education

i love this book "one thing" by Sam Storms. Here's a quote from page 81-2:

I earlier spoke of the relationship between celebration and elevation or between exultation and exaltation and argued that the former in each case is both a prelude to and grounds for the latter. There is, however, one additional stage in our experience that is antecedent to both exultation and exaltation, namely, education.

If we don't know who God is and how He thinks and what He feels and why He does what He does, we have no grounds for joy, no reason to celebrate, no basis for finding satisfaction in Him...Delight in God cannot occur in an intellecutal vacuum. Our joy is the fruit of what we know and believe to be true of God.

What this tells us is that the ultimate goal of theology [the study of God] isn't knowledge, but worship. If our learning and knowledge of God do not lead to the joyful praise of God, we have failed. We learn only that we might laud, which is to say that theology without doxology is idolatry.

...What beauty! What transcendent glory! As for its depth, unfathomable. As for its duration, unending. As for its degree, immeasurable. As for its description, ineffable. This is a perpetual spiritual high from which you need never come down.