The Pursuit of God (Updated Edition)
By A. W. Tozer
5/5
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About this ebook
To have found God and still to pursue Him is a paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religious person, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux stated this holy paradox in a musical four-line poem that will be instantly understood by every worshipping soul:
We taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread,
And long to feast upon Thee still:
We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead
And thirst our souls from Thee to fill.
Come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after God. Let A. W. Tozer’s pursuit of God spur you also into a genuine hunger and thirst to truly know God.
About the Author
Among the more than 40 books that he authored, at least two are regarded as Christian classics: The Pursuit of God and The Knowledge of the Holy. His books impress on the reader the possibility and necessity of a deeper relationship with God.
A. W. Tozer
The late Dr. A. W. Tozer was well known in evangelical circles both for his long and fruitful editorship of the Alliance Witness as well as his pastorate of one of the largest Alliance churches in the Chicago area. He came to be known as the Prophet of Today because of his penetrating books on the deeper spiritual life.
Read more from A. W. Tozer
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Reviews for The Pursuit of God (Updated Edition)
71 ratings16 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5“O taste and see that the Lord is good.”This book was given to me by a friend, and I was immediately drawn to the title. I feel like much of my life is a pursuit of God. But the theme wasn’t quite what I expected.The author assumes that, in our pursuit of God, we have already found him, and discovered him to be a person–a person who thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires and suffers like all of us. But having found God, we are in danger of falling into the trap of thinking we need no longer seek him.Tozer points out that for millions of Christians, God is no more real than he is to the non-Christian. They do not know him personally, but go through life trying to love an ideal. The book reads like a sermon trying to bring us back to Jesus.So while there were many parts that I could no longer connect with, having outgrown a conservative belief system, it nevertheless appealed to me. It appealed because it put me effortlessly back in a comfort zone. I felt like I was back in church. Tozer’s “sermon” is mesmerizing, hypnotizing, intoxicating, just as good religion should be. Or, if you’re not so fond of church, it will lull you to sleep.Create Space, © 2013, 76 pagesISBN: 978-1484076439
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Title: The Pursuit of God (Updated Edition)Author: A. W. TozerPages: 128Year: 2015Publisher: Aneko PressMy rating is 5 stars out of 5.When I read the title and author, I was drawn back in my mind to the day I married my husband in a church. It was the very church where Tozer preached to people. There are other writings of Tozer that are also rich in teaching and if possible read about Tozer’s life. Tozer was a man who sought hard after God and in this book he challenges all to live a life fully and completely for God.Some of the chapter themes were convicting as I read and realized God was speaking to my heart about where He is working. Other times I was challenged in my thoughts or comforted emotionally. There is always room for the believer to grow in becoming more Christ like and this book is one where words of exhortation are delivered without apology. Prayers are given to aid the person in asking for the Lord’s help, hand or voice.Nothing replaces the Bible; however, there are authors who have written what God has laid on their heart to share with others in the hopes of drawing them near to Him. Tozer is one such author. The book was originally published in 1948 and some of the problems that we see in the Body needing to be addressed are addressed by the author. Draw near to the heart of the author as he points the reader to the heart and mind of our God!Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255. “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book change my life.this book has given me whole new perspective of God,Jesus Christ .
New and elevated level of spirituality in other words feel closer to god in a humble way. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beautiful- Sacred and Secular is to be connected together by a Christian for God.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An absolute gem. I now know and understand what it means to pursue God. I am blessed and humbled. Great work.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Truly phenomenal read that captures the essence of what it means be a follower of Christ. It is both deeply convicting and incredibly encouraging. I would recommend all Christians and those interested in Christianity read this. One of Tozer's best works indeed!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Book Review (#9 of 2011)
The Pursuit of God by AW Tozer (free PDF). This book is shorter than a Kindle Single, but I will call it a "book" anyway. I was using it as part of a discipleship time with a younger guy who is going overseas this summer. I treated each chapter/essay as sort of a daily devotional and found it very convicting, uplifting, and humbling. (I used GoodReader on the iPad for this as it gives you plenty of options for note-taking, highlighting, etc.).
Tozer is a pastor writing in the 1940s. He applauds the church's return to Scripture but bemoans the unintended side-effects:
"Thanks to our splendid Bible societies and to other effective agencies for the dissemination of the Word, there are today many millions of people who hold 'right opinions,' probably more than ever before in the history of the Church. Yet I wonder if there was ever a time when true spiritual worship was at a lower ebb. To great sections of the Church the art of worship has been lost entirely, and in its place has come that strange and foreign thing called the “program.” This word has been borrowed from the stage and applied with sad wisdom to the type of public service which now passes for worship among us."
Worship and Spirit-filled living are more than preaching and learning, it's about seeking God in all we do:
"How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us 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 whcih insists that if we have found Him we need no more seek Him."
