9 More Quotes From “The Wisdom Of God”

The Wisdom Of God is a collection of never-before-published sermons from A.W. Tozer, in which he makes the case that true Wisdom is a Person to be known not a quality to be gained. 

“Wisdom and power cannot be separated from the Cross. If we do not obey, we blind ourselves, and we become dependent upon our own intellect, which will be in no way sufficient to teach others.” 

“Today, Christians need to learn how to worship, and instead of having all this religious claptrap and modern entertainment to hold people together, have the fire of God and the presence of the Holy Spirit, which, by the way, will be enough.” 

“The one thing God has to offer us and the only thing we absolutely need is His wisdom. Flowing from that wisdom is the solution to all the problems that we could ever face. To know the wisdom of God in its fullness is to experience life as God intended it to be.” 

“Our relationship with God must be based upon God’s ways and not our ways.” 

“To fear God, out of which flows wisdom, is to submit myself to God unconditionally and without any personal agenda. When I come to God as He invites me to come, I will have what God intends for me to have.” 

“This effusion of superior wisdom is a gift imparted by God in addition to the gift of wisdom that He gives the birds so they know to fly south and that which He gives man to invent a spaceship or an electric light. This effusion of superior wisdom is something you either have or you don’t. It does not come gradually to anyone. So a man is either born or he is not. He is either born-again or he has not been born again; he cannot come into that gradually. The doctrine of gradualness is from the devil to keep the church of Christ from going forward.” 

“For wisdom dwells with God and He pours her out upon all His works in the degree they are able to absorb it, and the wisest man is the one who turns to the Lord in repentance and faith.” 

“Christ is that ancient, most excellent wisdom incarnated in our nature and making atonement for all our moral infamy. Any emphasis that makes sin less infamous than that is not biblical. Any interpretation of grace and mercy that allows sin to appear even reasonably excusable in the eyes of God is not a proper interpretation. Any doctrine, any view of sin that allows it to be excused in anyway is not biblical. It is not God’s way of looking at it, for God looks at sin as alienation. … God sent His only Son to make atonement for our infamy and saves those that turn to the wisdom of the just through repentance.” 

“We Christians are a strange crowd. We make a more of the invisible than the visible. We talk constantly to Someone we cannot see. We act as if thing were real that people do not believe are real and waive aside things that some people attach great value to. We sing about a Man who was rejected and crucified, and we say, ‘We find the yoke easy.’” 

You can read my review of The Wisdom Of God by clicking here. And be sure to check out some other quotes from this book here. 

Saturday In The Proverbs—Nourishing (Proverbs 13)

[Each chapter in the Book of Proverbs contains thoughts that fit into a theme; they are not just random thoughts gathered together. In this “Saturday In The Proverbs” series, I will share a theme that I see in each chapter. But the cool thing about God’s Word is that you may see an entirely different theme. That’s great! If you do, I would love for you to share it in the comments below.]

A man shall eat well by the fruit of his mouth … The righteous eats to the satisfying of his soul… (Proverbs 13:2, 25).

God’s wisdom never leaves us flat. Never leaves us with a bad taste in our mouth. Never leaves us unsatisfied. Never leaves us without all that we need. 

God’s wisdom…

  • instructs (v. 1) 
  • satisfies the soul (vv. 2, 12, 25)
  • preserves life (vv. 3, 14)
  • brings real riches (vv. 4, 7, 11)
  • promotes (v. 5) 
  • guards (vv. 6, 8)
  • leaves a legacy (vv. 9, 22, 24)
  • increases peace (v. 10)
  • rewards (v. 13) 
  • brings favor (vv. 15, 18)
  • grows knowledge (v. 16)
  • preserves health (v. 17) 
  • gets things down (v. 19) 
  • gains even more wisdom (v. 20) 
  • repays good (v. 21)
  • wastes nothing (v. 23) 

Wow! How nourishing God’s Wisdom is! 

Saturday In The Proverbs—Deliverance (and other blessings) (Proverbs 11)

[Each chapter in the Book of Proverbs contains thoughts that fit into a theme; they are not just random thoughts gathered together. In this “Saturday In The Proverbs” series, I will share a theme that I see in each chapter. But the cool thing about God’s Word is that you may see an entirely different theme. That’s great! If you do, I would love for you to share it in the comments below.]

…delivers… (Proverbs 11).

