“The man who says, ‘I want to go to heaven, but I don’t want to live a pure life; I want to be free to continue with my present life. I will change a little and do better, but I have no desire to be pure,’ or the man who says, ‘I want to escape hell and make heaven my home at last, but I have no particular desire to cease to live as I have lived’ is deceiving himself. You are hearing the language of a moral fool. This is not the language of wisdom, but the folly of the damned. …
“The penitent man wants to be changed. If you are still sufficiently in love with yourself and all you want is a little improvement, I see no possibility of faith approaching your heart. Unless a man comes to Christ seeking to be a different person, to be humble, meek, and self-effacing, he is not coming to Christ at all. Unless we hate evil and love righteousness, at least to the degree we are able at the moment, we are still in the bonds of iniquity and the enemies of righteousness. …
“Join me in this prayer: “Oh, I want to be other than what I am. I want to be different. I want to change. I am not satisfied. I want to believe in Thee, and trust in Thee, and throw myself boldly on Thee, and I want to be made like Thyself. I do not want only to escape hell, I want to escape sin. I not only want to go to Heaven at last, but I want to have Heaven in my heart now. I not only want to dwell with the redeemed, I want to be like the redeemed here on earth. I want to be another kind of person.” —A.W. Tozer, in The Wisdom of God
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