Tozer's words on humility, meekness, holding possessions loosely, and emphasizing the emotional aspects of worship (as opposed to purely mental) were very timely for me. He closes each chapter with a very tough prayer. For example:
"Be Thou exalted over my reputation. Make me ambitious to please Thee even if as a result I must sink into obscurity and my name be forgotten as a dream."
His closing chapter is based on 1 Corinthians 10:31 and is aimed at the false dichotomy of secular and sacred. This is a very key point for those involved in a "business as missions" mindset. Whatever we do, wherever we work, whatever task we're assigned, we can worship as we do it. Work is worship. Some jobs are not as important as others, and we're not all equals in the tasks, but all jobs (and meals, and commutes, and diaper changes, and breaths, etc.) can be worship. I love how Tozer puts it:
"Paul's sewing of tents was not equal to his writing an Epistle to the Romans, but both were accepted of God and both were true acts of worship. Certainly it is more important to lead a soul to Christ than to plant a garden, but the planting of the garden can be as holy an act as the winning of a soul."
The “layman” need never think of his humbler task as being inferior to that of his minister. Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called and his work will be as sacred as the work of the ministry.
His closing prayer:
"I want to live so fully in the Spirit that all my thought may be as sweet incense ascending to Thee and every act of my life may be an act of worship."
5 stars out of 5.2 people found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Perhaps the best book of its genre that I have ever read! If you are a Believer, Tozar cuts to the chase as to the what, why, and how of your relationship with God. This book is not a one-time read, but instead should be treated and read at least monthly as a foundational reminder and how-to of the beauty of a personal relationship with God. Warning: This book will change your life!
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A book that should be read multiple times to get the most out of it. Tozer expresses the way to God.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The stark beauty of this author's words leave me breathless every time I sit down with this book. Each journey through it's pages shows me something new, some bit that helps me focus my own heart and mind just a little more sharply. Not a book I'd ever loan out, but one I DO highly recommend.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One of the modern classics in Christian literature by a man who does not mince his words in condemnation of the state of the Christian church today. A.W. Tozer says,"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 longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, 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." With this declaration A.W. Tozer reaches out to the majority of American Christians today who are satisfied with a lukewarm brand of religion while experiencing none of the joy that comes from the pursuit of God.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A excellent devotional. It realy touches the heart and brings you to your knees.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Another of the great Christian books. Read and pray.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I recognized the name A. W. Tozer, because he is so often quoted by Christian writers. The pursuit of God is a devotional book, and you know, all devotional writers say the same things. I'll let you be the judge. Here are some quotes from The Pursuit of God: "Sins are not something we do, they are something we are. "Let us remember: when we talk of the rending of the veil, we are speaking in a figure, and the thought of it is almost poetical, almost pleasant; but in actuality there is nothing pleasant about it. In human experience that veil is made of living spiritual tissue...and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. It is never fun to die. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free. Let us beware of tinkering with our inner life in hope ourselves to rend the veil. God must do everything for us. "Ten million intelligences standing at as many points in space...can each say with equal truth, God is here. No point is nearer to God than any other point. Jacob, 'in the waste howling wilderness'...cried out in wonder.'Surely God is in this place and I knew it not.'" "God will not hold us responsible to understand the mysteries of election, predestination, and divine sovereignty. Prying into them may make theologians, but it will never make saints. "In the beginning He spoke to nothing, and it became something. "Faith is the least self-regarding of the virtues. It is by its very nature scarcely conscious of its own existence. While we are looking to God we do not see ourselves~ blessed riddance."
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tozer's call to a life drenched in Christ is one of the best there is. You can clearly see his passion and love in every line. It is a call back to pure Scripture and love, not tricks and power of will. The book is worthwhile to new Christians for an idea of the promises of what is to come, and also old Christians who simply want to meditate on the wonders of God.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Easily the best book I have read this year (2007). Tozer attempts to ignite a passion in Christians to pursue knowing God. One of the prayers in the book captures the theme, "O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, so that I may know Thee indeed." [20] Should be mandatory reading for every follower of Jesus, especially who are feeling like their faith has become ritualistic.
Book preview
The Pursuit of God (Updated Edition) - A. W. Tozer
The
Pursuit
of
God
A. W. Tozer
Contents
Introduction
Preface
Ch. 1: Following Hard after God
Ch. 2: The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing
Ch. 3: Removing the Veil
Ch. 4: Apprehending God
Ch. 5: The Universal Presence
Ch. 6: The Speaking Voice
Ch. 7: The Gaze of the Soul
Ch. 8: Restoring the Creator-Creature Relation
Ch. 9: Meekness and Rest
Ch. 10: The Sacrament of Living
About the Author
And we shall know and follow on in knowing the LORD; his going forth is prepared as the dawn. Hosea 6:3
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Introduction
Here is a masterly study of the inner life by a heart thirsting after God, eager to grasp at least the outskirts of His ways, the abyss of His love for sinners, and the height of His unapproachable majesty – and it was written by a busy pastor in Chicago!
