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About the Book
"Looking for a Receiver" by Gloria Copeland explores the importance of developing a strong prayer life and communication with God. The book emphasizes the need for believers to be receptive and open to hearing from God in order to receive His guidance and blessings in their lives.Copeland offers practical advice and insights on how to deepen one's relationship with God through prayer and listening for His voice.
A.W. Tozer (Aiden Wilson Tozer)
Early life
Tozer hailed from a tiny farming community in western La Jose, Pennsylvania. He was converted to Christianity as a teenager in Akron, Ohio: While on his way home from work at a tire company, he overheard a street preacher say, "If you don't know how to be saved ... just call on God, saying, 'Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.'" Upon returning home, he climbed into the attic and heeded the preacher's advice.
Pastor
In 1919, five years after his conversion and without formal education in Christian theology, Tozer accepted an offer to serve as pastor of his first church. That began 44 years of ministry associated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), a Protestant Evangelical denomination, 33 of them serving as a pastor in several different congregations (his first, a small storefront church in Nutter Fort, West Virginia). Later, he served thirty years (1928 to 1959) as the pastor of Southside Alliance Church in Chicago; the final years of his life he spent as pastor of Avenue Road Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Observing contemporary Christian living, Tozer felt that the church was on a dangerous course toward compromising with "worldly" concerns.
Born into poverty, Tozer was self-educated and taught himself what he missed in high school and university.
Author
Tozer began writing in 1931 for the denominational magazine of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Alliance Weekly (now Alliance Life), which became the platform from which his writing career emerged. He later wrote the monthly column “There’s Truth in It” (1936–37) and “A Word in Season” (1944–46). In May 1950, he became the editor of the Alliance Weekly, a position he filled until his death in 1963.
At the urging of David W. Fant, publications secretary of the C&MA, Tozer wrote biographies of A. B. Simpson (1943) and Robert A. Jaffray (1947). It was the publication of his third book, The Pursuit of God (1948), that made Tozer a household name among evangelicals. In addition to the 12 books he published in his lifetime, more than 40 other books have been compiled from his magazine features, editorials, and transcribed sermons.
During his lifetime, Tozer’s works were published by Christian Publications, Inc., the denominational press operated by the C&MA. The publishing house declared bankruptcy in 2006 and was purchased by WingSpread Publishers of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.[8] In November 2013, Moody Publishers acquired Wingspread from parent company Zur Ltd., a transaction that included more than 60 Tozer books and pamphlets. Some of Tozer’s works are now in the public domain and have been issued by multiple publishers.
Personal life
Tozer had seven children, six sons and a daughter. Living a simple and non-materialistic lifestyle, he and his wife, Ada Cecelia Pfautz, never owned a car, preferring bus and train travel. Even after becoming a well-known Christian author, Tozer signed away much of his royalties to those who were in need.
Prayer was of vital personal importance for Tozer. "His preaching as well as his writings were but extensions of his prayer life," comments his biographer, James L. Snyder, in the book In Pursuit of God: The Life Of A.W. Tozer. "He had the ability to make his listeners face themselves in the light of what God was saying to them," writes Snyder.
Death and legacy
Tozer died on May 13, 1963, after suffering a heart attack. He was buried in Chicago, and later the family had his remains reinterred at Ellet Cemetery, Akron, Ohio. A simple marker reads: A. W. Tozer—A Man of God. The Alliance Weekly ran a memorial issue with numerous tributes and excerpts. The same issue also featured “God’s Greatest Gift to Man," a transcription of his final sermon. A few months prior to his death, Tozer had submitted the manuscript to The Christian Book of Mystical Verse, which was released in 1964 as his final book. His official publisher, Christian Publications, released many titles after his death, based on his magazine articles and sermon transcriptions. These continue in print with Moody Publishers. Several other publishers have released his public domain works.
In 2000, The Pursuit of God was named to Christianity Today’s list of 100 “Books of the Century.” In 2006, Knowledge of the Holy was named in “The Top 50 Books That Have Shaped Evangelicals.” Contemporary Christian music artist Lauren Barlow of BarlowGirl later published a compilation of stories told by 59 artists, writers, and leaders about A.W. Tozer’s personal inspiration.