Following God’s wisdom delivers people from a world of hurt—even an eternity (literally!) of suffering. 

Those who follow God’s wisdom are delivered from:

  • the second death 
  • lust that derails 
  • troubles that usually send people tumbling
  • hypocrisy’s fallout
  • God’s punishment 

Other blessings that come when we follow God’s wisdom includes: 

  • guidance 
  • direction
  • blessing your city
  • safety from poor decisions 
  • security and freedom
  • honor
  • soul health
  • sure rewards
  • eternal life
  • God’s delighting in you
  • great return on investments
  • blessing others
  • blessing from others
  • favor
  • flourishing
  • leadership
  • soul winning
  • God’s ultimate rewards 

WOW—who wouldn’t want that list of blessings?!

10 Prayers From A.W. Tozer In “The Wisdom Of God”

A.W. Tozer’s book The Wisdom Of God is a call to see Wisdom as a Person, not as a quality. As such, Tozer opens each chapter with a short prayer that we would bolster our relationship with Wisdom. Here are a few phrases from those prayers. 

“Let me not succumb to the limitations of my own reasoning and knowledge but leap beyond that and stepped into the reality of Thy Holy presence. Amen.” 

“Pour into my soul that which will enable me to see Thee as Thou wouldst have me to see Thee.” 

“O Wisdom, the incarnate Christ, fill my heart with desires that please Thee and show to the world around me Thy amazing grace.” 

“O God, Thou Eternal Wisdom, may I embrace that which You have created me for, and may out of my life flow the thanks and praise You so desire. Let me live my life by the wisdom of Thy Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.” 

“May Thy wisdom flow into me and out to the world around me, creating in me a vessel for Thy glory.” 

“O Holy Spirit, I praise Thee through the divine wisdom that Thou hast poured into my life, enabling me to understand who I am and who Thou art and how we come together.” 

“Let me not stay my heart till I have discovered Thee in all Thy fullness.” 

“Manifest Thy grace and wisdom in my life today as a witness to those around me.” 

“O Lord God, Thy wisdom has been poured into my heart, creating such a longing for Thee that nothing in this world can satisfy.” 

“Heavenly Father, open my eyes to recognize Thy hand in my life. … May I be aware of my surroundings in light of what Thou art doing.” 

You can check out my full book review of The Wisdom Of God by clicking here. And be sure to read some of the quotes I shared from this book by clicking here.

7 Quotes From “The Wisdom Of God”

A.W. Tozer never pulls his punches! The Wisdom Of God is no different as he calls the corporate church and individual Christians back to the biblical understanding of God’s wisdom. Check out my full book review by clicking here. 

“What would wisdom and spiritual understanding, for example, make out of man? Would the man filled with wisdom and spiritual understanding write cheap poetry? I would certainly hope not. What then does he do? Walk around in a brown robe and pull loose from the world, hiding in a cloister or an ivory tower? Absolutely not.

“What is the purpose then of this baptism of the ancient wisdom of God into the heart of a man? The old wisdom man said it was to make a man a friend of God. Paul said, ‘That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness’ (Colossians 1:10-11). This is the practical meaning of this infusion of divine wisdom into the man walking with God.” 

“The purpose of God in Redemption is not just to save us from hell. The purpose of God in redemption is to save us unto heaven. To be totally saved, He has to save us from something in order to save us unto something. We are saved from sin, which is the negative side. We are saved unto holiness, which is the positive side. We are saved from hell, but we are saved unto heaven. We are saved from the devil, but we are saved unto Christ.” 

“When we deal with our sin, repent, and the Lord has taken our sin away, we are as wise as the angels and as discrete and as knowing as the seraphs before the throne, for we have an afflatus of that wisdom.” 

“In our day, we have degraded Christianity to be a kind of soft vaccine against hell and sin. We gather people, stick them with a religious needle, and say, ‘If you just accept Jesus you will not go to hell, you will go to heaven when you die. Keep living as well as you can, and when you die you’ll go to heaven.’ Many are preaching what I refer to as a kind of lifeboat salvation, and even the songs today reflected that idea.

“Certainly, this is an inadequate concept of Christianity. The purpose of God in redeeming man was not to save them from hell only, but to save them to worship, and to allow them to be born into that eternal wisdom that was with the Father, which is synonymous with that eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed unto men.” 

