Host: Good morning. This is The Pursuit of God Daily for Saturday, October twenty-fourth. We are in chapter two of The Pursuit of God, The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing, reading the sixth of seven parts, where Tozer turns from describing our grip on things to telling us what to do about it.

Reader: Second Timothy, chapter one, verse twelve. For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

Reader: From A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, chapter two, The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing. We are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the Lord out of fear for their safety; this is especially true when those treasures are loved relatives and friends. But we need have no such fears. Our Lord came not to destroy but to save. Everything is safe which we commit to Him, and nothing is really safe which is not so committed.

Reader: Our gifts and talents should also be turned over to Him. They should be recognized for what they are, God’s loan to us, and should never be considered in any sense our own. We have no more right to claim credit for special abilities than for blue eyes or strong muscles. “For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive?”

Reader: The Christian who is alive enough to know himself even slightly will recognize the symptoms of this possession malady, and will grieve to find them in his own heart. If the longing after God is strong enough within him he will want to do something about the matter. Now, what should he do?

Reader: First of all he should put away all defense and make no attempt to excuse himself either in his own eyes or before the Lord. Whoever defends himself will have himself for his defense, and he will have no other; but let him come defenseless before the Lord and he will have for his defender no less than God Himself. Let the inquiring Christian trample under foot every slippery trick of his deceitful heart and insist upon frank and open relations with the Lord.

Reader: Then he should remember that this is holy business. No careless or casual dealings will suffice. Let him come to God in full determination to be heard. Let him insist that God accept his all, that He take things out of his heart and Himself reign there in power. It may be he will need to become specific, to name things and people by their names one by one. If he will become drastic enough he can shorten the time of his travail from years to minutes and enter the good land long before his slower brethren who coddle their feelings and insist upon caution in their dealings with God.

Host: Tozer begins this morning with a fear most of us know well. We hesitate to give our dearest things to God because we are afraid of what He might do with them. And the people we love most are the hardest of all to let go. But Tozer is saying the fear has things backward. Everything is safe which we commit to Him, and nothing is really safe which is not so committed.

That is exactly where Paul stood when he wrote to Timothy from prison. He had lost nearly everything a man could lose, and still he said, I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. Notice that Paul's confidence did not rest in his own ability to hold on. It rested on the One who keeps. The hands of Christ, which were pierced to save us, are the safest place in the universe for a son, a daughter, a friend, a ministry.

Then Tozer moves to our gifts and talents, and he quotes Paul from First Corinthians, chapter four, verse seven. What hast thou that thou didst not receive? Paul goes on in that same verse: now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? Every ability we bring to the church, every skill we use in our work, is a loan. It is not ours to boast in, and it is not ours to hoard.

Finally, Tozer tells us what to do. First, stop defending ourselves. David knew the cost of keeping silent. In Psalm thirty-two he says that while he hid his sin, his bones waxed old. But then, I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. The man who stops pleading his own case finds that God Himself takes up his cause.

And second, Tozer says, be specific. Name the things and the people. Psalm one hundred thirty-nine gives us the words: Search me, O God, and know my heart.

So here is one thing to carry into today. Before noon, take a quiet minute and name before the Lord, out loud and by name, one person and one gift you have been holding too tightly. Then commit them to Him, and trust that He is able to keep them.

Host: Heavenly Father, we confess that we hold on to what You have only lent us, and we defend ourselves when we should simply come to You. Search our hearts this morning. We name before You the people and the gifts we love, and we place them in Your keeping, knowing that You are able to keep what we commit to You. Reign in our hearts in power. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

Host: He is able to keep that which we have committed unto Him. Go with God.