A. W. Tozer: Loving obedience and perpetual antithesis

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed — not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence — continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose. Philippians 2:12-13

“The various elements of truth stand in perpetual antithesis, sometimes requiring us to believe apparent opposites while we wait for the moment when we shall know as we are known. Then truth which now appears to be in conflict with itself will arise in shining unity and it will be seen that the conflict has not been in the truth but in our sin-damaged minds. In the meanwhile our inner fulfillment lies in loving obedience to the commandments of Christ and the inspired admonitions of His apostles. “It is God which worketh in you.” He needs no one, but when faith is present He works through anyone. Two statements are in this sentence and a healthy spiritual life requires that we accept both. For a full generation the first has been in almost total eclipse, and that to our deep spiritual injury.”

A. W. Tozer (1897-1963) in Knowledge of the Holy, 28. Click here to download it freely.

Tozer helps us understand that it is needful for us to choose the path of loving obedience while holding elements of truth that appear to stand in perpetual antithesis.

This points to the faith and the work parts of the spiritual journey. Both are vital. And soak in this paradox. “He needs no one, but when faith is present He works through anyone.”

He does His best work through those society would least expect. We see this through the various characters of the Bible. Through the ordinary, He does the extraordinary.

I am at a conference with biblical scholars. They could appear in biblical stories as proud Pharisees, or as humble teachers. Today the Spirit reminds me that the purpose of biblical knowledge is loving obedience.

The same is true for you. As you grow, it is for a purpose. To renew your sin-damaged mind and walk in obedience. We figure it out as we live it out.

To think anything less is to remain in deep spiritual injury. So what is the application today? Work out your salvation, or in plain terms, aim at obedience and God trust God to take care of the rest.

It will cost you everything but the gain will be unfathomable. Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Matthew 16:24

“Christians today appear to know Christ only after the flesh. They try to achieve communion with Him by divesting Him of His burning holiness and unapproachable majesty, the very attributes He veiled while on earth but assumed in fullness of glory upon His ascension to the Father’s right hand. The Christ of popular Christianity has a weak smile and a halo. He has become Someone-up-There who likes people, at least some people, and these are grateful but not too impressed. If they need Him, He also needs them.

Let us not imagine that the truth of the divine self-sufficiency will paralyze Christian activity. Rather it will stimulate all holy endeavor. This truth, while a needed rebuke to human self-confidence, will when viewed in its biblical perspective lift from our minds the exhausting load of mortality and encourage us to take the easy yoke of Christ and spend ourselves in Spirit-inspired toil for the honor of God and the good of humankind. For the blessed news is that the God who needs no one has in sovereign condescension set Himself to work by and in and through His obedient children.”

A. W. Tozer (1897-1963) in Knowledge of the Holy, 26-27. Click here to download it freely.

Over the last two days, we learned that it is needful for us to understand that God needs no helpers or defenders. Today we discover some really blessed news.

“The God who needs no one has in sovereign condescension set Himself to work by and in and through His obedient children.” That’s you and me, but only if we choose the path of obedience.

The obedient appear with the easy yoke of Christ. The obedient spend themselves “in Spirit-inspired toil for the honor of God and the good of mankind.”

Is the Spirit convicting you of human self-confidence that needs rebuke? For God to work by and in you for His honor and the good of humankind, the only pathway is obedience.

As a practical application today, read one of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John), in your personal study this week. Read it and write down time Jesus tells the disciples to do something.

Ask the Spirit to help you obey the list, to help you in your unbelief, and to give you courage to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus.

The International Society of Biblical Literature conference is going well in Adelaide. I am learning a lot, having rich discussions with scholars, and will share my paper at the conference and with you on 9 July 2026.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17

“Again, God needs no defenders. He is the eternal Undefended. To communicate with us in all idiom we can understand, God in the Scriptures makes full use of military terms; but surely it was never intended that we should think of the throne of the Majesty on high as being under siege, with Michael and his hosts or some other heavenly beings defending it from stormy overthrow. So to think is to misunderstand everything the Bible would tell us about God. Neither Judaism nor Christianity could approve such puerile notions. A God who must be defended is one who can help us only while someone is helping Him. We may count upon Him only if He wins in the cosmic seesaw battle between right and wrong. Such a God could not command the respect of intelligent men; He could only excite their pity.

