The Knowledge of The Holy- A.W.Tozer

Let me seek thee in longing, let me long for thee in seeking; let me find thee in love, and love thee in finding. Anslem

The philosopher and the scientist will admit that there is much that they do not know; but that is quite another thing from admitting that there is something which they can never know, which indeed they have no technique for discovering.

To admit that there is One who lies beyond us, who exists outside of all our categories, who will not be dismissed with a name, who will not appear before the bar of our reason, nor submit to our curious inquiries: this requires a great deal of humility, more than most of us possess, so we save face by thinking God down to our level, or at least down to where we can manage Him. Yet how He eludes us! For He is everywhere while He is nowhere, for ”where” has to do with matter and space, and God is independent of both. He is unaffected by time or motion, is wholly self-dependent and owes nothing to the worlds His hands have made.

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 secularlzation of our religion and the decay of our inner lives.

Christians today appear to know Christ only after the flesh. They try to achieve communion with Him by divesting Him of His burning holiness and unapproachable majesty, the very attributes He veiled while on earth but assumed in fullness of glory upon His ascension to the Father’s right hand. The Christ of popular Christianity has a weak smile and a halo. He has become Someone-up-There who likes people, at least some people, and these are grateful but not too impressed. If they need Him, He also needs them.

Let us not imagine that the truth of the divine self-sufficiency will paralyse Christian activity. Rather it will stimulate all holy endeavor. This truth, while a needed rebuke to human self-confidence, will when viewed in its Biblical perspective lift from our minds the exhausting load of mortality and encourage us to take the easy yoke of Christ and spend ourselves in Spirit-inspired toil for the honor of God and the good of mankind. For the blessed news is that the God who needs no one has in sovereign condescension set Himself to work by and in and through His obedient children.

”He hath set eternity in their heart,” said the Preacher, and I think he here sets forth both the glory and the misery of men. To be made for eternity and forced to dwell in time is for mankind a tragedy of huge proportions. All within us cries for life and permanence, and everything around us reminds us of mortality and change. Yet that God has made us of the stuff of eternity is both a glory and a prophecy yet to be fulfilled.

Life is a short and fevered rehearsal for a concert we cannot stay to give. Just when we appear to have attained some proficiency we are forced to lay our instruments down. There is simply not time enough to think, to become, to perform what the constitution of our natures indicates we are capable of.

O Lord! my heart is sick,
Sick of this everlasting change;
And life runs tediously quick
Through its unresting race and varied range:
Change finds no likeness to itself in Thee
And wakes no echo in Thy mute Eternity.
Frederick W. Faber

To believe actively that our Heavenly Father constantly spreads around us providential circumstances that work for our present good and our everlasting well-being brings to the soul a veritable benediction. Most of us go through life praying a little, planning a little, jockeying for position, hoping but never being quite certain of anything, and always secretly afraid that we will miss the way. This is a tragic waste of truth and never gives rest to the heart.

There is a better way. It is to repudiate our own wisdom and take instead the infinite wisdom of God. Our insistence upon seeing ahead is natural enough, but it is a real hindrance to our spiritual progress. God has charged himself with full responsibility for our eternal happiness and stands ready to take over the management of our lives the moment we turn in faith to Him.

Here is His promise: ”And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.”

She [the Church] may go on dutifully to sing of the greatness of God and to recite the creed times beyond number, but her plea for mercy sounds like a forlorn hope and no more, as if mercy were a heavenly gift to be longed for but never really enjoyed. Could our failure to capture the pure joy of mercy consciously experienced be the result of our unbelief or our ignorance, or both?

We may plead for mercy for a lifetime in unbelief, and at the end of our days be still no more than sadly hopeful that we shall somewhere, sometime, receive it. This is to starve to death just outside the banquet hall in which we have been warmly invited. Or we may, if we will, lay hold on the mercy of God by faith, enter the hall, and sit down with the bold and avid souls who will not allow diffidence and unbelief to keep them from the feast of fat things prepared for them.

But the God we must see is not the utilitarian God who is having such a run of popularity today, whose chief claim to men's attention is His ability to bring them success in their various undertakings and who for that reason is being cajoled and flattered by everyone who wants a favor. The God we must learn to know is the Majesty in the heavens, God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, the only wise God our Savior.

He it is that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, who stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in, who bringeth out His starry host by number and calleth them all by name through the greatness of His power, who seeth the works of man as vanity, who putteth no confidence in princes and asks no counsel of kings.

I Will Go

To the desperate eyes and reaching hands
To the suffering and the lean
To the ones the world has cast aside
Where you want me I will be

I will go
I will go
I will go Lord send me
To the world
To the lost
To the poor and hungry
Take everything I am
Clay within your hands
I will go
I will go
Send me

Let me not be blind with privilege
Give me eyes to seek the pain
Let the blessing You've poured out on me
Not be spent on me in vain
Let this life be used for change

I wanna live for you
Go where you lead me
I wanna follow you

I wanna live for you
Go where you lead me
I wanna follow you

I wanna live for you
Go where you lead me
I wanna follow you

Count Zinzendorf and Smith Wigglesworth

“I have one passion: it is Jesus, Jesus only." Zinzendorf

“This have I done for thee; what doest thou for Me?” Zinzendorf

“Faith is better than feelings and if you have faith, you will have all the feelings you can feel.” Wigglesworth

“I am satisfied with the dissatisfaction that never rests until it is satisfied and satisfied again.” Wigglesworth

“I am destined by the Lord to proclaim the message of the death and blood of Jesus, not with human wisdom, but with divine power, unmindful of personal consequences to myself.” Zinzendorf

Grace

"A thousand times I've failed,
Still Your mercy remains.
And should I stumble again,
Still I'm caught in Your Grace.

My heart and my soul,
I give you control,
Consume me from the inside out...
To love You from the inside out."

"If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weaknesses." 2 Corinthians 11:30

"For some reason, people accept Jesus as Lord before they accept Him as Saviour. It is easier to comprehend His power than His mercy. We'll celebrate the empty tomb long before we'll kneel at the cross. We, like Thomas, would die for Christ before we'd let Christ die for us." In the Grip of Grace

"Mercy understood is holiness desired." In the Grip of Grace

"For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified." 1 Corinthians 2:2

"God would prefer we had an occasional limp than a perpetual strut." In the Grip of Grace

"God has every right to say no to us. We have every reason to say thanks to Him." In the Grip of Grace

"The heartbeat of our faith is not achieving great things for God, nor is it doing great things with God. Our deepest longing is to simply be with God, to know Him as Friend and Father, to trust Him as Saviour and thus, to obey Him as Lord." The Vision, The Vow

"He who is forgiven little, loves little." Luke 7:47

"Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." Luke 10:20

"The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner.' I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other." Luke 18:11-14

"When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities YOU DID NOT BUILD, houses filled with all kinds of good things YOU DID NOT PROVIDE, wells YOU DID NOT DIG, and vineyards and olive groves YOU DID NOT PLANT- when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery." Deuteronomy 6:10-12