A good friend of mine has given me a collection of articles written by Pastor A.W. Tozer. If the name doesn't ring a bell, you really need to check him out, either on the Internet or at your local book store.
I have never read anything that Tozer wrote that didn't go right to the heart and soul, uncovering and revealing truth that I needed so badly to hear. More than just hear, he has a way of pointing out simple truth that we may not have given language to in our own beliefs.
One of the chapters I read is entitled There Are No Insignificant Christians, which prompted this posting here today.
Tozer writes: One of the heaviest thoughts that can visit the human heart is the insignificance of the average man. Seen against the long procession of the ages and the countless multitudes of people who have inhabited the earth, we are each no more than a grain of sand on the wide seashore.
It takes some reflection to make this appear to our minds as it really is. The human ego may be counted upon to accent our individual worth and to give a false permanence to what is anything but permanent. A man in his pride may feel himself to be so important that it is hard for him to visualize the world as continuing to endure after his is removed from the scene, but all we need to do is to wait. Time will grind him down and toss him to the winds. His friends will disappear one by one, and there will be no one left to remember him.
If anything, our society today has cheapened human life. We have removed the creator from our collective conscience and have reduced life to nothing more than cosmic chance. We are but a mish-mash of molecules and atomic particles that somehow found themselves bonded to produce humanity. No longer do we marvel at who we are as the handiwork of God, created in His image. We spend our time in meaningless pursuit of fleshly pleasure, feeding and worshiping ourselves at the temple of ME.
Tozer goes on to write: No matter how insignificant a person may have been before, that same person becomes significant the moment they have an encounter with the Son of God. When the Lord lays His hand upon a person, that person ceases at once to be ordinary, and their life takes on cosmic significance. The very angels in heaven take notice of them and go forth to become their ministers. Though that person had before been only one of the faceless multitude, a mere cipher in the universe, an invisible dust grain blown across endless wastes--now they get a face and a name and a place in the scheme of meaningful things. Christ knows His own sheep "by name."
No doubt we grieve our Lord by thinking of ourselves as less than we are in the plan of God. In ourselves we are nothing. But the blood of the everlasting covenant has changed all that. Our claim now is that of a child upon their Father. We have a right in the Father's household, and we can sit down at His table without fear or embarrassment. In the Kingdom of God we have worth.
Thinking ourselves as being insignificant is one of the weapons of our enemy, the devil. Scripture says he comes but to "Kill, steal and destroy." Well, if he can plant the seed of self-worthlessness in our minds and hearts, he then can kill any hope we might ever possess. He can steal away any dreams or thoughts of ever rising above our daily situations. And he can destroy us and those around us by the choices we make while under this cloud of worthlessness. He is a deceiver and master manipulator. But Jesus is the real deal! He is the POWER we have been searching for to shake off the chains of our sin/addiction and rise above this muck and mire of life here on planet earth. Jesus gives back everything the devil has killed, stolen and destroyed. No brag........
Just fact.
God on you....
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