Back in the late 80s, I gave The Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer to a Christian “friend.” It had made quite an impact on my 19 year old self, and I wanted to share the blessing. The book was about the essence of God and right thinking about God. My “friend” scoffed when he gave the book back, saying, “I guess you prophet types[1] get some kind of thrill out of thinking about God, but I find it boring.” Boring?! You’re a Christian and you find thinking about God boring?![2] What should I have even said to that?
Anyway… A. W. Tozer opens his book with the line, “What comes to our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”[3]
No matter how much I loved the book, reading most of it the first time with tears in my eyes, that is a big statement. A statement like that typically provokes someone like me to nullify the absolute with even one contrary example. Tell me something is important. No problem. Tell me, however, that such & such is always true, that this-thing-here is the best, most numerous, absolute something-or-other and I’m gonna try to knock that pin down.[4] My “friend” was foolish to dismiss the necessity to learn about the nature of God, but is it really the MOST important thing? There are many important things in this world and, surely, at least one of them has a greater impact on us than what we think about God… right?!
At the penning of this devotional, it’s been 37 years since I first read these words in my Bible College Dorm; Tozer’s pin stands resolute in my heart and mind. Many metaphorical bowling balls have struck it hard, but it has proven immovably true. I haven’t even come up with a single serious challenger.
What You Think About God is The Most Important Thing About You.
Over the decades, I have sused out what I believe to be the three most important questions of life, questions whose answers lay the foundation for one’s entire worldview. The first of these is, however, just a reframing of Tozer’s statement as a question. They are, “Where do you come from?” “What’s wrong with the world?” & “How can it be fixed?” “Where do we come from” is a question about God and the nature of our existence in His world.
In 1 Kings 18, we have a popular story in which the great prophet of Yahweh,[5] Elijah, challenges the priests of the storm god Baal to a contest of deity—lighting a sacrifice with divine fire. The winner of the competition will prove true god. In verse 21, Elijah makes the famous announcement, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If Yahweh is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.”
The wording here seems slight to the English ear—A wavering between two opinions as if Yahweh or Baal is chocolate or vanilla, Coke or Pepsi, Daniel Craig or Sean Connery. Choose! This couldn’t be further from reality.
The nature of the contest between these two gods is a contest between two worldviews, a contest between two radically different perceptions of the very essence of reality, the nature of time, human potential, the character of law and order, and the future of the human soul. No aspect of life is left untouched by it. It speaks to morality and ethics, reason and philosophy, purpose and meaning.
If Baal is god, then the entire system of paganism is true, humanity has no meaning, time is taking the world nowhere, the individual came from nothing and is going to nothing and nothing that he or she does in the interim has any real purpose other than the continuation of a meaningless species and the stupefying quenching of the anxiety born of this reality. If Baal is god, then outcomes are not primarily decided by moral and ethical choices, but rather by the tenuous, self-interested ritual manipulation of “gods” whose own short-sighted, petulant, ego-maniacal antics make life a perpetual torment for humanity… and intentionally so. If Baal is god, then humans are on their own in a universe without meaning.
By the way, if the Atheists are right, then most of this is true as well… no purpose… no meaning. Without God there are no ethics or morals worthy of the name. Nothing that you or anyone else in the whole humanity ever done has any significance.
If Yahweh is God, however, then everything is different… EEEVERYTHING!!!!!!
If Yahweh is God then we have purpose and mission in a world with a beginning, an end, and a purpose in that journey. If Yahweh is God, we are destined to meet our Maker in eternity for good or ill. If Yahweh is God there is an everlasting moral and ethical structure against which we will be judged in that meeting. If Yahweh is God, then His revealed character is that moral framework. If Yahweh is God then He has, as He promised, provided a way of escape from that judgment through His own incarnate work in Jesus the Christ. If Yahweh is God then there are paths of life and death, reward and punishment, blessing and cursing woven into the fabric of reality. If Yahweh is God, then His Word is dependable, we are not abandoned to our own devices, truth exists. If Yahweh is God then it is our duty to wake up to Him, to both find and walk in His right paths, and to instruct others in the way as well.
This book is designed to help you on your way to addressing what you think about when you think about God. We hope you find the journey rewarding.
~Dr. Andrew D. Sargent, Ph.D.
[1] He did not mean this as a compliment about some perceived spiritual gifting. He meant that he thought I was a “Jerk” who thought that everyone should take Christian obedience seriously… so, I’m guilty, I guess.
[2] To give him the benefit of the doubt, I think what really happened was that Tozer so contradicted my “friend’s” perception of God that he had to either change his whole life or scorn the book and Tozer as worthless. That’s not much of a benefit in the doubt, but at least he would escape the charge of being an idiot.
[3] A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (New York: Harper Collins, 1961) pg. 1.
[4] Wait… maybe that is what my misguided friend meant when calling me “a prophet type”?
[5] Yahweh is what God gives as His covenant name to Moses in Exodus 3. As spelled, it means, “The Creator,” “He who causes everything to be.”
