A. W. Tozer Quotes

Refuse to be average. Let your heart soar as high as it will. ~A. W. Tozer

The faith of Christ offers no buttons to push for quick service. The new order must wait the Lord's own time, and that is too much for the man in a hurry. He just gives up and becomes interested in something else. ~A. W. Tozer

When we become too glib in prayer we are most surely talking to ourselves.
~A. W. Tozer

If I see aright, the cross of popular evangelicalism is not the cross of the New Testament. It is, rather, a new bright ornament upon the bosom of a self-assured and carnal Christianity. The old cross slew men, the new cross entertains them. The old cross condemned; the new cross amuses. The old cross destroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it. ~A. W. Tozer

As the excellence of steel is strength, and the excellence of art is beauty, so the excellence of mankind is moral character. ~A. W. Tozer

He remembers our frame and knows that we are dust. He may sometimes chasten us, it is true, but even this He does with a smile, the proud, tender smile of a Father who is bursting with pleasure over an imperfect but promising son who is coming every day to look more and more like the One whose child he is. ~A. W. Tozer

It is either all of Christ or none of Christ! I believe we need to preach again a whole Christ to the world - a Christ who does not need our apologies, a Christ who will not be divided, a Christ who will either be Lord of all or will not be Lord at all! ~A. W. Tozer

The basic trouble with the church today is her unworthy concept of God... Our religion is weak because our God is weak... Christianity at any given time is strong or weak depending on her concept of God. ~A. W. Tozer

Christians don't tell lies they just go to church and sing them. ~A. W. Tozer

What I am anxious to see in Christian believers is a beautiful paradox. I want to see in them the joy of finding God while at the same time they are blessedly pursuing Him. I want to see in them the great joy of having God yet always wanting Him. ~A. W. Tozer
   The church that is not jealously protected by mighty intercession and sacrificial labors will before long become the abode of every evil bird and the hiding place for unsuspected corruption. The creeping wilderness will soon take over that church that trusts in its own strength and forgets to watch and pray. ~A. W. Tozer

God dwells in His creation and is everywhere indivisibly present in all His works. He is transcendent above all His works even while He is immanent within them. ~A. W. Tozer
   Only a disciple can make a disciple. ~A. W. Tozer

We must face the fact that many today are notoriously careless in their living. This attitude finds its way into the church. We have liberty, we have money, we live in comparative luxury. As a result, discipline practically has disappeared. What would a violin solo sound like if the strings on the musician's instrument were all hanging loose, not stretched tight, not "disciplined"? ~A. W. Tozer
   There is scarcely anything so dull and meaningless as Bible doctrine taught for its own sake. Truth divorced from life is not truth in its biblical sense, but something else and something less. ~A. W. Tozer

We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum. ~A. W. Tozer
   We need a baptism of clear seeing. We desperately need seers who can see through the mist--Christian leaders with prophetic vision. Unless they come soon it will be too late for this generation. And if they do come we will no doubt crucify a few of them in the name of our worldly orthodoxy. ~A. W. Tozer
   "Let God be true but every man a liar" is the language of true faith. ~A. W. Tozer
   If God gives you a watch, are you honoring Him more by asking Him what time it is or by simply consulting the watch? ~A. W. Tozer
   Faith, as Paul saw it, was a living, flaming thing leading to surrender and obedience to the commandments of Christ. ~A. W. Tozer
   True faith rests upon the character of God and asks no further proof than the moral perfections of the One who cannot lie. It is enough that God has said it. ~A. W. Tozer
   An infinite God can give all of Himself to each of His children. He does not distribute Himself that each may have a part, but to each one He gives all of Himself as fully as if there were no others. ~A. W. Tozer
   You can see God from anywhere if your mind is set to love and obey Him. ~A. W. Tozer

