The Knowledge of the Holy: The Self Sufficiency of God
[Editor’s Note: This is a 23-Day Series exploring different aspects of God’s nature and personality, using Tozer’s “The Knowledge of the Holy” as a discussion starter. You can read the introduction of the series here.]
Tozer starts today’s chapter with a simple verse: “The Father has life in Himself,” (John 5:26) and spends the rest of the chapter unpacking the profound implications of that small phrase. He details out how every other living thing gets its life from God, but God receives His life from no one. He is the only being Who exists regardless of whether anyone else does. Tozer then goes on to argue if we truly believe this, it has tremendous implications for us who believe in Him. Often we speak and act as if God needs our help. But truly understanding God needs nothing from us changes how we approach Him and how we present Him.
When I started this blog series, I promised I wasn’t going to quote large sections of this book, but this section needs to be highlighted:
Probably the hardest thought of all for our natural egotism to entertain is that God does not need our help…I fear that thousands of younger persons enter Christian service from no higher motive than to help deliver God from the embarrassing situation His love has gotten Him into and His limited abilities seem unable to get Him out of. Add to this a certain degree of commendable idealism and a fair amount of compassion for the underpriviledged and you have the true drive behind much Christian activity today.
When we begin to understand these truths, that God truly does not need our help nor our pity, it changes us. According to Tozer, we begin to understand why faith is so vitally important to the Christian walk and why unbelief is such a deadly sin. It should drive us back to the Scriptures to find the true Jesus, not the one of weak human nature, but of power such that we can’t even look at His unveiled nature and live.
This was a weighty chapter for me. First, as someone who is a doer, it took some weight off my shoulders. I so frequently get caught in the trap of thinking everything that Jesus calls us to do rides on my strength. But Jesus actually calls us to draw on His power to accomplish His will. “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light,” (Matthew 11:28-30). In my practical life I have to get much better at waiting for God to do what He desires. I need to find myself living in the light of Christ working in me to accomplish His will.
Secondly, this understanding of God not needing anyone else should compel us to recognize the call of God as an invitation to relationship. If God doesn’t need us, then He invites us because He wants to develop relationship with us in the process. So many times I spend time with Jesus and feel like it’s about the chores we need to get done together. But in everything that Jesus is doing, He’s actually looking to capture our hearts. He’s inviting us to see Him work and love Him for it.
Lastly, this message inspires me to believe that God will move in spite of us. It made me think of all the stories I’ve heard of Jesus appearing to Muslims in dreams and pointing them to believers to hear the Gospel and be saved. It reminded me of the time a girl in our church had a dream that her friend would come to Jesus. After the second girl prayed to accept Christ, she had a dream where Jesus came to her and met her. It reminded me of God sending an angel to Cornelius in Acts 10 to prepare him for the Gospel. Many times through out the Bible God steps in when no man could be counted on. This is the God we serve. Believing He will move with our without us changes how do things.
Some would doubt this would encourage people to follow or serve Jesus. But friends, I want to follow a God who is strong and able. I don’t want to have to prop up my God like the pagan nations that surrounded Israel. They were constantly going to idols who could offer no hope. But we are serving alongside a God who is powerful and able without us. He invites us along to be spectators of His power and majesty. And that should encourage us all to be willing to follow Christ. “Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power…” (Psalm 110:3).
So, as you can tell from my lengthy post, I liked today’s topic and took a lot away. What about you? Leave a comment and help us see what God is showing you.
The Knowledge of the Holy Series
Day 1: Why We Must Think Rightly About God
Day 3: A Divine Attribute: Something True About God
Day 5: The Self Existence of God
Day 6: The Self Sufficiency of God
Day 7: The Eternity of God
Day 8: God’s Infinitude
Day 9: The Immutability of God
Day 10: The Divine Omniscience
Day 11: The Wisdom of God
Day 12: The Omnipotence of God
Day 13: The Divine Transcendence
Day 14: God’s Omnipresence
Day 15: The Faithfulness of God
Day 16: The Goodness of God
Day 17: The Justice of God
Day 18: The Mercy of God
Day 19: The Grace of God
Day 20: The Love of God
Day 21: The Holiness of God
Day 22: The Sovereignty of God
Day 23: The Open Secret
The Knowledge of the Holy: The Self Existence of God
[Editor’s Note: This is a 23-Day Series exploring different aspects of God’s nature and personality, using Tozer’s “The Knowledge of the Holy” as a discussion starter. You can read the introduction of the series here.]
What separates God from every other thing in the universe is He has no beginning. Being the creator of time, He exists outside of it. Our all too human quest to understand the origins of everything stem from our experience that everything we interact with had a beginning. We start to get out of our depth when we start dealing with the One who has none. And because God has existed without assistance for all of eternity, He is sits above every created thing.
The self existence of God becomes really “real” when we understand that it’s around this topic that conflict between God and man arises. The essence of sin is an assertion of our self, our will, our way on God. We challenge God’s “self-existence” with our “self.” The beginning of holiness, Tozer argues, is the true submission of man to God. To use Tozer’s analogy, God is always the sun of our galaxy and we are a planet in beneficial orbit. Sin, at its root, is beginning to think of ourselves as a sun and not acknowledging our proper place submitted to God who has always existed and around whom we orbit. “The natural man is a sinner because he challenges God’s selfhood in relation to his own.”
