This blog post is bassed on one chapter of the book The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer

This chapter in The Pursuit of God, which is titled Restoring the Creator-creature Relation is a little more self-explanatory than it’s the previous chapter titles. It also starts Tozer’s summation of the main point of the book which is to explain WHY the pursuit of God is the main purpose of our lives.  In fact, I would encourage you, if you haven’t read any of the chapters of the book or you started reading early on but fell behind PLEASE read the next two chapters.  They are absolutely awesome and I think it will be worth your time.

So, on to our chapter: Tozer starts with a point that I don’t think we can be reminded of enough.  He says, “The cause of all our human misery is a radical moral dislocation, an upset in our relation to God and to each other.” We were not meant to die when we were created.  We were not meant to fear or know anger, jealousy or pain.  We were meant to live forever in a perfect relationship with our Creator and enjoy all of His blessings and goodness to us for eternity.  That was what we were created for.  But when we sinned we altered our attitude and relation to God which, unknown to us, is where our true happiness lay.  And when we sinned we brought FEAR into our relationship with God.  You see it in Genesis when God asks Adam where he’s hiding right after they ate the fruit.  What does Adam say?  “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid…”  And that’s what happens when we realize our sin in the face of a holy, perfect God.  We’re terrified because we realize how evil we are, and that we deserve punishment.

Now, salvation is essentially the restoring of the right relation between God and man.  The fear is taken away because we see God’s love and mercy at the cross.  We’re told we can “boldly approach the throne of grace” that we are “sons and daughters of God.”  Yet, even when we come to salvation we still have to battle our sinful nature.  We try to die to ourselves daily but a lot of days we don’t succeed.  We wonder why we’re not completely satisfied in God, why we keep sinning.  We start to understand what the Apostle Paul meant in Romans when he wrote, “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right but I don’t do it.  Instead, I do what I hate.”  I don’t know about you but I feel that way a lot.  So what’s the problem?  Salvation supposedly “restored” our relationship with God but much of the time we can feel like we’re letting God down.

Tozer says “much of our difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as he is and adjust our lives accordingly.  We insist upon trying to modify Him and to bring Him nearer to our own image.”  Now that was the point of our last book The Knowledge of the Holy which pointed out how awesome, powerful, perfect and holy God is. We can’t have a low, incorrect view of God in our minds and live an overcoming life in which we are used in the kingdom of God.  We can’t picture God as an all forgiving grandpa to whom we surrender most of our life keeping just a few sins for ourselves because He’s going to forgive us anyway.  When we come to salvation we are submitting ALL of our self to God; complete and total submission.  Tozer says, “God being Who and What He is, and we being who and what we are, the only thinkable relation between us is one of full lordship on His part and complete submission on ours.  We owe Him every honor that it is in our power to give Him.  Our everlasting grief lies in giving Him anything less.” 

That is why it is so hard to convince ourselves that: “our everlasting grief lies in giving Him anything less.”  To be truly happy, we have to lay down everything in submission to our Maker.  We think that if we give up our independence we won’t be happy.  That is the biggest lie that Satan has pushed on the human race.  The truth is living in sin is what makes us miserable.  We have this lie in our heads that when we come to God we’re giving up something. We forget that Jesus said, “whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.”  We have to serve someone in this life.  We either serve sin and become a slave to it, or we surrender to a Master who proved that He loves us and “whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light.”  When we submit ourselves completely to God, we are moving back into the relationship that we were originally created for.  “Let the seeking man reach a place where life and lips join to say continually ‘God be exalted,’ and a thousand minor problems will be solved at once.  He has met his life problem at its center, and everything else must follow along.”  This is what brings us happiness.  This is why the pursuit of God is so important.  The pursuit of God is the daily work of bringing our total personality into conformity to His. In doing that our relationship is slowly restored, and we discover the happiness that God originally intended for us.

Tozer closes with the statement that God knows we are sinners.  He knows we are frail and weak.  What He wants is holy, committed intention.  Take a look at almost any Bible character who honestly tried to glorify God in his earthly walk.  You will see that God winked at weaknesses and overlooked failures as he poured upon His servants grace and blessing untold.  Look at Abraham, Jacob, David or Moses.  Abraham, who heard the audible voice of God, was terrified that the kings would kill him because his wife was so beautiful they would want to take her as one of their own.  So he told his wife Sarah to tell everyone that she was his sister. That strategy led her to marry other men so Abraham wouldn’t be harmed!  He did this not once but twice!  Jacob was liar; David was an adulterer; Moses was a murderer and had an anger issue. God used them in mighty ways.  Why?  Because these men set their hearts to exalt God above all; God accepted their intention as fact and acted accordingly.  Not perfection, but holy intention made the difference.

Set your heart on God, submit yourself to Him, make Him exalted above all else in your life and pursue Him.  Study His Word, get to know Him and watch what God will do in your life.  We were created to be in relationship with our Maker.

I’d like to close by reading Tozer’s prayer at the end of the chapter.  I think it perfectly expresses a heart that desires God above all else:

O God, be exalted over my possessions.  Nothing of earth’s treasures shall seem dear to me if only you are glorified in my life.  Be exalted over my friendships.  I am determined that you shall be above all, though I must stand deserted and alone in the midst of the earth.  Be exalted above my comforts.  Though it mean the loss of bodily comforts and the carrying of heavy crosses I shall keep my vow made this day before you.  Be exalted over my reputation.  Make me ambitious to please You even if as a result I must sink into obscurity and my name be forgotten as a dream.  Rise O Lord, into your proper place of honor, above my ambitions, above my likes and dislikes, above my family, my health and even my life itself.  Let me decrease that you may increase, let me sink that you may rise above.  Ride forth upon me as you rode into Jerusalem mounted upon that humble little beast and let me hear the children cry to you “Hosanna in the highest.” AMEN

Categories: Paul Austin The Pursuit of God

jenniferhop83