A.W. Tozer, author of The Pursuit of God
Over the next few days, I will post my notes from my recent time of studying The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer. I hope you will enjoy these quotes.
Preface
Current evangelicalism has (to change the figure) laid the altar and divided the sacrifice into parts, but now seems satisfied to count the stones and rearrange the pieces with never a care that there is not a sign of fire upon the top of lofty Carmel.
It is a solemn thing, and no small scandal in the kingdom, to see God’s children starving while actually seated at the Father’s table.
For it is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God Himself, and unless and until the hearers find God in personal experience that are not the better for having heard the truth. The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.
If my fire is not large it is yet real, and there may be those who can light their candle at its flame.
Chapter 1 – Following Hard after God
The modern scientist has lost God amid the wonders if His world; we Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His Word.
Being made in His image we have within us the capacity to know Him. In our sins we lack only the power.
To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too easily satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart.
David’s life was a torrent of spiritual desire, and his psalms ring with the cry of the seeker and the glad shout of the finder.
How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for use by our teachers. Everything is made to center upon the initial act of “accepting” Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the Bible) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him, we need no more seek Him.
Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the long of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experiences, the hollowness of our worship and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all.
The evil habit of seeking God-and effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation. In the and lies our great woe. If we omit the and we shall soon find God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing.
We can well afford to make God our All, to concentrate, to sacrifice the many for the One.
The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One. Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness. Or if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss, for having the Source of all things he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight. Whatever he may lose he has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately and forever.
Chapter 2 – The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing
God’s gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution.
He had everything, but he possessed nothing.
Whoever defends himself will have himself for his defense, and he will have no other. But let him come defenseless before the Lord and he will have for his defender no less than God Himself.
