“Father I want to obey you, but I struggle to find the power to obey”, or some variation of this prayer, has been prayed at one time or another by every single authentic follower of Christ. Some of us have been Christians for most of our lives, yet the process of spiritual transformation remians a mystery to us. I hope the series of articles that follow will help others discover the richness of the intimate Knowledge of God, as well as how Scripture teaches us to pursue it.
My conversion to Christianity was sudden and miraculous. I went from smoking pot and drinking all night to reading the Scriptures and praying all night. I basically became a monk for the first year. I worked, I ate, I slept, but mostly I pursued God with everything I could muster. I changed all my playmates and all my playgrounds. I forsook the world and found in the body of Christ new friends, a new family, and a new home. But, and I hate adding this but, but, I became a jerk for Jesus. I gained more doctrinal knowledge in a short period of time than most people gain in a lifetime. I loved theology. I read good theologians and godly men. I seemed to have a gift to understand it. But I became swollen in pride, because “knowledge puffs up.” My knowledge about God had outpaced my intimate knowledge of Him as person. One evening, as I was praying a very pharisaical prayer over somebody else, God pulled back the veil of my heart and gave me just a glimpse of the pride and darkness that dwelt there. I was devastated. I could not believe I was so unlike Jesus, and that there had been so little actual transformation. But that night began the real journey for me. From that night on I rarely ever (I wish I could say never) saw myself as a man who knows, but I became one that is in pursuit of the intimate knowledge of God. For He is so boundless that after an eternity to pursue Him, there will always be more to discover, for He is infinite.
“There is in the awful and mysterious depths of the Triune God neither limit nor end. ‘Shoreless ocean, who can sound Thee? Thine own eternity is round Thee, Majesty divine’”
A. W. Tozer
