This audio series that has been adapted from Kenneth Boa's 11-part CD teaching series on A. W. Tozer’s spiritual classic, The Pursuit of God.
Kenneth Boa
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As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." (Psalm 42:1)
"What do you want more than anything else in the world?" The question is always there. It ignites the wish behind every birthday candle ceremony. It enchants the dream expressed in every child's Christmas list for Santa. It informs the hope that accompanies every wedding toast. It breeds the expectation that attaches to each new birth. It fuels the yearning that erupts in a mid-life crisis. It colors our understanding of every promise in Scripture. And it articulates the imbedded anguish in every prayer request. It is the question: "What do you really want?" "What do you really want from God?" "What do you really want from God, more than anything else in the world?"
Aiden W. Tozer's answer to that profound question is elegant simplicity itself. More than anything else in the world, he wanted God, God alone. And so he chose to order his life around that one single pursuit — the pursuit of God. And he penned a classic little book that invites us to join him in that holy pilgrimage. In 1948, he offered The Pursuit of God as a "modest attempt to aid God's hungry children so to find Him."
In many ways Tozer was a modern-day prophet as well as a down-to-earth mystic. He was a self-educated man, forced by his home situation to forfeit the formal education of either high school or college. Yet, through years of diligent study and disciplined prayer, he prepared himself for the God-ordained role of calling the modern Church back to the practice of godliness. With no teacher but the Holy Spirit and many good books by ancient spiritual masters, he looked up from his lifelong posture of kneeling and cried out for others to follow him in the only pursuit that truly satisfies. He was convinced that a life given to seeking God first does not constrict one's life, but enlarges it beyond one's wildest wishes, hopes, and dreams.
Tozer was not a man who spoke of God by way of hearsay, like those religious leaders of his generation, for they hungered not for his presence, but for his presents. But he spoke of God as one who spent extended time with God. He knew God as an intimate friend. To highlight the difference between the two, he takes us back to Mt Carmel where Elijah is doing battle with the prophets of Baal. In Tozer's retelling, he pictures the religious leaders as those who have carefully laid out the stones for the altar, and have precisely divided the sacrifice into parts. But instead of calling down God's fiery presence from heaven, as Elijah did, they are caught up with the ritual of counting the stones, arranging and rearranging the pieces, as if that is what will please the Lord, oblivious to the fact that God is not there.
Is this not often true of many of us? We take such delight in bringing our sacrifice and in building our altar to code, and yet seem unable to reconcile ourselves to the continued absence of fire. He cites biblical teachers who, while satisfied to teach the biblical fundamentals of the faith year after year, seem strangely unaware that there is no manifest Presence in their teaching, nor anything with the mark of the divine in their personal lives. People come longing to meet with God, but leave with that longing still in their breasts. Still there are those few who "are athirst to taste for themselves the 'piercing sweetness' of the love of Christ."
In Robert Clinton's book, The Making of a Leader," he lays out a process by which God often grows his spiritual saints. It includes 6 developmental phases: (1) Phase 1 — Sovereign Foundations; (2) Phase 2 — Inner-Life Growth; (3) Phase 3 — Ministry Maturing; (4) Phase 4 — Life Maturing; (5) Phase 5 — Convergence; and (6) Phase 6 — Afterglow.
During the Sovereign Foundations phase, God providentially works through a person's family, environment, and life events in such a way as to woo them, court them, and draw them unto himself in the "in-Christ relationship." For instance, if you were to think back over your lifetime, you would realize that your life is much like a story, with certain actors, a unique plot, riveting drama, ongoing narrative, captivating suspense, and surprising resolution. No two people have life stories that are identical. Everyone who is "in-Christ," was brought into that relationship in a different way. For our infinite God has an infinite number of ways to connect with each of his unique children.
After the Sovereign Foundations phase, comes the Inner-Life Growth phase. Here God's emphasis is on growing the interior life of the believer. One learns the importance of understanding and obeying God's word, of becoming fluent in the two-way dialogue of prayer, of trying and testing one's ministry muscles for the first time. For just as a newborn will naturally progress from infancy to childhood and on to adolescence and adulthood, so the new believer should intentionally progress beyond spiritual infancy. The absence of such growth is what appalls Tozer, as it ought to shock us. A baby acting like a baby is cute. But a mature adult functioning like an infant is not cute, it is tragic. But it is infinitely more tragic in the spiritual life of the believer.
Next comes the Ministry Maturing phase. Here, the task is to grow up with respect to serving God by developing your exterior "ministry proficiency." As a maturing person, you must discipline yourself in the realm of biblical knowledge, ministry skills, proven techniques, and valuable resources. This is the season where you should begin to recognize and express the unique way in which you have been designed to contribute to the Body of Christ. As you integrate all of God's good gifts (i.e., your deepest convictions, your unique enablement, your providential life experience, your educational background, your network of relationships, your complementary skills, etc.), you should sense a growing clarity regarding God's sovereign call for you.
For example, if God has gifted you to teach, you should be aware of several things by the time you reach this phase. First of all, you should have observed that your gift of teaching has been present within you from your earliest days, albeit sometimes cloaked in not-so-obvious expressions. Secondly, you should have recognized that your gift of teaching is highly conditioned as to what topics you prefer to teach, what ages you are most comfortable teaching, what environments motivate your teaching, what teaching style comes most naturally to you. And finally, you should have sensed that your gift of teaching expresses itself as something you "love to do" and "do well," as you define well. This means that it is much more than something you "can do" or even something you "can do well." It will feel more like a mission, a destiny, a calling, a "must do."
Furthermore, as you continue to express your teaching gift, you should become very aware of your dependence upon God. For even though teaching gift is God given, it still must be God powered to be pleasing to him. You must recognize that your effort alone, no matter how disciplined and committed, is not enough to meet the needs of those who come hungry for God. Thus the stewardship of your gift must involve extended time on your knees in communion with him. But what happens after you've taught for a while? You'll be tempted to depend upon your technique and experience, rather than the power of the Holy Spirit. And the day you stop being totally dependent upon the Spirit is the day you stall out in this phase and fail to progress to the next phase.
The Life Maturing phase comes next and complements the Ministry Maturing phase. Here, the task is to grow up with respect to serving God by focusing on your "spiritual formation." As a maturing person, you must devote yourself to biblical obedience, developing a servant's heart, engaging in the disciplines of the Spirit, and in following hard after God. This is the season where you should begin to explore the unique way you find intimacy with each person of the Trinity. And rather than focusing on the gifts given to you, you find your truest satisfaction in focusing on the Giver, the only Gift that truly matters.
There has been a wonderful renaissance of awareness in recent years as to how one goes about loving God with a whole heart. And, as a consequence, virtually every Christian graduate school and seminary now has some course of study devoted to encouraging the formation of Christlikeness within the life of each believer. In my book, Conformed to His Image, I express my conviction that our ministry service ought to flow out of the reality of what the Lord is developing within us. Our lives of "doing" ministry should be energized out of "being" in Christ.
Then Clinton talks about the Convergence phase. By convergence he means that the "doing" of the Ministry Maturing phase and the "being" 'of the Life Maturing phase should gradually blend into one seamless whole. My unique approach to serving God should blend with my unique relationship with God. It is much like what happens in the development of an artist. At first, the painter or musician disciplines herself to imitate the works of those who preceded her. Then, over time, she initiates work that, while still reminiscent of her mentors, begins to evidence distinctiveness. Finally, convergence takes place between the "technology" of the craft and the "artistry" of the heart. Now, we see her innovating in her own signature style. As C.S. Lewis observes, "If you try to become original, you'll never be original." The only path to true originality is to merge the uniqueness of your God-given design together with the uniqueness of God's very presence in you. The by-product is an idiosyncratic reflection of the image of God.
Finally, the last phase is Afterglow or Celebration. This is the culmination of a lifetime of pursuing God and pursuing God's calling for one's life, which is often marked by well-deserved recognition. Frequently, people will seek out the accumulated wisdom of those who have achieved this distinguished phase. And while there is no recognizable task during this phase, it does offer time to reflect on God's faithfulness through the years and to receive honor where honor is due.
Tozer arrives at the same destination as Clinton, yet with greater simplicity. The pursuit of God requires one to move beyond the purely cognitive level. The mind may be the key starting place for this pursuit, but it is not the finish line. While we would never embark on such a journey without the mind-transforming work of the Holy Spirit, the transformation of the heart is the true objective.
This is why "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 call the 'program'". The "program" — a word that harkens back to a stage performance, put on solely for its mass entertainment value. We've taken a vital message of truth, watered it down, dumbed it down in order to fill more seats. We're tempted to think that we've been successful at worship if after a given service we conclude that it was a "good program." We've had fun, but we haven't met with God. We've seen a top-notch production about God, but we haven't actually seen God.
In the opening chapter, entitled "Following Hard After God," Tozer begins with a reference to "prevenient grace." That is, God's grace always seeks us out before we seek out God's grace. As Jesus says, "No one can come to me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (John 6:44a). And so, before we can begin our pursuit of God we must realize that the pursuit of God itself has first been placed within us by God. We hunger for him because he gave us the appetite. We thirst for him because he made us to be thirsty for him. We feel drawn to him because he is drawing us to himself. In short, Tozer tells us, "The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after Him."
The Psalmist states it eloquently: "My soul follows hard after thee; thy right hand upholds me." (Psalm 63:8). Here, there is a mystery, yet no contradiction between God's previous "upholding" and the human's present "following." All the time that we are pursuing Him ("following hard after him") we find that we are already in His hand ("his right hand upholds me").
The key is to see the mystery as a reciprocal response between two persons. God's search for you requires you to search for Him. The real error would be to suppose that once He has found us and we have found Him, the search is over. Actually, once you've embraced Him, the quest to know Him really begins. On the one hand, finding God means that our hunger and thirst for righteousness has been satisfied. But on the other hand, finding God means that the quest continues forever, for our hunger and thirst is infinite and is only satisfied in eternity. The tragedy is that many of God's children, having once quenched their spiritual thirst and tasted God's goodness, abandon the pursuit and settle for the long ago memory of being satisfied.
God calls us into His limitless depths, and the heart that is listening for that call will understand and respond. Tozer was well acquainted with the literature of earlier writers whose works evidenced an intimate knowledge of those glorious depths, He quotes frequently from The Cloud of Unknowing, from Frederick Faber, from Teresa of Avila, from Thomas A Kempis's The Imitation of Christ, from Nicolas of Cusa's The Vision of God, and from Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love. These spiritual masters knew something we need to learn: the most beautiful moment in God's presence is the moment after this.
My own conviction is that we come more and more to that which we aspire. That is, what we long for, what we desire shapes who we become. So, we return once again to the opening question, "What do you want more than anything else in the world?" Solomon was asked that question by God and assured that whatever he chose, God would give to him. He could have asked for wealth, or longevity of life, or victory over his enemies. But he asked for none of those things. He simply asked for wisdom, that intimate knowledge of God that strengthens one with the skill to guide and govern people in a way that pleases God. And so, because he chose intimacy with God over wealth, long life, or power over one's enemies, God gave him what he asked for, and then threw in the other things as a bonus.
It's the timeless principle of the first and second things. If you pursue the world you'll never find God, and you won't actually find what you're looking for in the world either. For example, if you pursue satisfaction apart from God, as an end in itself, you'll never be satisfied. However, if you pursue God first, then you will find intimacy with the Father, and secondly, the deep satisfaction He knew you also wanted. Pursue Him first and the best of this world will be given to you.
Since God is a person, our pursuit of him is best understood in the language of an intimate relationship rather than the language of a deer hunt. Knowing God cannot be achieved in a one-time encounter as in "I came to know Jesus at a certain time and place." It is not a matter of "I hunted for him; I found him; I'm finished." In fact, I grew up in a subculture where the tradition of giving such testimonies was common. I recall an elderly gentleman who would stand and talk about how he came to faith in Jesus 40 years earlier and then would sit down. Then another person would stand up, give a testimony of coming to faith in Jesus 25 years ago, and then sit down. And on it would go, week after week. But afterwards the question that I was left with was, "So, what has happened since then?"
In other words, these people spoke of their faith journey as a search for God that had been concluded 15, 25, or 40 years ago. And everything since then seemed to be totally irrelevant to them. Is there no connection between what happened long ago and what happened in their life today? Is there no difference between that first step of faith and their walk of faith today? I'm clear on what God did back then, but what is He doing today? But I sat silently and kept the question to myself — until now. And so I ask it of you, as does Tozer, as does your heavenly Father.
The pursuit of God is not a one-step journey. It is a life-long journey. We begin our pursuit with the startling discovery that he has been pursuing us — continuously. And he expects us to respond by pursuing Him — continuously. Tozer emphasizes that our call, our job is to follow hard after Him. While in His gracious grip we are called to pursue him. His initiative toward us carries with it an implicit responsibility. That is, he makes us "response-able" — able to respond. All those who have welcomed His gift of saving grace, also have within them a new longing to know Him better and better as the years progress. And since He is infinite, that pursuit will last throughout all eternity, always as fresh as the moment we met Him for the first time.
The call is for a response of personality to Personality, the response of the created personality to the Creating Personality. Eternal life is not a state of existing forever, but rather being eternally in the presence of a Person. "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God" (John 17:3). Therefore, heaven is not so much about a place as it is a Person. How strange to find people who have spent their whole life avoiding God, yet thinking that they'll someday enjoy being with him forever. For them heaven would be hell.
We see that to have found God is to still be motivated to pursue Him. It is the soul's paradox of love. When you "come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the hear of their desire after God."
Remember Moses and his great encounter with God? Go back to Exodus 33 and hear the radical request he makes of God, "Now therefore, I pray you, if I have found favor in your sight, let me know your ways so that I may know you, that I may find favor in your sight" (Exodus 33:13). How remarkable. He's saying that since his relationship with God is going well, his greatest wish is not to remain where he is, but to go beyond that. He continues his request with the words, "If your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?" (Exodus 33:15-16).
"And God said to Moses, 'I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and know you by name. Then Moses said, 'Now show me your glory'" (Exodus 33:17-18). Now that's a mighty bold request to make of God. But God is delighted with it.
"I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But, you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live. There is a place near me where you can stand on a rock. When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen' (Exodus 33:19-23).
"And so God passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, 'The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin'" (Exodus 34:6-7).
In this exchange between Moses and God, we see that God's glory is accompanied by his attributes. Who God is and what God does go hand in hand. Moses quested hard after God and God responded by showing him more of himself.
We see the same pattern in the life of David — a life full of spiritual passion, but which was sometimes passionate about the wrong things. Yet God did not characterize him according to his sins, but according to his heart. He was " a man after God's own heart." And the reason David's heart was patterned after God's heart was because David's heart was in pursuit (following hard after) of God's heart.
The Apostle Paul evidences the same pattern. His great prayer in Philippians 2 was, "That I may know Him." The knowledge Paul sought was not simply cerebral but intimately personal. And that is what the pursuit of God is — drawing near to God's heart with our heart. Being able " . . . to taste, to touch with our hearts, to see with our inner eyes the wonder that is God."
But this seeking cannot be done apart from a very genuine and deep commitment on the part of every person who longs to see his face. Someone else cannot do it for us. Someone else cannot make the decision for us. There is no other way but to embark on our own personal quest for God's heart, with all of our heart. Any lack of what Tozer calls "holy desire" is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Without it, he will not come to us nor allow us to come to him. Like a good lover, he doesn't waste time whining about being wanted, he simply waits to be wanted. And this is really the language of intimacy; he waits to be wanted. He waits while we tire of substituting our slick programs, trendy methods, streamlined organizations, and frantic activities for the sublime ecstasy of his presence alone.
To pursue God with a "holy desire" requires us to simplify our lives. We must learn to approach him as children, with the sense of wonder and awe that is characteristic of children. As Jesus said in Matthew 11:25, "I praise you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children." We are encouraged to approach our heavenly Father with the simplicity of child-like trust. I remember that whenever my father invited me to take a trip with him, I never concerned myself with where my next meal would come from or even if I was going to eat the next day. I never squirreled away food for fear that I would have nothing to eat the next day. I had an implicit child-like trust in my father and knew he had my best interests at heart.
And that's what it comes down to regarding you and God. Does he or doesn't he have your best interests at the heart of his heart? You must wrestle with that question, both parts. First, do you believe that he's in control and you're not? And secondly, does he have your best interests at heart? Clearly faith is involved here, for you don't even know what your best interests are. Therefore, when you pray, your prayers ought to be modified by what he wants for you rather than what you want from him. If he always gave you what you wanted, you'd be destroyed. Better to simply make your needs known and trust him to do what is best.
Simplifying our approach to God means stripping down to the essentials. And when all is said and done the only thing essential is God himself. This requires us to do away with the evil habit of seeking God-and. For it is in that and that great woe lurks. To seek God-and not only prevents us from finding God in any intimate way, but also from finding any lasting satisfaction in any of the ands we attain. However, if we eliminate the God-and mentality, then we will soon find God, and in Him we will find all that we have longed for all our lives.
What kind of ands are you tempted to attach to God? Do you struggle with getting God to approve your personal agenda? Do you reason that if you give God what he wants then perhaps he will anoint your plans? Or, perhaps if you couch your plans in religious sounding language then maybe God will rubber-stamp them? In short, you might be tempted to think that because "reverse psychology" works well on young children, impressionable students, codependent spouses, gullible friends, and naïve parents, surely it will work on God.
Or perhaps your and is happiness. You expect God to make you happy, because you have the right to be happy, don't you — the right to pursue happiness? That's in the Bible, isn't it? No that's in the Constitution, not the Bible. God is not committed to your happiness; he is committed to your holiness. And there is a big difference between the two.
Or perhaps your and is knowledge. Perhaps you are someone who forever lusts after some deep, sophisticated knowledge about God. Your pursuit of him is reduced to an academic exercise that consumes, but does not quench. It only ends in a thimble full of data about God -- his resume, his curriculum vitae, his biography.
But, if you have exhausted yourself on the God-and treadmill, always running after spiritual nourishment, but never getting any close, then you should heed Tozer's admonition. Pursue God-alone. For if you travel that path you will begin to see him with the eyes of your soul, and hear him with the ears of your heart, and feel the gentle way he takes up residence deep in your spirit.
I once watched a NOVA produced special on "The Mysterious Universe." Among the many interesting topics explored were some edgy hypotheses, such as "string theory." It was some very intriguing stuff. But it seemed strange that these brilliant scientists would expend so much energy in a search for the answers to the big questions of life in our universe, yet never search out the bigger question concerning the meaning of life in our universe. They found amazing examples of beauty in the natural world, but never really raised the larger question of where the beauty came from. It is quite remarkable that people who spend their whole professional lives getting a first-hand look at the intricate wonder of creation, never wonder who brought it into existence. Just so, a Christian who is not careful can also miss God in their quest for spiritual truth about him.
I've seen this happen in Seminary. A person is trained to study the Bible. But after a while they treat it as simply another textbook, forgetting that it is alive and active and able to bring them to the very throne of God. If we're not careful, even biblical education can be a dangerous thing.
Here's a paraphrase of how Larry Crabb puts it in his book Shattered Dreams: Most believers really are more desirous of the better life of God's blessings than they are of the better hope of God's presence. Do you catch that difference? Like greedy little children on Christmas morning, we run past the presence of God to get at the presents from God. We begin to view God as a sanctified Santa Claus who is only good for stuffing our lives full of goodies. Or we treat him as a religious genie who, if we rub him the right way with our prayers and promises, will grant us our fondest wishes. Eventually, we loose sight of God's presence altogether and only pursue the and stuff.
But Tozer uncovers the insanity of this approach. He says, "We need not fear that in seeking God only we may narrow our lives or restrict the motions of our expanding hearts. The opposite is true. We can well afford to make God our All, to concentrate, to sacrifice the many for the One." To pursue the and things of God before the person of God himself, is to insure that we will receive neither. To pursue the person of God, and him alone, is to insure that we will get the one thing our hearts long for most — Him, and with him, comes all the riches of heaven.
But remember, there is a risk involved pursuing God-alone. The tribe of Levi was given an inheritance, just like the other tribes, but with a significant difference. The other tribes were given parcels of land, but God said to the tribe of Levi, "I am you parcel and your inheritance." Question: Who got the best deal? Well, the answer depends upon your perspective. If you're after the goodies from God, then Levi lost out. But if you're after the truly good God, then Levi hit the jackpot.
This brings to mind the Lord's words in Matthew 6:33, "Seek first the kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well." Tozer concludes the chapter with this:
"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."
Let's face it, it's easy to talk about pursuing God-alone, but far from easy to actually do it. It's difficult to abandon our pursuit of what we can see, touch, taste, and posses, and embrace the pursuit of Someone who we can't see. It presents us with a risky decision. After all, we'll be tempted to wonder if we've won big or lost out. My suggestion is to go back through Scripture and history and read the stories of men and women who faced the exact same dilemma. What is their overwhelming testimony? Do you not hear them encourage you to abandon yourself to the pursuit of him above all else, and find that your soul has come home? Do you not hear them proclaim that you are loved by a Father every bit as much as he loves his only begotten Son? Do you not hear them speak eloquently of a divine ability to love him completely and to love others compassionately?
Let me close with a question. We return to the same question we began with. What do you want more than anything else in the world? By now, you know what the "right" answer is. But this question doesn't call for a correct or incorrect answer. It calls for a decision — a wise decision to follow hard after God or a poor decision to chase after everything else. One leads to intimacy, the other to idolatry. Perhaps you are honestly conflicted. That is, you're not ready to pursue God first, but you really don't want it to be that way. Well then ask yourself this question, if you don't want him first, do you want to want him first? Start from where you are and pray, that by the grace of God, you will one day be ready to make God your first and only delight.
Whichever question your heart is asking, pray this prayer.
"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 for 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, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, "Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away." Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long." In Jesus' name, Amen.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit:
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:3)
In recent years, the word "passion" has become fashionable and ubiquitous. It is used to market everything from designer perfumes to diet sodas. Both Oprah and Al Qaeda use it as a buzzword. It is used to mean one thing when referring to a young couple in a passionate embrace and something all together different when referring to how passionate that couple is about their new puppy. Everywhere people are passionately searching for careers, carpeting, and cars about which they can be passionate. One can see a passionate kiss, by two passionate actors, who are passionately promoting their movie, as well as praising the intensity of their director's passion. It would seem that by the use of the word, passion is everywhere.
The only consistent element in the varied usages of the word is that they all refer to some feeling of excitement. This currently trendy meaning is far removed from the original root of the word, which means, "to suffer or sacrifice." In fact, one of the rare proper usages of the word is found in the title of the Mel Gibson movie The Passion of the Christ. In that context, there is nothing thrilling, romantic, or alluring about what Christ endured during his arrest, trial, and execution. Rather it is a gripping reminder of how costly a sacrifice was required to purchase our treasured salvation. And it is this perspective on "passion" that Tozer wishes us to consider in Chapter Two of the Pursuit of God.