To be right we must think worthily of God. It is morally imperative that we purge from our minds all ignoble concepts of the Deity and let Him be the God in our minds that He is in His universe. The Christian religion has to do with God and man, but its focal point is God, not man. Man’s only claim to importance is that he was created in the divine image; in himself he is nothing. The psalmists and prophets of the Scriptures refer sad scorn to weak man whose breath is in his nostrils, who grows up like the grass in the morning only to be cut down and wither before the setting of the sun. That God exists for himself and man for the glory of God is the emphatic teaching of the Bible. The high honor of God is first in heaven as it must yet be in earth.”

A. W. Tozer (1897-1963) in Knowledge of the Holy, 26-27. Click here to download it freely.

Our Bible passage today tells us that Scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. In plain terms, it teaches us how to live rightly.

Yesterday, A. W. Tozer taught us that God needs no help or helpers. Today, he adds that God needs no defenders. This stood out to me in my reading because I am at a conference with biblical scholars from around the world.

God has tasked us as biblical scholars to help people understand Scripture, to do research, to deliver papers, and to write commentaries in order to help His people know how to live and to equip them to teach, rebuke, correct, and train others in righteousness.

So to say God needs no defenders for me this week means that I speak truth in love not to defend God but help people understand and know Him and show this by making sure my actions match my words.

You can do that where you are too, and it comes into view as the most generous thing you can do! Practically speaking, you study the Scriptures which train you how to live and then show and tell people about the life-giving way of Jesus.

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man He made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find him, though He is not far from any one of us. ‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’ Acts 17:24-28

“Almighty God, just because He is almighty, needs no support. The picture of a nervous, ingratiating God fawning over men to win their favor is not a pleasant one; yet if we look at the popular conception of God that is precisely what we see. Twentieth century Christianity has put God on charity. So lofty is our opinion of ourselves that we find it quite easy, not to say enjoyable, to believe that we are necessary to God. But the truth is that God is not greater for our being, nor would He be less if we did not exist.

That we do exist is altogether of God’s free determination, not by our desert nor by divine necessity. Probably the hardest thought of all for our natural egotism to entertain is that God does not need our help. We commonly represent Him as a busy, eager, somewhat frustrated Father hurrying about seeking help to carry out His benevolent plan to bring peace and salvation to the world, but, as said the Lady Julian, “I saw truly that God doeth all-thing, be it never so little.” The God who worketh all things surely needs no help and no helpers.

Too many missionary appeals are based upon this fancied frustration of Almighty God. An effective speaker can easily excite pity in his listeners, not only for the heathen but for the God who has tried so hard and so long to save them and has failed for want of support. I fear that thousands of younger persons enter Christian service from no higher motive than to help deliver God from the embarrassing situation His love has gotten Him into and His limited abilities seem unable to get Him out of. Add to this a certain degree of commendable idealism and a fair amount of compassion for the underprivileged and you have the true drive behind much Christian activity today.”

A. W. Tozer (1897-1963) in Knowledge of the Holy, 26.

For the next seven days we will explore what is needful through the eyes of A. W. Tozer in his classic work, Knowledge of the Holy. Click here to download it freely.

It is needful for us to understand that God does not need help or helpers. The key word here is need. We must go from thinking too highly of ourselves to showing through our actions we think more highly of Him.

God is the Almighty! This should humble each of us. As Tozer notes, we should not speak of God as needing our help in our Christian efforts. Rather, He redeemed us for doing good works that bring glory to our Father in Heaven.

He wants us to live by faith and show our reliance on Him. This positions Him to get glory for anything that happens through us. But often, we who have been blessed with resources, trust in what we have rather than in God.

