God's Immensity (Pt 1)
A.W. Tozer
A Journey into the Father's Heart
(Vol 1 Pg 17-20)
"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"
—Matthew 16:25-26
"And your life is hid with Christ in God."
—Colossians 3:3
"Doubtless, I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ."
—Philippians 3:8
Father, we aren’t worthy to think these thoughts, and our friends are unworthy to hear them expressed. But we will try to hear worthily and speak worthily. We know that we have looked upon evil sights, heard with our ears evil words, and walked in evil ways, but now we trust that is behind us, and our eyes are upon You. Show Thyself to us, O God. Shepherd, sweet Wonder, Jesus, we ask You now that this evening we may again have a vision of the Triune God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Faith is of two kinds: nominal and real. Nominal faith is faith that accepts what it is told and can quote text after text to prove it. It's amazing how nominal faith and nominal belief can weave these texts into garments, cloaks, and curtains for the church. But there is another kind of faith—a faith that depends upon the character of God.
You will remember that the scripture does not say Abraham believed the text, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. It says Abraham believed God (Romans 4:3). It was not what Abraham believed; it was who Abraham believed that counted. Abraham believed God, and the man of true faith believes God, and his faith rests on the character of God.
The man who has real faith, rather than nominal faith, has found a right answer to the question, "What is God like?" There is no question more important. The man of true faith has found an answer to that question by revelation and illumination. The difficulty with the church now, even the Bible-believing church, is that we stop with revelation. But revelation is not enough. Revelation is God’s given word; it’s an objective thing, not subjective. It’s external, not internal. It’s God’s revelation of truth. A man may believe that, and believe it soundly, and hold it to be true, and yet he will have only an objective revelation of truth that has been objectively revealed.
Illumination
There is another way to find an answer to the question, "What is God like?" and that is by illumination. The man of real faith believes the Word, but it has been illuminated so that he knows what the Word means. That doesn’t mean that he’s a better Bible teacher, but it means that he has had what the Quakers call an “opening.” His heart has been opened to the Word. The given revelation is a means toward an end, and God is the end, not the text itself. That’s why I never fight over a translation and get all worked up and steamed up over it. A text is a means to an end. Now, since there’s plenty of money, the printers will print anything. We’re making the mistake of thinking that if we get the Word set in a different way, there will be some magic effect in that Word. We think that if it is read in the King James Version, that’s okay, but if we get a new version differing just a little, we have automatically received something new. It doesn’t follow. Illumination is what matters in the Word of God as a means toward an end, just as roads are means toward destinations. A road is nothing in itself. Nobody ever built a road, fenced it in at both ends, planted posies along it, and beautified it and said, "This is a road." They said, "This is a way; it leads somewhere." The Bible is a whole series of highways all leading toward God. When the text has been illuminated and the believer of the text knows that God is the end toward which he is moving, then that man has real faith.
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