I've been reading AW Tozer's God's Pursuit of Man, and have been pleasantly though uncomfortably surprised. I expected a dry classic, and in fact I confess that I bought it because it was a dry classic. I thought only of increasing my doctrinal knowledge, but have now been challenged to seek a knowledge of God - a spiritual knowledge that Tozer asserts cannot be known without the Holy Spirit.
A spiritual knowledge? Tozer is right when he says that the conservative church has become fearful of an emphasis on the Holy Spirit. I certainly am, and it took a 'dry classic' to lure me into a contemplation of what it really means to be imbued with the Holy Spirit.
I have a niggling feeling that I am not. And if it is true that I am not, then it is certain that I cannot really know God,
11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. (1 Corinthians 2:11-13)
This could be the reason I constantly fall into 'dry spells', periods of apathy and a lack of active faith bordering on unbelief. This could be why I am unable to understand those who have an emotional relationship with God, why I am so skeptical of phrases like "God told me to...". It could also be the reason behind my continual slavery to sin.
Are Christians supposed to be powerless?
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