How to Cultivate the Holy Spirits Presence — A.W. Tozer

Walking in Agreement with the Holy Spirit

Now, most people, I think, even God's people, would like to have the power of the Spirit and the peace of the Spirit and a lot of other qualities and gifts and benefits the Spirit may bring. But now the question is, can we afford to walk with the Spirit?

Are we going to walk with him? The answer is that we can't walk with him unless we are agreed, and if we are not agreed then we can't walk with him at all. Now taking it out of the realm of the spiritual for just a little bit, and thinking about it, just two people, and that's what is meant here, and two people walk together except they be agreed, that takes us back to the old days when men made long journeys on foot.

One man said, I'm going to a certain town, and the other one said, I am too. When are you going? I'm going tomorrow. Then the question was, would they go together, or would each one take out by himself?

Now if they were going to go together and walk together on the way as the disciples and the mayors, there were a few things they were going to have to agree upon. One is their direction, and the other is their destination, of course, you are going to such a town, and yes, well, I am not.

So they would have to shake hands, in part because two men cannot walk together when one is going to one city and the other to another, at least they can't for very long. And then they would have to agree on which path to take, if there were several paths, and there usually are.

They would have to agree on the rate of speed. One man said, I'm a very fast walker, and the other man said, I just slump along, I hardly make it at all. They would say, well, there's no use for us to walk together because I'm so slow that I will bore you.

The other man would say, no, it's not that, I am so fast that I will trouble you. So they wouldn't go together. And then they would have to agree they wanted to walk together. Did they want to walk together?

There have been a lot of people that if I were going to walk from here to Hamilton, I'd just as soon walk by myself. You know, you've had that experience, haven't you? You love them all right and you pray for them, but you don't find them what you would call edifying companions.

You'd have to decide whether you want to walk together or not. Whether it's to the advantage and to the least disadvantage of both parties concerned, whether there is an incompatibility that might render the trip unpleasant.

Now to sum it all up then, for two to walk together voluntarily, they must in some sense be one. They must agree on the things that matter if they are going to walk together. Now that bears upon the subject that I want to talk about tonight, and you will quickly see how it bears.

Giving Up All to Walk with God

How to cultivate the spirit companionship, how to walk with the Holy Ghost. Now some people are just not ready to hear what I have to say, and of that I'm convinced. Some are not willing to give up all to obtain all.

They are not willing to turn toward God and walk with him. They are facing both ways. Old John Bunyan talked about Mr. Facing Both Ways. And a great many Christians, even gospel Christians, are facing two directions at once, and they are not willing to go along one way.

They want some of the world and some of Christ. They allow the Lord to disturb their way, but they also disturb the Lord's way. And they don't get together on this, and there's just no use of our talking about being filled with the Spirit and walking in the Spirit unless we're willing to give up all to obtain all.

And then there are Christians, and a lot of them in our gospel churches, that want Christianity for its insurance value. That is, they want the care and protection that God gives them now, and they want avoidance of hell in time of death, and they want the guarantee of heaven at last.

And to get this, they are willing to support the Church and missions and other religious projects financially. And I want to ask you, who wouldn't be willing to pay his insurance if he knew that it would help him in the hospital if he got sick or got in an accident, it would pay his widow a lot of money if he died, who wouldn't be willing to pay and support that kind of insurance?

And Christianity to some people is simply there for its insurance value. They want its protection and what it has to offer and guarantee of heaven at last. Now, I say they are willing to support it, and they are willing even to abstain from certain gross replaces.

I don't think you'll have much difficulty getting the average man to quit gambling if he's been a gambler. I don't think you'll have much trouble in getting the average man separated from a lot of the fleshly things, because there are a lot of sinners that don't do certain sins.

There are a lot of sinners. My father used tobacco, both smoking and chewing, for, oh, I guess 50 years. One day he looked at the stuff and had a sudden revulsion of feeling, and he said, what a dirty mess that is after all.

He turned his back on it and never touched it again until he died. It wasn't converted for many years after that. Between the time he gave it up and the time he was converted, a period of perhaps 8 to 10 years, he just didn't like this stuff anymore.

Not every sinner is dirty, not every sinner is a rascal, not every sinner cheats on his wife, and not every sinner refuses to pay his debts. There are honorable men and good men and honest men and men that will tell the truth if it hurts right out in the world that have no hope of eternal life or of heaven to come, that are not followers of the Lord, they are just decent people.