God wants us to know Him. When we do, we become overcome by His goodness, His faithfulness, His absolute trustworthiness, and His matchless generosity.

In response, our actions show a growing willingness to give not a portion of ourselves and our resources to Him but all we are and all we have because we know He bought us with the price of His blood.

Where do you fit in this picture?

Are you speaking of God as one who needs help or helpers. If so, please stop. Instead, join the ranks of those who show that because God helped them for the purpose of doing good works that bring Him glory, they surrender everything to Him.

I have arrived safely in Adelaide, Australia, for the International Society of Biblical Literature conference. It runs from 6-9 July 2026. I speak on the last day. More on that later.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him! Matthew 7:7-11

“Prayer is not about changing God, but being willing to let God change us… Jesus goes so far as to say that true prayer is always answered (Matthew 7:7–11). Now we all know that is not factually true—unless He is talking about prayer in the sense that I am trying to describe it. If you are able to switch minds to the mind of Christ, your prayer has already been answered! That new mind knows, understands, accepts, and sees correctly, widely, and wisely. Its prayers are always answered because they are, in fact, the prayers of God too… Paul puts it this way: “You are hidden with Christ in God. When Christ is revealed — and He is your life — you too will be revealed in all your glory within Him” (Colossians 3:3–4). It does not get any better than that, and you are now personally in on the deal. Basically prayer is an exercise in divine participation — you opting in and God always there!”

Richard Rohr in Breathing Under Water (London: SPCK, 2016), 75.

This marks the last post in exploring what is needful from this book by Richard Rohr.

We live in a time when the idea of “opting in” takes our minds to choosing to put our name on a list, or deciding to join some group. Today Rohr suggests that it is needful for us to see prayer as opting in.

I like this notion because all too often prayer appears as us asking God for what we need.

This exposes the fact that we see ourselves and our needs at the center of all things. Alternatively, when prayer is an exercise in divine participation, we discover that God is always there and in Him we have all we need.

This relates to generosity because it transforms the person whose life is hidden with Christ in God.

We shift from feeling anxiety about the future or whatever petition we want to bring to the Lord to feeling confident that He will give us bread and fish if we need them and not stones and snakes.

What is the meaning of these words for us practically?

The significance of God giving us bread over stones in the Scripture is giving something useful to sustain us instead of something useless. The link to fish and snakes is giving something beneficial instead of harmful.

We can live, give, serve, and love generously because that’s God’s posture toward us when we opt in with Him in prayer. We are participating with the One who is always ready to do good toward us.

This is a good word on Independence Day in USA.

While the nation celebrates 250 years, I am over the Pacific heading to Australia. I want to remind readers in USA and anywhere else where they can pray and worship God freely to pause and give thanks to God.

And let us lift up and brothers and sisters around the world who do not have this same freedom.

Give us today our daily bread. Matthew 6:11

“It is important that you ask, seek, and knock to keep yourself in right relationship with life itself. Life is a gift, totally given to you without cost, every day of it, and every part of it. A daily and chosen “attitude of
gratitude” will keep your hands open to expect that life, allow that life, and receive life at ever-deeper levels of satisfaction — but never to think you deserve it.

Those who live with such open and humble hands receive life’s “gifts, full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over into their lap” (Luke 6:38). In my experience, if you are not radically grateful every day, resentment always takes over. For some reason, to ask “for your daily bread” is to know that it is being given. To not ask is to take your own efforts, needs, and goals — and yourself — far too seriously. Consider if that is not true in your own life.”

Richard Rohr in Breathing Under Water (London: SPCK, 2016), 57.

Yesterday we saw the need to radically change.

Today Rohr beckons us to be radically grateful every day so resentment does not take over and so we do not take ourselves too seriously. Let me explain this in plain terms.

Those who give thanks every day for God’s blessings with an attitude of gratitude and who trust God for daily bread experience deep satisfaction and grasp life as it was intended to be lived.

Those who don’t respond with a different attitude when things not go their way. Immediately they question God. “Why did you allow this or that to happen, God.” And, just like that, resentment has taken over.