“You can promote religion without divine wisdom and power. You can promote your denomination. You can promote and build up your church numerically and financially, but in these ways, you cannot promote true Christianity.” 

“The evangelical church waivers today because it has burst out in two directions: One, in the direction of entertainment and pleasure for the like-minded ones. The other, in the direction of scholarship for the serious-minded. This is the new evangelicalism of today. An effort to do by scholarship what can only be done by wisdom and power. It is a glass eye trying to see.” 

“What I am praying for is that God Almighty would come upon this generation of Christians and make them dissatisfied with the cold, humanistic, intellectual evangelicalism of our time, and make us so thirsty for an afflatus of divine wisdom and power that they press through and receive that baptism.” 

The Wisdom Of God (book review)

A.W. Tozer takes us deep into the classic Hebrew understanding of Wisdom in this never-before-published collection of sermons entitled The Wisdom Of God. 

Rev. James L. Snyder has done the maturing Christian a great service in compiling these Tozer sermons into this powerful collection. Most people think of wisdom as an attribute of God, but the Hebrews understood Wisdom to be the Person of God. Wisdom isn’t just something you gain; it’s Someone you get to know more and more intimately. 

In his introduction, Rev. Snyder writes, “‘There are known knowns—things we know we know,’ Donald Rumsfeld once famously said. And there are known unknowns—things we do not know. ‘But there are also unknown unknowns,’ the former U.S. Secretary of Defense added, ‘the ones we don’t know we don’t know.’ Dr. Tozer would have said Amen to that most enthusiastically. As soon a person admits he does not know everything, he is in a position to learn something. What many people do not understand is that the unknown unknowns can and do sabotage lives.”

Dr. Tozer helps us realize these unknown unknowns about Wisdom, not only to keep us from sabotaging our lives but also so that we can soar into the fullness of an intimate relationship with Wisdom. Digging deep into the Hebraic wisdom literature, Dr. Tozer will help you see Wisdom in a light you may have never realized before. 

For any Christian who wants to go deeper into their relationship with God, The Wisdom Of God is a welcomed collection. 

I am a Bethany House book reviewer. 

Saturday In The Proverbs—Get It? Got It! Good! (Proverbs 4)

[Each chapter in the Book of Proverbs contains thoughts that fit into a theme; they are not just random thoughts gathered together. In this “Saturday In The Proverbs” series, I will share a theme that I see in each chapter. But the cool thing about God’s Word is that you may see an entirely different theme. That’s great! If you do, I would love for you to share it in the comments below.]

Get wisdom! Get understanding! … Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding (Proverbs 4:5, 7).

There are many things we can pursue in life—perpetual youth, a perfect mate, financial security, social status, political power. But Solomon says none of those things are worth our pursuit.

Wisdom and understanding from God’s Word are worth the getting! They bring meaning to life along with:

  • Promotion
  • Honor
  • Grace
  • Freedom from entanglements
  • Avoidance of evil
  • A clear path forward
  • Purity
  • Diligence

If you are going to get anything, get what God’s got.

Get it?
Got it!
Good!

Saturday In The Proverbs—If … Then (Proverbs 2)

[Each chapter in the Book of Proverbs contains thoughts that fit into a theme; they are not just random thoughts gathered together. In this “Saturday In The Proverbs” series, I will share a theme that I see in each chapter. But the cool thing about God’s Word is that you may see an entirely different theme. That’s great! If you do, I would love for you to share it in the comments below.]

…if you will receive My words… (Proverbs 2:1).

Some people find this hard to fathom, but it’s an undeniable truth—God wants to bless you!

But His blessings will only come in His ways. You cannot do what you want to do and expect God to bless that behavior. Proverbs 2 tells us that IF we will do what God asks, THEN God will pour out His blessings.

IF

  • receive God’s Word
  • treasure His commands
  • incline your ear to His wisdom
  • apply God’s understanding to your life
  • cry out for God’s discernment
  • lift up your voice for God’s understanding
  • seek God’s wisdom
  • search for God like it’s treasure

THEN

  • you will understand the fear of the Lord
  • you will find God’s knowledge
  • you will gain God’s understanding
  • you will have God’s protection
  • you will understand God’s righteousness and justice
  • you will be preserved by discretion
  • you will be saved by understanding
  • you will be delivered from evil
  • you will be kept from immorality

If I will do what God says, then God opens His storehouse of invaluable treasures!

