- Thoughts from Tozer

So I'm going to start out with a post on a thought about my spiritual walk. I've been re reading Tozer's Pursuit of God for about the 5th time.



So here it goes.



I believe that I can make a solid argument that there are three dimensions of growth. These include knowing, loving and experiencing God, knowing, loving and experiencing self (the redeemed) and finally knowing, loving and experiencing others. So in summary, the vertical relationship with God, the horizontal relationship with others and the singleton of relationship with self. The first two are an easy sell and the third is a bit more indirect. When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment is, he said the first is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. The second is to love others as you would like to be loved yourself which I would say is obviously about loving others but their is an implied healthy loving of self...note I'm not talking about selfish hedonism.



With that said I'll get to the point. I believe that a negative of technology and the availability of knowledge we are running into a new problem. The new problem is a form of intellectual gluttony. So I would say the following:



When our knowledge of God exceeds our submission to God, these three facets of growth are impacted negatively.



1. In relation to self: I have become gluttonous, where gluttony is defined as using something that God designed to be used in balanced moderation is rather consumed in excess with an adverse affect.



2. In relation to others: I have become a hypocrite, where hypocrisy is defined as knowing and telling others what to do but not doing it myself. And hypocrisy is one of those labels that most damages a cause. It is widely accepted that if I can prove someone a hypocrite that it is quite acceptable to discount that person's knowledge as impractical. A real shame when it comes to being a witness to others regarding the Christian endeavor.



3. In relation to God: I have discounted grace and counted Christ's work as incomplete. To pursue more knowledge then I have submisson to means that I have manufactured a standard of knowledge that neither Christ or grace have supplied. Thus I create an unneccessary and self empowering rather than God fulfilling standard for my own achieving maturity and qualifying.



So there it is.



In Brief: When knowledge exceeds submission I become gluttonous to myself, a hypocrite to others and to God I discount Christ.





Feedback?