Veiled

"There is something more serious than coldness of heart, something that may be back of that coldness and be the cause of its existence. What is it? What but the presence of a veil in our hearts? a veil not taken away as the first veil was, but which remains there still shutting out the light and hiding the face of God from us. It is the veil of our fleshly fallen nature living on, unjudged within us, uncrucified and unrepudiated. It is the close-woven veil of the self-life which we have never truly acknowledged, of which we have been secretly ashamed, and which for these reasons we have never brought to the judgement of the cross. It is not too mysterious, this opaque veil, nor is it hard to identify. We have but to look in our own hearts and we shall see it there, sewn and patched and repaired it may be, but there nevertheless, an enemy to our lives and an effective block to our spiritual minds." - A.W. Tozer from The Pursuit of God 

True humility is seeing ourselves truly as we are and seeing our God truly as He is. 

"The self-sins are these: self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them. The grosser manifestations of these sins, egotism, exhibitionism, self-promotion, are strangely tolerated in Christian leaders even in circles of impeccable orthodoxy. They are so much in evidence as actually, form any people, to become identified with the gospel. I trust it is not a cynical observation to say that they appear these days to be a requisite for popularity in some sections of the Church visible. Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excited little notice." - A.W. Tozer from The Pursuit of God 

My friends, we must pray for humility that our eyes will be opened to our need of the gospel, not only for our salvation but our daily sanctification! Daily sanctification ensures our salvation because the Spirit of God is at work in us through Christ to the glory of God. 

Tozer continues in The Pursuit of God: 

"One should suppose that proper instruction is the doctrines of man's depravity and the necessity for justification through the righteousness of Christ alone would deliver us from the power of the self-sins; but it does not work that way. Self can live unrebuked at the very altar. It can watch the bleeding Victim die and not be in the least affected by what it sees. It can fight for the faith and preach eloquently the creed of salvation by grace, and gain strength by its efforts. To tell all the truth, it seems actually to feed upon orthodoxy and is more at home in a Bible Conference than in a tavern. Our very state of longing after God may afford it an excellent condition under which to thrive and grow." 

"Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, 

"Today, if you hear His voice, 

do not harden your heart as in the rebellion, 

on the day of testing in the wilderness, 

where your fathers put Me to the test 

and saw My works for forty years. 

Therefore I was provoked with that generation, 

and said, "They always go astray in their heart, 

they have not known My ways." 

As I swore in My wrath, 

"They shall not enter my rest." 

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence frim to the end. As it is said, 

"Today, if you hear His voice, 

do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion." 

For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was He provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief." 
-Hebrews 3:7-19

We are offered rest in the Beloved when we believe. He has lifted the veil that has blinded our eyes! But, we have to daily fight the sin that so easily entangles and deceives. It is our old nature, but because God's Spirit is in us, we are being renewed day by day. We must be vigilant and on guard against our old nature- against sin and against the schemes of the devil! We must encourage each daily- pressing on together in unity as the body of Christ: His church. 

Tozer continues, 

"God must do everything for us. Our part is to yield and trust. We must confess, forsake, repudiate the self-life, and then reckon it crucified. But we must be careful to distinguish lazy 'acceptance' from the real work of God. We must insist upon the work being done. We dare not rest content with a neat doctrine of self-crucifixtion. That is to imitate Saul and spare the best of the sheep and the oxen. (Note: referring to King Saul's disobedience in 1 Sam. 15) 

Insist that the work be done in very truth and it will be done. The cross is rough, and it is deadly, but it is effective. It does not keep its victim hanging there forever. There comes a moment when its work is finished and the suffering victim dies. After that is resurrection glory and power, and the pain is forgotten for joy that the veil is taken away and we have entered in actual spiritual experience the Presence of the living God." 

2 Corinthians 4:1-6 paints it beautifully for us: 

"Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of truth we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, "Let light shine our of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." 

Friends, we cannot keep silent. Let us sing the praises of our God! 

2 Corinthians 4 continues in verses 13-15: 

"Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, "I believed, and so I spoke," we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that He who raise the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into His presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people is may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God."