THE PURSUIT OF GOD: There is the Spiritual Secret Relationship of a Christian with God, by A W Tozer (1948 and published multiple times after through the years). This is one of those classic Christian books that speak to every generation.
A.W. Tozer (1897-1963) speaks for the common man in so many ways…but mostly he speaks our language putting biblical doctrine in such common language that we cannot NOT understand it. “We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit.” This is his way of describing God’s irresistible grace without alienating the on-Calvinists of his time.
He says of his own work, “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.”
Then there is this, when talking of evangelicalism in his day, “Complacency (a dreadful sin of his time and ours as well) is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.” (For as he says later, we are saved and will get in as Paul talks about to the Corinthians but just barely as in we will wonder why we do not experience the graces of God in our lives as others do and it is because of this complacency.
It is interesting how the Church seems to maintain some of the same sins throughout the ages. He continues his critique of evangelicalism which sounds a lot like today, “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 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 athirst 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.”
Samuel M. Zwemer, an American missionary to Islam, wrote concerning this book, “The ten chapters are heart searching and the prayers at the close of each are for closet, not 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.” Again with simplicity he makes his points, “God promised much, but He promised no more than He intends to fulfill.” This book is less than 100 pages depending upon which book you buy or download and it well worth your time.