The idea that everybody is a wicked rascal and a scoundrel is all wrong. I have known some of the finest men who are not Christians. I know a man in Chicago who is so good that everybody wants to make a Christian out of him, but he steadfastly refuses and says, I am not a Christian, I am not a Christian.

But he is so good that he puts to shame a lot of Christians. He doesn't claim that he is winning his way to heaven, it's not a question of the old morality that the evangelists talk about, he doesn't believe in that.

He just knows he is lost, but he is also a man of incorruptible character, he is a good man. Of course, a lot of Christians are willing to give up the gross of things and live in a reasonably decent way.

Social Religion Versus Spiritual Hunger

For some people that aren't ready for this message tonight, their conception of religion is social and not spiritual. That is, they water down the strong wine of the New Testament until it has no tang in it anymore, and then they water it down with their easygoing opinions.

They are very broad-minded, they imagine, but the fact is they are so broad-minded they can't walk on the narrow way. And a lot of Christians now are more influenced by Hollywood than they are Jerusalem, that is, their spirit, their mood is more like Hollywood than it is like Jerusalem.

If you were to set them down in Jerusalem, they would wander around even in the days of Christ. They wouldn't feel at home, but take them out in that nest of iniquity in California and they would say, I wonder who she is, I wonder if she is one of the stars.

They'd be quite at home there, because their mood, the texture of their mind has been created for them by twentieth-century entertainment and not by the things of God. Some people would like to be filled with the Spirit for the thrill of it.

They want to be thrilled, and they'd almost pay any price to get the thrill. But they won't die to themselves, nor to the world, nor to the flesh. And hence, for these, what I have to say now will have no sympathetic meaning whatsoever.

You just can't have any meaning because they haven't come over into the region where God can get to them. But always there are some, always, thank God, there are some. And I don't know who they are, it's impossible for me to know.

Among the things God hasn't done for me is give me the ability to put my finger on a man and say, thou art a man, or thou art not a man. God keeps his mysteries and his secrets from me to some extent, so I can't tell you who they are.

But I know there are some who have said, Jesus, I and my cross have taken all to leave and follow thee. And from somewhere has come a longing, a blessed aspiration, a deep longing, a yearning after God that is so real and so wonderful and so pain-filled that they know what I'm talking about sympathetically.

You see, there is a difference between knowing doctrine intellectually and knowing it sympathetically. Anybody can learn the catechism and know the doctrine intellectually. We have Bible conferences all over the United States, all over Canada, all over England, all over Scotland and Wales and all over the world, wherever Christianity is heard, we have Bible conferences and we take a week to 10 days to study the word.

And it's good, and you can get a hold of the word of God intellectually. It's quite another thing to let the word of God reach you sympathetically. That is, your heart goes out sympathetically to the word of God, and it reaches you sympathetically.

Now I think there are some here like that, and maybe more than I think, for I'll break down and tell you something. I am not an optimist, except in the long-range eschatological sense. If you don't know what eschatological means, ask me, I don't know whether I do.

But I'm thinking now about the long-range future events. I am an optimist in that, but not too much of an optimist when it comes to things of now. I'm likely to underrate rather than overrate. You'll find that out if I stay around here much longer.

But maybe there are more people hungry for God than I know, maybe so, and I sincerely hope so. And if there are, or if there's even one, then I want to give the second half of my talk now. This has been introduction up to now.

Brother Newell would tell us never to give such a long introduction, but I thrive on doing things the books tell me not to do. I enjoy it, you know, I really do. It's about the only independence I have, is breaking the rules of how to preach.

Now, if you're a hungry person and Christ is to you more than insurance against hell, and Christianity is to you more than an opportunity to mingle socially with good people, if God is real to you and Christ is real and your heart is longing after God and you want the best God has and your heart is open to the Holy Spirit's incoming, then I want to give you a few thoughts now, take these down in your mind at least.

Knowing the Holy Spirit as a Living Person

The Holy Spirit first. The Holy Spirit is a living person, that is, he can be known in increasing degrees of intimacy. Now, this is the second time I've said this, but I want to emphasize it tonight, that since the Holy Spirit is a personality, he is never fully known in one encounter.

One of the biggest mistakes we can possibly make is to imagine that by coming to know God in the new birth and receiving the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father, we know all we can know about God.

