OUR RICHEST TREASURE: INNER KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

    By A. W. Tozer

    . . .Ye have dwell long enough in this mount:. . .Behold,
    I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land. . . .
                                                            -
    -   Deuteronomy 1:6, 8

        Large  numbers  of supposedly sound  Christian believers
    know nothing at all about personal communion with God;
    and there lies one of the greatest weaknesses of present-day
    Christianity!

        The experiential knowledge of God is eternal life (John 17:3),
    and increased knowledge results in a correspondingly larger and
    fuller life. So rich a treasure is  this  inward  knowledge  of  God
    that  every  other treasure is as nothing compared with it!

   We may count all things of no value and sacrifice them freely
   if we may thereby gain a more perfect knowledge of God through
   Jesus Christ our Lord. /This was Paul's testimony (Phil. 3:7-14) and
    it has been the testimony of all great Christian souls who have
    followed Christ from Paul's day to ours.

        To know God it is necessary that we be like God to some degree,
    for things wholly dissimilar cannot agree, and beings wholly unlike
    can never have communion with each other. It is necessary
   therefore that we use every means of grace to bring our souls into
   harmony with the character of God.

        As we move farther up into the knowledge of Christ we open
    new areas of our beings to attack, but what of it? Remember that
    spiritual complacency is more deadly than anything the devil can
    bring against us in our upward struggle. If we sit still to escape
    temptation, then we are being tempted worse than before and
    gaining nothing by it.

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    Yours in Christ,
    Paul N. F.