7 Quotes From “The Pastor In Prayer”

In The Pastor In Prayer we discover that Charles Spurgeon is not only the prince of preachers, but the prince of pray-ers as well. Check out my review of this fabulous book by clicking here.

“Thy grace must give us even to know our need of grace. We are not willing to confess our own sinfulness until Thou dost show it to us. Though it stares us in the face our pride denies it, and our own inability is unperceived by us. We steal Thy power and call it our own till Thou dost compel us to say that we have no strength in ourselves.”

“Thy grace has almost out-graced itself, Thy love has reached its height love to rebels; so to love that even Thy Son could not be spared. O God, we are afflicted in our hearts to think we do not love Thee more after such love as this.”

“O God, we beseech Thee bring men away from all their false trusts to rest in the great sacrifice of Thy dear Son.”

“Oh that we might live so near to the great Shepherd as to be familiar with His voice, to know its tones, that so a stranger we may not follow, for we know not the voice of strangers.”

“Thou art good when Thou givest, and Thou art good when Thou takest away. Thou art good when the night gathers heavy about us. Thou art good when the sun shineth and gladdeneth our pathway. Thou art always good and doest good, and blessed be the name of the Lord from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof, and through the night watches let His praise be still celebrated.”

“And truly since we have received so many mercies at Thy hand, we do feel that Thou wilt never forsake us in any darkness which may be in our path in the future. Thou hast done too much for us to desert us now. We have cost Thee so much—Oh wondrous price that Thou hast paid for us—and Thou hast spent so much of wise thought, and gracious act upon us, that we are persuaded Thou wilt go through with the work which Thy wisdom has undertaken. But give us faith to believe this when the stormy times come, let us not doubt.”

“Lord, while we work for Thee, always keep us sitting at the feet of Jesus. Let our faith never wander away from the simplicity of its confidence in Him. Let our motive never be anything but His glory; may our hearts be taken up with His love, and our thoughts perpetually engaged about His person.”

15 More Quotes From “Run Today’s Race”

Oswald Chambers’ book Run Today’s Race was originally published as a thought-a-day calendar. Here are a few more short, thought-provoking quotes.

“When we say ‘Thy will be done,’ do we say it with a sigh? If so, we have never realized that the character of God is holy love; nothing can ever happen outside His purposeful will.”

“‘Why does God bring thunderclouds and disasters when we want to green pastures and still waters?’ Bit by bit we find, behind the clouds, the Father’s feet; behind the lightning, an abiding day that has no night; behind the thunder, ‘a still small voice’ that comforts with a comfort that is unspeakable.”

“Beware of interpreting Scripture in order to make it suit a pre-arranged doctrine of your own.”

“The New Testament view of a Christian is that he is one in whom the Son of God has been revealed, and prayer deals with the nourishment of that life.”

“In order to be able to wield the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, we must obey, and it takes a courageous heart to obey.”

“The Bible talks plentifully about joy, but it nowhere talks about a ‘happy Christian.’ Happiness depends on what happens; joy does not. Remember, Jesus Christ had joy, and He prays ‘that they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves.’”

“If God has made your cup sweet, drink it with grace; if He has made it better, drink it in communion with Him.”

“We must distinguish between the burden-bearing that is right and the burden-bearing that is wrong. We ought never to bear the burden of sin or doubt, but there our burdens placed on us by God which He does not intend to lift off. He wants us to roll them back on Him.”

“The reason we know so little about God’s wisdom is that we will only trust Him as far as we can work things out according to our own reasonable common sense.”

“Take time, strangle some other interests and make time to realize that the center of power in your life is the Lord Jesus Christ and His Atonement.”

“The essence of Christianity is that we give the Son of God a chance to live and move and have His being in us.”

“God rarely rebukes us for our impulsive plans because those plans work their own distress.”

“God will never begin to teach me His will in other matters until I do what I know.”

“‘Ye are the light of the world.’ We have the idea that we are going to shine in heaven, but we are to shine down here ‘in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation’ (Philippians 2:15). We are to shine as lights in the world in the squalid places, and it cannot be done by putting on a brazen smile, the light must be there all the time.”

“Have you ever noticed what Jesus said would choke the Word He puts in? The devil? No, the cares of this world. It is the little worries always. … All our fret and worry is caused by calculating without God.”

Please check out my full book review of Run Today’s Race by clicking here, and the first set of quotes I posted from this book is here.