It seems that of all the magnificent and mesmerizing delights in God's expansive creation, there is a singular treasure tucked away in the divine wall-safe, available to everyone, yet affordable to few. It is reserved for that rare seeker who is hunting for God's best and will settle for nothing less. No bargain basement shopping nor protracted price haggling for this worshipper. For they know that what they want is worth everything they have. These rare men and women are after the crown jewel of eternity, the one magnificent pearl whose retail cost is not measured in dollars, the infinite-carat diamond of heaven. Follow them to the checkout stand and you won't find a register, but an altar. This altar waits for one courageous buyer to willing step up and lay down their life in exchange.
Chapter one of A. W. Tozer's book The Pursuit of God invited you to asked an intriguing question: "What do you want more than anything else in the world?" It was a question about your priorities, it was a question about your first love, it was a question about your heart's deepest desire. Once you have honestly answered that question, a second question follows closely behind. It is the key question of Chapter two: "What are you willing to pay for that which you want most?" This question is critical to ponder, for life teaches that everything worth our passion is worth our sacrifice. And that is true of the pursuit of God.
Previously, Tozer warned us about the counterfeit mindset of God-and. To our American sensibilities, such a concept seems so right that we hardly notice the hyphenation. But that hyphen provides the minute difference between the genuine item and a really good fake. And so we must join God in the ruthless task of severing the ands from our quest of Almighty God.
This is a chapter about attachments. Each of us has a penchant for attaching ourselves to the things and people of this world. From the very beginning you develop an attachment to your mother, your father, and your siblings. Soon we move from playing with "the toys" to playing with "my toys" — an early indication that we not only attach ourselves to things, but we attach things to ourselves. Similarly, over time we closely connect to other people as good friends, best friends, and romantic friends, while they return the favor. And we may eventually bond our lives to another and bring children into the world, the closest attachments in this life.
It is important to keep in mind that the desire for and presence of attachments is not bad. God has designed us with hearts that naturally seek out and find nourishment from the things and people he has made and freely given us. But sin has so distorted his original purpose for creation that these basic and normal desires have become rebellious and harmful to us, serving as hosts for our personal sin. That is, all of these attachments are natural and good . . . unless they are hyphenated to God. Then they must be cut away, sacrificed on behalf our heart's true passion.
Before God created mankind on the earth, he created a world of very useful and pleasant things for our sustenance and for our delight. These pleasant things were meant to be external to us, beneficial for us, and governed by us. But they were never meant to dominate us. Tozer writes, "In the deep heart of man was a shrine where none but God was worthy to come. Within him was God; without, a thousand gifts which God had showered upon him. But the problem began when as a result of our sin God was forced out of his central shrine and these created things were permitted to inhabit that deep and most holy of holy places."
As people began to pursue the things from God over God himself, the peace that existed inside and between men and women was absent. As Thomas Merton so relevantly states, "We are not at peace with one another because we are not at peace with ourselves. And. We are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God." Once sin severed the bond between God and us, the break extended all the way down the entire length of the created chain: broken souls, broken hearts, broken minds, broken bodies, broken relationships, and broken trust with the rest of creation.
And so, apart from peace with the living God, no one has any hope of regaining peace within, or peace between, or peace beyond. About this loss of peace, Tozier writes, "There is within the human heart a tough fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess. It covets things with a deep and fierce passion. The pronouns 'my' and 'mine' look innocent enough in print but their constant and universal use is significant." Those innocent looking pronouns reveal how deep and expansive our disease really is. We rudely ask God to vacate his rightful place in our hearts, in order to make room for all of the loot we amass. And then we wonder where the peace on earth went?
That's why the great commandments are ordered as to a first and a second one: The first is "To love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind;" and the second is "To love your neighbor as yourself." The vertical relationship with God is to be the first priority, but it cannot and should not be separated from the second priority. Our primary focus is to become God-centered, having peace with him through the blood of Jesus Christ. And then, having been reconnected to our source of life, our souls now possess the power to become other-centered, able to make peace with each other.
Why is it that those of us who have begun our faith by abandoning everything for the grace of God, now choose to continue our journey of faith by adding something to the pursuit of God? Is it not the tyranny of these additional things that must be cut loose? Luke 9:23-24 records the unambiguous words of our Lord, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it."
There is no third option or room for compromise here. The naked truth is brutal in its meaning and implication. Having once been transformed from death to life, we now must live this new life according to laws that seem downside-up to us. If you wish to say "yes" to Jesus Christ, you must say "no" to everything else. If you wish to hold on to the life you have, you can only do so by giving it away to God. The way of the easy yoke and light burden requires you to shoulder your cross each day, the cross of suffering. Man could never have invented this law; it could only come from above.
Why would you choose a road that seems so antithetical to everything you've experienced in this world? The answer is that Jesus never makes an appeal to self- abnegation without guaranteeing a greater good. He always promises that if we willingly give up that which appears to us necessary for life, and then willingly take up what appears to us an instrument of death, he will only kill off that which is lethal to us and marked for death anyway, but he will develop in us that which is eternal and abundant in life. God's math is the reverse of what we encounter on earth. Matthew 16: 26 poses the question, "What will a man be profited, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul?" That is to say, when you do a profit/loss analysis on your 75-80 years or so of life, do you finish in the black or the red if, on the plus side you've amassed the wealth of the entire world, while on the minus side you've lost your life for eternity?
The answer to that question is only found through faith in what God says, not in what we see. For what we see will always deceive us, making the unreasonable seem so reasonable and the reasonable seem so unreasonable. In the scriptures, God tells us again and again that there is an enemy within each of us that we tolerate at our peril and it is that self-life — a life committed to protecting, feeding, and celebrating the self. But those who would ascend God's holy hill where the exalted knowledge of God resides must commit themselves to destroying, starving, and condemning the self. They must become at home in the lonely valleys of soul poverty and the abrogation of all things. For only the poor in spirit are granted entrance into the kingdom and into the presence of the King. And only those who have rooted out of their hearts all need to possess anything but Christ are qualified. However, we must remember, this is accomplished not by fighting, but by surrender.
God will not force us to give up our toys, our trinkets, or our sandcastles. His approach is that of a good lover: never coercive, always persuasive. He holds out to us that which is far more appealing and invites us to choose that which our heart truly longs for. When I weigh what he promises to give me versus what I am able to give myself, it is like comparing a gourmet meal, exquisitely prepared by a master chef, to a brown bag of leftovers retrieved from the bottom of a dumpster. There's no comparison. Ultimately, all he wants to do is take away that which is destined for the dump and replace it with that which will satisfy our spiritual hunger pangs and nourish our depleted souls.
Like the beaded necklaces they throw at Mardi Gras, we willingly make fools of ourselves for that which in a moment of clouded revelry seem so valuable, but which in the light of sober observation turns out to be cheap and ultimately worthless. Our heavenly Father is grieved watching the heirs to his estate trade away a chance at his eternal riches for tomorrow's garbage. And while the choice must remain with us, he will out of his loyal love, use pain to slowly pry our fingers open, one by one, until we see that what we had gripped so tightly, was just a cheap plastic bauble. Only then can he give us that which is exquisitely beautiful, reserved for those who know value when they see it.
As is often the case, New Testament truths are brought to life in Old Testament history. There is no more poignant illustration of the surrendered life than the story of Abraham and Isaac. As you recall, Abraham was very old when Isaac was born; old enough to have been his great-grandfather. Isaac was the delight, but also a potential idol in his father's heart. From the moment when he stooped to take the tiny form in his arms, he was a love slave to his long-promised son. In fact, God himself commented on the intensity of the father's affection for the boy.
Isaac represented everything sacred to Abraham's heart: all the promises of God, the sign of the covenant, the longing of his years, and the hope of the messianic dream. So as he watches him grow from infancy into early manhood, the heart of the old man is knit closer to the life of his son, until at last his love bordered on idolatry. And that's when God, with his loyal love, stepped in to save both of them from the damage of an unhealthy love.
So God says to Abraham in Genesis 22, "Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you truly love, and go to the land of Moriah; and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you of." The writer of Genesis spares us the details of how Abraham must have inwardly wrestled with God during that long dark night under the stars near Beersheba. With great insight, Tozier suggests that, "Possibly not again until One greater than Abraham wrestled in the Garden of Gethsemane did such mortal pain visit a human soul. If only the man himself might have been allowed to die. That would have been a thousand times easier, for he was old now, and to die would have been no great ordeal for one who walked so long with God." How glorious if his last vision in life could have been to but gaze upon his only son, the promised seed, the one through whom all the world would be blessed. But no, God was not finished with this old man. He had much to teach him, even now. And somewhere in the struggle of the night, Abraham finally came to a decision. As the writer of Hebrews reveals to us, he decided to offer up his son just as God had directed him to do, and then trust God to raise him from the dead.
And so, God remained silent and let the suffering father go through with it right up to the point where he knew there would be no retreat in his obedience. Then God spoke. Tozer imagines God saying in effect, "It's all right, Abraham. I never intended that you should actually slay the boy. I only wanted to remove him from the temple of your heart that I might reign unchallenged there. I wanted to correct the perversion that existed in your love. Now you may have the boy, sound and well. Now I know that you fear me, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me."
Imagine if you will, that God comes to you and points at something you deeply love and can't imagine living without. Furthermore, imagine that he says to you, "I want you to take this thing that you deeply love and sacrifice it to me as an burnt offering." What is the one thing in the temple of your heart that you fear most having God point to? If you're having a hard time identifying it, here's a clue. It won't be anything that you willingly hold out to him and sheepishly place before him. More likely, it will be the thing that you try and conceal from him, the thing that you dare not look at for fear it will give you away, the thing/person that you'd gladly exchange places with if only God would bend the rules. But he will not. For his love is tenacious when it comes to anything or anyone who competes with him for sovereign reign in your heart.
Now Abraham was a man who was wholly surrendered, a man totally obedient, a man who possessed nothing. He had everything — sheep, camels, herds, and goods of every sort, a wife and friends, and best of all he had his son, delivered as it were from the dead. "He had everything, but he possessed nothing," is the way Tozer summarizes Abraham's life. And that is the secret God whispered into Abraham's ear during his agony at the altar. All things can be avenues of God's blessing, but only if we possess none of them. That is a lesson that can only be learned in "the school of renunciation." Graduation signals that season in which we are finished withholding things/people from God, knowing that our truest treasure consists of what remains in our hearts and in his heaven.
We are frequently hindered from loosening our grip and giving up our most adored treasures out of fear for their safety. But we need not fear, our Lord came not to destroy but to save. Everything we commit to him is safer than anywhere else. In fact, nothing is really secure that is not committed to his care. Once again we see that God's truth is the polar opposite of the world's truth. In this case, that means that what you surrender to him now will be the only things that are safe throughout eternity. And the things that you squirrel away now, "just to be safe," will be those things that never make the trip beyond the grave. The embarrassing truth is that you don't own anything at all. It is all on loan from above — your life, your spouse, your children, your home, your health, your investments, . . . your next breath. And God has given them to you, not as possessions to keep and protect at all costs, but as property to be invested and managed on his behalf. There is no more secure place than in the nail-scared hands of the Savior.
And it's not just the things that you have, but your time and your talents — these also are "short term loners" from God. As Paul puts it in I Corinthians 4:7, "For who makes you superior to anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you did not?" The answer is obvious. You have no reason to feel or act with an attitude of superiority because every good thing that you have, every good thing that you are, is yours only because God gave it to you. No drowning person, miraculously rescued after abandoning all hope, would dare get in front of a TV camera and boast about how wonderfully they played the part of the victim, would they? And how likely would it have been for Lazarus, upon his resurrection, to have run around Bethany bragging about his part in the miracle? So why should we boast when we having nothing to boast about? Is it not most reasonable that the One who so freely gives us all things, will also safely keep all things? As Jim Elliott said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose."
If the longing after God is primary and strong, you will want to do something about it. Tozier suggests two things. "First of all, he should put away all defense and make no attempt to excuse himself either in his own eyes or before the Lord." You are to begin by being totally honest with God. Trying to talk God into accepting your sub-standard attic junk, while hiding your heart's most cherished treasure from view, will not do. The Holy Spirit was not fooled when Ananias and Sapphira tried it; I'm quite sure he won't fall for our clumsy attempts. He knows everything before we know anything. He knows that we are terrified of laying down the "Isaacs" of our lives and losing them forever. So give up every deceitful trick your heart tries and courageously approach God with your hands open and ready to release everything to him.
Secondly, not only must you be honest with God about your struggle to let go, but you need to remember that this is holy business. You dare not approach this sacred work as if it were simply a casual matter of cleaning out a cluttered closet. No, you are dealing with a place where the King of kings wishes to reign. Thus, in giving up all the things that occupy your heart, you are making room for the One who bought the right to make it his home. Therefore, this undertaking requires sobriety of spirit and focus of discipline. As Tozier writes, "It may be that he will need to become specific (about the "ands" and the Isaacs), to name things and people by their names one by one. If he will become drastic enough he can shorten the time of his travail from years to minutes and enter the good land long before his slower brethren who coddle their feelings and insist upon caution in their dealings with God."
Eventually, God will have your heart. He will not rest; He will not be satisfied until Christ is perfectly formed in you. You can resist the process or you can cooperate with it. There will always be more pain in resisting than in cooperating, but he will get what he paid for at the cross. You've probably heard of the "cost of discipleship" — that the one who gives much to follow Christ in this life will gain much both now and forever. But, have you considered the "cost of nondiscipleship?" It is much greater. In this life alone, it will cost you the joy of seeing his face, hearing his voice, feeling his presence, experiencing his peace, being used as an powerful instrument for his purposes, standing firm in the midst of anything, and having a hope that does not disappoint. If you're doing some comparison-shopping, look very carefully at both price tags.
"We must, in our hearts, live through Abraham's harsh and bitter experiences if we would know the blessedness which follows them. The ancient curse will not go out painlessly; the tough old miser within us will not lie down and die in obedience to our command. He must be torn out of our heart like a plant from the soil; he must be extracted in agony and blood like a tooth from a jaw. He must be expelled from our soul by violence, as Christ expelled the moneychangers from the temple. And we shall need to steal ourselves against his piteous begging, and to recognize it as springing out of self-pity, one of the most reprehensible sins of the human heart."
"If we are indeed to know God by growing in our intimacy, we must go to the school of renunciation." There is no way to become Christlike apart from living like Christ. All who choose to follow him must first let go of the stuff of life so that they can lay hold of Life — this is the sanity of holiness. But the process is not over just yet. Sooner or later, every decision made in faith will be tested as to its quality. For it is one thing to claim by faith that your heart belongs to God above all else; it is another thing entirely to cling to that faith when tested by fire. And know for sure that he will test your faith, and you will not know when that test will come. Abraham's test came very quickly. And, instead of dealing with some of the peripheral issues of the old saint's life, God went right to the heart of the matter, placing his holy finger upon the son of promise, and in effect saying, "I want this."
Even so, you too "will be brought one by one to the testing place, and [you] may never know when [you] are there" till after its over." He will not have a dozen chalices from which you can choose to drink. There will be only one. And your whole future will depend upon the choice you make. Choose wisely. Abraham did. And I am convinced that if Abraham had backed down in disobedience, God would have found another man. But Abraham's life would have been irreparably lost. We would have never known about him. His name would be added to the long, long, tragic list of those whose faith failed in the moment of testing. But to the one who renounces all things, the heart's one true Desire comes, for now there is room for him to abide.
"Father, I want to know thee, but my cowardly heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival. Then shalt thou make the place of thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there. In Jesus' name , Amen."
In the movie version of Stephen King's short story, The Shawshank Redemption, the life of Andy Dufresne, a young and successful banker, dramatically changes when he is convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment at Shawshank Prison for the murder of his wife and her lover. Over the years, he befriends several of the longtime prisoners, including Brooks Hatlin, played by James Whitmore. Brooks has been in the prison so long that when he is finally up for parole, he tenaciously fights to find some way to stay behind bars. When his efforts fail, he reluctantly leaves, moves into a halfway house, and takes a job sacking groceries. His fears turn out to be well founded. His life on the outside is worse than it ever was on the inside. He is terrified of the busy traffic, intimidated by his boss and customers, and lonely, with only the birds to keep him company.
Finally, exhausted in a world where he no longer belongs, and sure that no one will miss him, he hangs himself in his room. On the beam from which his lifeless body hangs, he has scratched a final whimper in the wood, "Brooks was here." The scene is poignant. Finding himself in a prison worse than Shawshank, he chose to break out from life altogether. As his friends gathered to read his final note to them, old-timer "Red" Redding remarks that Brooks had become "institutionalized." That is, he had been inside prison for so long that it had become his new world, taking the place of his old life on the outside. It had become a place where he was respected, a place where his needs were met, a place where he felt most at home.
In time Brooks found himself imprisoned by two sets of bars. At first, he was sentenced to life behind metal bars that separated him from the freedom outside. But after awhile, he found himself encaged behind mental bars that prevented him from enjoying the freedom of the outside. This is an ancient dilemma of mankind. For instance, we read that it took God mere days to free the Israelites from their slave masters in Egypt. But it took him years to rid them of the internal mentality that enslaved them as they journeyed forth toward the land of promise. Year after year they wandered, repeatedly passing up the entrance to the "land flowing with milk and honey," because they were not yet free to believe in God's power to establish them there as the rightful owners. And today, we repeatedly hear stories told of men and women who, having been held captive by some real or imagined physical deformity, undergo cosmetic surgery, yet remain confined behind the bars of a deformed self image. Or we view the tragic lives of people who, after winning the lottery and being granted their fondest wish, find that all the money in the world will not change their impoverished view of life. As the saying goes, you can take the boy out of the trailer, but you can't take the trailer out of the boy. Even so, it is far easier to release a person from prison than it is to release a person from the prison mindset. True freedom requires both.
In chapter one of his classic book, The Pursuit of God, Tozer invited you to ask the question: "What do you want more than anything else in the world?" It was a question that probed your priorities. It was followed by a second question in chapter two, "What are you willing to pay for that which you want most?" This was a question that examined the price of getting what you want most. Now in chapter three a third question is presented, "What is keeping you from laying hold of what you want most and are willing to pay for?" This is a chapter about barriers between you and God — barriers that you have willfully erected and carefully maintained.
Here we focus on the importance of having unobstructed fellowship between the One who longs to love and the one who longs to be loved. Both lovers must attend to those obstacles, each taking the initiative and responsibility for what only they can do. And so, when mankind's path to God was blocked by sin, God began a major initiative to remove that which only he could remove. In the beginning he disclosed himself in and through the natural world, and later he revealed himself more perfectly in and through the Incarnation. And today, A. W. Tozer says, "He waits to show himself in ravishing fullness to the humble of soul and the pure of heart." Having once and for all torn down the wall of sin that separated God from man, he bids us tear down the wall of self that separates us from God.
What separates us from God? Tozer suggests that is a veil. A veil "woven of the fine threads of the self-life, the hyphenated sins of the human spirit. They are not something we do, they are something we are, and therein lies both their subtlety and their power." This "self-life" he is referring to is simply the title of an entire catalog of self-sins: "self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, and self-love." And from our modern self-addicted society we could easily add: self-absorption, self-abuse, self-analysis, self-centeredness, self-content, self-destructiveness, self-help, self-gratification, self-hatred, self-indulgence, self-service, self-willed — the list keep growing as long as "self" is alive.
Tozer observes that most Christians naively think that a regular diet, consisting of the proper biblical instruction in the fundamental doctrines of man's depravity and God's justification, will alone break the stranglehold these self-sins have over us. But such teaching, as valuable, and true, and necessary for spiritual wellbeing, is not enough to free us. For . . .
" . . . self can live unrebuked at the very altar. It can watch the bleeding Victim die and not be in the least affected by what it sees. It can fight for the faith of the reformers and preach eloquently the creed of salvation by grace and gain strength by its efforts. To tell the truth, it seems actually to feed upon orthodoxy and is more at home in a Bible conference than in a tavern. Our very state of longing after God may afford it an excellent condition under which to thrive and grow."
"Oh, wretched man that I am. Who will set me free from the body of this death?" (Romans 7:24)
Tozer begins the chapter with the great Augustinian phrase, from his autobiographical masterpiece Confessions, "You have made us for Yourself and our hearts are restless until they find rest in You." It is a sweeping statement about the origin and history of the human race, and that both are anchored in God himself. He is not only the cause of our creation, but he is the purpose of our existence. Via this summary, we not only come to understand the fact of our restless hearts, but we learn why they are so persistently restless and we a restless people. Apart from God, we thrash about desperately trying to cobble together a sense of identity and purpose, struggling to find our place of belonging in this world. We know not who we are, or whose we are, or who we are destined to become. And it is only upon returning to the One who brought forth our hearts from nothing, that we end our grinding search and find rest in the Living God who is both the beginning and end of our journey. Only in him do we find our identity, our purpose, and our destiny. Therefore, Tozer addresses the message of this chapter only to the person with a restless heart — the one in whom a deep longing has been awakened by the gentle, yet persistent hand of God upon their spirit.
Many of the ancient questions regarding the what and why of our spiritual lives are beautifully answered in The Westminster Shorter Catechism. "Question: What is the chief end of Man? Answer: Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever." In my opinion, John Piper says it even better, "The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever." Why is it better? Because, the way one glorifies God is by making Him the profound source of one's deepest pleasure. In short, we are called to what Tozer called, "the sweet and mysterious mingling of kindred personalities." Those who enter into such a wondrous relationship find the joy of interdependence and avoid the twin extremes of co-dependence and independence, both destructive to personhood. Co-dependence is the sickness of having oneself absorbed into that of another, with the accompanying loss of individuality. Independence is the disease of being so self-absorbed that one creates an illusory world in which there is no room for another, with the accompanying loss of community. Interdependence is the healthy path between the extremes where the individual person is honored as a unique creation of Christ and where the community of persons is celebrated as the unified Body of Christ. Here we find a mutuality of trust and love, and a place from which one can most closely mirror the intimate relationship between the three persons of the Trinity — three unique Persons, all unified in one God.
But the problem, as Tozer observes, is that "we have been guilty of that 'foul revolt' of which Milton speaks when describing the rebellion of Satan and his hosts" in Paradise Lost. We have broken free of God and have fled as far as our strength will carry us. While it is clear that we cannot possibly escape the omnipresence of the Lord, we may indeed flee from the manifest Presence of the Lord. Like Adam, we might attempt to hide among the trees of the garden, or like Peter we might say, "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." We either run away from God, or beg him to run away from us.