These people then take it upon themselves to provide for their needs – because they did not find God faithful – and they act as if God is not the good Provider any longer, so they sort things for themselves.

God does not force these people to grasp life as He wants them to live it, so He lets them limp along with resentment. Despite their hard hearts, His goodness and mercy still pursue them all the days of their lives.

Where are you in this picture? Are you radically grateful or resentful. Be honest with yourself. You can choose the life of ask, seek, knock, and give thanks daily for daily bread received with open and humble hands.

Or you can open the door for resentment. The choice is yours. Or rather, you have already made the choice based on who your actions demonstrate you trust to supply your daily bread and everything else.

I fly to Australia today to speak at the International Society of Biblical Literature conference from 5-9 July 2026. Thanks for your prayers. Stay tuned for more information and a copy of the paper I will deliver.

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Matthew 6:24

“How you do life is your real and final truth, not what ideas you believe. We are all and forever beggars before God and the universe. We can never engineer or guide our own transformation or conversion. If we try, it will be a self-centered and well-controlled version of conversion, with most of my preferences and addictions still fully in place but now well disguised. Any attempts at self-conversion would be like an active alcoholic trying to determine his own rules for sobriety. God has to radically change the central reference point of our lives.”

Richard Rohr in Breathing Under Water (London: SPCK, 2016), 55.

“How you do life is your real and final truth, not what ideas you believe.”

Many people think Jesus cares what you believe. He doesn’t. James, the half brother of Jesus tells us, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder” (James 2:19).

Jesus cares what you do. He wants to see us radically change directions.

Someone asked me yesterday what it will look like to aim to take Generosity Monk global. I quoted Victor Hugo in reply. “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”

The time has come to awaken the global church to do life in a manner that demonstrates radical change.

Specifically, I am speaking about how we handle God’s money and how we live simply, give sacrificially, serve humbly, and love generously before a watching world.

“How you do life is your real and final truth, not what ideas you believe.”

Rohr is right. And consider yourself warned. Why? Most people do life in a self-centered and well-controlled version of conversion, which is no conversion at all.

When God is the central reference point of our lives, we do life different from the world.

Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. Luke 18:25

“The death of any relationship with anybody is to have a sense of entitlement. Any notion that “I deserve,” “I am owed,” “I have a right to,” “I am higher than you” absolutely undermines any notion of faith, hope, or love between the involved parties. This is certainly why Jesus made one of his strongest statements found in all three Synoptic Gospels, and yet one of his most denied and ignored.

He says, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:25). Jesus says that about no other group. The mind of a rich person is invariably one of entitlement. “I deserve this because I worked hard for this!” we think. Or, “I am owed this by reason of my station in life” as even many clergy or famous people have imagined (with full cooperation and codependency from the crowds, I must add).

To undo and undercut this arrogant and soul-destructive attitude, Jesus told us all to stay in the position of a beggar, a petitioner, a radical dependent, which is always spiritually true, if we are honest. To know that you don’t know, to know that you are always in need, to know you are a “nomad and stranger on this earth” (Hebrews 11:14)”

Richard Rohr in Breathing Under Water (London: SPCK, 2016), 54.

Where do you find yourself in this reading? Many people do not plan to appear in the “entitlement” camp. The system puts them there. It goes something like this: They get a job. It promises many benefits. The language of “I deserve,” “I am owed,” and “I have a right to” become part of their vocabulary in this system.

Thought the Scriptures reminds them that God gave them the ability to produce that wealth, the world tells them otherwise, repeatedly. While they worked hard, everything they got came to them as gifts from a gracious God. And God desires that they live simply, give sacrificially, serve humbly, and love generously and willingly take a posture of a beggar, a petitioner, and a radical dependent.

Living the Christian life generously is not about making a gift from what you own. It’s about becoming a giver from all God has supplied and to look like a nomad and stranger on the earth.

