Knowledge of the Holy: Knowing God Through His Attributes

by A.W. Tozer

It is impossible to keep our moral practices sound and our inward attitudes right while our idea of God is erroneous or inadequate.

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like.

I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.

Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them.

A god begotten in the shadows of a fallen heart will quite naturally be no true likeness of the true God. ”Thou thoughtest,” said the Lord to the wicked man in the psalm, “that I was altogether such as one as thyself.”

The first step down for any church is taken when it surrenders its high opinion of God.

The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him - and of her. In all her prayers and labors this should have first place. We do the greatest service to the next generation of Christians by passing on to them undimmed and undiminished that noble concept of God

“To our questions God has provided answers; not all the answers, certainly, but enough to satisfy our intellects and ravish our hearts. These answers He has provided in nature, in the Scriptures, and in the person of His Son.

The heavens declare Thy glory, Lord, In every star Thy wisdom shines; But when our eyes behold Thy Word, We read Thy name in fairer lines. Isaac Watts

“As nothing is more easy than to think,” says Thomas Traherne, “so nothing is more difficult than to think well.”

We harness the mighty energy that rushes through our world; we subject it to fingertip control in our cars and our kitchens; we make it work for us like Aladdin’s jinn, but still we do not know what it is. Secularism, materialism, and the intrusive presence of things have put out the light in our souls and turned us into a generation of zombies.

“We think more loftily of God,” says Michael de Molinos, “by knowing that He is incomprehensible, and above our understanding, than by conceiving Him under any image, and creature beauty, according to our rude understanding.”

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.

”What possible meaning can the self-existence of God have for me and others like me in a world such as this and in times such as these?” To this I reply that, because we are the handiwork of God, it follows that all our problems and their solutions are theological. Some knowledge of what kind of God it is that operates the universe is indispensable to a sound philosophy of life and a sane outlook on the world scene.

an inward principle of self lies at the source of human conduct, turning everything men do into evil.

One who contains all, who gives all that is given, but who Himself can receive nothing that He has not first given.

universe. The Christian religion has to do with God and man, but its focal point is God, not man.

Fountain of good, all blessing flows From Thee; No want Thy fulness knows; What but thyself canst Thou desire? Yet, self-sufficient as Thou art, Thou dost desire my worthless heart. This, only this, dost Thou require. Johann Scheffler

since God is eternal, He can be and continue forever to be the one safe home for His time-driven children.

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.

the sweet relevancy of the Christian message appears. “Jesus Christ ... hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

Whatever the cost to us in loss of friends or goods or length of days let us know Thee as Thou art, that we may adore Thee as we should.

Our concepts of measurement embrace mountains and men, atoms and stars, gravity, energy, numbers, speed, but never God. We cannot speak of measure or amount or size or weight and at the same time be speaking of God, for these tell of degrees and there are no degrees in God.

How completely satisfying to turn from our limitations to a God who has none. Eternal years lie in His heart. For Him time does not pass, it remains; and those who are in Christ share with Him all the riches of limitless time and endless years.

The immutability of God appears in its most perfect beauty when viewed against the mutability of men. In God no change is possible; in men change is impossible to escape. Neither the man is fixed nor are his world, but he and it in constant flux. Each man appears for a little while to laugh and weep, to work and play, and then to go to make room for those who shall follow him in the never-ending cycle.

In a world of change and decay not even the man of faith can be completely happy. Instinctively he seeks the unchanging and is bereaved at the passing of dear familiar things.

If by “practical men” we mean unbelieving men engrossed in secular affairs and indifferent to the claims of Christ, the welfare of their own souls, or the interests of the world to come, then for them such a book as this can have no meaning at all; nor, unfortunately, can any other book that takes religion seriously.

the self-assurance of modern Christians, the basic levity present in so many of our religious gatherings, the shocking disrespect shown for the Person of God, are evidence enough of deep blindness of heart.

To magnify any attribute to the exclusion of another is to head straight for one of the dismal swamps of theology; and yet we are all constantly tempted to do just that.