The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer is a cogent treatise on the majesty of God.  As you read this book you are filled with awe concerning God’s greatness as well as provided  with practical applications for daily living.  Tozer opens the book by writing, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

If you have not read this book I strongly encourage you to read and meditate upon these great truths to gain a fresh view of God. Here’s a  sampling of some pearls of wisdom:

“Any faith that must be supported by the evidence of the senses is not real faith.”

“. . . because we are the handiwork of God, it follows that all our problems and their solutions are theological.”

“We might be wise to follow the insight of the enraptured heart rather than the more cautious reasoning of the theological mind.”

“So as I stretch my heart toward the high shining love of God someone who has not before known about it may be encouraged to look up and have hope.”

“Secularism, materialism, and the intrusive presence of things have put out the light in our souls and turned us into a generation of zombies.”

“Teach us to know that we cannot know, for the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Let faith support us where reason fails, and we shall think because we believe, not in order that we may believe.”

“Unbelief is actually perverted faith, for it puts its faith not in the living God, but in dying men.”

“To admit the existence of a need in God is to admit incompleteness in the divine Being.”

“As a sunbeam perishes when cut off from the sun, so man apart from God would pass back into the void of nothingness from which he first leaped at the creative call.”

“The various elements of truth stand in perpetual antithesis, sometimes requiring us to believe apparent opposites while we wait for the moment when we shall know as we are known.”

“The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.”

“Faith must precede all effort to understand. Reflection upon revealed truth naturally follows the advent of faith, but faith comes first to the hearing ear, not to the cogitating mind.”

“The truth is that the Man who walked among us was a demonstration, not of unveiled deity, but of perfect humanity.”

“To say that God is omniscient is to say that He possesses perfect knowledge and therefore has no need to learn.”

“Until we have seen ourselves as God see us, we are not likely to be much disturbed over conditions around us as long as they do not get so far out of hand as to threaten our comfortable way of life. We have learned to live with unholiness and have come to look upon it as the natural and expected thing.”

“The whole outlook of mankind might be changed if we could all believe that we dwell under a friendly sky and that the God of heaven, though exalted in power and majesty, is eager to be friends with us.”

“The greatness of God rouses fear within us, but His goodness encourages us not to be afraid of Him. To fear and not be afraid – that is the paradox of faith.”

“God’s being is unitary; it is not composed of a number of parts working harmoniously, but simply one. There is nothing in His justice which forbids the exercise of His mercy.”

“The focal point of man’s interest is now himself.  Humanism in its various forms has displaced theology as the key to the understanding of life.”

The Apostle Paul realized the significance of knowing God as he wrote to the Philippians,

that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;  (Philippians 3:10)

Calvin wisely observed in the  Institutes of Christian Religion  that without the knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self, “. . . it is evident that man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he has previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself.”  (Book I.1.1)

Teach us, O God, that nothing is necessary to Thee. Were anything necessary to Thee that thing would be the measure of Thine imperfection: and how could we worship one who is imperfect?  If nothing is necessary to Thee, then no one is necessary, and if no one, then not we. Thou dost seek us though Thou does not need us. We seek Thee because we need Thee, for in Thee we live and move and have our being.  Amen.

Associate Pastor – Discipleship.  The Church at LifePark

Professor of Discipleship, Columbia International University

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