MAN'S WASTED POTENTIAL

    By A. W. Tozer

    Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me,
    ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
    Matthew 25:41
 
        God has made it plain that hell is a real place---a final
    abode for people who do not want to love God and serve
    Him!

        The sadness and the tragedy of this fact is that these are
    human beings, all dear to God because He created them
    in His own image.  Of nothing else in the Creation is it
    said that it was created in the likeness of God!

        Because fallen and perishing man is still nearer to God's
    likeness than any other creature on earth, God offers him
    conversion, regeneration and forgiveness.  It was surely
    because of this great potential in the human personality
    that the eternal Word could become flesh and dwell
    among us.

        We are assured in many ways in the Scriptures that God
    the Creator does not waste human personality, but it is
    surely one of the stark tragedies of life that human
    personality can waste itself!

        A man by his own sin may waste himself, which is to
    waste and lose that which on earth is most like God.  The
    man who dies out of Christ is said to be lost, and hardly a
    word in our language expresses his condition with greater
    accuracy!

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    Yours in Christ,
    Paul N. F.