God is not silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second person of the Holy Trinity is called "The Word". ~A. W. Tozer
   The sovereign God wants to be loved for Himself and honored for Himself, but that is only part of what He wants. The other part is that He wants us to know that when we have Him we have everything - we have all the rest. ~A. W. Tozer
   Without doubt the mightiest thought the mind can entertain is the thought of God. ~A. W. Tozer
   Gratitude is an offering precious in the sight of God, and it is one that the poorest of us can make and be not poorer but richer for having made it. ~A. W. Tozer
   An idol of the mind is as offensive to God as an idol of the hand. ~A. W. Tozer
 No man should desire to be happy who is not at the same time holy. He should spend his efforts in seeking to know and do the will of God, leaving to Christ the matter of how happy he should be. ~A. W. Tozer
   A pharisee is hard on others and easy on himself, but a spiritual man is easy on others and hard on himself. ~A. W. Tozer
   Wise leaders should have known that the human heart cannot exist in a vacuum. If Christians are forbidden to enjoy the wine of the Spirit they will turn to the wine of the flesh....Christ died for our hearts and the Holy Spirit wants to come and satisfy them. ~A. W. Tozer
   The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. ~A. W. Tozer
   If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference. ~A. W. Tozer
   The Spirit-filled life is not a special, deluxe edition of Christianity. It is part and parcel of the total plan of God for His people. A. W. Tozer
   An honest man with an open Bible and a pad and pencil is sure to find out what is wrong with him very quickly. ~A. W. Tozer

Now, as always, God discloses Himself to "babes" and hides Himself in thick darkness from the wise and the prudent. We must simplify our approach to Him. We must strip down to essentials (and they will be found to be blessedly few). We must put away all effort to impress, and come with the guileless candor of childhood. If we do this, without doubt God will quickly respond. ~A. W. Tozer
   The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God that are unworthy of Him. ~A. W. Tozer
   The God of the modern evangelical rarely astonishes anybody. He manages to stay pretty much with the constitution. Never break our by-laws. He's a very well-behaved God and very denominational and very much like one of us...we ask Him to help us when we're in trouble and look to Him to watch over us when we're asleep. The God of the modern evangelical isn't a God I could have much respect for. ~A. W. Tozer
   Jesus is not one of many ways to approach God, nor is He the best of several ways; He is the only way. ~A. W. Tozer
   The vague and tenuous hope that God is too kind to punish the ungodly has become a deadly opiate for the consciences of millions. ~A. W. Tozer
   A true and safe leader is likely to be one who has no desire to lead, but is forced into a position of leadership by the inward pressure of the Holy Spirit and the press of the external situation. ~A. W. Tozer
   Man appears for a little while to laugh and weep, to work and play, and then to go to make room for those who shall follow him in the never-ending cycle. ~A. W. Tozer
   In almost everything that touches our everyday life on earth, God is pleased when we're pleased. He wills that we be as free as birds to soar and sing our maker's praise without anxiety. ~A. W. Tozer
   One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organizations do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always. ~A. W. Tozer
   We have learned to live with unholiness and have come to look upon it as the natural and expected thing. ~A. W. Tozer   
We must meet the uncertainties of this world with the certainty of the world to come. ~A. W. Tozer
   The most critical need of the church at this moment is men, bold men, free men. The church must seek, in prayer and much humility, the coming again of men made of the stuff of which prophets and martyrs are made. ~A. W. Tozer

The neglected heart will soon be a heart overrun with worldly thoughts; the neglected life will soon become a moral chaos. ~A. W. Tozer
   Don't come down here to cry about it, go home and live it! ~A. W. Tozer
   Our Lord told His disciples that love and obedience were organically united. The final test of love is obedience. ~A. W. Tozer
   Salvation apart from obedience is unknown in the sacred Scriptures... Apart from obedience there can be no salvation, for salvation without obedience is a self-contradictory impossibility. ~A. W. Tozer
   The man with a cross no longer controls his destiny; he lost control when he picked up his cross. That cross immediately became to him an all-absorbing interest, an overwhelming interference. No matter what he may desire to do, there is but one thing he can do; that is, move on toward the place of crucifixion. ~A. W. Tozer
   The true Church has never sounded out public expectations before launching her mission. Her leaders heard from God, they knew their Lord's will and did it. Their people followed them - sometimes to triumph, oftener to insults and public persecution - and their sufficient reward was the satisfaction of being right in a wrong world! ~A. W. Tozer
   Selfishness is never so exquisitely selfish as when it is on its knees. ... Self turns what would otherwise be a pure and powerful prayer into a weak and ineffective one. ~A. W. Tozer
   Most men, indeed, play at religion as they play at games, religion itself being of all games the one most universally played. ~A. W. Tozer
   Religion today is not transforming the people - it is being transformed by the people. It is not raising the moral level of society - it is descending to society's own level and congratulating itself that it has scored a victory because society is smiling accepting its surrender. ~A. W. Tozer
   We understand and acknowledge that the Resurrection has placed a glorious crown upon all of Christ's sufferings!
 ~A. W. Tozer  