I vividly remember my first encounter with the manifest Presence of God when I was a college senior. After a variety of experiences, I was forced to come face-to-face with that Presence, and it terrified me. Yet, at the same time, I longed for it. It is what is often referred to as the "mysterium tremendum" — that which overwhelms one with fear and terror on the one hand, and love and wonder on the other. But at that time, I was keenly aware that what separated me from that Presence was stronger than what was drawing me. I recognized that it was my sin that prevented me from reaching the love and wonder that I longed for, and that I had no hope of succeeding on my own. It was only later that I discovered the message of the Gospel, and that what I was unable to do by myself, God Himself did for me.
As Tozer says, "The whole work of God in redemption is to undo the tragic effects of that foul revolt, and to bring us back again into right and eternal relationship with Himself This requires that our sins be disposed of satisfactorily." It is at this point that he preveniently moves within us to persuade our heart to come home, home to God himself. Like the prodigal son, our soul awakens from its insane stupor and says, "I will arise and go to my Father." That is the first step.
"The interior journey of the soul from the wilds of sin into the enjoyed presence of God is beautifully illustrated through the Old Testament tabernacle," writes Tozer. Each sinner seeking to worship God gained entry by way of a single opening into a large outer courtyard surrounded by a wall. The first thing you encountered was a brass altar upon which burnt sacrifices were offered. It was a picture of redemption — the price of sin was a payment in blood. The next thing you encountered in the courtyard was the laver, used for washing. It was a picture of cleansing. Having been redeemed by a blood sacrifice, it was now necessary to wash away the sin and proceed as one who is now cleansed through the purifying water of confession.
To proceed into the holy place, one had to pass through a veil. Once inside the holy place, to the left would be the golden lamp stand, to the right would be the altar of shewbread, and toward the back stood the altar of incense. No natural light was permitted in the holy place. The only light came from the burning candles in the golden lamp stand. The flames form the golden lamp stand spoke of Christ, the Light of the World, as well as pointed to the Holy Spirit, who would some day manifest himself in tongues of fire. The shewbread illustrated Christ as the Bread of Life and pictured our communion meal with God. The altar of incense represented the fragrant prayers of the saints going up to God.
But the worshiper who had come this far and had enjoyed so much still had not entered the presence of God. A second veil separated the holy place from another space, the most holy place, the Holy of Holies, where there was but one piece of furniture — the Ark of the Covenant. It contained the Tablets of Law given by God to Moses, which speaks of the righteous requirements of God, as well as other items. Covering the top the Ark was a heavy slab of thick gold that could be removed. That slab of gold was called the mercy seat, upon which the figures of two Cherubim perched, guarding the holiness of God. It was the place of propitiation, or the place of "satisfaction." Hovering above the mercy seat dwelt the very presence of God himself in awful and glorious manifestation. No matter where the tabernacle traveled, upon being set up, only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and that but once a year on the Day of Atonement, with the blood of an animal which he sprinkled on the mercy seat. In effect, the blood would put off the righteous requirements of the law for another year.
The veil that covered the Holy of Holies was about six inches thick and was made of various animal skins and cloth. Once a year, the high priest could enter, but only after filling the space with incense first. Failure to do so would ensure that the brilliant light of God's presence would blind him. Then he would go in and sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat to offer atonement for the sins of the nation. It was this last veil that was torn when the Lord died at Calvary, and the eyewitnesses report that the veil was ripped top to bottom. Mark well the direction of the tear. Immediately upon being satisfied (propitiated) by the perfect sacrifice of his own Son, the barrier between God and man, symbolized by the veil over the Holy of Holies, is ripped by God from top to bottom. After the sacrifice, God opens wide the way into his presence and invites us to draw near with boldness.
After the atoning death of Christ, the temple of God was no longer the designated place where man was to meet with God. No longer was it limited to a physical structure, and restricted to only one chosen man, and only open to that man once a year. But now the presence of God himself could dwell within anyone who received Christ's free gift of atonement for his or her sins. Their body became a living tabernacle for the Holy Spirit, a Holy of Holies where the presence of God could take up residence. What had formerly separated sinful people from God's holiness had now been removed forever.
In fact, it is helpful to think of yourself as a temple modeled after the Tabernacle. Your physical body corresponds to the outer courtyard. Your soul corresponds to the holy place. And at the center your spirit, where God now dwells, corresponds to the Holy of Holies. For the believer, there is free and open access from the outer body into the inner being, and on into the most holy place where God abides. Now, the actual life of Christ can be lived through you, from the inside out, affecting the heart, the mind, the body, all relationships, and the soul. You are now invited to push on into the presence of God, where you can actually live each day of your life. It is a staggering truth to contemplate: that the God of the universe waits for you, not in heaven, not in a religious structure, but within your very heart.
God has removed the sin barrier. Now comes his invitation. Twice the writer of Hebrews implores us to "draw near:" "Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need" (4:16). And, " . . . let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water" (10:22). The call goes forth, yet we hesitate, lingering at the entrance, reluctant to push on inside. The years pass and we grow old and tired of milling around in the outer courts of our bodily temple. What hinders us? Have we so quickly forgotten who it is that waits for us? Is he not the Father who is mighty and awesome in presence, the maker of things visible and invisible in Heaven and Earth? Is he not the Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, being of one substance with the Father? Is he not the Spirit that is holy, the one who proceeds from the Father and Son, and who empowers and indwells?
The need for divine communion is desperate. Tozer observes that, "The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God and the Church is famishing for want of His presence. The instant cure of most of our religious ills would be to enter the Presence in spiritual experience, to become suddenly aware that we are in God and God is in us." The truths of the ancient creeds roll off our tongues so easily, while the Person of whom they speak waits within. And who is it that we keep waiting? It is the . . .
"One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. One Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God; begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God; begotten, not made; being of one substance with the Father. And the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified."
It is a holy Trinity of Persons in one God, for . . .
" . . . we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one: the glory equal and the majesty co-eternal."
The veil of sin has been removed. The call for communion has gone forth. The need for each one to hear, to touch, to taste and see that the Lord is good, has never been greater. What is it that continues to stand between us and our heart's true home? It is the veil of self that yet remains to be torn down. Tozer writes, "Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction. We may as well try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us."
He continues with the stark reminder,
"Let us remember that 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; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us and to make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and that is what the cross would do to every man to set him free."
We must abandon whatever worthless tinkering we are doing with our inner lives and give up all trial-and-error attempts at ridding ourselves of that veil. We must quit hoping that someday, somehow, we will stumble on some trick that magically removes our veil. It will never happen. God must do everything for us. Our part is simply to yield to the painful but effective process by confessing our poverty of spirit, forsaking our feeble attempts, repudiating the self-life, and then slowly beginning to live out the fact that he has been successful and that it is gone.
In the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, one of the books in C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series, the story begins with the words "There was a boy named Eustice Clarence Scrubb, and he deserved it." He was a nasty little guy. Later in the story he wakes up to find that he's become a dragon. The nasty nature inside of him soon manifests itself onto his external body. He now looks to be on the outside what he is on the inside. Eventually, the Lion in the story, who represents Christ, tells him, "Do you want to become a boy again?" Of course he does. And so the lad, now in dragon skin, tries to remove the dragon nature using his own talons to cut it off. As he cuts he finds that it is very painful. Eventually, he succeeds in tearing it off. But he soon finds that there is another dragon beneath. So, he cuts that skin off as well. Still he finds that there is another one, and another one under that. Finally, the Lion says, "You will not be able to do it yourself. I will have to do it for you." So, Eustice Clarence Scrubb grudgingly gives permission for the Lion to cut away the dragon skin and return him to being a boy again. Using his claw, the Lion cuts so deeply that the dragon-boy feels he will surely die. It is so painful, so agonizing. When the Lion is finished, the boy looks down and sees a very thick dragon skin lying on the ground. The Lion tells him to go wash in a pool of water. When he comes out of the water he's a boy once again.
The imagery is powerful. What we need done, we are unable to do ourselves. But God, being unwilling to violate our free will, will not do what only he can do without first receiving our permission. But when we agree to let him do his work, he immediately proceeds with the transformation process. Make no mistake; it is a bloody and painful process. Yet when it is over, he cleans up our lives and gives us our humanity back. We are transformed into precious children, beloved by their Father.
In similar fashion, Tozer reminds us that it is not our job to remove that which separates us from God. The doctrine of self-crucifixion, so widely practiced by most every religion in order to gain salvation, is never successful before God. But neither is it effective for Christians who hope to have intimate fellowship with their heavenly Father. Having removed the barrier of sin that separates us, he is also the one who is able to remove the barrier of self that separates us. The surgery required is something only God himself can be trusted to do right. Whenever we try to do it ourselves we only increase our pain and suffering, but never our spiritual health. Here is our problem. Our heart's desire has been too closely enmeshed with the aspirations of this fallen world. Letting go of that is no easy task. The prospect of losing our false self, even though it has been nothing but trouble for us, is terrifying to us. Yet it must be cut away in order to make room for our truest self, the one God that has treasured in his heart from all eternity.
Are you ready to ask God to tear off that woven veil of hyphenated sins of the self-life, that opaque barrier that separate you from the manifest presence and matchless glory of God? He is able. And he will employ the same instrument of death that purchased our freedom from sin's slavery — the cross. As Tozer says, "The cross is rough and it is deadly, but it is effective. It does not keep its victim hanging there forever. There comes a moment when its work is finished and the suffering victim dies. After that there is resurrection glory and power, and the pain is forgotten for joy that the veil is taken away and we have entered in actual living experience the presence of the living God."
I believe that there comes a point in our spiritual journey where we hit a barrier, a barrier that bars our way to the best of what God has prepared for us. Everything we hope to have in Christ is on the other side. Yet nothing we do can breach that wall. It is the point at which we come face to face with the stark challenge of Romans 12:1, "I urge you therefore, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual act of worship." It involves the total and voluntary sacrifice of self, offered to God without condition. Paul is telling you to willingly climb up on the altar and lay down as a living sacrifice. But there's always a problem with living sacrifices, is there not? It wants to keep crawling off the altar. So, this death of self must be followed by a transformation, a new way of living life that is well-pleasing to God. "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing and perfect will." Then each successive day we must recommit ourselves to the immolation of the self and to the transformation of the self into Christlikeness.
The Romans 12 decision is the only pathway through the barrier of self. If you never choose to break through that barrier, you will consign yourself to mediocrity in your spiritual walk. And because God loves you and is committed to finishing what he started in you, he will take you into the wilderness of consequences where you will experience his severe mercy, with the hope that, in your desperate condition, you will finally submit to his transforming grace.
God has pardoned you from sin's prison. The doors not only stand wide open, they have been torn down, from top to bottom. You are now free to walk out of your life as a slave to sin and free to run and embrace your Savior and Lord. Why are you not running to him? It is because you are still living an imprisoned existence, free from sin on the outside, confined by self on the inside. Let this prayer be your prayer of liberation.
"Lord, how excellent are Thy ways, and how devious and dark are the ways of man. Show us how to die, that we may rise again to newness of life. Rend the veil of our self-life from the top down as thou didst rend the veil of the Temple. We would draw near in full assurance of faith. We would dwell with Thee in daily experience here on this earth so that we may be accustomed to the glory when we enter Thy heaven to dwell with Thee there." In Jesus' name. Amen.
"O taste and see." (Psalm 34:8)
Mom's hands cover her mouth and nose in a prayerful pose. Uncle Dave pumps the air with a clenched fist and chants out the rhythmic big dog sound. Older brother Michael, unable to make up his mind as to whether he is going to look or not, peers tentatively through the open fingers of the hands that cover his eyes. Little sister Amy, unable to contain her excitement, is jumping up and down as if on a pogo stick, squealing at such a high pitch that the dog runs for cover. The rest of the assembled crowd of family and friends are all focused on the action at the edge of the pool. By the behavior of the audience, you'd think it was a gold medal event in the Summer Olympics. And at this moment, it might as well be.
In fact, it is little Kristin's first jump into the deep end of the big pool without her water wings. She stands at the lip of what appears to be a vast ocean to her, shivering in the 96-degree sunshine. The little pink bathing suit with the ruffles around the waist cannot hide the fear that twitches throughout her little 4œ year old body. At her age, she's certainly used to being in water, having mastered all the challenges of the kiddy pool months before.
But she draws no comfort from that history, nor from the fact that she's been in this pool several times. Being a 3-time veteran does not count today, for those voyages were made with her inflatable water wings securely attached and with her daddy's neck within easy reach. This is something very new — no safety equipment, nothing to hang on to. Her mind begins to race, fast forwarding through all the possible disasters that could occur: she might trip and hit her head on the edge of the pool, she might fall into the pool head first and get water up her nose, she might sink to the bottom, she might die and never have the chance to go to big-girl school, she might . . . .
But through her anxiety-blurred vision, she spies her daddy. He stands waist deep in the pool with arms outstretched toward her, a comforting smile on his face. Over the chaos all around, she hears him quietly and confidently say, "Jump into my arms, sweetheart. Daddy will catch you." Her fear has not diminished one bit, but his words remind her that he always keeps his promises. In the end, it is not the encouragement from the adoring fans, it is not the cookie bribe from Aunt Rita, and it is certainly not the silent scream that blares in her mind. It is the simple trust of a child in the word of her father.
So, she closes her eyes, holds her nose, and jumps. It is not a thing of beauty. It looks as if one leg decided to obey her will and the other leg chickened out at the last minute. It is more of a lunging stumble than a confident leap. Nevertheless, into the water she goes. As expected, the splash is big and it is scary. As soon as she feels the water, her little arms and legs begin flailing wildly, in a awkward attempt to mimic the way big people swim, just in case daddy isn't paying attention. But miracle of miracles, no sooner does she hit the water and feel herself going under, when she feels two strong hands catch her under her arms and lift her up. She instinctively gulps fresh air, wipes the water from her face, and turns to hear everyone going wild. At that point, the only thing bigger than her eyes is the high-pitched sound that comes from her happy lungs, shouting out for all to hear, "I did it!"
Raucous cheers continue to rise from the audience. Adults, caught up in the jubilant moment, spontaneously jump into the pool, caring not that they look ridiculous with their sunglasses on and their cups of ice tea still in hand. They wade over and crowd around Kristin to celebrate her victory. After she regales them with the details of her aquatic performance, she turns around to the man proudly holding her and says, "Let's do it again, daddy!"
In this chapter of A. W. Tozer's masterful work, The Pursuit of God, you will encounter a fourth question: "How do you actually go about laying hold of a Person who is Spirit?" Having decided to pursue God as your prime love (chapter 1), and having decided to give your life in exchange for him (chapter 2), and having given permission for him to remove anything that separates you from him (chapter 3), it is time for you to face the question of how you apprehend Someone who is not available to you through your five sensory organs. Tozer titled this chapter "Apprehending God," but our question is "How?" It is a chapter about faith and reality — a faith that works equally well in the reality of the material and immaterial worlds, and particularly a faith that brings you face to face with a God who is more real than anything you can see.
We want to explore the simple mystery by which a little child is able to block out all of the internal and external noises begging her not to jump, and obey the quiet voice of her daddy and jump into his arms. Her ultimate act of trust was not accomplished without doubt or fear. In fact, her leap of faith is clearly done in spite of them. Were her decision based on reason alone, she would most likely conclude that it is not a sane thing for a little girl to do. After all, who would take care of her dollies, instruct her younger sister in the ways of the world, and protect the dog from the cruel teasing of her older brother if she had died? Yet she jumped, tentatively to be sure, but she jumped. And after she pushed through her doubts and fears, she couldn't wait to exercise her new-forged confidence and do it again.
This chapter brings you to the edge of a decision. Your choice is clear: either stay on the firm, familiar ground that you've come to trust through your senses, or jump toward the invisible God who really is waiting for you with open arms. As you begin to exercise those muscles of faith, you will strengthen your spiritual sensory organs and increase your ability to experience God in a way more tangible than anything in this world.
Quoting Canon Holmes, of India, Tozer writes, "To most people God is an inference, not a reality." That is, they come to know him through some second-hand means. Perhaps they have heard about him from others, or have deduced him from evidence, or consider his name as a euphemism for some lofty concept or ideal, such as beauty or truth. With prophetic insight, Tozer anticipates our many "new age philosophers" that religiously worship the impersonal gods of manmade creation. But one cannot have a meaningful relationship with an impersonal 'it,' no matter how much anthropomorphic make-up we apply. It requires a person and another person for there to be a personal relationship.
But even more troubling to Tozer is that Christians, who certainly ought to know better, are also guilty of worshipping an impersonal God. He says, ". . . for millions of Christians, nevertheless, God is no more real than he is to the non-Christian. They go through life trying to love an ideal and be loyal to a mere principal." In fact, people preparing for the professional ministry are frequently lured away by just such a temptation. I have personally witnessed people entering seminary with a strong, vibrant, and warm love of Christ, only to come out more in love with their carefully engineered philosophical and theological models of Christ. It is supremely tragic to witness Christians and their leaders being teased away from the rich manifest Presence by some poor counterfeit model of that Presence. From a distance they may look the same, but up close they are as different as a living, breathing person is next to a museum wax figure that has no life, no warmth, and offers no relationship.
To quote another Holmes, referring this time to the mythical character from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's imagination, Sherlock Holmes, "Elementary my dear Watson, you see, but you do not observe." Or as our Lord states, using another sensory organ, "Those who have ears to hear, let them hear." That is, our physical hearing is fine when it comes to knowledge concerning the nature and attributes of the Almighty, but we are not spiritually receptive, not actively listening for the voice of the Shepherd of our soul.
By way of illustration, every second you are being bombarded by a multitude of radio and television waves. All manner of frequencies, channels, and signals are being beamed your way. But, you can't feel them, you can't see them, and you can't hear them, even though they are all around you. How then, if you can't feel, see, or hear them, do you know that they exist? Simple. Just turn on your radio or television set. We "prove" the existence of those waves of high frequency energy by possessing a corresponding receiver, and by having it tuned to the proper frequency. That is, what seems to be nonexistent to our naked senses, becomes very real if we have the capacity to receive the signal and the willingness to tune it in. In similar fashion, we are able to "pick up" the presence of God by means of faith — the God-given capacity to receive him and tune in to his love for us.
Tozer says,
"The Bible assumes as a self-evident fact that men can know God with at least the same degree of immediacy as they know any another person or thing that comes within the field of their experience. The same terms are used to express the knowledge of God as are used to express knowledge of physical things. 'O taste and see that the Lord is good' (Psalm 34:8), emphasis added). 'All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces' (Psalm 45:8, emphasis added). 'My sheep hear my voice' (John 10:27, emphasis added). 'Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God' (Matthew 5:8, emphasis added)."
When God redeemed us, he quickened our spiritual nature, bringing it to life. What we were once incapable of receiving due to a spirit that was dead in trespasses and sin, we are now freely able to pick up on. So that, just as we apprehend the physical world by means of our five natural senses, we are also able to apprehend the spiritual world by means of our supernatural senses. God has re-created our hearts in such a way that they can function as a spiritual receiver with the capacity to apprehend the reality of the divine realm. Now we are both able to see creation with the eyes of our body as well as observe the Creator with the eyes of faith, able to hear the sounds of life with the ears of our body as well as listen to the voice of the Father of life.
Exactly how do we "turn on" our receivers and "tune in" to God? The answer is what the ancients, and specifically Brother Lawrence, referred to as "practicing the presence of Christ." That is, developing a conscious and habitual communion with the person of Christ in such a way that we slowly drop the habit of merely talking to him and slowly embrace the habit of being with him. Over time our relationship with him begins to take on the dynamic language of intimacy: we share a meal at a table for just two, we exchange glances and secret expressions of love, we return each embrace with one of our own, we dance the night away in each others' arms, we take turns playing the roles of pursuer and pursued, for we both love to find the other and to be found by the other.
I'm convinced that it is possible to practice the presence of God in all facets of life, even in the most routine and mundane moments. Once our spiritual sense organs begin to function in a robust manner, everything we encounter becomes spiritual. No longer is there a sacred-secular dichotomy. Christ is present with us when we pull an all-nighter preparing for an important presentation, or when we clean our kitchen floors for the third time that day, or when we cool down from our physical workout, or when we throw our graduation caps in the air, or when we cut our wedding cake, or when we cut the umbilical chord in the delivery room, or when we pace the floor through a sleepless night, or when we grimace at the number of grey hairs going down the shower drain, or when we exhale our final breath. The merely secular becomes the profoundly spiritual when the focus of our heart becomes essentially eternal. Tozer sums it up nicely, "A spiritual kingdom lies all about us, enclosing us, embracing us, altogether within reach of our inner selves, waiting for us to recognize it. God Himself is here waiting for our response to His presence."
He gets practical about practicing the presence of Christ when he says that, "This eternal world will come alive to us the moment we begin to reckon upon its reality." But first he wants us to understand what he means by reckon and reality. He begins with the word reality. Reality as Tozer defines it is "that which has existence apart from any idea any mind may have of it, and which would exist if there were no mind anywhere to entertain a thought of it. That which is real has being in itself. It does not depend upon the observer for its validity."
It is obvious that in this day and age, that definition has become the minority view. We can observe the denial of objective reality in the Pantheistic foundations of Buddhism, or in the philosophical underpinnings of the Enlightenment, or in the various New Age pseudo-religions, as well as in the current postmodern trends. It no longer elicits a raised eyebrow when someone declares that something is real only as it exists in the mind of someone. Having removed all the absolute points in the universe, the relativists are free to arbitrarily pick any point from which to start, and from which the relative truth of anything can be determined.
And what do these relativists think of us Christians? Tozer describes them as those who, ". . . smile down upon us from their lofty intellectual peaks and settle us to their own satisfaction by fastening upon us the reproachful term 'absolutist.'" By that term they mean to convey contempt toward our naïve commitment to something that doesn't change. They loathe our prehistoric view that truth claims must be either right or wrong. But the ultimate insult for them is not just that we believe that something is absolute, but that we believe that Someone is absolute — that God is the unchanging center of all that is real and from which everything and everyone derives meaning and reality.
Ultimately for the Christian, all things that we see are anchored in the unchanging character and nature of God. He is not relative to us (i.e., open to being defined any way we choose), and he is not a relativist (i.e., arbitrarily defining his universe anyway he chooses). That which God is, he is absolutely. He is absolutely good. He is absolutely beautiful. He is absolutely holy. And therefore, what God created is absolutely defined by him. That is, because he is absolutely good, that which he creates derives its goodness from him. And because he is absolutely beautiful, that which he creates derives its beauty from him. And because he is absolutely holy, that which he creates must derive its standard of right and wrong behavior from him.
