Christians are considered by many to be crazy, and, as A.W. Tozer suggests, with good reason:
A real Christian is an odd number anyway. He feels supreme love for One whom he has never seen, talks familiarly every day to Someone he cannot see, expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another, empties himself in order to be full, admits he is wrong so he can be declared right, goes down in order to get up, is strongest when he is weakest, richest when he is poorest … He dies so he can live, forsakes in order to have, gives away so he can keep, sees the invisible, hears the inaudible, and knows that which passeth knowledge. [1]
The late Dr. A. W. Tozer (1897-1963) was well known in evangelical circles both for his long and fruitful editorship of the Alliance Witness as well as his pastorate of one of the largest Alliance churches in the Chicago area. He came to be known as the Prophet of Today because of his penetrating books on the deeper spiritual life.
For the believer, nothing in life is as it seems. Possessing faith in the message of God’s grace flips absolutely everything on its head. To live by faith is to engage life itself as a set of paradoxes. By faith we understand that we can’t achieve greatness by attempting to be great or become powerful by exerting power. Grace teaches us that nothing can be measured or properly understood merely by its appearance, and nothing of consequence can be achieved by normal or even natural means. The paradoxes created by the message of grace simply won’t allow us to engage this world straight up.
So learn to identify doctrines and spiritual practices that claim to be Christian but lack the necessary paradoxes. When someone says “Good people go to heaven,” be quick to ask, “Where is the paradox in that?” Paradox is missing in statements like this because they come from the world, not from God. When someone suggests, “Life has been good to me because I’m a good person,” be quick to ask, “Where is the paradox in that?” Paradox is missing in the beliefs and practices of so many who claim to be Christians because grace is missing.
When we cling to grace, live by grace, practice grace, we will indeed seem “crazy” by the standards of this world. If we don’t, something just might be missing.
“We serve God whether people honor us or despise us, whether they slander us or praise us. We are honest, but they call us impostors. We are ignored, even though we are well known. We live close to death, but we are still alive. We have been beaten, but we have not been killed. Our hearts ache, but we always have joy. We are poor, but we give spiritual riches to others. We own nothing, and yet we have everything” (2 Corinthians 6:8-10, NLT).
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1. A.W. Tozer, “ The Root of the Righteous ,” p. 156.