If you have to be reasoned into Christianity, some wise fellow can reason you out of it! If you come to Christ by a flash of the Holy Spirit so that by intuition you know that you are God’s child, you know it by the text but you also know it by the inner light, the inner illumination of the Spirit, and no one can ever reason you out of it.
– A.W. Tozer
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I really like this!
This attitude is what is responsible for the marginalization of Christianity in the public square.
One might have thought that it takes reason to figure out which “flashes” are the Holy Spirit and which are just warm and fuzzy feelings…. it’s trusting the warm and fuzzy feelings, without using any reason at all, that makes people do some pretty crazy things. It’s also downright not scriptural. What *feels* true to us will almost certainly just be whatever we were told as children–and that includes all the children that are not raised to be Christian. Reason is the only way to know which feelings and intuitions are good (or godly) ones.
@Wintery Knight (I love your blog, BTW) & concerned,
I for one believe that faith and reason go hand in hand, but one can intellectually agree 100% with Christianity, but if, at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, they refuse to acknowledge their sin and admit their need for a Savior, then all the reason in the world will not bring them into a right relationship with God through Christ.
Greg
Divine forgiveness and a Holy Spirit encounter are not based on how you are raised. God gives us all a gift of faith to use or not to use. When it’s used, it is God, for the first time cleansing me from all my unrighteousness and coming to LIVE IN ME. That, for me, was no mere “warm fuzzy feeling”. It was an astounding and wonderful miracle that took place. An eternal thing that no man can reason me out of, hallelujah!
But blessed are those who were raised in the faith and have witnessed the Word proved over and over to them in the faithful walk of their parents.