In fact, the absolute nature of reality is so deeply built into the universe that no one can consistently live without acknowledging it. To hold a view which says, "What is true for you is not true for me" may sound appealing in the abstract, but when your banker tells you that your checking account is overdrawn by thirty thousand dollars, try convincing her that, "That's true for you but not for me." The patent absurdity of the view becomes obvious to all. The God of the universe does not change and therefore has ordered reality in such a way that no one can escape its gravitational pull. Therefore, in God's world we find that every heart seeking to worship him does not begin by creating the object of its worship. Rather God begins by creating us as objects of his affection and then seeks us out and bids us come and worship him. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the present past and present future of this moment. And only when we submit to that reality do we discover the truth concerning ourselves, our world, and him.
After nailing down the meaning of reality, Tozer proceeds to define the word reckon. The word comes from the field of accounting and means to "regard something as true." Having laid a foundation that sees reality as absolute, you are ready to begin ordering your behavior around that reality. In Romans 6, the Apostle Paul uses the word reckon in telling every Christian to, " . . . reckon yourself to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus." That is, you begin to order your mind around the fact that you are no longer held captive by sin, but are now free to pursue God and his righteousness. The act of reckoning is totally independent of how you feel, or what your immediate or past circumstances tell you, or what you hope will become true for you if you just act. Thus we see that its meaning is light-years away from the notion of pretending as if something were true so that you can make it true for you. Rather, it is intentionally embracing a truth that you know to be actually true. Reckoning is related to faith in that faith creates nothing; it simply reckons upon that which is already there.
"Our trouble," says Tozer, "is that we have established bad thought habits. We habitually think of the visible world as real and doubt the reality of any other world." Later, he writes that, "The visible becomes the enemy of the invisible, the temporal, of the eternal." He concludes that the fundamental problem is "our uncorrected thinking, influenced by the blindness of our natural hearts and the intrusive ubiquity of visible things." We have erected an imaginary wall between the spiritual world and the real world. So that what we perceive as being real has nothing to do with what we consider spiritual, and what we believe to be spiritual has nothing to do with the world of reality. Thus the world of faith becomes nothing more than an irrational and unrealistic leap into the unknown while the world of verifiable facts is irrelevant to faith. In fact, no such wall exists. Rather the opposite is true. The world of the spirit is far more "real" than the world of the physical, which is not always what it seems. The Bible tells us that, ". . . the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18). Our minds have again been polluted with relativism so that we falsely assume that if we want something to be spiritually true, such as being dead to sin, we must imagine it is true and hope that it actually becomes true.
But you may ask, "If my spiritual blindness has been removed at the moment of regeneration, why then can't I immediately apprehend God with the eyes of my new heart?" Scripture answers by teaching that even though you have been freed from the captivity by sin, you have not yet been freed from your capacity for sin. That is, while the penalty for sin has been paid, and you are no longer a slave who is unable to break free from its domination, you still retain the capacity to sin if you choose to do so. Only now that you're a Christian, it is totally inconsistent with the person you have become in Christ. Your power to choose is at the core of your God-given design, reflective of his image, and is therefore still operational. And while that power is now free to pursue God, it still has the option of being employed by the old self to sin.
To illustrate the point, consider this parable: Once upon a time there was a bachelor who lived a commitment-free lifestyle, never building any lasting relationships, preferring instead to aimlessly roam from one female to another in an endless search for selfish pleasure. One day, exhausted by the emptiness, he found a woman like none other and decided to settle down in marriage. They exchanged vows before family, friends, and God, symbolized with rings. One night during the honeymoon, the new bridegroom decided to "take a night off" from his wife and hit the singles bars in search of someone willing to share their affections. Not wanting to be a hypocrite, he took off his wedding ring and placed it on the nightstand. As he left for the evening, he silently convinced himself that by removing the ring he was once again a bachelor, free to return to his former habits as a single man.
The next day, upon his return his worried wife asked where he had been. He told her the truth, explaining that his bizarre behavior was permissible since he had taken the time to remove his wedding ring. He said that a man wearing a wedding ring should act like a married man, but a man without a wedding ring has every right to act as a single man. After all, for years he had worn no ring and developed certain culturally acceptable habits characteristic of a single man. And anyway, don't old habits die hard?
His wife folds her arms, taps her left foot, and takes a deep breath before informing him that his old habits had better die immediately or she would pawn that ring and take a singles cruise to Bermuda with her girlfriends. He's stunned. Why in the world can't she understand that if the ring made him married, the removal of the ring should make him single again? Where did he go wrong?
The answer is obvious, is it not? Wearing or not wearing a ring is not the issue. The issue involves a vow of commitment; the ring is only a symbol of that commitment. Therefore when he said, "I do," that vow transformed him into a different person, and everyone, especially his new bride, expected him to act like the new person he has become. Therefore, how he feels in a given moment, or what lifestyle habits he finds difficult to control, or whether or not he wore a ring is completely irrelevant. The only way forward for our "married bachelor" is for him to begin to reckon himself dead to bachelorhood and alive to marriage. Then based on that reckoning, he must consistently live in that truth and live out that truth.
Upon becoming a Christian you have undergone a total transformation into a new creation. That means that, ". . . the old things have passed away, behold, new things have come" (2 Corinthians 5:17). But before you can begin acting like the new creation you are, you must first change your mental picture to correspond to your new identity. You must reckon that which is true, to actually be true. You must begin seeing yourself as a beloved child of a Holy Father, as one who is dead to sin and alive to God.
But, unlike the bachelor in the parable, you can count on more than just your own disciplined efforts, for there is another power in you that is greater than personal willpower. It is the power of the Holy Spirit, who has taken up residence within you and who is able to supernaturally strengthen your confidence in your new identity. Paul indicates as much when he write, "For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption . . . the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God" (Romans 8:15-16). Having first reckoned yourself alive to God and dead to sin, you can begin living out that truth in the power of the Spirit.
So, let's connect the two: your power to choose and the Spirit's power to change. Your will (power to reckon) can be connected to the Spirit's will (power to strengthen). And as you improve your skill of reckoning upon God's truth, you will begin to see the life of Christ being re-formed in your behavior. Thus you learn to walk in the Spirit. The first foot relies on the truth of the Spirit and the second foot relies on the power of the Spirit. To you Paul says, " . . . for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13).
Obviously this way of walking isn't developed overnight is it? It's only accomplished by making wise choices over an extended period of time. That includes your choices of avoidance: carefully monitoring the things you see or hear, staying away from environments that trigger old habits, and withdrawing from relationships that tempt you back into sin. You must constantly be on guard against the world's efforts to derail your spiritual progress. As Tozer writes,
"The world intrudes upon our attention day and night for the whole of our lifetime. It is clamorous, insistent, and self-demonstrating. It does not appeal to our faith; it is here, assaulting our five senses, demanding to be accepted as real and final. But sin has so clouded the lenses of our hearts that we cannot see that other reality, the City of God, shining around us. The world of sense triumphs. The visible becomes the enemy of the invisible, the temporal, of the eternal. That is the curse inherited by every member of Adam's tragic race."
And it also includes your choices of engagement: making it a point to watch and listen to that which is pleasing to the Spirit, spending time in environments that nourish your soul, and developing healthy relationships with other brothers and sisters in Christ. Each of those small choices will eventually have a cumulative effect. As Tozer says,
"As we begin to focus upon God, the things of the Spirit will take shape before our inner eyes. Obedience to the word of Christ will bring an inward revelation of the Godhead (John 14:21-23). It will give acute perception enabling us to see God even as is promised to the pure in heart. A new God-consciousness will seize upon us and we shall begin to taste and hear inwardly feel the God who is our life and our all."
Tozer says that, "Every man must choose his world." At the end of the day each of you must choose which world you want to live in. You either choose to embrace and treasure those things that the world declares important, or you choose to embrace and treasure those things that the Word declares important. You cannot have it both ways. You must choose. And it is true that it takes a great deal of faith to choose the unseen over the seen, and the "not yet" over the "right now." But Tozer warns that, "We must avoid the common fault of pushing the other world into the future. It is not future but present. It parallels our familiar physical world, and the doors between the two worlds are open." As we practice the presence of Christ, we are increasingly able to turn the secular world we see into the spiritual world where the Kingdom of God actually spreads out into an invisible panorama that can be seen, heard, tasted, smelled, and touched by those who regard him to be their deepest treasure, their source of glory, and their greatest wonder. To the one who reckons it to be true, this treasure exists in the present tense; it is right in front of you, right now.
Referring to Mount Sinai, the writer of Hebrews 12:18 tells us,
"You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word should be spoken to them. For they could not bear the command, 'If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned.' So terrible was the sight, that Moses said, 'I am trembling with fear.'"
That is a description of the majestic manifest presence of God. The Israelites were overwhelmed. They did not want God to speak directly to them and they did not want to speak directly with God. They preferred that Moses be the intermediary. But suddenly the author of Hebrews switches from speaking about a physical mountain to speaking about a spiritual mountain.
"But you have come to Mt. Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel."
Tozer asks, "May we not safely conclude that, as the realities of Mount Sinai were apprehended by the senses, so are the realities of Mount Zion are to be grasped by the soul?" The primary instrument God has given us for comprehending his celestial city is obedience — simple obedience. This is the secret by which the invisible becomes more visible to us. "More and more, as our faculties grow sharper and more sure, God will become to us the great All, and his presence the glory and wonder of our lives."
Go back and imagine that you are little Kristin, or Chris, or just a childlike Christian. You are standing at the edge of a major decision regarding your Heavenly Father — to jump or not to jump. Before you he waits, arms outstretched, gently inviting you to jump into his arms and the wonderful world of apprehending him. All around you swirl the dire warnings of this fallen world, pleading with you to do the sensible thing: stay on solid ground, don't jump. What will you choose? It doesn't take a lot of faith, just enough to take the first step. And when you do, it won't be long before you too turn and say to him, "Let's do it again, daddy!"
Let this prayer be your prayer of liberation.
"O God, quicken to life every power within me, that I may lay hold on eternal things. Open my eyes that I may see; give me acute spiritual perception; enable me to taste Thee and know Thou art good. Make heaven more real to me then any earthly thing has ever been. Amen."
It begins quietly. You're running a bit late for an important appointment and can't seem to find your car keys or your glasses or your cell phone. They're not where they're supposed to be. So, you begin to look around. You search your pockets. You check all the usual places. You ask those nearby if they've seen or taken the missing items. The only response is a bunch of disinterested heads shaking back and forth — no one knows anything. At this point, you're more exasperated with yourself than anything else. You're positive that you put those stupid things right here by the door! But none of them are right here by the door!
Frustration begins to build as you earnestly go from place to place searching for the misplaced articles. You find yourself retracing your steps, going back to the same locations over and over again, hoping that maybe the fifth time is the charm. Soon neatly folded clothes are seen flying across the bedroom, carefully packed boxes are unceremoniously dumped upside down in the hallway, meticulously organized desk tops are swept onto the floor, all in a frenzied attempt to hunt down those idiotic thingumabobs. They've got to be around here somewhere!
Finally you reach the panic stage. What started out as a quick search has evolved into a search-and-destroy operation by a crazed madman. As your distorted voice bellows forth in anguish, you are oblivious to your children huddled behind the couch, silently praying for deliverance. You're blind to the dog running for cover, head low to the ground, desperately trying to make himself as small and inconspicuous as possible. Your psychotic tunnel vision prevents you from noticing the neighbors now gathered across the street at a safe distance, looking at your house as if it were an out-of-control oilrig fire. You are deaf to the approaching sirens of the SWAT Team. You cannot make sense of why FEMA is posting a television broadcast alert for your area. And you are unable to comprehend why the federal Office of Homeland Security has just raised the terror alert level.
You stand there a whipped man, hunched over your bathroom sink, contemplating which method of suicide would be easiest on your wife and kids. You slowly look up from your bottomless pit of misery and into the mirror before you. The reflection you see staring back is only a shell of, what was 15 minutes ago, a man. Your carefully coifed hair is now a wind-tunnel tangle. Your freshly starched, light blue shirt is now stained with flop sweat. Your face is now a bright, puffy crimson, streaked with tears. All former glory and future hope is gone.
Then through the misty fog of your deep despair you spy something dangling from your waist. It is your car keys, still safely attached to your belt for easy access and to prevent them form being misplaced. Amazed, you lift your eyes to see your long-lost glasses perched comfortably above your sweaty forehead. Finally, into your consciousness comes the calm voice of your wife. She's gently talking you back down into sanity, through the cell phone you have been using for the past 15 minutes.
Exaggerated? Pretty much. But doesn't the scenario above partly describe what it's like to search for something, only to discover that what you've been running around looking for has been right there in front of you, hiding in plain sight all along? Nowhere is this fact truer than when it comes to your search for God himself. The Bible teaches that God is right here, right now. In Proverbs 1:20-21, Solomon personifies the wisdom of God as a woman with a clear message: "Wisdom shouts in the street, she lifts her voice in the square; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the gates of the city, she utters her sayings . . ." But what is the response of those around her? ". . . I called, and you refused; I stretched out my hand, and no one paid attention; and you neglected all my counsel, and did not want my reproof . . ." (1:24-25). And therein lies the basic problem for all of us: God is so obviously present while we are so presently oblivious.
As with each preceding chapter, we find a core question imbedded in this fifth chapter of A. W. Tozer's splendid work, The Pursuit of God, which he titles "The Universal Presence." So far, we've had to come face to face with the following decisions: Chapter 1 — Will I follow hard after God? Chapter 2 — Will I pay the price and enjoy the blessedness of possessing nothing? Chapter 3 — Will I do my part in removing the veil that separates me from God? And Chapter 4 — Will I progress in my quest of apprehending God? Chapter 5 will force us to ask and answer this question, "Will I open my eyes and behold the universal presence of a God who is hiding in plain sight?"
In the previous chapter, Tozer challenged us to not let our pursuit of God be distracted by the things we see in the visible world. In this chapter he will challenge us to let our pursuit of God be guided by what God has created in the visible world. These truths are not contradictory, but in fact are complementary. To the person of immature faith, God's creation can become an obstacle that blocks their view. But to the person of maturing faith, God's creation can become an object lesson that sharpens their view. That is, if we can develop our faith in such a way that enables us to see God present in the physical world all around us, we may soon have a faith that is robust enough to enable us to see his presence in the spiritual world around us. Hence, Tozer reminds us that God is everywhere present and is as near to you as the nose on your face — literally.
Tozer begins by introducing us to the doctrine of God's divine imminence. That is, "God dwells in his creation and is everywhere indivisibly present in all his works." This truth, while generally accepted by most Christian theologians, has not taken root in the average Christian's heart and become a part of their daily belief and practice. Some Christian teachers even shy away from it because of a fear of being labeled "pantheists." But affirming God's divine Presence is not pantheism. Tozer says, "Pantheism's error is too palpable to deceive anyone." And while his analysis of the error of pantheism is correct, I think he underestimates the power of that error and the hold it has over so many. Half of the world is currently being deceived by it, including all those involved in Eastern religions and all those involved in the Western New Age movements. But Tozer is right when he explains that pantheism believes that, ". . . God is the sum of created things. Nature and God are one, so that whoever touches a leaf or a stone touches God. That is, of course, to degrade the glory of the incorruptible Deity and, in an effort to make all things divine, banish all divinity from the world entirely." By making everything divine, pantheism has made nothing divine.
But, Tozer continues, "The truth is that while God dwells in his world he is separated from it by a gulf forever impassable. However closely he may be identified with the work of his hands, they are and must eternally be other than he, and he is and must be antecedent to and independent of them. He is transcendent above all his works even while he is immanent with them." The Christian doctrine of immanence in no way minimizes the doctrine of transcendence; both of them are true. God is both near to and far above his creation.
So, what does God's immanent Presence mean to us? As Tozer defines it,
"It means simply that God is here. Wherever we are, God is here. There is no place, there can be no place where he is not. Ten million intelligences standing at as many points in space and separated by incomprehensible distances can each one say with equal truth, God is here. No point is nearer to God than any other point. It is exactly as near to God from any place as it is from any other place. No one is in mere distance any further from or any nearer to God than any other person."
In 1975 I wrote a book titled, God, I Don't Understand, and examined eleven major mysteries I'd found in the Scriptures. One of the mysteries I explored addressed the question, "How can God be closer to us that we are to ourselves and, at the same time, be so distant as to seem unknowable?" It is clear that Scripture affirms both of these truths. Yet they seem so incompatible when we try and put them together. In my book I suggested that the solution is not to try and solve the mystery, but to embrace the tension within the mystery. By doing so, I acknowledge to God my finite understanding and his infinite understanding. In fact, being a limited creature means that I should expect to encounter certain elements in God's revelation that go beyond the boundaries of my human comprehension — it is one of the distinguishing marks of the Bible's authority. However, we must remember that a mystery is not the same thing as a contradiction. A contradiction goes against reason; a mystery goes beyond reason. God never asks us to believe anything that is unreasonable, but he frequently asks us to believe things that transcend our reason.
Ultimately pantheism fails because as Tozer reminds us, "'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God' (John 1:1). Not matter, for matter is not self-causing. It requires an antecedent cause, and God is that Cause. Not law, for law is but a name for the course which all creation follows. That course had to be planned, and the Planner is God. Not mind, for mind also is a created thing and must have a Creator back of it. In the beginning God, the uncaused Cause of matter, mind, and law."
His point is that in the beginning (before anything was created, including time) was the logos (Word), and the logos was a personal agent, and the logos spoke reality into existence. That is, before there was a cosmos (creation), there was an uncaused logos who had not yet caused anything to be created. When the eternally existing logos created the cosmos, he brought forth the logos/cosmos (Creator/creation) distinction. Now the transcendent God beyond the universe becomes the immanent God in, but not of the universe. What he has created has his fingerprints on it and those whom he has created have his image upon them. Therefore, we can look at what he has made and discover some characteristics about the God who made it. But even better, we can look at how he has made us and, through his revealed Word, delight in the fact that he has come to seek us out, dwell within us, and soon take us to be with him forever.
Tozer recalls for us that, "Adam sinned and, in his panic, frantically tried to do the impossible; he tried to hide from the presence of God." David also had some fleeting thoughts of hiding from God. Psalm 139 reveals his mental struggle,
"Where can I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your Presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, you are there. Even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, 'Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,' even the darkness is not dark to you, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to you" (Psalm 139:7-12).
David knew that God's being and God's seeing are essentially indivisible. That is, the fact that God had seen David even before he was born, watching the unfolding mystery of his life, also means that God had been personally present throughout the whole process. On the other hand, we dare not assume that God's immanence somehow detracts from his transcendence, for as Solomon asked and then answered, "But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him; how much less this house which I have built" (1 Kings 8:27). Here he is referring to the supernatural (beyond nature) heaven, the one that transcends the created "heaven and heaven of heavens."
Tozer writes that, "The approach of God to the soul or of the soul to God is not to be thought of in spatial terms at all. There is no idea of physical distance involved in the concept. It is not a matter of miles but of experience." For instance, what is the speed of prayer? If the speed of prayer were limited to the speed of light, then no prayer ever offered by man would have made it beyond the Andromeda Galaxy, let alone out of the universe. No, the speed of prayer is instantaneous. In fact, the only time indicator connected to God's hearing our prayer is "before." Before we know to ask, he knows what we will ask (see Matthew 6:8).
Tozer asks, "If God is present at every point in space, if we cannot go where He is not, cannot even conceive of a place where he is not, why then has not that Presence become the one universally celebrated fact of the world?" Recalling the patriarch Jacob "in the waste-howling wilderness" (Deuteronomy 32:10), Tozer answers his own question, "He saw a vision of God and cried out in wonder, 'Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not'" (Genesis 28:16). God was obviously in that place, but Jacob had been oblivious to him. Tozer continues, "That is because the Presence and the manifestation of the Presence are not the same. There can be the one without the other. God is here when we are wholly unaware of it. He is manifest only when and as we are aware of his presence."
If God were simply interested in revealing the fact that he existed, there are many options open to him, all of which involve presenting to us some kind of physical evidence. That is, in order to unmistakably authenticate his divine existence for all people to see, he only has to provide something we can see, hear, or touch. But if God is truly interested in revealing himself as a Person, the only option available to him is to do so within an intimate, personal setting, just as He did with Moses. "And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord" (Exodus 34:5). God revealed his very Self to Moses so that Moses' face was changed by the encounter. God must come to meet with us and we must come to meet with him. There is no other way.
Here we see that God wants far more than to make a connection with his creatures. He wants to have individual fellowship with each one of them. It is the only medium for each person to acquire the intimate knowledge of the other. Just as two people become friends, or as a child comes to really know and love his parents, so too God requires extended time and shared experiences with each person in order to be deeply known and loved by the other.
Furthermore, it is this individual intimacy that accounts for why God manifests himself differently to each person. Certainly, writes Tozer, "The will of God is the same for all. He has no favorites within his household. All he has ever done for any of his children he will do for all his children. The difference lies not with God but with us." And because God is infinite, he is capable of engaging in a unique relationship with each person. It takes a rich imagination to begin to appreciate the wonder of having the Ancient of Days, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Almighty God desire to come spend uninterrupted time with each of us. We gloss over the repeated way he identifies himself as "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," and miss the chance to have him declare to the angelic host that he is "the God of ( your name).
God's children vary widely. But Tozer seeks to identify the thread common to all who have an intimate relationship with him. He suggests that the one vital quality that they have in common is spiritual receptivity. That is, something within each one of them was regularly open to God; something within them was consciously made available to God and his good gifts. Tozer writes, "They had a spiritual awareness and they went on to cultivate it until it became the biggest thing in their lives. They differed from the average person in that when they felt the inward longing they did something about it. They acquired the lifelong habit of spiritual response." Or as David put it, "When you said, 'Seek my face;' my heart said to you, 'Your face, Lord, I will seek'" (Psalm 27:8).
How can we cultivate this spiritual receptivity in a way that it becomes the biggest thing in our lives? Before that question is answered, a couple words of caution are warranted. We need to carefully avoid the occupational hazard of the theologian, whether a member of the clergy or laity). This hazard is the temptation of ordering our relationship with God according to a prescribed model (i.e., modeled after a person, modeled after a structured community, modeled after a set of disciplines, or modeled after a idealized image).
Also, we need to be clear on the distinction between healthy spiritual disciplines and unhealthy spiritualized legalism. That is, if we are not careful we might find that instead of entering into a valuable workout for the purpose of godliness, we have gotten ourselves stuck on a law-bound, ascetic treadmill. Paul tells us that ". . . these are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence" (Colossians 2:23). The disciplines were never to be used as ends in themselves. They are simply a means toward the end of knowing God better.