The second mistake is made by people of our persuasion, and that is by being filled with the Holy Ghost after conversion. You know all there is to know about the Holy Spirit, oh, my friends. You just begin, you just start.

For God's personality is so infinitely rich and manifold that it will take a thousand years of close search and intimate communion even to begin to know the outer edges of the glorious nature of God, so that when we talk about communion with God and fellowship with the Holy Spirit, we are talking about that which begins now but which grows and increases while life lasts, everything else being equal.

If you are a seeker after God, as I hope you are, and you go on in obedience, you will know God much better five years from now than you know him now, and if you do not know him better now than you did five years ago, then you have pretty much wasted five years of your life.

You know, it's possible to do that. Jacob wasted 20 years of his life and then went back to the altar, had his second experience by the river Jabbok, had his name changed from Jacob to Israel, and went on from there.

But 20 years is taken out of his life, and I find Christian people that have wasted their lives. They have been converted to Christ, but they haven't gone on to know the Lord increasingly. They have accepted the cold level of things around about them as being normal.

There is untold loss and failure. This idea that was current a few years ago, people are a little more modest about that now. I think Mussolini and the Roman Empire and a few other things kind of blew up in our faces and we're not quite so sure of ourselves as we used to be when it comes to prophecy.

But I used to hear young fellows who weren't behind their ears yet, get up and talk about reigning over five cities and how many crowns they were going to wear and all that sort of thing. They weren't going to wear any crown or reign over any city, but they thought they were.

They had it all worked out theologically. But they weren't getting on with to know God, they just were opening the word, as they called it, and teaching the word about the five crowns of the Christians and that sort of thing.

Well, they are suffering loss nevertheless, suffering loss because they are bogged down in their teachings and have not gone on to know God for himself. So the Holy Spirit is a living person, and as he is a living person, you can know him and fellowship with him, whisper to him and have his voice whisper back to you in some love texts that you know, or some love hymns, and whisper back to you so that walking with the Spirit can become a habit with you, something that you can do, so that you can be in his presence, conscious of his presence, and so you won't always be having to talk.

I think I have mentioned before that there are two kinds of friendships. There is the tentative and uncertain kind of friendship that can't allow you to sit down and look at the magazine when you come to their house, or just sit down and snooze.

They have to be entertaining you, because they don't know you well enough and you don't know them well enough to just relax. Nobody relaxes. You are company and they are entertaining you, and somebody must be talking every minute in order that you will know you are welcome.

Well, then after you know these people and you grow in the knowledge of each other and your friendship becomes bigger and sweeter and broader, you can go to their house or they to yours, not standing for ten minutes at a time, and nobody will think you are mad.

If your friendship is passed by the place where it has to be kept up by chatter. I believe it's possible to get to a place where we can know God so intimately that we don't always have to be chattering to God.

We can pray, and inwardly we do pray, but we don't have to be all the time. I remember once riding with a preacher, and we had to make a certain engagement where I believe I was the preacher, he was, both of us.

We were riding along in the rain some years ago, and in those old days when the cars weren't closed up much underneath and when it splashed, it got water in the points, and the cars would stop. And this poor fellow, he was driving and I was sitting beside him, and when the car would sputter, it was raining hard, when the car would sputter he'd pray to beat the band, Oh, God, keep it going, God, keep it going, God!

And then when it stopped sputtering he'd talk a little and then when it sputtered some more he'd pray a little more. And he would get so worried there, he and God hadn't had any understanding about that at all.

Christ's Glory and the Spirit's Presence

He said, He that believeth on me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. This spake he of the Holy Spirit, which they that believe on him were to receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

The pouring out of the Holy Ghost depended upon and waited upon the glorification of Christ the Lord. Then when the Pentecost was fully come and Peter got up to make his sermon, he tied back to that same passage, and he said, Know you that crucified Jesus Christ, know this, that God hath made this same man whom ye crucified, both Lord and Christ, in being at the right hand of God exalted, or by the right hand of God exalted, either one would add to the same thing, God having exalted Jesus Christ through his right hand, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear.

Always remember that you will know the Spirit more intimately as you make more of Jesus Christ the Lord. For Jesus said the Holy Spirit would take the things of his and show them unto us. We walk with the Holy Ghost when we walk with Christ, for Christ will always be, when he is honored, the Holy Ghost will always honor the one who honors the Savior Jesus Christ the Lord.

