Delighting in God by A.W. Tozer is a great followup to The Knowledge of the Holy which I reviewed here. This book is packed full of Scripture and theology that drives the reader back to the heart of the gospel. I love how Tozer includes timeless hymns of the faith throughout the book. I will definitely reread this book and consider it a valuable resource for both the study of God’s Word as well as planning and preparation for worship.
I highlighted several things while reading and have posted those notes below…
- God gave us a mind and expects us to use it, especially in the area of knowing Him.
- Reason by its very nature is limited and therefore cannot help us in our pursuit of the unlimited God. Reason may bring us to the door, but only faith can unlock the door that we may go into the presence of God. Faith is not unreasonable; it just operates above the reach of reason. Faith enables us to jump from one point on earth into the very heart of God.
- The most natural thing following conversion is an insatiable desire to know God, which needs to be nourished with the deep things of God.
- I desire to know God in all the beauty of the divine unfolding.
- Even to talk about God requires a capacity beyond human ability.
- What the Holy Spirit does not reveal to us is not worth knowing.
- One hour in the presence of the majesty of God is worth more to you now and in eternity than all the preachers, including me, who have ever stood up to open their Bibles.
- The thing that I have discovered is simply this: The more I experience God, the more my capacity to experience God grows. Each day as I walk with God and allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to me who God really is, the more my capacity grows in worshiping and adoring this God.
- It is one thing to have a lot of information about God, but it is another thing to bask in the warmth and reality of His presence.
- The Athanasian Creed says that “Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; God, of the Essence of the Father; begotten before the worlds; and Man, of the Essence of his Mother, born in the world. Perfect God; and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father as touching his Manhood. Who although he is God and Man; yet he is not two, but one Christ.” This is the Christ we adore, and we must have knowledge of this; that is, we must have the Christ of Christian theology.
- Our attachment to the person of Christ must exclude everything that is contrary to Christ.
- My perception of God is the foundation of my understanding of everything else. Once I know who God is and that He is the Creator and Redeemer, I begin to look at things quite differently.
- As we move toward God, all things become more beautiful, and as we move away from God, they become uglier. This is why theology is a beautiful thing. Theology is simply the study of God. It is the mind reasoning about God. It is the mind kneeling before God in meditative worship of God.
- Heaven is not the best the world has to offer. Heaven is the best God has to offer.
- If we only understood what hell was all about, we would become the fieriest evangelists of our time.
- Whatever in my life is unlike God and contrary to the holiness of God must be eliminated from my life.
- If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:1-3 ESV
- If God were just a big God, He would be so big He would scare us, but He would be too little for us to worship.
- Until we come to that point of understanding what wretches we are, we will never understand the amazing grace of God.
- Simply try to compare God’s grace with our needs. No matter what our need is, it does not measure against the amazing grace of God. God was always a gracious God, but until sin came into the world, it was never manifested and nobody knew it.
- God will never be any less merciful than He is now, because being infinite, He cannot cease to be infinite, and being perfect, He cannot have any imperfection. So the mercy of God is what God is, because God is who He is.
- “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever” Psalm 23:6
- Our hope is in the fact that this is our Father’s world, and He has this world’s best interest in mind that will stand throughout all eternity.