That Incredible Christian by AW Tozer

Ch 14 How to Avoid Serious Error: It is critically important that the Christian take full advantage of every provision God has made to save him from delusion. These are prayer, faith, constant meditation on Scripture, obedience, humility, hard, serious thought and the illumination of the Holy Spirit.
1. Prayer … “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and unbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1:5); “Men ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1).
2. The apostle Paul calls faith a shield. The man of faith can walk at ease, protected by his simple confidence in God. God loves to be trusted, and He puts all heaven at the disposal of the trusting soul. Faith is confidence in God’s self-revelation as found in the Holy Scriptures.
3. “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). The Scriptures purify, instruct, strengthen, enlighten and inform. The blessed man will meditate in them day and night.
4. To be entirely safe from the devil’s snares the man of God must be completely obedient to the Word of the Lord.
5. There is a close relation between humility and the perception of truth. “The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way” (Psalm 25:9).
6. Then we must think. Human thought has its limitations, but where there is no thinking there is not likely to be any large deposit of truth in the mind.
7. But thinking apart from the inward illumination of the Holy Spirit is not only futile, it is likely to be dangerous as well. God has given us the Holy Spirit to illuminate our minds. He is eyes and understanding to us. We dare not try to get on without Him.

Ch 24 There Is No Substitute for Theology: Whatever keeps me from the Bible is my enemy, however harmless it may appear to be. Whatever engages my attention when I should be meditating on God and things eternal does injury to my soul. Let the cares of life crowd out the Scriptures from my mind and I have suffered loss where I can least afford it.

Ch 28 To Be Understood, Truth Must Be Lived: Bible doctrine is wholly ineffective until it has been digested and assimilated by the total life. … At what point, then, does a theological fact become for the one who holds it a life-giving truth? At the point where obedience begins. When faith gains the consent of the will to make an irrevocable committal to Christ as Lord, truth begins its saving, illuminating work; and not one moment before. … Truth can be understood only by the mind that has surrendered to it. … When the heart makes the ultimate surrender, the fire falls and true facts are transmuted into spiritual truth that transforms, enlightens, sanctifies. The church or the individual that is Bible taught without being Spirit taught has simply failed to see that truth lies deeper than the theological statement of it.

Ch 31 The Importance of Self-Judgment: While our self-discovery is not likely to be complete and our self-judgment is almost certain to be biased and imperfect, there is yet every good reason for us to work along with the Holy Spirit in His benign effort to locate us spiritually in order that we may make such amendments as the circumstances demand. For this reason I offer some rules for self-discovery: and if the results are not all we could desire they may be at least better than none at all. We may be known by the following:
1. What we want most. We have but to get quiet, recollect our thoughts, wait for the mild excitement within us to subside and then listen closely for the faint cry of desire. Ask your heart, What would you rather have than anything else in the world? When you have heard it you will know the kind of person you are.
2. What we think about most. The necessities of life compel us to think about many things, but the true test is what we think about voluntarily. “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:21).
3. How we use our money. Again we must ignore those matters about which we are not altogether free. We must pay taxes and provide the necessities of life… but whatever money is left to do with as we please—that will tell us a great deal indeed.
4. What we do with our leisure time. A large share of our time is already spoken for by the exigencies of civilized living, but we do have some free time. What I do with mine reveals the kind of man I am.
5. The company we enjoy. There is a law of moral attraction that draws every man to the society most like himself. “Being let go, they went to their own company” (Acts 4:23). Where we go when we are free to go where we will is a near-infallible index of character.
6. Whom and what we admire. We can learn the true state of our minds by examining our unexpressed admirations. Israel often admired, even envied, the pagan nations around them, and so forgot the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the law and the promises and the fathers.
7. What we laugh at. No one with a due regard for the wisdom of God would argue that there is anything wrong with laughter, since humor is a legitimate component of our complex nature. But the test we are running here is not whether we laugh or not, but what we laugh at.

Tozer, A.W.. That Incredible Christian. Camp Hill: Christian Publications, Inc., 1964.