Let's honor him by giving him his right title. Let's call him Lord. Let's believe he's Lord. Let's call him Christ. Let's believe he's Christ. And let's get away from this keep Jesus dear kind of stuff that pulls Christianity down to the world of erotica and makes it half-sexy.

Let's get rid of that whole silly business and remember God has made this Jesus whom ye crucified, Lord and Christ, and set him at his own right hand and put all things under his feet and made him to be head over all things to the church and he shall reign from the river to the ends of the earth.

This is the Christ we adore, and let's be careful to honor Christ, always honor Christ, honor him by obedience, honor him by witness, honor him by testimony. And as we honor Christ, then we will fellowship with the Holy Ghost.

Walking in Righteousness and Holiness

Again, to know the Holy Spirit in increasing intimacy of companionship, walk in righteousness. Walk in righteousness because we might as well face up to it, my brethren, God can't possibly have fellowship with a man or a woman that isn't living right.

They are not walking right. We have magnified grace in this grace-crazy age, in this age when we have magnified grace out of all proportion to the Bible place that God gives grace. That is, we have, as Paul said, with weeping that men had turned the grace of God into lasciviousness, and we've done the same thing now.

We are so afraid that we will reflect upon the all-sufficiency of grace that we dare not tell Christians that they have got to live right. But remember that Paul in the Holy Ghost wrote his epistles, and in those epistles he laid down holy inward ethics, moral rules for the inward Christian.

Read it in Romans and Corinthians and Ephesians and Colossians and Galatians and see whether it all doesn't add to the same thing. Then read the Sermon on the Mount and the other teachings of Jesus and see if he does not expect his people to be clean and right.

I wrote an editorial that came out in the magazine The Alliance Witness, and at the same time it's printed in New York, it's also printed in London in a magazine, the Life of Faith. I was rather amused when I discovered that they were taking me to task over there and others were coming to my defense.

And here is what they were fighting over. I was over here having a nice time, but over there they were writing hot letters back and forth to each other about me. One fellow said, "'Tozer distinguishes,' or doesn't distinguish, between discipleship and salvation, to be a disciple and to be a Christian.'.

He said, "'You can be a Christian without being a disciple. Whoever said you could be a Christian without being a disciple? You can't be a Christian without being a disciple. The idea that I can come to the Lord and by grace have all my sins forgiven and have my name written in heaven and have the carpenters go to work on a mansion in my Father's house, at the same time I can raise hell on my way to heaven, I say it's impossible, it's unscriptural, it's not found in the Bible at all.

You're not saved by your good works. No, never are we saved by our good works. But we are not saved apart from good works. We are saved by faith in Jesus Christ alone. But out of that there springs immediately good goodness and righteousness.

Spring is not brought by flowers, but you can't have spring without flowers. It is not the birds that bring the summer, but you have no summer without birds. It is not the whale that brings the baby, but you don't have the baby without the whale.'".

You know what I think? I think the little prince just leaned back and wailed, just like the humblest little baby born anywhere. Don't you think so? I think he did. Little, little what's-his-name, do you want to call him Phillip or something?

Nobody knows yet. But I think even Prince, as he was, he didn't know it. He was just a nice little boy. Princess Anne says, he's easy and he's sweet. Well, that's just human, and he was just like the rest of us.

But it wasn't the whale that brought the little prince, the little prince brought the whale. And it wasn't the birds that bring the summer, the summer brings the birds. It isn't righteousness that saves me, but salvation brings righteousness.

And the man who isn't ready to live right, he's not saved and he won't be saved, and he'll be deceived in that great day. Now, we might as well face up to this. I happen to come after 31 years, as you know, of a ministry in a town that is the Mecca, or was for a good many years the Mecca of evangelical Christianity.

And it's pretty hard to preach it there without getting into trouble, but I preached it all right and kept on preaching it, and before I left I was being heard by everybody. And the very persons who before had held another view were listening to me.

And I'm preaching it to you now that we must walk in righteousness. I can't for the life of me see how it's possible that we can support the doctrine that Christians ought to be good people. Christians ought to be the best people in the world.

And I couldn't believe a man is on his way to heaven when he's performing such deeds that indicate that logically he ought to be on his way to heaven. So walk in righteousness and see to it that you do.

Purifying the Inner Sanctuary

Make your thoughts a clean sanctuary. To God our thoughts are a part of us. Somebody said thoughts are a thing. The Spirit is all-seeing and all-hearing and all-loving and pure, and he cannot endure thoughts, say, of malice.

