private religion purified

March 11, 2010

So, the other day, I read Chapter 7 of A.W. Tozer's "The Pursuit of God." I really really liked it, as well as the rest of the book of course. But in this chapter, titled The Gaze of the Soul, Tozer talks about what faith can be seen as. Faith is difficult to define, and it is much easier to carry out than define. But basically Tozer concludes that "faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God." To see how he came down to that great definition, you should read the chapter. He basically relates the bronze snake that was lifted up in the desert to save those Israelites who were bitten by a snake to Jesus and how when looking at those two parallel cases, we see that 'looking' and 'believing' are synonymous terms.

"As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:14-15)

Hence his definition of faith. He goes on to describe how that is really what we are called to do. To gaze upon God with our soul's eyes. To focus on God and to look to Him for all. To recognize that on our own, it is impossible to do even an iota of good, but when we focus upon Him, upon the perfect One, we see that He has taken care of all, and that through Him working in us, we are being transformed, even at the very moment when we are still struggling to purify ourselves. God has already begun to purify us when we fix our gaze upon Him and not upon our sinful selves.

When we lift our inward eyes to gaze upon God we are sure to meet friendly eyes gazing back at us, for it is written that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout all the earth. The sweet language of experience is "Thou God seest me." When the eyes of the soul looking out meet the eyes of God looking in, heaven has begun right here on this earth.

I really liked that line. It's true, God's eyes are always on us, we just need to look to Him, and then we'll realize that He's been there all along. I've been really learning to do this. To look to God alone, and not to the fears and worries I have about my future.

Someone may fear that we are magnifying private religion out of all proportion, that the "us" of the New Testament is being displaced by a selfish "I." Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers met together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become "unity" conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified. The body becomes stronger as its members become healthier. The whole Church of God gains when the members that compose it begin to seek a better and a higher life.

I liked that paragraph, and I find its message to be true. While we are the body of Christ, and fellowship should never be substituted by just individuals walking on their own, it is also important for each individual to grow and be transformed in their own walks. And I do agree that "social religion is perfected when private religion is purified." I think so many times, the problems that we can so obviously see with social religion really do have a root in our private religion, but a lot of times, we try fixing it from the external, and fail to start fixing it from the root, and then we wonder why things don't get better. I guess I feel that a lot of times what we're told to do and are given are just outward solutions, eg to go out of our comfort zones and reach out to people we normally wouldn't reach out to, love difficult people, etc. And these are good solutions and ideas, but maybe addressing the possible roots of the issues, eg. not learning to love God first and wholeheartedly and drawing upon His love to love others, would help better resolve the issues. I believe that all difficult issues and imperfections in our social religion really do go back to our private religions being overlooked, not purified, and not growing. If we would all learn, individually, to love God first and wholeheartedly, to strive to live according to His standards in every way possible, to focus our gaze upon Him only as we desperately desire and seek His will and transformation in our lives, I do believe that many, if not all, of the problems we see with social religion would gradually disappear. But of course, we are human, and we have faults, and no one can seek God perfectly nor equally to the next. Even to have a growing desire for God requires prayer and faith in God. It is not easy, but it shouldn't be overlooked either. But I do believe, that the starting point is easy: to gaze upon God with the eyes of our souls, to be enraptured with Him alone, and then really, everything else just seems so insignificant because we have all that we need before us.

And it is enough.

His grace is sufficient for us.