The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing

Today my quiet time could not have been more spot on, seriously if it wasnt 7 in the morning I would have tears running down my cheeks. However, if you know me (Monica), you know that I am incapable of crying before noon. My tear ducts work better late at night. Anyways Megan, you are gonna poop your pants when you read this. To catch you up, I just had a conversation until 5AM not even a week ago with Meg about this exact topic (more specifically related to my life) and God just used A.W. Tozer to absolutely blow my mind. Typical. I am currently reading "The Pursuit of God," the sequel to the book I just finished called "God's Pursuit of Man." I recommend both, but first read Tozer's "The Knowledge of the Holy," because outside of the bible that book has been the most powerfully used tool to radically transform my heart. Its deep, though, so get a highlighter.

I would re-type the entirety of Chapter 2 called "The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing", but since that would make for an even longer post than my normal ones, I will give you the best parts. Its still gonna be long, though, this is TOO GOOD.

"In the deep heart is a shrine where none but God is worthy to come. In Genesis is the account of creation, but these are simply created 'things'. Our woes began when God was forced out of His central shrine and 'things' were allowed to enter.....Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God's gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by this MONSTROUS SUBSTITUTION.

...Within each of us is also an enemy who's chief characteristic is possessiveness. To allow this enemy to live is, in the end, to lose everything. To repudiate it and give up ALL for the sake of Christ's sake is to lose nothing at last, but to preserve everything unto life eternal.
...And the only effective way to destroy this foe is the cross."

Ok so there is the set-up. Tozer then accentuates the tragic searching for "God-and".

"There is little we need other than God Himself. The evil habit of seeking "God-and" effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation. In the 'and' lies our great woe. If we omit the 'and' we shall soon find God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing for."

He goes on to give the account of Abraham and God's demand that he sacrifice his only son Isaac as an example of Abraham's idolatry of the heart. Matt Chandler always talks about how things that were originally created to be good things, turn to evil because we get possessive of them. They then risk becoming idols, overtaking the shrine that was meant only for God. Oh how I know that all too well.

"From the first moment Abraham held his son, he was an eager love slave to him. The child became at once the delight and idol of his heart. God went out of his way (in the bible) to comment on this affection. ...As he watched him grow, the heart of the old man was knit closer and closer with the life of his son, till at last the relationship bordered upon the perilous. It was then that GOD STEPPED IN TO SAVE BOTH FATHER AND SON from the consequences of an uncleansed love."

Abraham's son was such a blessing to him. A blessing from God. Abraham loved Isaac so well, so selflessly with the love of Christ, but he soon loved Isaac more than he loved God. I can only guess that he started caring more about Isaac's thoughts about him than God's, and wanted to spend time with Isaac more than he wanted to spend time with God. Tragic. Although I know not how it feels to idolize my child, I do know too painfully well what it means to idolize a friend, or a family member. I joked with Becca last week about how I longed for a relationship that would lead to a marriage, but then every time I ask God for that, He lovingly/sarcastically reminds me that I am still co-dependent on essentially everything that moves. My constant need for affirmation is just further proof of my deep heart disease. I then quickly change my request to something more along the lines of "Please God prepare my heart for that future relationship, and help me to be completely aware of my sin of idolatry before I even meet him. I do NOT want to struggle with co-dependency on my husband. And God, be working on his heart, because Lord knows he is gonna have to be really strong in You and equipped to deal with the train wreck that I sometimes am." Becca laughed, because she knows that is SO true. Anyways can you even imagine being asked by God to KILL the one person in the world that you love the most? Ask me to kill Brittney and see what happens. I would look at you and laugh. Talk about agony that Abraham must have been going through that night. But he was faithful, he obeyed God.

"God let the suffering old man go through with it up to the point where He knew there would be no retreat, and then forbade him to lay a hand upon the boy. He now says in effect, "I only wanted to remove him from the temple of your heart that I might reign unchallenged there. I wanted to correct the perversion that existed in your love." ...Now he was a man wholly surrendered, a man utterly obedient, a man who possessed nothing. God chose to cut quickly to the heart and have it over in one sharp act of separation. It hurt cruelly, but it was effective...The sense of possession..was gone from his heart.

There can be no doubt that this possessive clinging to things and people is one of the most harmful habits in this life. ...We are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the Lord OUT OF FEAR FOR THEIR SAFETY (that hits home bigtime). This is especially true when those treasures are loved relatives and friends. But we need have no such fears. Our Lord came not to destroy but to save. Everything is safe which we commit to Him, and nothing is really safe which is not so committed.

The Christian who is alive enough to know himself even slightly will recognize the symptoms of this possession malady, and will grieve to find them in his own heart. If the longing after God is strong enough within him, he will want to do something about the matter. Now what should he do? Let him trample under food every slippery trick of his deceituful heart and insist instead upon frank and open relations with the Lord. ...This ancient curse will not go out painlessly; it will not lie down and die in obedience to our command. It must be torn out of our heart like a plant from the soil; it must be extracted in agony and blood like a tooth from the jaw. It must be expelled from our soul by violence."

Is it a coincidence that Matt Chandler's newest sermon is titled "When violence is OK" and it is about making war against the sins, small and large, in our lives? I think not. I think God is trying to say something here. Idolatry is a common sin, but not tolerable. We all have at one point or another taken something good and elevated it to an unhealthy level, making it in our lives more important than God. We have created an idol in our hearts and when this happens, God must painfully remove it in His MOST LOVING act. He would be unloving to let things that will never eternally satisfy us remain at the core of our being, the most important thing. He knows that HIMSELF is the only thing that reigns effectively in the 'shrine of our heart' and therefore will only let Himself fill it. He is so good for doing this, and it hurts so bad. Everything in our sinful nature wars against this idea, as we place things and people as the ultimate in our lives over and over again. Thanks to God's brilliant idea of 'free will,' (personally my portion of 'free will' is retarded in epic proportion, and I kind of wish he would have just created me naturally obedient to Him without choice) we will each get to choose either God or something else. And God will wait to be wanted.

"If we would indeed know God in growing intimacy, if we are set upon the pursuit of God, He will sooner or later bring us to this test. ...So we will be brought one by one to the testing place, and we may never know when we are there. At that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices for us--just one and an alternative--but our whole future will be conditioned by the choice we make."

Tozer concludes by praying: "Father I want to know You, but my cowardly heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide the terror of this parting from You. I come trembling, but I DO COME. Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that You may enter and dwell there WITHOUT A RIVAL. Then You will make the place of Your feet glorious. Then my heart will have no need of the sun to shine in it, for You will be the light of it and there will be no night there. In Jesus' name, Amen."

I'm with Tozer. My prayer is likewise. I love that he says, THEN his heart will have no need of the sun to shine in it, because God will be his light and where there is God there is no darkness. OH that is so glorious!! We will not need circumstances to go our way, we will not need health or wealth or affirmation--(shocking), because we will have God, and God plus nothing equals everything. That doesnt ring true in our flesh, but it must ring true in our spirit.

"The man who has God for his treasure has all things in ONE. Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness. Or if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss, for having the Source of all things he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight. Whatever he may lose he has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately, and forever."