Living with Tozer's God

BlogPost #5: Living with Tozer's God

"This is the covenant that I will make...after those days, I will be their God, and they

shall be my people...for ALL will KNOW ME.” Heb 8:10-11

Who would you most like to know?

In our initial blog posts, we have talked about the potential, first, of 'knowing God' and the awesome revelation that would result, and second, the equally amazing fact that this awesome God obviously desires to be known...by us! Today we need to ask the obvious question: Do we really want to know God? Do we want that kind of personal relationship with Him? What would that mean? What would that be like? If we can escape for just a while from our little microcosmic (i.e self-focused) worldview, the answer to that question could revolutionize our lives!

What does it mean to 'know God'? Rather than getting mired in sometimes murky theological concepts, let's keep it simple and practical and ask the question this way, 'How do you 'know' anyone'? I've often found it amazingly fruitful to just look at scripture and ask questions the way I normally would to determine the meaning of any other statement.The vast majority of the time, the intended meaning is the normal meaning we use every day. This would make sense since the Bible (especially the New Testament) was written in the common language of the people trading in the streets all over the Roman Empire. If the Bible was written for all the people, then it only stands that it must be able to be understood by anyone, from peasant to king. 'Keeping it simple' has great merit in this context.

So, how do you 'know' anyone? There are many ways...and these lead to very different levels of 'knowledge' in personal relationships. How do you know anyone? Words. Actions. Reactions. Interactions (do you see the common element?). In a word, experience. Normally, this implies contact, the variable is how close (i.e. intimate) is the contact.

Personal knowledge has different levels of depth. I can know facts about someone. For instance, I could read a 'bio' of my son's basketball coach. You could call this the 'internet' or magazine level of knowledge. Factual, but not very personal. Even better, I can watch him 'in action' and see how he acts and reacts with my son and others. This is a deeper level of knowledge since it's first-hand. It's also spontaneous, not a 'controlled' situation. It's real and personal, but still not what you'd consider 'close', much less intimate.

Best of all (if I really want to know someone intimately), would be to experience all of this in the context of their personal dealings with me. For example, if I were the assistant coach or had some function where I had daily interactions with the coach and was involved in making team decisions, setting team goals and objectives, developing game strategy, etc., this would give me a lot of 'experiential' knowledge of who the Coach really is.Combining all three levels of experience, I might be able to say I really 'know' him.

You get the idea. Intimacy demands more than facts or 'objective truth', it demands experience. Now let's apply this in a little more fun way.

Who Would You Most Like to Know?

Let's make it a little more 'real' and practical. Who would you like to know? If there were no obstacles and you could choose three special people to have a close personal relationship with, whom would you choose? For our purposes here, let's exclude family from the options... and also the Lord Jesus (since knowing Him is kind of the purpose of this whole exercise!). Stop a moment and think of three people you would like to know personally. How would you go about it? You should also ask yourself 'why' you would want to know them. It will help clarify your choice. These people can be contemporary folks or historical figures.
[Note: This little exercise could really help your pursuit of intimacy with God! You'll begin to think about 'knowing God' in different way if you do this.]

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If there were no obstacles and you could choose three special people

to have a close personal relationship with, whom would you choose?

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Let me interject here something that may be obvious to some, but not to others. You don't usually hear people talk about wanting to 'know God' like you would any other person. If He wanted us to relate to Him differently than we realte to other people, He would have created us differently!

The truth is, most folks don't have a clue how to go about getting to 'know God'. That's the point of this exercise. Think about knowing God like you would anyone else. Otherwise, the experience may always be a mystery and will likely never satisfy you or worse, you give up trying.

So, what three would you choose? Some would choose the Apostle Paul or Hudson Taylor or Billy Graham. Some might choose Einstein or Edison or some great computer whiz. Those more sports-oriented might choose Michael Jordan or Bobby Jones or Lou Gehrig. The more literary-oriented might want to know George Eliot or Dante or Tom Clancy. What about Oprah? Obviously, there's lots of choices. What are your choices? [Write them down.]  Now ask yourself 'why'?

Why would you want to know them? What motivated your choice? Did you just want to know what made them 'tick'? What motivated them? To find out how they did what they did? Did you want to learn something from them that you could use to become like them? Did you already admire them for some reason?

Most serious people will choose someone they admire, first, then possibly someone they perceive as having something special in their lives, whether it's some particular knowledge they have or some special skill they've mastered. Whether they realize it or not, what they often want is to become a disciple of that person. They see real value in that person's life...and they would love to have that 'value' incorporated into their lives. In it's simplest form, this is what true Christian discipleship is supposed to look like. So this is relevant.

This post is going to be too long and we don't want to make it laborious. Next week we'll finish the application. But we encourage you to think through this little exercise. It's really a different way of thinking...and makes the whole idea of seeking to know God a lot more practical. It's important to remember that HE created us in a way that would allow us to know Him (Adam had no problem!). Having fallen into sin changes how we think about Him, not the process of actually knowing Him. Sometimes, we tend to 'spiritualize' things to the point that there's no way they can fit into our daily lives and be of any practical use. God wants to be known!

Also...if you want to make it really interesting, ask your spouse what three people they would choose to meet. Then ask your children. And don't forget to ask 'why' they would choose these three. Their answers could make for some very interesting, not to mention revealing, conversations!

Until next time....