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A Bottle in the
Ocean.
A.W. Tozer
“…To know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may
be filled with all the fullness of God.” - Ephesians 3:19
Pentecost means that
the Deity came to mankind to give Himself to man, that man might breathe
Him in as he breathes in the air, that He might fill men.
Dr. A. B. Simpson
used an illustration, which was about as good as any I ever heard.
He said, “Being filled with the fullness of God is
like a bottle in the ocean. You take the cork out of the bottle and sink it in
the ocean, and you have the bottle completely full of ocean. The bottle is in
the ocean, and the ocean is in the bottle. The ocean contains the bottle, but
the bottle contains only a little bit of the ocean. So it is with the
Christian.”
We are filled unto the
fullness of God, but, of course, we cannot contain all of God because God
contains us; but we can have all of God that we can contain.
If we only knew it, we
could enlarge our vessel.
The vessel gets bigger
as we go on with God.
The Counselor, page 68, by
A.W. Tozer
BORN IN RURAL PENNSYLVANIA,
BORN AGAIN AKRON, OHIO, AIDEN WILSON TOZER BEGAN HIS LIFELONG PURSUIT OF
GOD AT AGE SEVENTEEN. Walking home from work one day, he heard a street
preacher say: "If you don't know how to be saved, just call on God."
When young Tozer got home, he climbed into his attic and did just that. In many
ways, that simple act would characterize Tozer's entire life and ministry. In
his early 20s, just after his ordination ceremony, he retreated to a quiet
place in the woods and prayed what he later wrote down and titled, "The
Prayer of a Minor Prophet." In it he said:
It seems God granted his
request, for Tozer gave himself to three main tasks: prayer, study, and
proclamation. He was known to arrive at his office in the early morning, change
into a pair of old pants so he wouldn't wrinkle his slacks and pray for up to
three hours at a time - beginning on the couch, but soon moving to the floor,
face buried in the carpet.
In his life and after his
death, Tozer was regarded by many as a modern-day prophet, perhaps due to his
prayer long ago in those woods.
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