If you have never read the book The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer, I cannot more highly suggest it. It has been one of my favorites for a few years now and I just recently went back to it as a reference for a series on seeking intimacy with God for the youth group. While I normally would not make excessive quotations here from any book other that the Scripture, this one in particular struck me today:
"All the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us together and at once, would be nothing compared to the overwhelming problem of God: that He is; what He is like; and what we as moral beings must do about Him.
The man who comes to a right belief about God is relieved of ten thousand temporal problems, for he sees at once that these have to do with matters which at the most cannot concern him for very long; but even if the multitude burdens of time may be lifted from him, the one mighty single burden of eternity begins to press down upon him with a weight more crushing than all the woes of the world piled one upon another. That mighty burden is his obligation to God." (Taken from A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy. Harper Collins Publishing, 1961.)
I love this quote. The context surrounding it is equally profound and challenging, its truth keen and far-reaching. God's reality is a terrifying thing for all humans, as it is a weight of existence and of morality that we cannot escape. Thus the Gospel is Good News to those who would fall upon it in faith. For it is the Gospel received by faith that permits us forgiven access by grace into the holy presence of God Himself without the crushing heaviness of our moral failures. This is the beautiful problem of God!
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