Returning now to the question of how a person cultivates spiritual receptivity, I'd like to offer some suggestions. First of all, it is critical to remember that faith is simply the capacity to receive. That is, it is like an invisible cup that God has given to each one of us into which he wishes to deposit the gift of himself. His desire is that we daily present our "cup of faith" to him so that he can fill it with what is best. In this sense, our walk of faith as Christians is no different from our first step of faith in Christ. It is the humble posture of a person who has come to the realization that their cup is empty and they cannot fill it no matter how hard they try. Thus, they are trusting God to fill it with that which only he possesses. The same way in which we first welcomed God's gift of saving grace is the same way we are to consistently welcome his moment-by-moment gifts of grace.
Following upon that understanding, a person in pursuit of God next needs to make the connection between their faith and the disciplines. If faith is our capacity to receive what we need from God, then this capacity must be properly stewarded. That means that we must daily empty our lives of sin and self and make room for what God will give. Then after emptying our lives, we willingly present them to God to be filled. This repeated movement of faith — that is, the act of emptying and filling — is best developed by the spiritual disciplines. For those exercises are effective in training our hearts and minds and bodies to cooperate together in welcoming God into intimate fellowship with us. Thus, the spiritual disciplines are the means by which we get in shape to receive the everywhere-presence of God. In the end, our muscular faith does not result in our getting more of him, for we already possess all of him, but rather in him getting more of us. By regularly showing up before him we open up more and more of ourselves and find that his Presence has enlarged our heart, enabling us to live a life that becomes more pleasing to him each day.
A spiritual discipline program is best seen as a training program for those who want to be like Christ. If we truly want to do what he did, we must live life the way he lived it. And that means regularly doing those things by which he learned obedience to his Father's will. We see the effect that such rigorous discipline had when we observe him in the garden just before the cross. Although struggling mightily, he was ultimately able to do what he did not humanly want to do. This was made possible through the same supernatural power available to us, the Holy Spirit, and through the same disciplines available to us, the spiritual disciplines. Therefore, if we practice what he practiced, we too will be able to obey God's will, even in moments when we don't want to.
But such strength of faith does not come without cost, as Tozer has pointedly preached in previous chapters. I believe that spiritual receptivity is best increased by the intentional exercise of the spirit and that it is most easily destroyed by the unintentional neglect of the spirit. No one remains where they are with God. You are either proactively engaged in increasing your receptivity or you are reactively engaged in diminishing your receptivity. And therefore, you are either moving toward him or moving way from him. The pursuit of God has no neutral gear.
Systematically engaging in spiritual disciplines was not especially popular during Tozer's lifetime. However, there has been a resurgence of interest in them, particularly in last few decades. Books such as Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline and Dallas Willard's The Spirit of the Disciplines are only two of the better-known offerings in this emerging topic. Books in this vein always include examples of the spiritual exercises practiced by the Older Testament prophets, by Jesus himself, by the Apostles, by the early church saints, and by various spiritual masters up to our present day. They include: prayer, fasting, silence, frugality, solitude, worship, service, study, and meditation, to name some of the activities that have a proven track record. And once again, it is important to remember that the disciplines are only a means to an end, not the end itself. That is, no amount of discipline alone is sufficient to grow you into a deeper relationship with God. The disciplines only become valuable to the degree that they expand your spiritual receptivity for God. You can never grow into intimacy with him; you can only grow in intimacy with him.
For example, some people find journaling an effective tool in their spiritual discipline regimen. However, for me it has never done much. And, to be honest with you, I'm not too big on fasting either. I've found it best to practice a range of activities and then determine which ones work best for me. I would recommend that you also customize your program to fit your individual needs. Keep in mind that if a particular discipline comes naturally easily to you, it may only do you a limited amount of good. It is better to identify areas of your life where you struggle and then apply the disciplines there. The purpose of engaging in any discipline is to bring us into a more effective cooperation with the Spirit's work in our life. As an "exercises unto godliness," they help to bring our whole being into conformity with Christ.
Tozer reminds us that,
"The tragic results of [having an unreceptive heart] are all about us: shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit. These and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul."
His point is that, "We have accepted one another's notions, copied one another's lives, and made one another's experiences the model for our own." But he ends with a challenge: "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 in his leaner and weaker days."
Is your "cup of faith" pointed downward? If so, the God who is present all around you is unable to give himself to you. For you, it is a life of franticly looking for the One who is standing right in front of you. Is your "cup of faith" pointed upward? Then the God who is standing right in front of you is able to fill you with himself. Use this prayer to lay hold of that which has been hiding in plain sight all your life.
"Oh God and Father, I repent of my sinful preoccupation with visible things. The world has been too much with me. Thou hast been here and I knew it not. I have been blind to thy presence. Open my eyes that I may behold Thee in and around me. For Christ's sake, amen."
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)
Ludwig van Beethoven, the son of a court musician and tenor singer, was born in Bonn, Germany in 1770. His father constantly drilled him in piano with the intention of showcasing him as a child prodigy. Throughout his early years, he received training in piano performance and composition from Neefe, Mozart, Haydn, Albrechtsberger, Schenck, and Salieri. By 1795 he had earned a name for himself as a pianist of great imagination and passion, admired in particular for his brilliant improvisations.
Around the year 1798 Beethoven noticed that he was suffering from a hearing disorder. He withdrew into seclusion from the public and his few friends and was eventually left completely deaf. Toward the end of his life he communicated with visitors and trusted friends by means of writing in his "conversation notebooks."
Just how bad was Beethoven's hearing? At first the malady was so minor and intermittent that it only worried him occasionally. But in an 1801 letter he described his condition as living with the constant presence of a whistle and a buzz. People who spoke in soft tones were to him an unintelligible hum, while people who shouted loudly were perceived only as intolerable racket. In time his illness completely drowned out all the delicate sounds and distorted all the strong ones. For the last ten years of his life he was totally deaf.
By the early 1800's it became apparent to him that his hearing loss would result in the loss of his career as a virtuoso pianist. He then turned his extraordinary giftedness toward composition. But making a living as a composer proved to be for more difficult than it had as a performer, especially when his compositions significantly preceded the popular tastes of the time.
Soon despair and depression tormented the man. In 1802 his doctor sent him to Heiligenstadt, a village outside Vienna, with the hope that its rural peace would improve his hearing. At first the natural surroundings reawakened in Beethoven a fresh hope and optimism. Among the upbeat works from this period was the charming and exuberant Symphony no. 2. However, when it became obvious that his hearing was not improving, his despair and depression returned. By that autumn he felt so physically and psychologically low that he feared he would not live through the winter. But he did.
For the next few years Beethoven lived in what might be described as a state of monotonous uproar. As his relationships began to suffer damage from both his explosive anger as well as his monstrous depression, his music grew all the more magnificent and thunderous. Though he pursued various women throughout his life, usually aristocratic in class, he never married. His close friends believed that his manic-depressive demeanor was to blame.
By the time his Ninth Symphony (Choral) was completed in 1823, Beethoven was completely deaf. Many music aficionados regard Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, including its famous "Ode to Joy," as the pinnacle of musical greatness. Certainly one anonymous buyer thought so. At auction, he was willing to pay $3.47 million for the final 575-page manuscript, which included Beethoven's handwritten revisions and comments. Sadly, the composer had been deaf for eight years by the time this symphony was first performed in 1824. He never actually heard his own masterpiece.
But that first performance of the Ninth was marked by a poignant moment. Despite being deaf, Beethoven insisted on conducting the orchestra. Unknown to him, the real conductor sat just out of sight, making sure that the correct beat was kept. As the last movement concluded, Beethoven, unaware that the performance had ended and that the standing-room only audience had erupted in unrestrained applause, continued to wave his conductor's baton. Eventually, one of the singers took him by the arm, turned him around, and pointed to the audience's exuberant standing ovation.
Performing is an orchestrated endeavor in which all the musicians, led by a single conductor, must blend their individual contributions into one unified symphony. On the other hand, composition is a solitary endeavor in which one musician, inspired by an inner voice, must blend the all the musical elements into one seamless masterpiece. One requires an extraordinary ear for the sound of music. The other requires an extraordinary ear for the music in the mind. Beethoven lost his ability to hear the sound of music; he never lost his ability to hear the music in his brilliant mind. And oh what music he heard!
Isn't it remarkable that within the interior silence of his head, Beethoven was able to clearly hear music with no sound, music that many consider to be the world's greatest? Perhaps, in the spiritual realm, something similar is true for us as well. If so, then every believer that longs to lay their head upon the Father's breast and hear his heartbeat must first learn to shut out the noises of this world and cultivate silence. That kind of listening is not developed in an audiologist's hearing lab, but in the lonely, quiet places, far away from the tumult. History teaches us that prophets, artists, mystics, or saints are forged in the vast silence of the wilderness, for it is a perfect laboratory within which to do soul work.
Dallas Willard, in The Spirit of the Disciplines, suggests a fresh perspective concerning the role that the wilderness played in Jesus' temptation by the devil (Matthew 4). It is clear that the Spirit of God led the Lord into the wilderness in order to be tempted. Most of us, including Satan, assume that it was there that Jesus was at his weakest: starving and alone. But as it turns out, the wilderness offered a "home field" advantage for Christ. The place of solitude and deprivation was, in fact, a place of strength and communion for him. For over a month he had been feasting on the Word and drinking deeply from his Father's perfect love. Then, and only then, was Satan allowed to approach him with his gaudy attempts at temptation. But by the point that the devil showed up, Jesus was at the height of his strength. The desert was his fortress. The battle was quick. And the victory was lopsided.
We come now to the sixth chapter of A. W. Tozer's profound book, The Pursuit of God, which he titles "The Speaking Voice." Each chapter contains a central question: Chapter 1 — Will I follow hard after God? Chapter 2 — Am I open to the blessedness of possessing nothing? Chapter 3 — What is my part in removing the veil between me and God? Chapter 4 — How close am I to apprehending God? Chapter 5: How well am I able to perceive the universal presence of God? And now Chapter 6: "What must I do to hear the speaking voice of God?
In the previous chapter, Tozer beckoned us to open our eyes to the One who is all around us. Everything we see around us points to the reality of his unseen presence. And even those things that we can't see he has incarnated first in his Son, and now in his children. Now, in this chapter, he redirects our pursuit to his voice, his speaking voice. And just as before, we are challenged to listen, not with our ears, but with our spirit. For those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
In John 1:1 we read, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." This truth precedes the truth of Genesis 1:1. This truth speaks of an eternal existence before the created order. In the beginning, before the beginning of Genesis, the Word was and the Word is and the Word will always be. The Greek for "Word" is logos. It reveals to us that God, at the very core of his nature, is a communicator. He is the One who speaks in order to communicate. From eternity past, the Godhead has found fulfillment through the self-expression of communion and community and communication.
Furthermore, the Scriptures tell us that, as Tozer put it, "God is speaking. Not God spoke, but God is speaking. He is, by his nature, continuously articulate. He fills the world with his speaking voice." His voice, just like his presence, is not limited by space or time. It is everywhere present throughout all of time and eternity. Therefore, it is not that he spoke once long ago and then stopped speaking so that he no longer speaks. It is that he continuously speaks. The prophets always introduced a message from God with the words, "Thus says the Lord," not, "Thus said the Lord."
Tozer continues, "The Bible is the written Word of God, and because it is written it is confined and limited by the necessities of ink and paper and leather. The voice of God, however, is alive and free as the sovereign God is free. So it is the present Voice which makes the written Word all-powerful. Otherwise it would lay locked in slumber inside the covers of a book."
God speaks and causes that which does not exist to come into being. In other words, he spoke to nothing and it became something. "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth . . . . For he spoke, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast" (Psalm 33:6,9). "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God" (Hebrews 11:3). Here we understand that God is not referring to his written Word, but to his speaking Voice.
Genesis tells us that, "God said . . . and it was so." Tozer puts it well when he remarks, "The said accounts for the so. The so is the said put into the continuous present." That same God is here now and he is now speaking. This truth is behind all biblical truths. Without this truth there would be no revelation to us today, only a humanly recorded journal of what he once revealed long ago.
Years ago, Francis Schaeffer wrote a book titled, He Is There and He Is Not Silent. In that simple title, Schaeffer sums up the same basic truth that the God of the cosmos not only exists, but that he is communicating. Communication is eternally occurring within the Godhead. Communication is occurring throughout all time. And communication is what he desires to engage in with us. To say that he is not silent means that he never leaves himself without a witness.
Consider the myriad ways he speaks to us. He speaks to us in nature. He speaks to us in our conscience. He speaks to us throughout history. He speaks to us through other people. He speaks to us through dreams. He speaks to us through the prophets. And in these last days, he has spoken to us through his Son — the personal incarnation of that living Word that spoke all things into being. The Son of God speaks his desires for us to know him. He speaks his desire for us to be in him and for him to be in us. He speaks to us in Scripture and reveals his purpose and will for our lives. But the Bible does not eliminate God's continuous Voice; in fact, it is the vehicle for God's continuous Voice.
Recall from the book of Proverbs how wisdom is personified as a beautiful woman whose voice cries out in the city's public square, a central gathering place where the business of the day was transacted. Solomon pictures her this way:
"Does not wisdom call, and understanding lift up her voice? On the top of the heights beside the way, where the paths meet, she takes her stand. Besides the gates, at the opening to the city, at the entrance of the doors, she cries out: 'To you, O men, I call. And my voice is to the sons of men. O naïve ones, discern prudence. And, O fools, discern wisdom. Listen, for I shall speak noble things; and the opening of my lips will produce right things. For my mouth will utter truth" (Proverbs 8:1-7).
The woman of wisdom in Proverbs 8 is contrasted with the woman of folly in Proverbs 7. Mark well the dissimilarity. Solomon paints the woman of foolishness in bold colors:
"And I saw among the naïve, I discerned among the youths, a young man lacking sense . . . he takes the way to her house . . . the woman comes to meet him, dressed as a harlot and cunning of heart. She is boisterous and rebellious; her feet do not remain at home . . . with her many persuasions she entices him; with her flattering lips she seduces him. Suddenly he follows her. As an ox goes to slaughter, or as one in fetters to the discipline of a fool . . . he does not know that it will cost him his life" (Proverb 7: 6-23).
Solomon's imagery goes far beyond the obvious warning of sexual temptation. He is describing the journey toward wisdom and the journey toward foolishness. The wisdom from above is peaceful and righteous and pure and it leads to life. The "wisdom" from below is boisterous and rebellious and shrewd and it leads to death. Every day of our life, we hear two voices, two calls. One is the voice of Christ calling out to you, first and foremost, to pursue the only Wise God and, secondly, calling you to pursue his life of wisdom. The other is the voice of the evil one, calling out to you to feed your desires and appetites, to chase after those cheap and phony lures that hook you and reel you toward your death.
Wisdom's voice can easily be drowned out by daily life—our busy schedules, our hectic pace, and our penchant for constant surround-sound. We can easily miss the clear, yet small voice of wisdom as she cries out to us. But to miss her plea is to miss the call to increase our spiritual receptivity. The urgency is that our lives depend upon hearing and responding to her call. But over time we have trained our ears not to hear. Tozer insightfully asks, "Could it be that this Voice distilling like a living mist upon the hearts of men has been the undiscovered cause of the troubled conscience and the longing for immortality confessed by millions since the dawn of recorded history?" Tozer is right. God's Voice creates a longing deep within every heart, a longing that inexorably pulls each heart toward what it knows not. And at the same time, that Voice creates a troubled and restless conscience that cannot be accounted for by the material world, nor can it be eradicated.
Failure to hear the Voice as coming from God has created some very interesting reactions. When men heard the Father speak from heaven to his Son, they explained it away. In John 12:28-29, Jesus makes a request of his Father, "Father, glorify thy name." Then, God the Father says, "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." What was the response of the multitude standing near enough to hear it? Some thought that the voice of God they heard was thunder. Others thought that it was an angel. Most missed it. Imagine that. How many times do we assume that all our faith really needs is one clear, distinct, audible message from God? Yet in the responses of those hearers, we can easily recognize ourselves. God speaks and we come to all manner of conclusions as to what it was; all except the conclusion that God spoke.
Tozer concludes, "This habit of explaining the Voice by appeals to natural law is at the very root of modern science." But, he continues,
"The believing man does not claim to understand. He falls to his knees and whispers, 'God.' The man of the earth kneels also, but not to worship. He kneels to examine, to search, to find the cause and the how of things. Just now we happen to be living in a secular age. Our thought habits are those of the scientist, not those of the worshipper. We are more likely to explain than adore."
But it is important to point out that spiritual truth is not in opposition to science. Science, properly interpreted, is actually an ally of spiritual truth, for it points to something beyond. Ultimately, the person who is looking for a cause that accounts for all that exists has only three options available. The first option is that it was a necessity. It just had to be this way.
The second option is that it was chance. It just happened to be this way. This is the option held by most scientists: given enough time, even the most improbable things can happen. But if you put some actual numbers to this position, they never add up. I think it was George Bernard Shaw who hypothesized that if you gave him a million monkeys, all typing on a million typewriters, eventually one of them would type out a play of Shakespeare. At first it sounds plausible, given enough time. After all, with enough time many unlikely have happened. But let's put some real numbers to this hypothetical scenario. If we assume there are forty keys on the typewriters, that spaces and upper and lower case do not count, that the monkeys are typing at the equivalent of a hundred words a minute 24 hours a day, that you have a million monkeys typing, and that there are only four letters in every word, how long would it take one of the monkeys to correctly type the first word? The mathematics of probability predicts that it would be a matter of a few seconds. To get the second word, meaning that any one of the monkeys would have to get all eight letters of both the first word and the second word in sequence, it would take about five days. To get the third word, i.e., twelve consecutive letters in sequence, it would take approximately 100 years. To get the fourth word, i.e., 16 letters in the correct sequence, it would take about a 100 billion years (most astronomers estimate the age of the universe to be 13.7 billion years). Yet the information contained in one strand of human DNA is far greater than all the combined plays of Shakespeare. If you do the math honestly, you soon realize that the first sentence of the play would never be written.
The third option and is that of design. Here, I like to use the analogy of the turtle on a fence post. Imagine that you are walking through the countryside and you spy a turtle perched on top of a fence post. You ask yourself how did it get there? Your options: Perhaps it is necessity; by nature it had to be there. But, upon reflection, you immediately realize that it doesn't have to be there. So, you move to the second option: perhaps it is chance. It is conceivable that a tornado picked up the turtle and gently deposited him on the top of the post by sheer accident. But, as with our hard-typing monkeys, what may be logically conceivable is not always mathematically achievable. In fact, the chances that the turtle's presence on the post can be accounted for via the happy accident of a violent, 150 mile-an-hour tornado are so remote that it raises questions about the stubbornness of the claimant. But if it is not required to be there, and if it didn't get there by accident, then the only option left is that of design. Some intelligent force must have intervened. We know that the little brain of the turtle couldn't have figured out a way to climb up there, so the only logical explanation left is that somebody must have put it there.
When we apply this same reasoning to a world that is resplendent with beauty, intelligence, and complexity, we can see how a scientist can become a more complete scientist if he starts his work by worshipping the One whose handiwork he daily explores and investigates. In the presence of the Creator, the scientist, the theologian, and the child are all allies. My conviction is that if you have the ears to hear, everything in nature points beyond itself to wondrous spiritual truth.
In the presence of God's greatness we find, as Tozer says, ". . . a sudden sense of loneliness or a sense of wonder in the face of the universal vastness. Or we have had a fleeting visitation of light like an illumination from some other sun, giving us in a quick flash assurance that we are from another world, that our origins are divine." Note that well: you are from another world and your origin is divine. Your physical birth into this world means that your origin is of this world — you were born in the line of Adam. But your spiritual birth in Christ signifies that your new life did not originate in this world, but was divine. You have been reborn in the line of Christ. Accordingly, your native tongue is no longer earthly, but the language of divine communion.
Tozer says that we can try to explain such feelings away but we are not being "fair to the facts until we allow at least the possibility that such experiences may arise from the presence of God in the world and his persistent effort to communicate with mankind." Tozer rightly goes on to say, ". . . here I will not feel bad if no one follows me . . . every good and beautiful thing that man has produced in the world has been the result of his faulty and sin-blocked response to the creative Voice sounding over the earth." That is, even the atheist who speaks or writes against God in no way destroys the creative power of God's voice in his life. He made each of us in such a way that every human action worthy of praise is a response to the haunting sound of the speaking Voice.
In heaven we will find that the effects of sin will no longer distort our perspective. We will clearly see ourselves, each another, and God, as if for the first time. It will be similar to what happened with the Hubble telescope several years ago. The images were initially fuzzy and out of focus due to a faulty lens. But after the lens was corrected on a Space Shuttle mission, the images returned to earth were sharp and crisp. On an even greater scale, that is what our perspective will be like in heaven. Everything will be clear and focused.
"Whoever will listen will hear the speaking Heaven. This is definitely not the hour when men take kindly to an exhortation to listen, for listening is not today a part of popular religion . . . . Religion has accepted the monstrous heresy that noise, size, activity and bluster make a man dear to God." If that statement were true of popular religion back in 1948, imagine how much more it characterizes our own time. Consider how great is the number of driven people throughout history who have built grand empires, ignited global movements, or created mass-market campaigns, all in an effort to make themselves dear to God.
Well, if our impressive efforts don't make enough noise to get God's attention, what does? Tozer answers from Psalm 46:10, "Be still, and know that I am God." God's attentive Presence is drawn to those who seek out the still, quiet places and patiently wait for his approach. In time, he will come and we will know who it is. But until then, it's best to get alone with your Bible spread open before you and wait with a receptive heart.
How will God speak to us? Tozer suggests a general progression, although it will vary according to the individual. He says,
"First a sound as of a Presence walking in the garden. Then a Voice, more intelligible, but still far from clear. Then the happy moment when the Spirit begins to illuminate the Scriptures, and that which had been only a sound, or at best a voice, now becomes an intelligible word, warm and intimate as the word of a dear friend. Then will come life and light, and best of all, ability to see and rest in and embrace Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord of All."
In addition to what Tozer says, let me suggest that you also try this. When you read a passage of Scripture try to identify one verse that seemed to speak to you. Then hone in on that truth and read it over and over until you are no longer reading it for information, but for "formation." Allow that truth from God to have its way with your spirit. Read it in another translation. Meditate on it. Ask questions of the passage. Pray it back to God. And as you pray, periodically stop talking and listen for God to speak to you through his Spirit. If your mind should wander, then simply return to the passage and continue. Start off with a passage like Colossians 3 and work your way through the chapter, two or three verses a day. The key is listening, listening for God's Spirit to speak to you within your spirit. Don't listen for something to come from the outside, because the way to intimacy is by being in the Word and him being the Word in you. In time, you will learn to recognize the distinct Voice of God.