Can you imagine a man with a malicious thought in his heart having companionship with the loving Holy Ghost? No, it's impossible that he should. Can you imagine a man bolted with egotism knowing the Holy Spirit and anything like intimacy?

He couldn't possibly do it. Can you imagine a man who is deceiving, who is a deceiver, ever having any fellowship with the Spirit? Never. Can you imagine it? Never. It's holly to believe it, my friend.

If you're habitually given over to thinking dirty thoughts, you're habitually without the communion of the Holy Ghost, let me tell you that. Keep your mind pure. We'd be angry if you talked like that, because we're not that kind of people.

Oh, you're human beings after all. Human beings are all alike, and even if you wouldn't stoop to malicious or deceitful or egotistic thinking, you could easily stoop to envious thinking, or you could stoop to gossip, or to an inordinate desire to find out other people's secrets.

This gossip business, God delivers from it, but it's here and we've got it to deal with, and if we don't deal with it, it'll deal with us. I've even found that prayer groups are gossipers, a lot of them are.

Some old sister will get up and she'll say in a hushed, shocked voice, Now, I wouldn't mention this except I want you to pray. The old hypocrite, that isn't what they are at all. She's just gossiping and she wants to do it publicly.

She says, Now, I want you to pray for Mrs. Jones. I looked in the windows as I went by, and Mr. Jones and Mrs. Jones were arguing, and I'm sure there's a fight in that home. And the old sister would love to have had a bug in there, a microphone, and just heard the whole thing.

She wouldn't smoke a cigarette, and she sneers down her holy nose at any woman who would smoke, but she loves a bit of dirty gossip. And then she says, I was filled with the Holy Ghost at such-and-such a camp meeting.

Well, she's never gone on from there. In fact, she has gone back from there, because one of the things the Spirit of God will do for a person is to make them so they don't want to gossip about people.

They may be driven, it may be necessary for them to talk about things that aren't good, and they may have to sometimes, if they're on committees, or if they're choosing a teacher, or anything else, they may have be compelled.

I've been many a time compelled to deal frankly with people's characters, but that's one thing. It's quite another thing to love to hear gossip about people. Make your thoughts a clean sanctuary. Clean out the sanctuary the way old Hezekiah did way back there.

He had dirtied up that sanctuary, and when Hezekiah took over, he got all his priests together and took them several days, and they carried out all of the filth and burned it, threw it over the bank and got rid of it and went back and sanctified the temple.

And then the blessed God came and they had their worship again. Well, then I would also suggest that you seek to know him in his word. Now, remember that he inspired the word, and he will be revealed in the word.

Seeking the Holy Spirit in the Word

I have no place in my sympathy for Christians who neglect the word or ignore the word or get any revelations apart from the word. This is the book, after all, my friends. Oh, word of God incarnate, oh, wisdom from on high, oh, word unchanged, unchanging, oh, light of our dark sky.

This is the book. And if we know the book well enough, we'll have an answer to every problem in the world, every problem that touches us. Every problem is answered in the book. But some people get awfully far off the track.

I say by the word. I want to preach the word and love the word and make the word everything. Read it much, read it often, brood over it, think over it, meditate over it, meditate on the word of God day and night.

When you wake at night, think of a verse. When you get up in the morning, even no matter how you feel, think of a verse and make the word of God everything. Because the Holy Ghost wrote the word, and if you'll make a lot of the word, he'll make a lot of you.

If you'll make a lot of the word, he'll make a lot of himself to you, for it's through the word that God reveals himself. This is not a dead book between covers, this is a living book. God wrote it, and it's still alive.

I think I said that in some other context since I've been here. This book is still alive. It's a living, vibrating book. God is in this book. He's here, the Holy Ghost is in this book. And if you want to find him, go into the book.

If you want to find the shepherd, you know where to look, find the sheep, and you'll find the shepherd. And if you want to find the Holy Ghost, go where the Holy Ghost inspires, in the book itself, and you'll find him there.

I know it's possible to know doctrine without the Spirit, and I've said that a while ago. It's possible to know the doctrine intellectually and not know it sympathetically and so not find the Holy Ghost there.

But don't try to cultivate the Spirit without the word. There's an awful lot of that now. A lot of humanism over-larded with a bit of paganism, over-larded again with a bit of esoteric religion, nature poetry, and the philosophy of some sweet old ladies, and all that.

