Tozer on Sin

Aiden W Tozer wrote often about the need to press beyond an intellectual understanding of Christian theology and doctrine into a real experience of and relationship with God. In his day he saw an emphasis on such intellectual understanding at the expense of really knowing God. I think that in many circles the situation has reversed itself in our day - we crave experience and minimize theology and doctrine. This is equally dangerous. One place this problem manifests itself is in our response to sin. When we don't grasp the personal nature of our relationship with God it is easy to think of sin in merely legal terms, something that must be tolerated or dealt with according to certain procedures. Likewise, if our focus is entirely on a content-less experience of Christ, we may not have a high view of the holiness of God and of His wrath against sin. We may simply say, "Sorry," as if we just bumped into Him in the hall. Sin is very serious business. Tozer reminds us, however,

"Regardless of what men may say, we are still face to face with the sin question, and no man who has neglected to deal with his sins can even remotely understand the question of the deity of Christ and the mystery of the Godhead. Until the sinner has been brought before the bar of God and convicted of personal guilt, any notions he may have about Christ are bound to be academic, nothing more, and wholly unrelated to life. One deadly result of our failure to face up to the fact of sin is the widespread moral insensitivity which characterizes Christians these days... The nerve has died in the Christian conscience and the sin that would have driven our Christian fathers to their knees in a paroxysm of repentance leaves us almost untouched."

How do you think about sin? How do you respond to sin in your own life? Do you take it as seriously as God does? What would change if we did?