Don't worry about "doing it right." God is not rating your technique; he is only looking for your heart. And he will honor and celebrate whatever you bring to him. Like a parent whose child comes and says "Mommy, Daddy, look what I made for you." If that parent were evaluating the drawing through the eyes of an adult critic, they would see little to commend. But because they are welcoming a special present that their child took the time to make just for them, they view it as a cherished masterpiece, suitable for the refrigerator gallery. They know its worthless on the open market, and they know it won't fetch anything even at a garage sale, but they put it up because it is their child's labor of love. And that's just what God does. He takes our childlike attempts at pleasing him — our prayers, our journal entries, our meditations, our tears, our inexpressible groans — and treasures them by hanging them throughout heaven's museum of grace to be viewed throughout eternity.
God is articulate everywhere in his universe. But to hear him speak to us we must quiet our spirits, then open our Bibles, then listen for his Voice. All three components are needed. Being quiet and listening is not enough. We need the Scripture to keep us anchored. Nor is being quiet and in the Word enough. We need to train our hearts to listen. And even if we are in the Word and trying to listen, we will find it hard to hear if we have not taken steps to leave the noises of the world behind.
Tozer concludes this chapter by saying, "If you would follow on to know the Lord, come at once to the open Bible expecting it to speak to you. Do not come with the notion that it is a thing which you may push around at your convenience. It is more than a thing; it is a voice, a word, the Word of the living God." We are indeed victims of a "divided psychology" if we think that God is mute everywhere and only vocal in a book, as though a long-silent God decided to speak, only to lapse back into silence. As Tozer says,
"I think a new world will arise out of the religious mists when we approach our Bible with the idea that it is not only a book which was once spoken, but a book which is now speaking. The prophets habitually said, 'Thus saith the Lord.' They meant their hearers to understand that God's speaking is in the continuous present."
Throughout his life Beethoven raged at God, considering his deafness a tragic joke by the Almighty. His anger drove much of his work, particularly in his later compositions. In addition to being deaf, it appears that he was also blind to the gift he had been given when he lost his hearing. For it was within the silence of that mental cathedral that he was able to create some of the most soaring music ever written. How tragic if it turns out that the man who was able to hear the music of heaven was never willing to hear the voice of heaven's Musician.
For the child who wants to learn how to listen for the sound of the approaching Father, this prayer is a good place to start:
"Lord, teach me to listen. The times are noisy and my ears are weary with a thousand raucous sounds which continually assault them. Give me the spirit of the boy Samuel when he said to Thee, 'Speak, for thy servant heareth.' Let me hear Thee speaking in my heart. Let me get used to the sound of Thy voice, that its tones may be familiar when the sounds of earth die away and the only sound will be the music of Thy speaking voice. Amen.
"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith." (Hebrews 12:2)
Once upon a time there were two, equally beautiful, identical twin sisters. As they grew into young womanhood, each girl found the man of her dreams, the one she wanted to marry. Coincidently, each young woman fell in love with a man who was also an identical twin. Both men were equally handsome, equally wealthy, and equally well mannered in every way. It was just like a fairy tale.
The whole town turned out for the double wedding, complete with matching gowns, matching cakes, and matching rings. Everyone agreed that these were the two most perfect marriages the village had ever seen. The twin brides were the envy of every teenage girl and the twin grooms the envy of every teenage boy.
After the honeymoon, the couples moved into identical houses right next door to each other. Being the patriotic sort, the brothers decided to both enlist in the Army and fight for their country. The entire county gave them a spectacular sendoff with flags, a brass band, and words of encouragement. The twin brides nervously kissed their respective husbands goodbye and watched them board the military transport plane.
The brothers fought bravely in battle and the reports from the war were encouraging. Then on the last day of their tour of duty, they were ordered to defend a fuel dump. It was considered light duty. They never actually heard the incoming shell, nor the ensuing explosion that the rocket powered grenade generated. They only remembered being blown high above the ensuing inferno and watching each other fly through the air in slow motion. But in that brief blast, the intense heat melted off every feature of their handsome faces: their noses, their eyelids, their lips, their ears, even their cheeks.
They woke up in an Army hospital burn ward, swathed in bandages and screaming in pain. They endured countless hours being scrubbed in the debridement tanks, being pushed to the limit during physical therapy, being given additional skin grafts, being operated on for vascular or cosmetic repair, and being continuously subjected to sterile dressing changes. Even after all the miraculous work, each man's face was no longer recognizable. Now their faces were only identical as garish scars.
Finally, the wives were allowed to see their husbands. Alerted to the facial damage, both women painted brave faces on and tentatively crept into the room where their husbands lay in bed. After checking the charts to make sure that they were looking at the correct husband, each slowly approached, their eyes seeing but not believing what they saw. The handsome men they'd kissed goodbye a year earlier were gone and in their place were these twin strangers.
Both husbands returned home, but encountered very different reactions from their wives. One wife nervously talked all the time, usually about how much money the rehab therapy cost. She constantly busied herself with house chores, with making the home wheelchair-accessible, and with many errands to their financial consultant. When at home she rarely sat by the bedside, rarely held his hand, and rarely looked directly at this new face.
Next door, the other wife behaved differently. She was able to finish all her housework while her husband slept, so that she could be with him when he awoke. And during his awake hours, she spent the time simply sitting quietly by the bedside, holding his hand, listening to him learn to talk again, and intently studying his new face.
In time, the talking, busy, errand-running wife drifted away from her home and finally left for good. The divorce papers arrived by courier. The reason given: "Irreconcilable differences" — the man in her house now was not the man she'd married a year earlier.
The quiet, listening, face-studying wife spent more and more time by her husband's bed. Soon the awkward exchanges between them turned into laughter and whispers of intimacy. She learned to look beyond the scared face and soon found within the man she'd loved and married a year earlier. The outer man was different, but the inner man was more handsome than ever, with a rich heart and Christlike manner.
So, one bright sunny morning she put on a simple white dress, knelt beside the bed, and asked him to marry her again — the same man, but now seen with the eyes of the soul.
The moral of the story: every person's soul has an ability to recognize the soul of another. That is, God has created us with an innate capacity to "see" that which is real, but unseen within another person. We can actually get to know the true person and recognize them no matter how life alters their appearance. This capacity is strongest in the presence of love and practice and time. You can see it manifested in the way a mother gazes lovingly at her Down Syndrome child, or in the way a brother gazes tenderly at his quadriplegic sister, paralyzed by a drunk driver, or in the way an elderly husband gazes adoringly at his wife of 60 years, now with Alzheimer's. In each example you see the ability of a soul in love to look beyond the visible externals and gaze upon the internal heart of the beloved. But where the soul is not in love, or where it is not well practiced in the art of finding the real person within, then it loses its ability to see beyond the outer shell.
This is the theme of the seventh chapter in A.W. Tozer's book, The Pursuit of God, which he titles: "The Gaze of the Soul." And, as with the previous chapters, it too puts forth a key question to the reader: Chapter 1 — Do you want God more than anything else? Chapter 2 — Do you understand that God extends a special welcome to the "poor in spirit?" Chapter 3 — Do you have anyone or anything between you and God? Chapter 4 — Do you know how to lay hold of a God who is spirit? Chapter 5 — Do you live as if you know that God is all around you? Chapter 6 — Do you have open ears to hear God's speaking voice? And now, Chapter 7 — Do you possess the unveiled eyes with which to gaze upon God all the days of your earthly pilgrimage?
In Chapter 6 Tozer taught us how to listen for God's speaking voice. In this chapter he turns to the metaphor of sight, challenging us to a new kind of seeing. It is not the kind of seeing that is content to simply identify or occasionally recognize his Presence. Rather, it is the kind of seeing where we are encouraged to develop the lover's gaze — that unmistakable look of a soul that has completely lost itself in another person. This is the chapter that teaches us to forever fix our eyes on the One in whom our faith originates and culminates.
The person who reads the Bible with an open mind soon discovers that one of its prominent themes is that of faith. It seems that every page contains an encouragement to use our faith in seeing the unseen God. In Psalm 34:5 we read, "They looked up to him and were enlightened. And their faces were not ashamed." Or in Psalm 123: 1-2 we read, "To you I lift up my eyes. O you who are enthroned in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress; so our eyes look to the Lord our God for He is gracious to us." Or in Hebrews 12:2, the verse Tozer selects for this chapter, ". . . looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith."
As Tozer says, "Faith will get me anything, take me anywhere in the kingdom of God, but without faith there can be no approach to God, no forgiveness, no deliverance, no salvation, no communion, no spiritual life at all." Faith is the indispensable "must" in the pursuit of God and everything that pleases God is always related to it. But the "must" has little to do with a precise definition of faith. In fact, in Scripture there is little effort made to define the nature of faith outside of a brief statement in Hebrews 11: 1: "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." As Tozer notes, this is more a functional definition of faith than it is a theological definition: ". . . it is a statement of what faith is in operation, not what it is in essence." So, we understand that faith operates in the "not yet" and in the "not visible." As the writer of Hebrews goes on to say in verse 3, "By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible."
Even science confirms this truth from Hebrews 11. Everything that appears to be solid turns out to not be solid at the atomic level. It actually consists of whirling fields of mysterious energies and forces. So that everything that is seen is made up of that which is not seen. For example, Einstein's most famous equation tells us that energy (what we don't see) and mass (what we do see) are equivalent. That is, they consist of the same basic stuff, but in different forms. Matter is simply slowed-down energy or compressed energy. And when matter is accelerated at the speed of light squared it becomes energy. And what is energy? No one knows. It seems that every time we learn something new in science we encounter something else far more mysterious. A healthy faith is needed in science too.
Returning now to Hebrews11:6, we not only read that, "Without faith it is impossible to please [God]," but also that he who comes to God must believe two things: (1) ". . . that he is," and (2) ". . . that he is a rewarder of those who seek him." The rest of the chapter tells the stories of the men and women who exercised their faith by pursuing the "unseen" and the "not yet" above the things that are "seen" and "now here." As verse 13 says, "All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth." In Alexandre Dumas' classic "The Count of Monte Cristo," the final two words in the book are "Wait and hope." That's the theme of Hebrews chapter 11: "Wait" — the future is going to be better than you can possibly imagine. And "hope" — the future is in the hands of our trustworthy God. That kind of faith has 20/20 vision.
In the book of Numbers (21:4-9) we see this kind of faith in action.
"Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient because of the journey. And the people spoke against God and Moses, 'Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loath this miserable food.'"
The interesting thing to note is that the more the children of Israel complained the more they came to idealize Egypt. Of course God had done the exact opposite. They had been in slavery and were now being brought into a "land of milk and honey."
The story continues,
"And the Lord sent fiery snakes among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. So, the people came to Moses and said, 'We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you; intercede with the Lord, that he may remove the serpents from us.' And Moses interceded for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he shall live.' And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived."
When John records the story of Jesus' interchange with Nicodemus in the third chapter of his Gospel, he recalls this event in Israel's history. Jesus says in verse 12,
"If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? And no one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended from heaven, even the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the Son of Man must be lifted up; that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life."
In John 3, Jesus is explaining to Nicodemus how he can be saved. Nicodemus, a Pharisee, is having a difficult time with the concept of being "born again." So Jesus points back to the familiar illustration of the brass serpent on a pole and connects it to saving faith. Thus, Nicodemus would come to understand that to look and to believe are synonymous terms. As Tozer puts it, "'Looking' on the Old Testament serpent is identical with 'believing' on the New Testament Christ. That is, the looking and the believing are the same thing. And he would understand that, while Israel looked with their external eyes, believing is done with the heart. I think he would conclude that faith is the gaze of the soul upon a saving God."
There are three Latin words that can all mean faith: noticia, assentia, fiducia. Noticia simply means that you saw something or took "notice" of its existence. Assentia means that you acknowledged or gave "assent" to the truth of something. But it is the third word that represents biblical faith: fiducia. This is a word that simply means to "trust." We must think of biblical faith as more than an intellectual notation, more than a cognitive assent; it is placing one's trust in truth. And because propositional truth in Scripture always points beyond itself to the author, we see that trusting a certain truth is grounded in our trust of the Truthgiver — we are to look to him who is the Author of our faith, the One who has written everything from the introduction to the conclusion. Therefore, faith is choosing to believe that the Bible is true regardless of any feelings or beliefs to the contrary. Faith always involves a choice of the will and an intention of the heart.
This is exactly what Jesus did; he kept the inward eyes of his heart upon his Father. When he asked his Father to raise Lazarus from the dead, he raised his eyes toward heaven and prayed. When he fed the 5,000, he took the five loaves and two fish and looked up toward heaven and gave thanks. And even as his followers stood "gazing intently" as their resurrected Savior ascended into heaven, they soon learned how to run the race of faith by "fixing their eyes on Jesus." Throughout his whole life Jesus himself demonstrated this continuous and uninterrupted gaze of the soul in the direction of his Father. Likewise, he calls us to intentionally aim our hearts toward Jesus.
Tozer goes on to say that,
". . . this one committal, this one great volitional act which establishes the heart's intention to gaze forever upon Jesus. God takes this intention for our choice and makes what allowances he must for the thousand distractions which beset us in this evil world. He knows that we have set the direction of our hearts toward Jesus, and we can know it too, and comfort ourselves with the knowledge that a habit of soul is forming which will become, after a while, a sort of spiritual reflex requiring no more conscious effort on our part.
Faith is the least self-regarding of the virtues. It is by its very nature scarcely conscious of its own existence. Like the eye which sees everything in front of it and never sees itself, faith is occupied on the Object upon which it rests and pays no attention to itself at all. While we are looking at God we do not see ourselves — blessed riddance. The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ, the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him. It will be God working in him to will and to do."
Most of religion tinkers with your soul, forever trying to figure everything out and get everything right. But you must get your eyes off of all that nonsense and get your eyes onto Christ because when you do, he'll take over the care of your soul.
But someone might object that this skillful kind of faith is too simple. Tozer responds, "It would be like God to make the most vital thing easy and place it within the range of possibility for the weakest and poorest of us." It can be accomplished without the need for special religious paraphernalia. It can be done from any posture, whether standing, kneeling, or lying down. It can be done at any time, in any season. Every day is a day of salvation. It can be done from any place — simply turn your heart toward him. And every one of us can do it, whether child or adult, whether ignorant or educated, whether clergy or laity.
Tozer writes,
"Many have found the secret of which I speak and, without giving much thought to what is going on with them, constantly practice this habit of inwardly gazing upon God. They know that something inside their heart sees God . . . . Let their attention but be released for a moment from necessary business and it flies at once to God again."
Tozer references Nicholas of Cusa to illustrate this sweet language of experience. Tozer writes of Nicholas: "His conception of eternal life, for instance, is beautiful in itself and, if I mistake not, is nearer in spirit to John 17: 3 than that which is current among us today. 'Life eternal,' says Nicholas, 'is
nought other than that blessed regard wherewith Thou never ceasest to behold me, yes, even the secret places of my soul. With Thee, to behold is to give life; 'tis unceasingly to impart sweetest love of Thee; 'tis to inflame me to love of Thee by love's imparting, and to feed me by inflaming, and by feeding to kindle my yearning, and by kindling to make me drink of the dew of gladness, and by drinking to infuse in me a fountain of life, and by infusing to make it increase and endure.'"
So how would you honestly answer this question: When your mind is free to think about anything, what does it think about? The minds of some gravitate to the worries, fears, and concerns of their everyday life. Some minds default back to coveting the lives and possessions of others. And the minds of others drift back to their incessant pursuit of success or significance. But whether your mind is trying to wish something away, or trying to wish something into existence, or just wishing for more of what it already has, our minds and our hearts always return to where their treasure is. That's why in his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that, ". . . where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Whenever given the chance, your mind and your heart will always follow the treasure-trail to that which is truly loved the most. For either the treasure of your heart is the Creator or it is something in the created order. And treasuring anything other than God is idolatry. You were never meant to worship or serve anything less than God.
My hope for you is that you would focus your mind on the Lord. Whether you're waiting in a grocery line, or waiting at a traffic signal, or waiting in an emergency room, those moments can be sweeter if you allow your mind and heart to gaze upon the Lover of your soul. As Augustine says, "You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you."
Tozer cautions,
"I do not want to leave the impression that the ordinary means of grace have no value. The most assuredly have. Private prayer should be practiced by every Christian. Long periods of Bible meditation will purify our gaze and direct it; church attendance will enlarge our outlook and increase our love for others. Service and work and activity — all are good and should be engaged in by every Christian. But at the bottom of all these things, giving meaning to them, will be the inward habit of beholding God. A new set of eyes (so to speak) will develop within us enabling us to be looking at God while our outward eyes are seeing the scenes of this passing world."
Tozer anticipates that some reader may fear that private religion is being magnified, that the, "us" of the New Testament is being displaced by a selfish "I." He replies, "Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other?" I think he is correct. If we really want to have communion together, the best thing is to stop trying to make it happen on the horizontal plane and start with the vertical plane. "So," as Tozer continues, "one hundred worshipers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become "unity" conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified." Having all the focus on God is not the enemy of worship or communion or community life; rather it is the dynamic of life itself.
As we look away to the Lord we carry Christ with us more and more. From this a more powerful communion of the saints occurs more readily than when we look to each other in an effort toward social action. As Dallas Willard says, many Christians try to measure ministry by the ABC's: attendance, buildings, and cash. A friend of mine suggests that success is often determined by the 3 B's: buildings, budgets, and body counts. These are just two examples of how superficial such manmade metrics are. Concerning the practices of the early Jerusalem church, Luke records that ". . . everyone kept feeling a sense of awe . . . ." There is no indication that this response was the result of any building program, year-end budget challenge, or attendance rally. It was the result of God's people coming to meet with their Lord.
It is my conviction that a church with only one hundred people, all of whom are tuned to the heart of Jesus Christ, will soon begin to manifest a greater unity, a stronger vitality, and a more powerful impact for the kingdom of God than with a church of 10,000 people who are only focused on projects, processes, and programs. Size has never impressed God. How could it? How could an infinite God ever be impressed with anything we think is big? Next to God, everything we do and everything we are is of no account. The only thing that impresses God is a heart that can't get enough of him.
In conclusion Tozer says, "The Triune God will be our dwelling place even while our feet walk the low road of simple duty here among men. We will have found life's summum bonum indeed." Through the gaze of faithful eyes, allow the Triune God to be your dwelling place. He wants the simplicity of a child-like faith that turns to him and says, "My heart's desire is to habitually gaze upon you. And even when I stray from you, I want you to draw me back to yourself as many times as it takes before I no longer want to gaze upon anything else."
The capacity to look for God is intuitive and universal — all human beings are created with a soul that seeks out the soul of another. Therefore, gazing upon God is not what good people do when they are doing their religious best, but rather what ordinary people do when they are pursuing the Lover of their souls.
But, in order for this inborn capacity to become a lifelong habit, it requires the motivation of love, the motor of discipline, and the movement of time. We need each of these three elements in order to avoid being deceived by outer circumstances and into thinking: "Wait a minute! That's not the God I committed my life to long ago. I want a better one." And we need each of these three things in order to learn to linger longer with him so that we might grow to say, "Wait a minute! Behind all the ugly scars of life I can more clearly see the beauty of my Lord." Over a lifetime, the uninterrupted gaze of the soul becomes a muscle memory of the heart.
Let's close once again with Tozer's own prayer,
"Oh Lord, I have heard a good word inviting me to look away to Thee, and be satisfied. My heart longs to respond but sin has clouded my vision 'til I see Thee but dimly. Be pleased to cleanse me in Thine own precious blood and make me inwardly pure so that I may with unveiled eyes gaze upon Thee all the days of my earthly pilgrimage. Then shall I be prepared to behold Thee in full splendor in the day Thou shalt appear to be glorified by Saints and admired in all them that believe. Amen"
"Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all the earth." (Psalm 57:5)
Before the days of Global Positioning Satellite devices, ships on the open sea could only ascertain their exact location by using a sextant and a chronometer. The instruments we use today differ little from the ones available to Columbus and Magellan.
A sextant is composed of two tubes, each resembling a telescope and joined with a hinge. Each tube must be sighted on something fixed. For instance, one tube could be sighted on the waterline and the other tube sighted on the top of a mountain. When the two images converge in the eyepiece, the operator locks in the hinge and reads the exact angle off the sextant. With some basic geometric calculations the user can determine the height of a mountain or the distance from the ship to land. Thus, a ship sailing near a shoreline is able to determine its exact location.
However, it is a different matter for a ship sailing beyond the sight of land. In open water, there are only two things that are fixed: the horizon at all times and a certain star at a given time. On a clear day, the horizon is the only fixed point available, for no stars can be seen. And on a clear night, a star provides the only fixed points available, but the horizon can no longer be seen. The only time that both the horizon and a particular star are visible is during two brief moments: one at dawn and the other at dusk.
Just before dawn, the navigator fixes one tube on a visible star and waits. As the rising sun begins to illuminate the horizon, the navigator fixes the other tube on the line between earth and sky. He must be ready, for both are only visible for one brief instant. When the sailor has them sighted, he then locks in the hinge, reads the precise angle on the sextant, notes the exact time, and consults a chronometer for that particular star, at that particular time, according to that particular angle. Thus the position of the ship can be precisely known, because at only one place on earth can that angle to that star be measured at that particular instant in time.
The process would be reversed at dusk. This time the crewmember would first fix one tube on the horizon, sharp as a ruler's edge, and wait for the first star to appear. As soon as it was sighted, the other tube would be focused on the star, the mirror that converged the two images flipped down, the hinge locked in, the angle read, the time noted, and the chronometer consulted for position.
All during the day the horizon was clearly visible and all during the night the stars looked close enough to reach out and touch. But only as day was fading into night, and again as night was dawning into day, could heaven and earth be brought together. Thus each day, twice a day, an ocean-going ship could stay on course by means of celestial navigation.
In similar fashion, staying on course throughout our Christian voyage requires that you learn to navigate by fixing your gaze on something that does not move — the unmovable God of the universe. Remember that your spiritual odyssey originally began by focusing on him. In so doing, you became aware of the infinite distance between him and you, between his holiness and your sinfulness. And so, in a step of faith, you chose to accept his free gift of grace.
Now, as you continue on in your faith, you have come to understand that the only way to a closer relationship with your heavenly Father is to once again focus on him — to increase the degree to which you exalt him. By taking daily readings from his Word and choosing to lift him above all else, you can navigate life safely, maintaining the proper alignment between Creator and creation.
This is the theme of the eighth chapter in A.W. Tozer's book, The Pursuit of God, which he titles: "Restoring the Creator-Creature Relation." So far, we've pondered the following questions from each chapter: Chapter 1 — How are you doing with following hard after God? Chapter 2 — How are you doing with the blessedness of possessing nothing? Chapter 3 — How are you doing with removing the veil? Chapter 4 — How are you doing with apprehending God? Chapter 5 — How are you doing with our response to his universal presence? Chapter 6 — How are you doing with listening to his speaking voice? Chapter 7 — How are you doing with focusing the gaze of our soul?
