The Power of the Will

3Sep10 The Power of the Will

- This is part of a series that has been adapted from my study of A. W. Tozer’s spiritual classic, The Pursuit of God. -

Tozer confesses: “I have one fear: that I may convince the mind before God can win the heart. For this God-above-all position is one not easy to take. The mind may approve it while not having the consent of the will to put into effect.” That is, it is possible for your mind to go along with a decision for which your heart is not quite ready. Tozer well understood human tendencies when he wrote, “While the imagination races ahead to honor God, the will may lag behind and the man must make the decision before the heart can know any real satisfaction. God wants the whole person and he will not rest until he gets us in entirety. No part of man will do.”

Your Prayer

Tozer concludes chapter 8 of The Pursuit of God with the following words: “God will unveil his glory before his servant’s eyes, and he will place all his treasures at the disposal of such a one, for he knows that his honor is safe in such consecrated hands.”

Are you ready for God to consecrate the hands of your heart? If so, he’s willing to entrust to those hands his greatest treasures. This prayer is a good place to start:

“O God, be thou exalted over my possessions. Nothing of earth’s treasures shall seem dear unto me if only thou art glorified in my life. Be thou exalted over my friendships. I am determined that thou shalt be above all, though I must stand deserted and alone in the midst of the earth. Be thou exalted above my comforts. Though it mean the loss of bodily comforts and the carrying of heavy crosses, I shall keep my vow made this day before thee. Be thou exalted over my reputation. Make me ambitious to please thee even if as a result I must sink into obscurity and my name be forgotten as a dream. Rise, O Lord, into thy proper place of honor, above my ambitions, above my likes and dislikes, above my family, my health and even my life itself. Let me sink that thou mayest rise above.

Ride forth upon me as thou didst into Jerusalem mounted upon the humble little beast, a colt, the foal of an ass and let me hear the children cry to thee, ‘Hosanna in the highest.’” Amen.