A friend reminded me yesterday that a blog should be regularly updated and that mine wasn't! I told him that I was waiting for inspiration! Actually, just last week I found some old notes I had written whilst reading a book by A.W.Tozer some years ago. The book 'The Knowledge of the Holy' is THE only book that I have ever managed to read cover to cover in one day. Admittedly, I was ill - but it was one of those few books that totally gripped me. The God he described was so immense and so wonderful that I felt myself lifted out of the ordinary and into the supernatural. Whilst the truths he described about God were truths I already knew, he somehow managed to elevate my mind into a small corner of God's world, to see him afresh, his attributes, his very being. It just blew me away. Sometimes we do need to pick up our face and look upwards afresh to the great and mighty God that we serve. Sometimes an author can really help us to do that and I would absolutely recommend this particular book. It can do us the world of good to be caught up in the heavenlies again. I thought I would share some of my paraphrased notes from Tozer's book here."Left to ourselves, we tend to immediately reduce God to manageable terms. We want to get him where we can use him or at least know where he is when we need him. We want a God in some measure that we can control. We need the feeling of security that comes from knowing what God is like, and what God is like is, of course, a composite of all the religious pictures we have ever seen, all the best people we have known or heard about and all the sublime ideas we have entertained."
"God is completely self sufficient, all life come from him, he does not need anything like created beings because he contains all life within himself. Creation and life itself is a gift from God and all due to his sovereign good nature. He does not need us and receives nothing that he has not first given. God cannot be elevated. Nothing is above him and nothing is beyond him. He is responsible to no one, he is self existent, self dependent and self sufficient. God exists for himself and man exists for the glory of God. 'The father has life in himself' John 5:26.."
"God is eternal, he never began to exist, began is a time word. God dwells in eternity but time dwells in God. He has already lived all your tomorrows and already lived all our yesterdays. He is the beginning and the end of time simultaneously. Because God is eternal, he can be, and continue forever to be the one safe home for his time driven children. 'From everlasting to everlasting you are God' Psalm 90:2.."
"God is infinite. He knows no bounds, he is without limit and we cannot measure him. God is without growth or addition. Life is finite but God's love to us in Jesus is infinite, limitless, measureless and boundless. His love is something HE IS and because that love is infinite, it could enfold this entire world and still have room for ten thousand times ten thousand worlds besides."
"There may be attributes of God in the divine abyss of God that we know nothing about or could even understand - just as the angels would not understand mercy and grace. All God's attributes harmonise and blend into each other, no attribute contradicts another.
"God cannot change, he is the same yesterday, today and forever. Nothing he has ever said about himself can change. God's attitude to us does not change. It does not change from eternity past to eternity future. He does not change his mind. His office door is always open. His mood does not change. He doesn't cool off or lose enthusiasm. 'I am the Lord and I change not' Malachai 3:6.."
"God is omniscient. He knows himself perfectly and cannot be taught. He knows all that can be known. God is omnipotent. He has all power and it's without limit. He has at his command all the power of the universe and does not need to look outside of himself for strength. He gives strength and power to his children which is never failing and never ending. God is omnipresent. He is everywhere, next to everyone and close to everything. No one can hide from his presence: on earth, in heaven or in hell. There is no limit to his presence and we are never alone. He is always with us whether we can sense him or not. In him we live, move and have our being."
"God is wisdom. The wisdom of men or angels is but a reflection of the wisdom which streams from the throne of the majesty in heaven. All God's acts are done in perfect wisdom."
"God is faithful, just, good and holy. He is full of goodwill towards men, tender hearted and quick to sympathise. That God is good is taught or implied on every page of the Bible and must be received by faith. God is kind, can never be less kind and can never be more kind. So kind is God that he never counts our sins against us as we deserve and has as much confidence in us as if we have never sinned."
"God is holy. All of his attributes are holy. He has imparted his holiness to us through Jesus Christ. When the holiness of God comes to a person it is a dreadful thing but we can hide our unholiness in the wounds of Christ. We take refuge from God in God. God sees us perfect in his Son."
"God is absolutely sovereign. He possesses all knowledge, all power and is free to do whatever he wills. He possesses universal authority, no one is higher than him or mightier than him."
Tozer says the following:
"..to bring the church out of Babylon, we need to acquaint ourselves again with a transforming vision of God. The God we must learn to know is the majesty of heaven, God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, the only wise God, our saviour. He is the one who sits upon the circle of the earth and who stretches out the heavens as curtains, who brings out his starry host by number and calls them by name through the greatness of his power."
What an amazing God we serve and are so privileged to know. It is good to remind ourselves of just who he is and remember that with him we can do all things, and with him we have such security. This same God, who is awesome and holy and majestic and marvellous, who sits in unapproachable light and who the whole earth and universe is subject to, loves us with an unending and unstoppable love. A love than can never change or end because God IS love. It is who he is. Maybe when we think of love being contained in such a magnificent and limitless being we can understand just why he sent the Lord Jesus to die for us and make a way for us to know him again. Such love will do anything to reconcile and heal those he has created.
"I Am that I Am" Exodus 3:14