And now, Chapter 8 — How are you doing with restoring the Creator-creature relation? In Chapter 7 Tozer challenged us to a new kind of seeing — the gaze of a soul transfixed upon its beloved. In this chapter, he calls us to continually lift up the Creator in our hearts so that he reigns above all else. This is the chapter in which we progress from being impressed with the infinity of God toward being amazed by our intimacy with God.
A Christian is one who accepts the terms of the created order: God is the Maker, we are the creatures; God is the Redeemer, we are the redeemed; God is the Almighty, we are totally dependent upon him. If we reject these terms, we will attempt to elevate ourselves as gods and create "God" according to our image.
A.W. Tozer introduces this chapter with just such a reminder: "It is true that order in nature depends upon right relationships; to achieve harmony each thing must be in its proper position relative to each other thing." Just as there is a proper sequence and order in the natural world, so too there is in the relational world. But something has happened to the natural order — something is wrong. We see everywhere we go. We hear it in every person we know. We feel it in every moment we breathe. What is it?
Tozer answers, ". . . the cause of all our human miseries is a radical moral dislocation, an upset in our relation to God and to each other." This radical change can be seen in the Genesis 3 account. We first observe it in the relationship between God and the two people he had created for fellowship. They went from a "Thy will be done" stance to a "My will be done" stance. Everything began to fall apart from there, so that the dislocation in Genesis remains with us to this day. For example, we see the "My will be done" stance in our prayers. They often degenerate into childish attempts to persuade or manipulate God into doing our will, rather than an ordained means by which he transforms us into the "My will be done" kind of children.
What we need is a restoration of the Creator-creature relation; it is the only means to maturing our salvation. However, this change is not a judicial change merely, but an experiential change, one that affects our whole nature. The judicial change has to do with what God has already accomplished on our behalf, a change that has been brought about by the work of Christ. However, that change must continue to extend to every part of our being so that we are completely brought back into relationship with God through Christ. It is there that we are free to experience life as part of God's family and as children of light.
It is the Holy Spirit who brings about this "experiential" aspect. The parable of "The
Prodigal Son" is a perfect example of the difference between the "experiential" and the "judicial" relationship. The parable centers around one older man and two younger men. The older man is the father and the two younger men are his sons. This father/son relationship had a "judicial" foundation in reality by virtue of birth. That is, they already were sons and didn't have to do anything to become sons.
One day, the younger son leaves home, abandoning his relationship with his father, and squanders all the financial resources he had demanded from his dad. In time, this led the younger son into virtual slavery and total corruption. It is only at this point that the young man comes to his senses. This is an extremely important phrase in that text as well as a crossroad moment in the story. When someone "comes to their senses," it means that they are forced to ask critical questions: "What on earth am I doing?" "What was I thinking?" "What is my future if I continue following this course of action?" Clearly something brought him to this realization and I suggest that that something was the young man's pain. His decision had led to certain consequences and those consequences led to certain pain. Fortunately, that pain drove him to his knees.
On his knees he admits that his life doesn't work well apart from his father and his home. So, he decides to return to his father's house, reasoning that he would be better off as a slave within his father's estate than a free man in the world in which he now finds himself. However, before he returns he rehearses a speech he wants to give to his father, in hope of finding his favor. The speech is basic: "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men" (Luke 15: 18-19).
But he doesn't get a chance to deliver the punch line. His father, who had been anxiously waiting for his return, spies him from afar and runs to him, embracing him with kisses. He immediately begins to recite his carefully rehearsed lines, but finds that his father isn't listening. He is too busy preparing for the feast, a feast proclaiming that he who "was lost" has "been found." In the end we observe that while leaving home never jeopardized the son's "judicial" relationship with his father, it did sever his "experiential" relationship. That is, legally he never ceased being his father's son, but relationally he had ceased enjoying the benefits of being a son.
The parable teaches us a couple of very important lessons: (1) Our legal standing as sons and daughters of our heavenly Father is independent of our behavior, even in the face of defiant rebellion; but (2) Our relational intimacy with our heavenly Father is completely dependent upon our willingness to remain with him in obedient fellowship. In order to enjoy the perks of being in God's family, we must make him the fixed point around which we order everything else in our lives.
"There must be somewhere," says Tozer, "a fixed center against which everything else is measured, where the law of relativity does not enter and we can say 'IS' and make no allowances. Such a center is God." When Moses asked God what name he wanted to be called by, God replied, "I AM THAT I AM," signaling that he is the unchanging and only center of everything that has been created. And therefore everything and everyone must be measured against him, the one eternally fixed point.
If we use ourselves as the fixed center against which everything else is measured, then we only become aware of the infinite distance between us and God. But when we elevate God as the fixed center from which everything else is measured, we become aware of the intimate relationship that can exist between God and us. We are able to regain our moral and spiritual bearings as we navigate life. We must be willing, as Tozer says, ". . . to take God as he is and adjust our lives accordingly." Yet many of us insist upon doing the opposite by accepting ourselves as we are and then adjusting our view of God accordingly, even re-creating him in our own image. Or to paraphrase Larry Crabb, "Most of us prefer the better life of God's blessings to the better hope of God's presence."
"So," Tozer implores, "let us begin with God. Back of all, above all, before all is God; first in sequential order, above in rank and station, exalted in dignity and honor." By giving him his proper place, we discover that we exist by his good pleasure and not by our own efforts. We discover that all we are and have is derived from his gracious hand. Now with him guiding us, our pursuit of God results in bringing our total personhood into conformity with the Person of Jesus Christ.
But as with everything in our Christian pilgrimage, sacrificing ourselves and exalting God above all else is an ongoing process. Each and every day we have a choice to make: whether to surrender self and exalt the Lord, or to exalt self and surrender our fellowship with our Lord. It is the challenge of Romans 12:1, where we are called to bring a living sacrifice and lay it all on the altar -- all that we are, all that we have, all that we know of ourselves to all that we know of God.
As Tozer reminds us, "The moment we make up our minds that we are going on with this determination to exalt God over all, we step out of the world's parade." That decision becomes the great tipping point where we tip away from conformity to the world's mold and tip toward transformation into God's perfect will.
Tozer says,
"Millions call themselves by his name, it is true, and pay some token respect to him, but a simple test will show how little he is really honored among them. Let the average man be put to the proof on the question of who or what is above, and his true position will be exposed. Let him be forced into making a choice between God and money, between God and men, between God and personal ambition, God and self, God and human love, and God will take second place every time. Those other things will be exalted above. However the man may protest, the proof is in the choices he makes day after day throughout his life."
The re-formation of a person is really the result of habituation. Remember, "Sow a thought, reap an act; sow an act, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny." What Tozer is saying is that our external choices are the product of our internal priorities. That which our heart exalts will be that which our behavior exhibits.
Tozer says,
"'Be thou exalted' (Psalm 21:13) is the language of victorious spiritual experience. It is the key that unlocks the door to great treasures of grace. It is central in the life of God in the soul. Let the seeking man reach a place where life and lips join to say continually, 'Be thou exalted,' and a thousand minor problems will be solved at once,"
He's not being simplistic. To say "Be thou exalted" with your whole being — your heart, your soul, your strength, and your mind — is a major challenge. If one really desires it to be so, God enthusiastically provides the grace required. Little by little your choices for self-denial here, your acts of being other-focused there, and your decisions to exalt God everywhere, all begin to add up and produce a robust faith. And what happens to you if you're blown off course by an adverse wind? Tozer answers, "[We] will surely return again as by a secret bent of the soul."
"Let no one imagine that he will lose anything of human dignity by this voluntary sell-out of his all to his God," writes Tozer. You will not degrade yourself. Actually you will be honored and elevated to your rightful place in the image of your Creator. In fact, it is our deepest disgrace to usurp of the place of God. And correspondingly, it is our deepest honor to enthrone him over all that our heart holds dear.
However, some may say, "But I'm reluctant to surrender my will to him. How do I know I can trust Him?" Well, the truth is that, in the words of the Bob Dylan song, "It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you're going to serve somebody." Jesus said, "He who sins is a slave to sin" (John 8:34). In the final analysis, you will either serve a heavy-handed and hard taskmaster or you will serve the Master of the universe who offers you a light burden and an easy yoke.
Ironically, if it is true freedom you seek, you must voluntarily return home. As Tozer so eloquently puts it, "God was our original habitat and our hearts cannot but feel at home when they enter again that ancient and beautiful abode." For any freedom sought apart from God will surely condemn you to a life of bondage. If you take the world's system and invert it, you have a pretty good snapshot of what life in the Spirit is all about. For as Jesus said in John 12:26: "If any man serve me, him will my Father honor." The one who stoops to serve is the one God lifts up in honor.
Or consider the words of God to Eli in 1 Samuel 2:30: "Them that honor me, I will honor." God is reminding Eli, the high priest of Israel, of the basic covenant between God and man — you honor me; I'll honor you. But he was also warning Eli that the obverse is true: you dishonor me; I'll dishonor you. This warning was given because Eli had failed to discipline his two sons who were also priests. Their behavior did not honor God. They stole from the temple offerings. They defiled the temple sacrifices. Yet Eli refused to discipline them and so the young Samuel is sent to announce the consequences of that failure.
Judgment comes in the form of what Tozer calls the "Law of Reciprocal Honor." This universal law has been secretly working all along. And God's wrath falls swiftly. Eli's two sons and the other disobedient priests die in battle. Hophni's wife dies in childbirth. Israel flees from her enemies. The Philistines capture the ark of God. And Eli falls backward and breaks his neck. All of this tragedy is from one man's failure to honor God.
Now, let's look at the lives of people who chose to honor him. Notice how God winks at their weaknesses and overlooks their failures. Notice how he lavishes his grace and blessings upon servants who exalted him. Consider men such as Abraham, Jacob, David, Daniel, and Elijah. These were certainly not perfect men. In fact, in many ways they were people with feet of clay, just like us. Yet, in spite of their weaknesses and failures, they were men characterized by having hearts that exalted God above all else. Or as Tozer puts it, "Not perfection, but holy intention made the difference." And that's the key.
Only in our Lord Christ was this principle lived out in holy intention and simple perfection. In his manhood he never sought his own honor, only the honor of the One who sent Him. In John 8:54 Jesus says, "If I honor myself, it is nothing; it is my Father who honors me. I honor him and because of that he will honor me." The Pharisees struggled mightily with this truth because they couldn't conceive of a person who would honor God at their own expense. And it was this failure that ultimately led to their disavowal of Jesus.
In John 5:39-44, Jesus was talking to the Pharisees, and says, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that testify about me." Here Jesus confronts them with their hypocrisy. They claim to be diligently searching the Word of God for eternal life, but miss the main point: only in Jesus can eternal life be found. So, Jesus continues, "You are unwilling to come to me, that you may have life." The critical element is their willingness. Either they really are searching for eternal life and are therefore willing to come to him, or they are not really looking for it and are therefore unwilling to come to him. Finally Jesus concludes,
"I do not receive glory from men; but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. I have come in my Father's name and you do not receive me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another, and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?"
Commenting on this passage, I believe Tozer is correct when he tells us that ". . . the desire for honor among men makes belief impossible." How true that is. I've seen this throughout all human disciplines, but especially in academia. I've seen graduate students who, at one time, showed interest in spiritual matters before entering an academic career. But because they wanted to be viewed favorably by their scholarly peers, they began to compromise their integrity in order to fit in with the prevailing worldview. Others went so far as to alter their core beliefs so that they better matched their behavior. The price of having the respect of your peers may well be the death of your convictions. Your beliefs are shaped by the audience to whom you play.
This issue presents a defining moment in the life of every Christian. For either you choose to honor him above all else and thereby press on toward Christlikeness, or you choose the plaudits of others over God and stall out in your Christian walk. You have to ask yourself yet again, "Which audience are you performing for?" It cannot be both God and somebody else, for it is impossible to simultaneously please God and impress people. The temptation will be to choose the downhill path, for it's easy and both sides are lined with adoring crowds cheering you on. But intimacy with God does not lie at the bottom of the hill. It lies at the top. And it can only be reached by taking the uphill trail, the one Jesus took to the cross and then to glory.
Touching the Void is the title of a recent film about two young climbers. Joe Simpson and Simon Yates set out to climb the west face of the Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985, a feat that had previously been attempted but never achieved. With an extra man looking after base camp, Joe and Simon decided to climb alpine style — in one long push over several days.
Statistics show that 80 percent of the deaths and injuries in climbing occur on the descent rather than the ascent. Their decent was added to that 80 percent. They reached the peak with few problems, but on the way down Joe fell and broke his leg. Despite the hopelessness of the situation, the two continued the descent with Simon slowly lowering Joe down on a rope for 300 meters, then descending to join him and repeating the process. At one point Joe is lowered over a vertical abyss, with nothing below and no ability to climb back up. Simon is forced to make an agonizing decision — to cut the rope, so that both of them don't die. Joe fell into a crevice covered in deep snow. Simon, assuming he's dead, continued on down. However, Joe had survived the fall by landing on a ledge within the crevice.
The rest of the film tells the story of how Simon discovers that Joe is still alive and so lowers himself into the crevice, with no apparent way to climb out. In a last ditch effort Simon descends further into the crevice, hoping to somehow find a way out. He does. Eventually he makes it back to the original camp, enlists the help of others, and rescues his friend. It is quite an amazing story with a miraculous outcome.
Yet, what struck me most about the story was that in the face of certain death, neither man once appealed to God for help. In the book by the same title, Joe describes his early exposure to the Catholic faith tradition and his rejection of it. In time, he became hostile to God, considering him to be totally irrelevant to his life. He had willfully become a person beyond the point of no return, a man with a heart that had been hardened toward God.
This story serves as a cautionary tale for our spiritual journey. For even as God's children we can willfully harden our hearts. And while this does not place our eternal salvation at risk, it does place our earthly lives and our eternal rewards at risk. I urge you to choose to humble yourself, exalt God, and thereby strengthen your heart, while you still have the opportunity. Resist the temptation to go the other way by exalting yourself and hardening your heart. We can only lift God up in our hearts by bowing them down in humble submission.
Tozer confesses; "I have one fear: that I may convince the mind before God can win the heart. For this God-above-all position is one not easy to take. The mind may approve it while not having the consent of the will to put into effect." That is, it is possible for your mind to go along with a decision for which your heart is not quite ready. Tozer well understood human tendencies when he wrote, "While the imagination races ahead to honor God, the will may lag behind and the man must make the decision before the heart can know any real satisfaction. God wants the whole person and he will not rest until he gets us in entirety. No part of man will do."
Tozer concludes this chapter with the following words: "God will unveil his glory before his servant's eyes, and he will place all his treasures at the disposal of such a one, for he knows that his honor is safe in such consecrated hands."
Are you ready for God to consecrate the hands of your heart? If so, he's willing to entrust to those hands his greatest treasures. This prayer is a good place to start:
"O God, be thou exalted over my possessions. Nothing of earth's treasures shall seem dear unto me if only thou art glorified in my life. Be thou exalted over my friendships. I am determined that thou shalt be above all, though I must stand deserted and alone in the midst of the earth. Be thou 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 thee. 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. Rise, O Lord, into thy proper place of honor, above my ambitions, above my likes and dislikes, above my family, my health and even my life itself. Let me sink that thou mayest rise above. Ride forth upon me as thou didst into Jerusalem mounted upon the humble little beast, a colt, the foal of an ass and let me hear the children cry to thee, 'Hosanna in the highest.'" Amen.
"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." (Matthew 5:5)
· Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
· Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
· Blessed are the gentle (or meek, or humble), for they shall inherit the earth.
· Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
· Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
· Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
· Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
· Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
· Blessed are you when people cast insults at you, and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, on account of me. Rejoice, and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
· Blessed are the "masters-of-the-universe" who assume that the whole world revolves around them.
· Blessed are the pleasure seekers, the party animals, and the 15-mintues-of-fame wannabes.
· Blessed are the arrogant, the self-absorbed, and the "my-way-or-the-highway" gang.
· Blessed are those whose sport cars display a bumper sticker that says, "He who dies with the most toys wins."
· Blessed are the cruel, the vicious, and the terrorists who devote their best energy to creative destruction.
· Blessed are the smut peddlers, the artisans of perversion, and those who deface every good thing they touch.
· Blessed are the quarrelsome, the vengeful, and the gangsters always spoiling for a fight.
· Blessed are the guilty who never get caught, or if they do, get off on a technicality.
· Blessed are the trash-talkers, the bullies, and those who start false rumors. May they strut around, confident in the fact that they are entitled to whatever they can get, and allowed to push their way to the front of the line.
Most of us have read the Beatitudes from Matthew 5 so many times that we forget how radically they differ from what our culture celebrates on page one of the Style section. In fact, sometimes the best way to understand the true obscenity of the world's vices is to take the virtues of God's kingdom and invert them, as I've done above.
Another way to measure the gap between the two sets of values is to see how well they'd sell using current mass marketing strategies. For instance, imagine if I tried to promote a seminar that promised workshops on the following topics: "The Painful Path to Poverty of Spirit" or "The Joy of Mourning" or "Five Excruciating Steps to Becoming A Gentle Person" or "Increasing Your Appetite for Righteousness" or "The Art of Being Merciful" or "The Grueling Obstacle Course to a Pure Spirit" or "Peacemaking in a War Zone" or "Persecution for Dummies." It's a safe bet that not many people would actually show up, let alone pay the ticket price. And that's because what God honors is precisely the opposite of what we honor.
And, it's not just that the kingdom-of-God values are a hard sell; it's that worldly values are so easy to sell, even to Christ-followers. As embarrassing as it is to admit, there are many current programs available to Christians that are nothing more than the world's values baptized in religious language and marketed to believers. Like a bunch of naïve teenagers, desperately seeking the latest spiritual craze, we've become suckers who'll fall for anything. We patiently stand in line to purchase our ticket for the chance to win God's lottery jackpot — "Here's your lifetime supply of miracles! But wait, there's more! You get to go to the bonus round in heaven! Now how much would you pay?" We assume that the promised "abundant life" entitles us to have every one of our dreams and aspirations actualized, as long as we use the secret "christianese" code words.
But Jesus taught that the kingdom of God belongs to those whose interior and exterior are radically different. And this is the theme of the ninth chapter in A.W. Tozer's little classic, The Pursuit of God, which he titles: "Meekness and Rest." In review, we've explored the following questions from each of the previous chapters: Chapter 1 — How hard are you following after God? Chapter 2 — How blessed are you in possessing nothing? Chapter 3 — How much of the veil have you removed? Chapter 4 — How much of God have you apprehended? Chapter 5 — How has the universal presence of God transformed your life? Chapter 6 — What have you heard from God's speaking voice lately? Chapter 7 — How much has the gaze of your soul improved? Chapter 8 — How is your Creator-creature alignment progressing?
In Chapter 8, Tozer called us to a life of exalting the Creator above all else. He wanted us to move past simply being mesmerized by the infinity of God and to move on toward being captured by the intimacy of God. Now, in Chapter 9 we take the time to consider the companion truth to exalting God — our posture of meekness and rest. Lifting him up requires us to bow down.
The virtues expressed in the Beatitudes are not the first things that pop into our minds during unguarded moments. Instead, we find that it is the values of the Anti-beatitudes that mysteriously drop in uninvited. And while culture, education, and religion can effectively camouflage our avarice, cruelty, and greed somewhat, the vices still thrive in the depths of the heart. Listen to our Lord's assessment of our condition in Mark 7:20-23. He said,
"That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man."
No sugarcoating going on here. This statement sounds the death knoll for all attempts at "auto salvation." The gap between God and us cannot be bridged because the very thing we hope will impress God is the very thing that repulses him. Our hearts constantly spew forth all manner of ungodliness. Go ahead and try. You'll find that no matter how hard or long you work at it, there is simply no way to change your own heart; it simply will not yield to a do-it-yourself wash job. That is why the Gospel is the only means of salvation. It gives us the most honest assessment of our condition and even goes on to tell us that we are worse than we thought. But then comes the pause, followed by the ever-hopeful assurance that God's grace is greater than we thought.
Sin has distorted all of creation, particularly us human creatures. As Augustine put it, "We are all bent in the wrong direction." If you place a straight rod into water it looks as though it is bent, doesn't it? The water distorts the image. So too is the human condition and we cannot straighten it out. As Tozer tells us, "Pride, arrogance, resentfulness, evil imaginings, malice and greed are the source of more human pain then all the diseases that have ever afflicted mortal flesh." I believe he's right. Even the physical pain we experience is the by-product of the matrix of choices we or others have made, whether done intentionally or inadvertently. In short, sin has touched everything and everyone in creation, and placed a monstrous burden upon us and within us.
Into this world of defilement, brokenness, and burden comes the God-man. And in Matthew 11 we find Jesus teaching and praying, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children." Here, he is reminding us of the necessity to approach God's truth with childlike wonder, with an awe and innocence characteristic of radical trust in the living God. A child is one who instinctively trusts his or her father.
The Lord continues, "Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son, except the Father; no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal him." That is, no one can really know the Father unless I, the Son, choose to reveal him.
Finally, comes the familiar invitation, "Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30).
Tozer points out the dramatic contrast between our burden and the rest Jesus offers. He writes,
"The burden is not a local one, peculiar to those first hearers, but one which is borne by the whole human race. It consists not of political oppression or poverty or hard work. It is far deeper than that. It is felt by the rich as well as the poor, for it is something from which wealth and idleness can never deliver us.
The burden borne by mankind is a heavy and a crushing thing. The word Jesus used means 'a load carried or toil borne to the point of exhaustion.' Rest is simply release from that burden. It is not something we do; it is what comes to us when we cease to do. His own meekness, that is the rest."
Tozer highlights three kinds of interior burdens, each one capable of attacking the heart and mind, and eventually the body. The first is the burden of pride. The burden of pride chains you to the labor of self-love, which is hard labor on behalf of the little god named self. This god requires your unconditional loyalty and devotion. He forces you to remain vigilant at all times, forever sensitive to someone speaking slightingly about you, always scanning the room for someone who doesn't consider you "our kind of people." This god has a very touchy honor that must be shielded from the opinions of others at all times.
But, as Christians, were never meant to bear this burden. Jesus calls us into his rest, and meekness and humility is his method. The humble person doesn't really care who is greater. They long ago decided that to be esteemed by the world is not worth the effort. They now define themselves as children of God, members of the body of Christ, and living stones in the Temple of God. In referring to such a person, Tozer says,
"He develops toward himself a kindly sense of humor and learns to say, 'Oh, so you have been overlooked? They have placed someone else before you? They have whispered that you are pretty small stuff after all? And now you feel hurt because the world is saying about you the very same things you have been saying about yourself? Only yesterday you were telling God that you were nothing, a mere worm of the dust. Where is your consistency? Come on, humble yourself and cease to care what men think.'"
