Be Thou Exalted

“Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all the earth.” — Psalm 57:5 (KJV)

Everything works when it is in the right place, and Tozer says the same is true of people. Our deepest trouble is “a radical moral dislocation,” like a shoulder out of its socket. We are out of place with God. “Essentially salvation is the restoration of a right relation between man and his Creator.”

To know where you stand, you need a fixed point. God is that point. When God gave his name to Moses, he called himself “I AM.” Tozer loves this: “When He speaks in the first person He says, 'I AM'; when we speak of Him we say, 'He is'; when we speak to Him we say, 'Thou art.'”

Then he offers a test. Most people say God is first. But put them in a real choice, “between God and money, between God and men, between God and personal ambition, God and self, God and human love, and God will take second place every time.” It's not what we say that shows who is on top. It's what we choose, day after day.

The answer is in three words from the Psalms: “Be thou exalted.” Tozer calls it “a little key to unlock the door to great treasures of grace.” Once you really mean it, “a thousand minor problems will be solved at once.”

Does putting God first make you smaller? No. “In exalting God over all he finds his own highest honor upheld.” Everyone serves something. Jesus said, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.” The choice is between “a cruel slave driver” and “a kind and gentle Master whose yoke is easy.”

God once told the priest Eli, “Them that honour me I will honour.” Eli's sons did not, and the story ended in tragedy: they were killed in battle and Eli fell and died. Against them Tozer sets people like Abraham and David, who tried to honour God with all their flaws. “Not perfection, but holy intention made the difference.”

Jesus once asked, “How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God alone?” Tozer thinks wanting people's approval can make faith impossible. And he admits one fear: “it is that I may convince the mind before God can win the heart.” You can agree with all of this and still not do it. “God wants us all, and He will not rest till He gets us all.” So he prays, line by line, over every part of his life:

“O God, be Thou exalted over my possessions. Nothing of earth's treasures shall seem dear unto me if only Thou art glorified in my life. Be Thou exalted over my friendships. I am determined that Thou shalt be above all, though I must stand deserted and alone in the midst of the earth. Be Thou exalted above my comforts. Though it mean the loss of bodily comforts and the carrying of heavy crosses I shall keep my vow made this day before Thee. Be Thou exalted over my reputation. Make me ambitious to please Thee even if as a result I must sink into obscurity and my name be forgotten as a dream. Rise, O Lord, into Thy proper place of honor, above my ambitions, above my likes and dislikes, above my family, my health and even my life itself. Let me decrease that Thou mayest increase, let me sink that Thou mayest rise above.”

That is a costly prayer, and Tozer wants us to mean “everything we say.” “Over my friendships” might be the hardest line for you. So might “my reputation,” or “my ambitions.” That's fine. Pray the lines you can mean today, and tell God honestly which ones you can't pray yet. Holy intention, Tozer says, is what God looks at.

One thing to do this week: take one line of Tozer's prayer each day this week: possessions, friendships, comforts, reputation, ambitions, family. Each morning, pray that one line and ask what it would look like for God to be first in that area today.