A Fallacy:
To Think That Time Is a Great Healer

By A. W. Tozer

And he trembling and astonished said, Lord,
what wilt thou have me to do? . . . Acts 9:6

    The most harmful mistake we make concerning time
is to think that it has somehow a mysterious power to
perfect  human  nature  and  change  the  human
personality.

    We say of a foolish young man, "Time will make him
wiser;" or we see a new Christian acting like anything
but a Christian and hope that time will someday turn
him into a saint.

    The truth is that time has no more power to sanctify a
man than space has.   Indeed,  time  is  only  a fiction by
which we account for change. It is a transformation, not
time,  that  turns  fools  into  wise  men  and sinners into
saints; Christ bringing it about by means of the changes
He works in the heart!

    Saul the persecutor became Paul the servant of God,
but time did not make the change.  Christ wrought the
miracle, the same Christ who once changed water into
wine.  One  spiritual   experience  followed  another in
fairly rapid succession until the violent Saul became a
gentle,  God-enamored soul, ready to lay down his life
for  the  faith he once hated.  It should be obvious that
time had no part in the making of the man of God!

    Human  nature  is  not  fixed  and  for  this  we  should
thank God day and night!  We are still capable of change.
We can become  something  other  than what we are.  By
the  power  of the  gospel  the covetous man may become
generous,  the  egotist  lowly  in  his own eyes.  The thief
may  learn  to  steal  no  more,  the  blasphemer to fill his
mouth with praises unto God.

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Yours in Christ,
Paul N. F.