Philippians 3:18-21 (NIV) 18 For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
The Bible was written in tears and to tears it will yield its best treasures. God has nothing to say to the frivolous man....The psalmists often wrote in tears, the prophets could hardly conceal their heavyheartedness, and the apostle Paul in his otherwise joyous epistle to the Philippians broke into tears when he thought of the many who were enemies of the cross of Christ and whose end was destruction. Those Christian leaders who shook the world were one and all men of sorrows whose witness to mankind welled out of heavy hearts. There is no power in tears per se, but tears and power ever lie close together in the Church of the First-born....The whole Christian family stands desperately in need of a restoration of penitence, humility and tears. May God send them soon.
A. W. Tozer
The Tozer Topical Reader – Volume Two, comp. Ron Eggert, (Camp Hill, PA: WingSpread Publishers, 2007), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, Under: "1221. Tears; Pastors: burden for people".