No, that won't do, friends. It isn't enough. It isn't enough. I don't have a single bookmark. You know these little bookmarks they print, says cute little verses that somebody thought of? I don't want them.

I've got verses enough here. This book is full of verses. I don't need all those little things. I believe in great hymns, but all these little cute little things that people write when they should have been looking after the baby, and then they get into print and they want me to paste them in my Bible and read them.

I won't do it. I'd rather pass them over, forget them and go to the word itself. Then I would say cultivate the art of recognizing the presence of the Spirit every place all the time. The Spirit of the Lord fills the world.

That doesn't occur in the Bible, but it does occur in the Jewish writing called the Wisdom of Solomon. The Spirit of the Lord fills the world, and it's supported by the teachings of the Scriptures, that the blessed Holy Spirit is here, and that you can't walk out of the way from where he is.

You can't hide away from him. David tried it in the 139th Psalm. He said, I found I couldn't do it. I went up into heaven, you're there. If I go down to hell, you're there. And if I go to the uttermost parts of the sea, you're there.

And if I say darkness will hide me, I find God shines even in the darkness. He said, I couldn't get away from God. If you're interested in him, you will find him where you are, the presence all about you.

Identifying What Hinders Fellowship with God

Now, I would recommend that you find out what it is that's been hindering you. Find out what it is. Nobody wants to be asked that question. But find out what it is that's been hindering your life. You haven't progressed.

You don't know God as well as you did, or at least any better than you did. What's the trouble? Well, the Lord's people do a lot of borderline things. Let me give you an example. I think that would be better than to talk around in circles.

A man who is now in heaven, a good friend of mine, H .W. was his initials, and he used to write me a letter and say, Dear A .W. and sign it H .W. Dear soul, dear man of God. He came in one time from a missionary convention.

He had been a preacher. Missionaries have been along. He told me this. He said, You know, Brother Tozer, we are in desperate need of a revival out in a certain section in the alliance. I said, That's so.

I'll lead you to that conclusion. Well, he said, Now, here's an example. He said, We were having our missionary convention. It went along all right until Friday night. He said, Friday night the pastor came to me and said, Now, tonight we're going to shorten the meeting a little bit.

He said, You'll be on last, and I want you to quit so that we can be out of the building where the light's out by ten minutes of nine. He said, The missionary will talk, and we can't always tell how long the missionary will go, and there'll be singing and some announcements and an offering.

Then he said, You'll preach. He said, I don't care how long you preach, only one thing remember tonight. We must be out of the building at ten minutes of nine. I said, All right, and I got through about a quarter of, and they sang a verse and went home.

The building was empty, ten minutes of nine. Then he said, Later on I found out why this pastor was shortening the meeting and rushing us out of the church. Friday nights were the nights when the fights came on television, and the pastor couldn't give up his Friday night fight.

Two bruisers knocking each other's brains out if they ever had any to start with. He had to see that, and it had so hooked him that he closed a missionary convention, even though Jesus said, Carry until you be endued with power from on high, and then go and preach the gospel to every creature.

These missionaries were there, having given up everything to go. But this pastor had to shorten the meeting to see the fight. In a hotel room in New York City I sat one time with nothing in the wide world to do and watch a fight.

I am not saying it's a deeply sinful thing to do, but in the context it was deeply sinful and iniquitous for a pastor to be so caught in the thing that he grieved the Holy Ghost and clenched the Spirit and insulted God.

Brethren, find out what it is. Now, it may not be that with you. I know my wife wouldn't look at Christ like that. She couldn't stand to see one man knock another man down. But there might be other things.

And with you and me, find out what it is. And the rule is, does this hide the face of Jesus a little bit from me? Does this chill my heart a little? Does this take the joy out of my spirit? Does this make the word of God a little less sweet?

Does this make earth a little more desirable? If you answer yes to those questions, then you're going to have to do some repenting and some cleaning up before the blessed Holy Ghost will come to your heart and warm it and refresh it and make it fragrant with his presence.

Repentance and the Cost of Discipleship

This is how we cultivate the spirit friendship. If somebody says, that kind of living, Mr. Tozer, that kind of living is narrow and old fashioned, then I would be deprived of so many things. Now, isn't that just terrible, that you'd be deprived of a few cheap trinkets if you followed God?