Today, I am officially a nomad and a stranger. Yesterday was my last day as staff at GTP. Pray for the Generosity Monk team as they complete the new website this month. And thanks for your prayers as I depend on God for provision. He’s led to me to grow the Generosity Monk team to get the message of Christian generosity to the world. To partner with our team, set up monthly giving or a one time gift here.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:21

“God resists our evil and conquers it with good, or how could God ask the same of us?! Think about that. God shocks and stuns us into love. God does not love us if we change, God loves us so that we can change. Only love affects true inner transformation, not duress, guilt, shunning, or social pressure. Love is not love unless it is totally free. Grace is not grace unless it is totally free. You would think Christian people would know that by now, but it is still a secret of the soul.”

Richard Rohr in Breathing Under Water (London: SPCK, 2016), 44.

Today’s post leans into the function of God’s generosity toward us and how we can multiply it toward others. God shocks and stuns us into love and we get to do the same for others.

God loves us so we can change and we get to do the same for others. God gives us love and grace freely and calls us to extend them to others. We should look strange to the watching world.

I am enjoying this book. Email me if you want a free PDF copy. I can’t share it through my GTP Dropbox as today is my last day on the staff of GTP. I will continue to volunteer in the days and weeks to come.

Why? GTP is a great channel for spreading good. Starting tomorrow, look for me to expand Generosity Monk to reach the world and collaborate with ministries that advance the gospel especially in hard places.

Consider Kazakhstan for example. Last night a dear brother arrived in my home from there. I took him to his first Major League Baseball game last night.

We are planning to minister together in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan in September 2026. Stay tuned for more information on that. For now, see my Facebook for a post on our game experience.

Father in Heaven, empower us by your Holy Spirit to shock and stun people with love and grace right where we live and in dangerous places so we overcome the evil in this world with good. Do this we pray in Jesus name. Amen.

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Luke 18:9-14

“Now do you know what is the most common and, in fact, almost universal, substitute for renouncing our will? Dedicated people have made it into its own form of religion, and I will call it “the myth of heroic” sacrifice. The common way of renouncing the self, while not really renouncing the self at all, is being sacrificial! It looks so generous and loving, and sometimes it is. But usually it is still all about me. It is the classic “first half of life” gesture that gives the self boundaries, identity, superiority, definition, admiration, and a real control of the scene… It is just not the Gospel, but only its most common substitute…

All zealots and “true believers” tend to be immensely sacrificial on one highly visible level, and fool almost everybody. “I sacrifice myself by obeying these laws and attending these services or even serving the poor” and by being more heroic than you are, they might think. Often they do not love God or others in such heroic “obedience,” they are merely seeking moral high ground for themselves and the social esteem that comes with it (See Luke 18:11–12). Or as Paul puts it, “I can give my body to be burned, but without love, it is worth nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3). Most bogus religion, in my opinion, is highly sacrificial in one or another visible way, but not loving at all. Yet it fools most people. I will not dare to name names here, but you can fill in the blanks.”

Richard Rohr in Breathing Under Water (London: SPCK, 2016), 31-33.

In calling people to lives of authentic surrender and generosity, Rohr alerts us to avoid reflecting the myth of heroic sacrifice which propagates nothing but bogus religion. He uses a key biblical text with giving in view to make the point.

The Pharisee in the Scripture appears to have everything sorted in life. And his sacrifices take shape as fasting and giving. For viewers, it seems this bloke has the Christian life figured out. Many want to imitate him. But don’t go there.

A closer look reveals a prideful person, thinking he is better than robbers, evildoers, adulterers, and tax collectors and that his actions will justify him. Rohr is right in saying this is “not the Gospel, but only its most common substitute.”

Alternatively, Jesus celebrates the humility of the tax collector. And we can envision his generosity through the example of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10. In that scene he gives generously in response to the invitation to have relationship with Jesus.

So what is needful for us today to make sure we grow in authentic Christian generosity? We need to be sure that our generosity is coupled with humility and charity (or gracious love) to avoid the myth of heroic sacrifice and bogus religion.