This post is based on the book The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer

God dwells everywhere, but this has not sunk into the average Christian heart so as to become part of his believing self.

The easiest way to say that is: “God is here. Wherever we are, God is.”

“In the beginning God…” Not “In the beginning Stuff…” God caused the stuff. Not “In the beginning Law…” God wrote that law.

If God is everywhere, why have so many wise men and women tried to run from God? Adam and Eve tried to hide themselves in the garden. In Psalm 127, David even asked God where he could run to get away from God’s presence.

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

God’s answer to David was clear. “Nowhere.”

So if God is everywhere, why hasn’t that become the most celebrated fact in the world? Tozer says it is because Men do not know that God is here.

You see, Presence and Manifest Presence are different. God is only Manifest when we are aware of His presence.

“If we cooperate with Him in loving obedience, God will manifest Himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life and a life radiant with the light of His face.” – Page 64

Here is the thing: “Our pursuit of God is successful just because He is forever seeking to manifest himself to us. God doesn’t have to come a distance to reveal Himself to us. It is not a matter of distance away from us, it is a matter of our experience.” When we draw near to God it is not a closer distance, but a closer relationship. We should long to get to know Him better so that this manifestation can be real.

God does not choose to manifest his presence to some people and not to other people. It is His will to manifest himself to all of us. If God’s presence is not manifest to us, it is our issue. I find this fact somewhat discouraging. Yet, I am encouraged by the knowledge that just because God’s presence has not been manifest to me, it is not because I am not living exactly like Moses. Moses was not exactly like Paul, and Paul did not do things the way Elijah did. Each of these people who saw God’s manifest presence was not exactly alike. I don’t need to be exactly like Judy or Paul to see the manifest presence of God. But I do need to have the quality that all of these people had in common. This is Spiritual Receptivity. These saints had a relationship with God and a spiritual awareness with God that was the greatest thing in their lives and they did something about it.

Tozer defines spiritual receptivity as “an affinity for, a bent toward, a sympathetic response to, a desire to have. … it may be increased by exercise or destroyed by neglect. … it must be cultivated as any other gift if it is to realize the purpose for which it was given.”

In other words, receptivity is a heightened awareness, but it is a practiced heightened awareness.

So my next question to Tozer was: Ok, how do I cultivate it?

He answers back: “the idea of cultivation and exercise, so dear to the saints of old, has now no place in our total religious picture. It is too slow, too common. We now demand glamour and fast flowing dramatic action. A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God.” 1897-1963

It is going to be extremely difficult for us to break out of this Kurig, iPhone, remote control, mindset when it comes to exercising our spiritual receptivity. We are going to have to take some TIME. We are going to have to work with God on ourselves. We don’t have the power to change that much, but if we let ourselves get more and more under the influence of God, He can get us there.

“Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped earlier in his leaner and weaker days.”

The God of the universe is trying to get my attention.

Every time I get to wanting more of God and I get really good intentions, I get a little more on my plate, and a little more legalistic and hard on myself and I give up. I back slide for a while, and then I get my good intentions again.

I don’t see myself as a Spiritual Giant. But I totally could be one. I don’t see myself laying hands on a person who is ill and healing them. But the God who lives within me can. Why don’t I live like the God of the universe dwells within me? Well maybe it is time to start living that way.

I am going to close with my translation of Tozer’s prayer at the back of the chapter.

O God and Father, I repent of my sinful preoccupation with visible things. The world has been taking up to much of me. You have been here and I did not know it. I have been blind to your Presence. Open my eyes so that I can see you in and around me. For Christ’s sake, Amen.

Categories: Jennifer Chlumsky The Pursuit of God Uncategorized

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