God at work or just me? – A.W. Tozer

God at work or just me?

To apply pressure, a person projects himself or herself into the minds and consciences of people made in the image of God and forces them psychologically to do something they have no particular reason for wanting to do. They are not basically interested in it and have no satisfactory reason for doing it, but they are under pressure. If they do not have a reason for doing what they are going to do, they will not know why they are invovled. Then when they get out they will not be sure that they were in, and so the whole process makes for weak, spineless religion. This violates the law of human nature, which dictates that all valid acts must arise from a natural urge or from a convinced mind. An example of a natural urge is when you are hungry. You may be very hungry, but your hunger does not have a high intellectual content in it. Nobody needs to stand up and say, “Now, all you who are hungry raise your hands.” You know you are hungry, and you just go out to eat. Hunger is a natural urge. Another legimate reason for an act is a convinced mind. I am convinced that I ought to do something, and I do it because I have a conviction that it ought to be done. Those are the only two reasons for doing anything. If I force people under psychological pressure and steamroll them into doing something because they are too weak to resist, I have violated their nature. Our approach to getting people out of the rut, then, must not be to pressure them to do something they don’t want to do. Instead, we must present the truth and let the Holy Spirit prompt them to want to escape.

A.W. Tozer