verse of Scripture out of context and make it say anything they want it to say. But each verse must be read in the context of the entire Bible. It takes all the Bible to make the whole Bible. When we splinter the text, pulling out a single brushstroke, we lose what it is all about.
His view on the gifts of the Spirit is that they are not to promote any one person. When one person or even one gift is exalted in a congregation, it is probably not the work of the Holy Spirit. This sounds harsh, but we need to get serious about the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the life and ministry of the local congregation.
Tozer is very careful not to attack individuals or even denominations, but he does attack errors of doctrine. As a man of God called to do the work of God, he felt an obligation to speak out against the spiritual errors of his day. The thing that is most amazing to me is that the sermons forming the basis of this book were preached in the late 1950s and early 1960s. I have to remind myself that Dr. Tozer died in 1963. What he said then is true today and even more so. The warnings he gave then apply to our situation today.
I believe that if a person takes this book seriously, it will deeply affect their spiritual life. The end goal is to become Alive in the Spirit .
According to Tozer, one of the things that has replaced the work of the Holy Spirit in the local church is entertainment. Our society is obsessed with entertainment, and this has come into the church of Jesus Christ. Tozer objects to this. Worship and entertainment are opposites and cannot be mixed. It is either one or the other.
The problem Tozer had with entertainment is that it always promotes a person. Even though that person may mention Jesus or God and claim to be a Christian, the focus is really not on God but on the person and the performance.
I chuckled when I heard Tozer tell the story of a person who wrote to him explaining that singing a hymn was a form of entertainment. He said, “If that’s entertainment, then I’m an entertainer.” But he quickly followed by saying, “It’s not and I’m not.”
He went on to explain that his top priority in life was to be a worshiper. It was the purpose and focus of the Holy Spirit in his life to exalt Jesus Christ and to bring into his life the spirit of worship. The same should be true of us today. Worship is critical, and for Tozer, worship could not be man-induced. Worship that does not start with the Holy Spirit is not true worship.
Tozer suggests that our worship services today are mancentered and man-promoted as a result of neglecting the authority of the Holy Spirit in our congregations. As such, they cannot exalt Jesus Christ.
Throughout this book, he says that people can do good works, but they are not the kind of works that promote and accomplish the holy work of God. Only the Holy Spirit can do the holy work of God. It begins with the Holy Spirit and it ends with the Holy Spirit.
This book reflects the passion Tozer had for the body of Christ.
Throughout the book, I’ve tried to capture Tozer’s tone, which is conversational. In some sermons, I discovered him sharing his testimony, and I thought that was very good to include here. He is not talking about something that he heard about or read about, but rather something he experienced personally. His testimony both of being born again and being filled with the Holy Spirit lays the foundation for what Tozer says throughout this book. I found the influence of the Holy Spirit in his life and his daily walk fascinating.
This book is not to be read in one sitting. Although it could be, you will not reap the greatest benefit by doing so. Reading a chapter at a time and then pausing and thinking about it and applying its truths to your heart is really what Tozer intended. This is not simply literature to be enjoyed, but spiritual truth to be absorbed on a personal level. Knowing about the Holy Spirit is different from knowing the Holy Spirit by personal acquaintance. That is Tozer’s emphasis throughout.
Dr. James L. Snyder
1
My Experience With the Holy Spirit
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
—2 Corinthians 5:17
N o subject could be more crucial to the church today than the Holy Spirit. I know nothing that inspires me more than meditating on the Scriptures concerning this third person of the Trinity.
I hope to cover the subject as thoroughly as possible, although I realize the limitations I have. No matter how much I know about God, there is much more I do not know. My daily passion has been to pursue God and to know Him as fully as He desires to be known.
In dealing with the subject of the Holy Spirit, I know I will interject my opinions. This is something that cannot be helped. If I do not have an opinion about the Holy Spirit, why am I talking and writing about Him?
My opinions, however, must be based on truth as revealed in the Scriptures b