God Answers Better Than We Ask
A godly king, backed into a deadly corner, teaches us a liberating truth about prayer. In one of the great tragedies in all of Scripture, David’s son Absalom has exploited his father’s love and conspired against him. Now the rebellion has grown strong, and David is left with no option but to flee Jerusalem in hopes of living to fight another day (2 Samuel 15:14). “Prayer is for turning the tide, for changing the seeming course of history.” As he retreats, weeping as he goes, barefoot, with his head covered in shame, it gets worse. He learns that his most prized advisor, Ahithophel — whose counsel “was as if one consulted the word of God” (2 Samuel 16:23) — has joined Absalom (2 Samuel 15:12). Yet in this most desperate of moments, when David could have crumbled, or wallowed in self-pity, his reflex is Godward. He breathes up a prayer: O Lord, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness. (2 Samuel 15:31) Unlikely Plea Admittedly, the prayer seems utterly unlikely, if not impossible, humanly speaking. None was wiser than Ahithophel. One might as well ask for the sun to stand still as to pray for Ahithophel’s wise counsel to turn into folly. Yet these are the very moments for which God has given us prayer. He opens his ear to his people. Not for calling down more comforts for an already cushy existence, but precisely for the times when life and death are at stake. Prayer is not an exercise in naming ahead of time what already seems to be the natural course of action. Prayer is not for making an educated guess out loud to God about what seems to be unfolding already. And it’s certainly not for advising God as to how things should go, as if he needed a counselor (Romans 11:33–34). Rather, prayer is for turning the tide, for changing the seeming course of history. Prayer is for desperate times and dire moments, when we’re backed in a corner — when humanly speaking, the desired outcome, and what seems to be our last chance, is painfully unlikely to unfold, and we need God. We need him to intervene. Without the interruptive fingers of Providence reaching down into the details to disturb what seems to be, from our vantage, the natural course of action, we are doomed. But if he is God, and if he is listening, and if he acts, then we have a fighting chance. Cause and effect do not carry the day. God does. So, David prays. God Does the Unthinkable No sooner has David prayed than Hushai the Archite, who is loyal to David, meets him with torn coat and dirt on his head in mourning (2 Samuel 15:32). David has prayed for Ahithophel’s counsel to turn sour, but now David also acts in faith. He sends Hushai to feign fealty to Absalom, serve as a spy, and perhaps even “defeat for me the counsel of Ahithophel” (2 Samuel 15:34). “Prayer is for desperate times and dire moments, when we’re backed in a corner.” Hushai goes, and like Ahithophel, is received into Absalom’s conspiracy. One of the first orders of business is whether to chase David down and overtake him as he retreats. Ahithophel speaks first: “Pursue David tonight . . . while he is weary and discouraged” (2 Samuel 17:1–2). Per normal, this is wise counsel. “And the advice seemed right in the eyes of Absalom and all the elders of Israel” (2 Samuel 17:4). The great sage has spoken, and this looks like a done deal. And such will spell the end of David — were it not for Hushai, who then speaks. “This time the counsel that Ahithophel has given is not good,” says the mole (2 Samuel 17:7). He then paints David not as the weak and discouraged man that he is, but as mighty, enraged, and expert in war. And God does the unthinkable: he turns the hearts of Absalom and all the men of Israel to say, “The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel.” What? This is a stunning turn of events. An impossibility, apart from God. Only God himself can turn the hearts like this. And so, 2 Samuel 17:14 adds the explanation, “For the Lord had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, so that the Lord might bring harm upon Absalom.” No one could have seen this coming. Even David did not at the time of his prayer. Hushai’s deceptive word carries the day, the dominoes begin to fall, and it soon means the end of Absalom, and salvation for David. He Answers Better Than We Ask So, God answered David’s prayer. Or did he? Remember how the king had prayed: “O Lord, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness” (2 Samuel 15:31). God had not answered that prayer. In fact, 2 Samuel 17:14 confirms that Ahithophel had given “good counsel.” Yet we find no lament from David that God didn’t answer his prayer. No complaints that the Lord hid his face, or that his ears were stopped, or that he could not see. No mourning. No frustration. No wallowing. David prayed one seemingly impossible prayer, took a modest step in faith, and trusted God to work salvation for him. And David had no sour grapes that God didn’t answer his prayer precisely as he asked. In fact, David delighted to pray to, and to praise, a God who makes a habit of answering better than we ask. No Scriptwriter Could Guess In his commentary on 2 Samuel, Dale Ralph Davis observes, No sooner does [David] pray than Yahweh begins to answer his prayer — and that in a way no scriptwriter could have guessed. Our prayers deal with the what; God’s answers deal with the what and the how and the when. And how the how can surprise us! (160) Our God delights to free us from being the author of our own stories of salvation. When we pray, it is not our job to foresee how God might bring out the rescue and lay out the details for him, even as often as it is our instinct to do precisely this. Most of us fathers would be a little annoyed, if not greatly, if our children not only asked for things but also insisted on laying out exactly how we should go about fulfilling their request. It is a father’s joy to surprise his children with the means, if not with the end. “Our God delights to free us from being the author of our own stories of salvation.” Fortunately, even as we try to counsel him, our Father in heaven is patient. He endures our folly. And he also wants to free us from feeling we need to give him directions. Not only can we not give him directions, but we can trust that his heart is far greater for the holy outcomes we want than our hearts are. And his ways of answering our prayers, according to his good pleasure, are more stunning than we can dream. He loves to answer better than we ask. Not Precisely but Substantially For those who have walked with this God for even a modest measure of time, we have seen him answer far better than we’ve asked. Which, alongside his Father’s heart (Luke 11:11–12) and the gift of his Spirit (Romans 8:26–27), gives us great incentive to pray, and keep praying. In other words, our human instincts, our ignorance, and our inability to counsel him are no disincentives to pray, but rather good reason to keep asking of him who knows how to give better than we know to ask. He knows. “Your Father knows” (Luke 12:30). We do not. “We do not know what to pray for as we ought” (Romans 8:26). His judgments are unsearchable; his ways, inscrutable (Romans 11:33) — which is all the more reason to ask him. Already Answered When Paul celebrates “him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20), he is no mindless optimist. He’s not asking us to groundlessly expect “the best is yet to come” without solid proof in the past and present. And Paul has provided it, rooting his doxology in the gospel he just rehearsed. We were dead in sins, and God made us alive together with Christ. We were separated and alienated, without hope, and God brought us near by the blood of Christ. In the gospel, our God has already answered better than we could have asked. Christ came, he died, he rose — and though we often don’t know precisely how to pray, we do know that our Father loves to hear our requests, and outdo them. Article by David Mathis