Tozer goes on to explain the only hope for a man who as a planet thinks himself a sun: The gospel must birth in our hearts new desires. As we see Jesus and repent, a new nature is born in us. This new nature, far from just being a more moral person, is actually able to submit the self to God’s self. He no longer challenges God’s existence with his own, but willingly crucifies the self and let’s Christ live through Him.
What I’ve been struck by in this whole discussion is the reality of how subtle the fight against God is in our own soul. And so much of our fight comes from the fact that we fail to see the beauty, power, and holiness of a God who was, is, and is to come. This is one of those areas where we are way too comfortable with a God who we barely understand.
My other thought this morning was this: We serve a God who didn’t make us out of need. He made us to share His life and love with humans. This should stagger us, but the revelation of a God who exists without us is that He didn’t need to make us. But He chose to. He chose relationship. He chose to create to share His life. He isn’t a needy God, but He moves out of love for relationship. This differs greatly from how God is portrayed: needy of humans and uninterested in relationship. My time reading this morning has left me convicted that I need to draw near to a powerful and intimate God who I can offer nothing, but who wants to meet with me regardless. He wants to meet with you, too.
So, thanks for reading. My thoughts are here for you, but this conversation is really helped when you share yours too. Leave a comment and let us know what you’re learning.
The Knowledge of the Holy Series
Day 1: Why We Must Think Rightly About God
Day 3: A Divine Attribute: Something True About God
Day 5: The Self Existence of God
Day 6: The Self Sufficiency of God
Day 7: The Eternity of God
Day 8: God’s Infinitude
Day 9: The Immutability of God
Day 10: The Divine Omniscience
Day 11: The Wisdom of God
Day 12: The Omnipotence of God
Day 13: The Divine Transcendence
Day 14: God’s Omnipresence
Day 15: The Faithfulness of God
Day 16: The Goodness of God
Day 17: The Justice of God
Day 18: The Mercy of God
Day 19: The Grace of God
Day 20: The Love of God
Day 21: The Holiness of God
Day 22: The Sovereignty of God
Day 23: The Open Secret
The Knowledge of the Holy: The Holy Trinity
[Editor’s Note: This is a 23-Day Series exploring different aspects of God’s nature and personality, using Tozer’s “The Knowledge of the Holy” as a discussion starter. You can read the introduction of the series here.]
Today Tozer invites us to peer into one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith: the Trinity. It’s such a great mystery, that he spends about half the chapter encouraging us to believe that which we cannot fully explain. And this is what I love about Tozer: He wholeheartedly submits to a God He doesn’t fully understand. This is unthinkable for most of us, but it’s the nature of trust. Tozer goes on to layout the depth of the oneness of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and invites us to wonder at God who is simultaneously one but three.
Tozer also calls us back from some of the various heresies the church embraces without knowing it: God has always been One. God has always been three persons. None of them have ever been any less than the other. Even as we have typically assigned the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit different roles, Tozer is quick to point out that God in His totality was involved.
There are always some deep mysteries involved in this discussion and a very narrow way forward that doesn’t involve heresy. But what I love about the truth of God as One is that built into the very nature of God is a type of unity that does not involve submission or hierarchy. It involves love and oneness of vision. In this way, not only can we worship with our words and song, but we can worship with our lives in the way we relate to other believers. While we cannot become one in substance with the body of Christ, we are called to a oneness of love and purpose that looks very much like the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
How do we do this? It starts from our unity with Christ in God. Jesus in John 17 prayed to His Father that we would be one. And in the course of the prayer, He says we will be “in Him” and He will be “in God” and that we will receive a glory that makes us one, just as Jesus and the Father are one (see John 17:20-23). Friends, we are called into a deep relationship with the Trinity through the sacrifice of Christ. If we will walk in this Oneness with Christ (being “in Him”) we will inevitably experience a kind of glory and love that causes to walk in oneness with other believers that transcends hierarchy. We will experience the very nature of God in ourselves and in our relationships with others.
So, that’s a different route than I expected to take, but that’s my thoughts. What’s your takeaway from today? Let us know in the contents.
Also, for a fun little exercise in understanding the Trinity, you can watch this video here.
The Knowledge of the Holy Series
Day 1: Why We Must Think Rightly About God
Day 3: A Divine Attribute: Something True About God
Day 4: The Holy Trinity
Day 5: The Self Existence of God
Day 6: The Self Sufficiency of God
Day 7: The Eternity of God
Day 8: God’s Infinitude
Day 9: The Immutability of God
Day 10: The Divine Omniscience
Day 11: The Wisdom of God
Day 12: The Omnipotence of God
Day 13: The Divine Transcendence
Day 14: God’s Omnipresence
Day 15: The Faithfulness of God
Day 16: The Goodness of God
Day 17: The Justice of God
Day 18: The Mercy of God
Day 19: The Grace of God
Day 20: The Love of God
Day 21: The Holiness of God
Day 22: The Sovereignty of God
Day 23: The Open Secret
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 