The Knowledge of the Holy

Starting on July 17th from 6:30pm - 8pm, we will begin a four week study on A.W. Tozer's book, “The Knowledge of the Holy.”  It is my prayer,  that many of you will purchase this book, read it, and join us at Connect Church to learn about God.  Allow me to give you a quick synopsis of this book.  "The Knowledge of the Holy," is a book about who God is, or, about the attributes of God.  Tozer defines an attribute as, “Whatever God has in any way revealed as being true of Himself.”

In the opening pages, Tozer states his purpose for writing on the attributes of God.  Two statements made in the first two pages, are the core of why having a correct knowledge about God is vital to all Christians.  He says, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us…A right conception of God is basic not only to systematic theology but to practical Christian living as well.”

            How we view God determines who we are as individual Christians and as a church.  Everything in life, for the believer and non-believer, revolves around who we think or don’t think God is.  For Tozer, asking questions about what God is like or what kind of God He is,  are not purely academic.  They are questions that “touch the far-in reaches of the human spirit, and their answers affect life and character and destiny.”  There is a lot at stake on the questions and the conclusions we come to about God, for all of mankind.

            Tozer speaks on nineteen attributes, not an exhaustive list, describing who God is.  This list is broken into two sections; the attributes describing His powers, and those describing His personality.  Tozer makes the point that all of Gods attributes are personal and practical, at the same time, they describe who He is, His essence, and not just what He does.   God is always, the essence of all His attributes at all times.  Tozer says, “He need not suspend one to exercise another, for in Him all His attributes are one.”

             Tozer speaks frankly to the “so called Christian”, on the trivial things they focus on while ignoring God, causing the Church to have a low view of God.  Tozer says, “It is not a cheerful thought that millions of us who live in a land of Bibles, who belong to churches and labor to promote the Christian religion, may yet pass our whole life on this earth without once having thought or tried to think seriously about the being of God.   Few of us have let our hearts gaze in wonder at the I AM, the self-existent Self back of which no creature can think. Such thoughts are too painful for us.  We prefer to think where it will do more good—about how to build a better mousetrap, for instance, or how to make two blades of grass grow where one grew before.  And for this we are now paying a too heavy price in the secularization of our religion and the decay of our inner lives.”

The book ends with a challenge for the individual Christian to bring back a high view of God into the Church.  Tozer gives six practical things for the Christian to do:  Abandon sins, totally surrender to Christ, practice self-discipline, reject the cheap values of the fallen world, meditation and getting on mission.