Who could imagine David writing the twenty-third Psalm on South Halsted Street, or a medieval mystic finding inspiration in a small study on the second floor of a frame house on that vast, flat checkerboard of endless streets.
Where cross the crowded ways of life
Where sound the cries of race and clan,
In haunts of wretchedness and need,
On shadowed threshold dark with fears,
And paths where hide the lures of greed . . .
But even as Dr. Frank Mason North of New York says in his immortal poem, so Mr. Tozer says in this book:
Above the noise of selfish strife
We hear Thy voice, O Son of Man.
My acquaintance with the author is limited to brief visits and loving fellowship in his church. There I discovered a self-made scholar, an omnivorous reader with a remarkable library of theological and devotional books, and one who seemed to burn the midnight oil in pursuit of God. His book is the result of long meditation and much prayer. It is not a collection of sermons. It does not deal with the pulpit and the pew but with the soul thirsty for God. The chapters could be summarized in Moses’ prayer, Show me thy glory, or Paul’s exclamation, O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! It is theology not of the head but of the heart.
There is deep insight, sobriety of style, and a universality of outlook that is refreshing. The author has few quotations but he knows the saints and mystics of the centuries – Saint Augustine, Nicholas of Cusa, Thomas à Kempis, Friedrich von Hügel, Charles Finney, John Wesley, and many more. The ten chapters are heart searching and the prayers at the close of each are for the closet, not the pulpit. I felt the nearness of God while reading them.
Here is a book for every pastor, missionary, and devout Christian. It deals with the deep things of God and the riches of His grace. Above all, it has the keynote of sincerity and humility.
Samuel M. Zwemer
New York City
Preface
In this hour of all-but-universal darkness, one cheering gleam appears: Within the fold of conservative Christianity, there are to be found increasing numbers of people whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after God Himself. They are eager for spiritual realities and will not be put off with words, nor will they be content with correct interpretations
of truth. They are thirsty for God, and they will not be satisfied until they have drunk deep at the fountain of living water.
This is the only real harbinger of revival which I have been able to detect anywhere on the religious horizon. It may be the cloud the size of a man’s hand for which a few saints here and there have been looking. It can result in a resurrection of life for many souls and a recapture of that radiant wonder which should accompany faith in Christ, that wonder which has all but fled the church in our day.
But this hunger must be recognized by our religious leaders. 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 Mount Carmel. But God be thanked that there are a few who care. They are those who, while they love the altar and delight in the sacrifice, are yet unable to reconcile themselves to the continued absence of fire. They desire God above all. They are thirsty to taste for themselves the piercing sweetness
of the love of Christ about whom all the holy prophets did write and the psalmists did sing.
There is today no lack of Bible teachers to set forth correctly the principles of the doctrines of Christ, but too many of these seem satisfied to teach the fundamentals of the faith year after year, strangely unaware that there is in their ministry no manifest presence, nor anything unusual in their personal lives. They minister constantly to believers who feel within their breasts a longing which their teaching simply does not satisfy.
I trust I speak in love, but the lack in our pulpits is real. Milton’s terrible sentence applies to our day as accurately as it did to his: The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed.
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. The truth of Wesley’s words is established before our eyes: Orthodoxy, or right opinion, is, at best, a very slender part of religion. Though right tempers cannot subsist without right opinions, yet right opinions may subsist without right tempers. There may be a right opinion of God without either love or one right temper toward Him. Satan is a proof of this.
Thanks to our splendid Bible societies and to other effective agencies for the dissemination of the Word, there are today many millions of people who hold right opinions,
probably more than ever before in the history of the church. Yet I wonder if there was ever a time when true spiritual worship was at a lower ebb. To great sections of the church, the art of worship has been lost entirely, and in its place has come that strange and foreign thing called the program.
This word has been borrowed from the stage and applied with sad wisdom to the type of public service which now passes for worship among us.
Sound Bible exposition is an imperative must in the church of the living God. Without it, no church can be a New Testament church in any strict meaning of that term. But exposition may be carried on in such way as to leave the hearers devoid of any true spiritual nourishment whatsoever. For it is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God Himself; and unless and until the hearers find God in personal experience, they 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 being, their spirit.
This book is a modest attempt to aid God’s hungry children so to find Him. Nothing here is new except in the sense that it is a discovery which my own heart has made of spiritual realities most delightful and wonderful to me. Others before me have gone much farther into these holy mysteries than I have done, but if my fire is not large, it is yet real, and there may be those who can light their candle at its flame.
A. W. Tozer
Chicago, Ill.
June 16, 1948
Chapter 1
Following Hard after God
My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me. (Psalm 63:8)
Christian theology teaches the doctrine of prevenient grace, which briefly stated means this: that before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man.
Before a sinful man can think a right thought of God, there must have been a work of enlightenment done within him; it may be imperfect, but it is a true work nonetheless, and is the secret cause of all desiring and seeking and praying which may follow.
We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us