A.W. Tozer... perspective on what God is doing in me right now...

"Self is the opaque veil that hides the Face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction. As well try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us.

Let us remember: when we talk of the rending of the veil we are speaking in a figure, and the thought of it is poetical, almost pleasant; but in actuality there is nothing pleasant about it. In human experience that veil is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free.

Let us beware of tinkering with our inner life in hope ourselves to rend the veil. God must do everything for us. Our part is to yield and trust. We must confess, forsake, repudiate the self-life, and then reckon it crucified. But we must be careful to distinguish lazy 'acceptance' from the real work of God. We must insist upon the work being done. We dare not rest content with a neat doctrine of self-crucifixion. That is to imitate Saul and spare the best of the sheep and the oxen.

Insist that the work be done in very truth and it will be done. The cross is rough, and it is deadly, but it is effective. It does not keep its victim hanging there forever. There comes a moment when its work is finished and the suffering victim dies. After that is resurrection glory and power, and the pain is forgotten for joy that the veil is taken away and we have entered in actual spiritual experience the Presence of the living God."

This reality caught me quite strongly last night... that God is destroying things within me... my own self... my flesh. As Tozer puts it... the cross is deadly, but effective. I want what God offers... it is my desperate desire to truly be set free. Galatians 5.1 'It is for freedom that Christ has set us free'. If I do indeed dare to seek the life and peace and rest and joy... the genuine article that God offers us so freely by the grace found IN Christ... it will be a painful process. BUT... the present afflictions are nothing compared to the glory set before us (2 Cor 4.16-18)

Let us dare to be destroyed that we might be rebuilt as God so graciously desires... truly free!

Jeremy

(A.W. Tozer, "The Pursuit of God", pg. 44-45)