Have you noticed how much praying for revival has been going on of late - and how little revival has resulted? I believe the problem is that we have been trying to substitute praying for obeying, and it simply will not work. ~A. W. Tozer
   Salvation is from our side a choice, from the divine side it is a seizing upon, an apprehending, a conquest by the Most High God. Our "accepting" and "willing" are reactions rather than actions. The right of determination must always remain with God. ~A. W. Tozer

It is altogether doubtful whether any man can be saved who comes to Christ for His help with no intention to obey Him. ~A. W. Tozer
   The devil is a better theologian than any of us and is a devil still. ~A. W. Tozer
   I'm not afraid of the devil. The devil can handle me - he's got judo I never heard of. But he can't handle the One to whom I'm joined; he can't handle the One to whom I'm united; he can't handle the One whose nature dwells in my nature. ~A. W. Tozer
   The Word of God well understood and religiously obeyed is the shortest route to spiritual perfection. And we must not select a few favorite passages to the exclusion of others. Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian. ~A. W. Tozer  

The labor of self-love is a heavy one indeed. Think whether much of your sorrow has not arisen from someone speaking slightingly of you. As long as you set yourself up as a little god to which you must be loyal, how can you hope to find inward peace. ~A. W. Tozer
   We have become so engrossed in the work of the Lord that we have forgotten the Lord of the work. ~A. W. Tozer  

It is because of the hasty and superficial conversation with God that the sense of sin is so weak and that no motives have power to help you to hate and flee from sin as you should. ~A. W. Tozer
   What then are we to do about our problems? We must learn to live with them until such time as God delivers us from them. We must pray for grace to endure them without murmuring. Problems patiently endured will work for our spiritual perfecting. They harm us only when we resist them or endure them unwillingly. ~A. W. Tozer
   God may allow His servant to succeed when He has disciplined him to a point where he does not need to succeed to be happy. The man who is elated by success and is cast down by failure is still a carnal man. At best his fruit will have a worm in it. ~A. W. Tozer
   The man or woman who is wholly or joyously surrendered to Christ can't make a wrong choice - any choice will be the right one. ~A. W. Tozer

The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God's continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind. ~A. W. Tozer
  The Bible is a supernatural book and can be understood only by supernatural aid. ~A. W. Tozer

The Bible recognizes no faith that does not lead to obedience, nor does it recognize any obedience that does not spring from faith. The two are at opposite sides of the same coin. ~A. W. Tozer
   The cross is the lightning rod of grace that short-circuits God's wrath to Christ so that only the light of His love remains for believers. ~A. W. Tozer
   For not only does sound reason direct us to refuse the guidance of those who do or teach anything wrong, but it is by all means vital for the lover of truth, regardless of the threat of death, to choose to do and say what is right even before saving his own life. ~A. W. Tozer
   God wants us to worship Him. He doesn't need us, for He couldn't be a self-sufficient God and need anything or anybody, but He wants us. When Adam sinned it was not He who cried, "God, where art Thou?" It was God who cried, "Adam, where art thou?" ~A. W. Tozer

I can safely say, on the authority of all that is revealed in the Word of God, that any man or woman on this earth who is bored and turned off by worship is not ready for heaven. ~A. W. Tozer

I wonder if there was ever a time when true spiritual worship was at a lower ebb. To great sections of the church, the art of worship has been lost entirely, and in its place has come that strange and foreign thing called the "program." This word has been borrowed from the stage and applied with sad wisdom to the public service which now passes for worship among us. ~A. W. Tozer

We're here to be worshippers first and workers only second. We take a convert and immediately make a worker out of him. God never meant it to be so. God meant that a convert should learn to be a worshiper, and after that he can learn to be a worker...The work done by a worshiper will have eternity in it. ~A. W. Tozer