He reminds us to stop taking ourselves so seriously because there is One who has already taken us seriously. How seriously? The doctrine of grace humbles us without degrading us and elevates us without inflating us: in ourselves — nothing; in God — everything. God gives us an accurate audit of our spiritual poverty and then imputes to us his spiritual wealth. Our new standing is immune from the machinations and falsehoods of the world, the flesh, and the devil. We know who we are and we know whose we are.
The second burden is the burden of pretense. The burden of pretense superglues our face to the mask of self-importance and hides the inner ugliness of the self. At the core it is the fear of having people find out just how impoverished we really are. It "gnaws like rodents within [the] heart." That image accurately depicts the ceaseless fear of someday coming across a person more cultured, educated, or wealthy and being unmasked as a pretender.
Tozer warns, "Let no one smile this off. These burdens are real, and little by little they kill the victims of this evil and unnatural way of life." And so, to all the victims of this heavy burden Jesus says, "Ye . . . [must] become as little children" (Matthew 18:13).
The image of the child is most apropos. Tozer explains,
"For little children do not compare; they receive direct enjoyment from what they have without relating it to something else or someone else. Only as they get older and sin begins to stir within their hearts do jealousy and envy appear. Then they are unable to enjoy what they have if someone else has something larger and better. At that early age does the galling burden come down upon their tender souls, and it never leaves them till Jesus sets them free."
The simple way a child welcomes whatever gift is given soon gives way to the childish schemes by which we comparison-shop for what we want. But in our frenzy we forget that all the price tags are wrong. In fact, if you invert them you're actually closer to the true worth. That which the world declares to be priceless turns out to be worthless. And that which God declares to be priceless is treated by the world as worthless.
But one day, there will be a universal accounting and the true prices will be revealed. Real worth will come into its own; real treasure will be finally unearthed. Paraphrasing Jonathan Edwards, "The wisest thing a person can do is to treat things according to their true value." This means that we assess all things according to God's standard, not the world's. In the mean time, we find rest for our souls as we rest in him.
The third burden is the burden of artificiality. The burden of artificiality forces us to play a character in a carnival of self-deceit, hoping that the audience never awakens to the fact that underneath the costume and makeup is only an empty self. We strive to never flub a line, never miss a cue, and never, never slip out of character. The entire advertising industry is built upon artificiality — the art of convincing people that appearance is everything. But what the world has raised to an art form, each individual experiences as a burden — a burden that gets heavier as time goes on.
To make matters worse, our culture encourages and celebrates artificiality without qualification. You can never go too far. Nobody cares any longer if those body parts are fake or if this designer outfit is a knock-off or if that diploma is mail order. It's all about appearing to have more, even if you really don't have anything. It's about being on top, even if there really is no top. And there's nothing new here. The artificial fruit fooled Eve. The artificial intimacy duped Samson. And the artificial reputation lured Ananias and Sapphira. The only thing that's new is how trendy artificiality has become.
At its core, artificiality is aspiration with God removed. The noble quality of aspiration: a dislike for being stuck, an impatience for mediocrity, a dissatisfaction with business-as-usual, or, as Paul proclaims in Philippians 3:14, "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." But when you remove God from this praiseworthy virtue, you are left with an empty shell — all hype, no hope.
As Tozer says,
"Artificiality is one curse that will drop away the moment we kneel at Jesus' feet and surrender ourselves to his meekness. Then we will not care what people think of us so long as God is pleased. Then what we are will be everything, what we appear will take its place far down the scale of interest for us. Apart from sin we have nothing of which to be ashamed."
Our world is bent low from weight of these triple burdens. And there is only one way to release the load and find rest for our souls, and that is via the meekness of Christ. Return again to Matthew 11:28, "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." Augustine echoes this truth on the first page of his book Confessions, "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you." He crisply states that life apart from God mandates that we must shoulder these heavy burdens all by ourselves.
Jesus invites us to drop our burdens and, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light," By being yoked to Christ we discover two things. First, that he is the one who has already removed our burden of sin, bearing it on the cross. And secondly, that he also invites us to off-load our burden of self, exchanging it for the gentle weight of humility. Meekness is our calling, rest is our reward.
As Tozer concludes,
"The rest he offers is the rest of meekness, the blessed relief which comes when we accept ourselves for what we are and cease to pretend. It will take some courage at first, but the needed grace will come as we learn that we are sharing this new and easy yoke with the strong Son of God himself. He calls it "My yoke," and he walks at one end while we walk at the other."
Letting go of our burdens requires us to elevate the unseen above the seen, the invisible above the visible, the "not-yet" above the "right now." 1 John 3:1-3 puts it this way:
"See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that, when he appears, we will be like him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure."
Revelation 22:12-13 delivers this promise from our Lord: "Behold, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me, to render to every man according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." With all that is on the line, the loss or gain of eternal rewards, it is unwise to ignore a way of life that our heavenly Father calls blessed. As Maximus told his soldiers before battle in the movie Gladiator, "What we do in life echoes in eternity."
Perhaps the following list will prompt you to write out your own personal Beatitudes.
· I'm most blessed when I live each moment as though I'm in desperate need of God's grace, for in that moment I increase my ownership in the kingdom of God.
· I'm most blessed when I live each moment, making no claim on anything or anyone, for in that moment God lays claim to more of my heart.
· I'm most blessed when I live each moment in the quiet pose of a servant, for in that moment I behave like an heir apparent.
· I'm most blessed when I live each moment with a voracious appetite for pleasing God, for in that moment my soul is content.
· I'm most blessed when I live each moment forgetting about blame and focusing on love, for in that moment I'm aware that God is doing the same for me.
· I'm most blessed when I live each moment with a holy, blame-free heart, for in that moment I get a fresh glimpse of God himself.
· I'm most blessed when I live each moment looking for ways to knock down barriers and build bridges, for in that moment my Father goes around bragging about our relationship.
· I'm most blessed when I live each moment mimicking my Lord's behavior in suffering without cause, for in that moment heaven gets a little closer and a little clearer.
· I'm most blessed when I live each moment willingly absorbing every stinging curse hurled at me, simply because I freely admit to knowing God. It gives me another opportunity to be joyful, knowing that my heavenly Father is paying attention and will someday make it all worthwhile.
Make this closing prayer by Tozer the prayer of your heart:
"Lord, make me child-like, deliver me from the urge to compete for another place, prestige or position. I would be simple and artless as a little child. Deliver me from pose and pretense. Forgive me for thinking of myself and help me to forget myself and find my true peace in beholding thee. That Thou mayest answer this prayer, I humble myself before thee. Lay upon me thy easy yoke of self-forgetfulness that through it I may find rest. Amen."
"Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31)
Consider the prism. A prism is a glass device used to reflect light (bounce it back), or to refract light (bend it), or to break light up (disperse it) into its constituent spectral colors (e.g., the colors of the rainbow). The traditional geometrical shape is that of the triangular prism, composed of a triangular base and rectangular sides.
Here's how it works. White light is composed of a mixture of many discreet colors, each with a different frequency and wavelength. When a beam of white light moves from one medium (e.g., air) into a denser medium (e.g., the glass of the prism), it is slowed down and as a result is bent (refracted) and split apart (dispersed). The angle of the beam determines whether it is refracted or not, and by how much.
Since each color has a specific frequency, each color gets bent slightly different from the others. For instance, as white light passes through a prism, blue light is slowed down more than red light and will therefore be bent more than red light. Therefore, we see blue and red dispersed at different places along the spectrum of color, giving us the beautiful rainbow display.
Isaac Newton was the first man to hypothesize that prisms split colors out of colorless light. He proved this theory by passing a separated color thorough a second prism, finding the color unchanged. He therefore concluded that prisms do in fact bend and separate the constituent colors within white light. Furthermore, he found that by using a lens and a second prism he could recompose the spectral rainbow of separated colors back into white light.
If God is light (1 John 1:5), then Tozer's book, The Pursuit of God, functions much like a prism. Throughout the ten chapters, the author separates out for us a wide spectrum of truth contained in the one single theme, captured by the title. In fact, while each chapter is sufficient unto itself, the attentive reader is probably aware that each chapter recycles the things written in previous ones. And that is because each chapter, while highlighting a specific dimension, is also a variation on one, simple imperative: we must continually pursue the God who is continually pursuing us.
If, in chapters one through nine, Tozer separates out and displays for us the whole kaleidoscope of how one ought to chase after God, then in chapter ten he gathers up and recombines those disassembled components into one, single white beam. This is the chapter that reviews, summarizes, restates, and emphasizes. This is the chapter that pulls everything together, not only in terms of the whole book, but also in terms of the whole of life. This is the chapter where Tozer tells us to quit trying to pursue God by doing nine different things (contained in chapters 1-9), and simply do one thing — one thing expressed from nine different perspectives.
Our final question serves to tie together all of the previous nine. In review, we've explored the following questions from each chapter: Chapter 1 — How hard are you following after God? Chapter 2 — How blessed are you in possessing nothing? Chapter 3 — How much of the veil have you removed? Chapter 4 — How much of God have you apprehended? Chapter 5 — How has the universal presence of God transformed your life? Chapter 6 — What have you heard from God's speaking voice lately? Chapter 7 — How much has the gaze of your soul improved? Chapter 8 — How is your Creator-creature alignment progressing? And Chapter 9 — How are you doing regarding your posture of meekness and your pose of rest?
In the tenth and final chapter of this timeless treasure, Tozer pulls everything together in a section titled: "The Sacrament of Living." The introductory verse sets the stage well: "Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31). That is, what we do in life will vary widely, but why we do it should never vary. Each and every act, thought, intent, and reaction should function as a lens that focuses solely on the Lord's glory, magnifying it for all creation to behold.
This chapter is entitled "The Sacrament of Living." So, a good place to begin is by asking, "What is a sacrament?" Simply put, a sacrament is an outward, visible symbol of some inward, invisible reality. That is, the unseen truth is manifested in that which can be seen. For instance, we cannot see God, for he is Spirit (the truth is not that God has a Spirit, but that God is Spirit). Through the incarnation (the "enfleshment"), that which we could not see has now been made visible. God the Son took on the flesh of humanity and became one of us so that the children of men could become children of God. He came down to lift us up.
But those of us now living didn't get to see him while he was on earth. So, how do we connect with this visible incarnation of the God-man? The answer: by regularly participating in ordained sacraments, particularly those of baptism and the Eucharist. One symbolizes the spiritual reality of being buried and raised with Christ and the other one symbolizes the spiritual reality of Christ abiding in us to nourish and sustain. Therefore, since God created that which is seen and that which is unseen, both are equally sacred. And both serve a vital purpose in creation. The seen helps us grasp the infinite reality of the unseen and the unseen reminds us of the finite nature of the seen.
This truth restores to primacy a basic perspective: all of life ought to be thought of as, and lived out as, a sacrament. That is, everything we do in this life can and should point to God and his glory. Or, as Tozer writes, "One of the greatest hindrances to internal peace which the Christian encounters is the common habit of dividing our lives into two areas — the sacred and the secular." And from that common habit Tozer identifies a common problem, "Our trouble springs from the fact that we who follow Christ inhabit at once two worlds — the spiritual and the natural." We simultaneously have one foot in heaven and the other foot on earth. We are "amphibious" beings, beings that occupy two worlds.
What does it mean to be in two worlds? It means that we are required to endure a lifetime of hard toil and to devote much of our attention to the things of this world. And let's face it, life demands that we spend copious amounts of time on the seemingly trivial things. Yet even with temporal things, 1 Corinthians 10:31 reminds us, we find a myriad of opportunities to glorify God in what some have called "the glory of the grind."
Concerning the two worlds, Tozer warns that,
"This tends to divide our total life into two departments. We come unconsciously to recognize two sets of actions. The first are performed with a feeling of satisfaction and a firm assurance because they are pleasing to God. These are the sacred acts . . . ."
These are typically the things that nourish our spiritual life. They include the spiritual disciplines, such as prayer, Bible study, worship, and serving one another. Indeed these are the activities that elevate our minds and hearts.
He continues,
"Over against these sacred acts are the secular ones. They include all of the ordinary activities of life which we share with sons and daughters of Adam: eating, sleeping, working, looking after the needs of the body and performing our dull and prosaic duties here on earth. These we often do reluctantly and with many misgivings, often apologizing to God for what we consider a waste of time and strength."
Many of us can hardly wait until the day we leave our earthly body and its burdens behind. Think about it. No more rising while still dark, fighting the traffic, laboring in a job that utilizes very little of our best abilities, earning a meager paycheck, shopping at the local grocery store, finding a place to store the food, preparing the food, eating the food, and then having to earn more money so that we can buy bigger clothes because of all the weight we gained by eating all the food we bought.
Or think of all that's involved in having lots of stuff. We begin by thinking that we "just can't live without" some thing or another, so we spend money to buy it. We then spend more money to store it, to insure it, to repair it, to maintain it, and to finally sell it in a garage sale at a loss, or if it doesn't sell, to build a bigger attic to store all the stuff we "just can't live without."
Or think about all the time and energy spent caring for our bodies. As the old saying goes, we spend the first half of life losing our health to gain wealth and the second half losing our wealth to gain back our health. We devote enormous resources in nourishing, clothing, warming/cooling, cleaning, exercising, resting, insuring, comforting, challenging, educating, employing, and retiring our bodies. And to what end? We are like the old couple in the cartoon, sitting at a soda fountain. The old guy says to his wife, "Look over there honey. See that elderly couple? In ten years we'll probably be look just like them." She replies, "Darling, that's a mirror."
Living in two worlds tempts Christians to fall for the old sacred-secular dichotomy. As Tozer says, "They cannot get a satisfactory adjustment between the claims of the two worlds. They try to walk a tightrope between two kingdoms and they find no peace in either. Their strength gets reduced, their outlook confused, and their joy taken from them." In fact, we find ourselves on the horns of a dilemma, but it is a false dilemma, one that doesn't exist. For the sacred-secular dichotomy has no basis in Scripture.
Jesus himself is the perfect model. He did not live a divided life. Everything he did, from the manager to the cross, was all done for the glory of God. He was able to live each moment in the presence of his Father, being poised and restful as he moved among men. As he tells us in John 8:29, "I do always those things that please him [his Father]." Whatever turmoil and pain he endured is only due to his mission as sin-bearer for the world, not from any "moral uncertainty or spiritual maladjustment."
My conviction is that we need to live out of the center of our lives, not the periphery. That center is the true wellspring out of which flows all the resources required to live a life that pleases God. This is why the spiritual life is always to be lived from the inside out and not from the outside in. Again we see how foundational is Paul's exhortation to "do all to the glory of God."
Recall with me the famous scene from the award-winning film Chariots of Fire. Eric Liddell feels the twin pulls of racing and missions. The head of the mission agency asks him, "How good are you, Eric?' His friend answers for him and says that he could be good enough for the Olympic Games. Then the head of the mission says, "Eric, you can praise the Lord by peeling a spud if you peel it to perfection. Don't compromise. Compromise is the language of the devil. Run in God's name and let the world stand back in wonder."
In Eric Liddell, as well as throughout biblical and church history, we observe the secular transformed into the sacred simply by means of honoring God. This opens up to us the every-moment possibility of making the mundane acts of our lives a cause for heavenly celebration. For example, I believe that you can do business to the glory of God. In fact, your business can actually be a mode of worship, with each task taking on the same value as prayer. Any activity needs only a heart turned toward God in order to be made sacred. By doing your work "as unto the Lord," rather than unto people, you reflect the glory and honor of Jesus Christ himself.
Now, says Tozer, "That monkish hatred of the body which figures so prominently in the works of certain early devotional writers is wholly without support in the Word of God." That is, they over-did it. Some believers are drawn toward the ascetic extreme. Or, we can go the opposite direction toward the extreme of indulgence. Christ's presence in human flesh gives the lie to the idea that the flesh itself is evil and must be destroyed. The body of a person is not evil. It is the sinful choices of the heart that are evil. For that the disciplines of the spirit are valuable exercises unto godliness.
Tozer writes,
"Let us think of a Christian believer in whose life the twin wonders of repentance and the new birth have been wrought. He is now living according to the will of God as he understands it from the written Word. Of such a one it may be said that every act of his life is or can be as truly sacred as prayer or baptism or the Lord's Supper. To say this is not to bring all acts down to one dead level; it is rather to lift every act up into a living kingdom and turn the whole life into a sacrament."
That is, live sacramentally. Live in such a way that what you are on the outside points to what is true on the inside.
Tozer adds,
"By one act of consecration of our total selves to God can make every subsequent act express that consecration . . . We must practice living to the glory of God, actually and determinedly. By meditation upon this truth, by talking it over with God often in our prayers, by recalling it to our minds frequently as we move about among men, a sense of its wondrous meaning will take hold of us. The old painful duality will go down before a restful unity of life."
I like his imagery. We become people who are being guided and empowered by our inner life. There is a unifying vision that captures our true energy, our true direction. We are on a trajectory that moves us toward a purpose, and every component in our lives can be pressed into service toward that purpose.
But he cautions us that,
"This is not quite all. Long-held habits do not die easily. . . . We must offer all of our acts to God and believe that He accepts them. Then hold firmly to that position and keep insisting that every act of every hour of the day and night be included in this transaction. Keep reminding God in our times of private prayer that we mean every act for His glory; then supplement those times by a thousand thought-prayers as we go about the job of living. Let us practice the fine art of making every work a priestly ministration. Let us believe that God is in all our simple deeds and learn to find Him there."
Tozer walks us through the history of God's people — the people of the covenant. Israel spent 400 years in Egypt, immersed in the crassest idolatry. Moses was tapped to lead them forth into the land of promise. As it turned out, getting them out of slavery proved far easier than getting slavery out of them. The concept of holiness had been completely lost to them. So, God took them to school and began at the beginning. He manifested his presence through something they could see: a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.
Eventually, God chose to tabernacle within the Holy of Holies, providing his children many object lessons about the difference between what is holy and unholy. Tozer recounts,
"There were holy days, holy vessels, holy garments. There were washings, sacrifices, offerings of many kinds. By these means, Israel learned that God is holy. It was this that He was teaching them. Not the holiness of things or places, but the holiness of Jehovah was the lesson they must learn."
Then came Jesus Christ and the Old Testament schooling is over. Now worship is no longer about place, but about heart. Its locus is no longer confined to one chosen nation, but to one chosen people, represented by all the nations of the earth. It is no longer mediated by priests, but by one Mediator, the man Christ Jesus. And it is no longer limited to a bounded land of promise, but to an unbounded life of abundance. In the end, the God who gave everything for you wants everything from you. His salvific program goes far beyond just giving you a better life or easing some of your pain. He bought all of you and now wants all of you for himself.
In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis recalls the time when, as a young boy, he had a toothache. He delayed going to his mother as long as he possibly could. But finally the pain got so bad that he gave in and asked for her help. He knew she would give something for the pain, but he also knew that she would do something else. She would take him to one of those dentists "who have a way of fiddling around with teeth that don't even hurt." They do treat the toothache, but then they start messing with other things as well. He concludes that God is like that dentist: you give him a little and he wants more; you give him more and he wants it all. He wants to give you the full treatment. But the full treatment is nothing short of being fully conformed to the image of his Son. So, if the full treatment requires the severe mercy of pain to get our attention, he will use it to drive us to himself.
However, in spite of all the initial glories of grace splashed across the pages of the New Testament, the Church began to fall into disrepair as the years went by. Soon the accretions of holy appearance began to cling to the Church like barnacles until it eventually became so encrusted you could no longer see the real thing. The human heart, not naturally given to embracing grace, drifted back toward the law. The law is simple and straightforward. You do the "Thou shalts" and you don't do the "Thou shalt nots." If you keep the rules, you appear spiritual to yourself and others. But unlike the law, grace cannot be so easily controlled, for grace is not natural to us. Our mind does not instinctively understand it, our heart does not instinctively treasure it, our hand does not instinctively express it.
So, rather than purifying and enlarging the habitat of our hearts that they may be fit temples for the Spirit that is holy, we prefer to put our time and energy into building impressive temples of wood and stone. Rather than linger before the throne of grace in prayer, permitting the Spirit to run his righteous finger over our lives, we prefer to linger over our spiritual checklists, reviewing the rules and regulations.
Tozer makes an important distinction,
"It does not mean, for instance, that everything we do is of equal importance with everything else we do or may do. One act of a good man's life may differ widely from another in importance. Paul's sewing of tents was not equal to his writing of 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."
Here we see the principle that even the most unimportant things can be acts of worship, acceptable to the Father. But we also see that not every person is equally as useful as another. Some have been given greater gifts and others lesser gifts, but both can serve in a way that pleases God.
The intent of the heart is everything. "Let a man,' Tozer says, "sanctify the Lord God in his heart and he can thereafter do no common act. All he does is good and acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." The so-called secular becomes truly spiritual when the focus of your heart is the eternal. And it is equally true that when the focus of your heart is on the temporal, you can quickly downsize a sacred task into a secular act of selfishness.
Referring to the person who lives life as a sacred ministration, Tozer concludes his chapter and book with the following: "As he performs his never so simple task, he will hear the voice of the seraphim saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory" (Isaiah 6:3).
Ultimately, Tozer ends precisely where he began — at the throne of God. Along the way he has coaxed and coached us into growing our spiritual eyes, our spiritual ears, our spiritual nose, our spiritual taste buds, and our spiritual touch, that we may fully welcome the Presence that does not disappoint. He artfully avoids the easy road of simply listing ten things we ought to do in our pursuit of God. Rather, he calls us to lean in a little closer each day and then wait, expecting God to whisper his sacred secrets, the secrets that bring to life a sacramental life. No wonder this book never gets old.
Is your life a sacrament unto the Lord? Have you opened up all the doors and windows of your heart, inviting him to make himself at home? Do you want the pursuit of God to anoint every thought, every act, every motive of your life? Then use this prayer as a template from which you lay everything before the One who bought you with a price and will bring to completion what he has begun.
"Lord, I would trust Thee completely; I would be altogether Thine; I would exalt Thee above all. I desire that I may feel no sense of possessing anything outside of Thee. I want constantly to be aware of Thy overshadowing presence and to hear Thy speaking voice. I long to live in restful sincerity of heart. I want to live so fully in the Spirit that all my thoughts may be as sweet incense ascending to Thee and every act of my life may be an act of worship. Therefore I pray in the words of Thy great servant of old, 'I beseech Thee so for to cleanse the intent of mine heart with the unspeakable gift of Thy grace, that I may perfectly love Thee and worthily praise Thee.' And all this I confidently believe Thou wilt grant me through the merits of Jesus Christ Thy Son. Amen."
This is the conclusion of the series on the Pursuit of God, done by Dr. Ken Boa. We will add a more detailed abstract for this audio when it is created.