The Pursuit of God [Paperback]

For a book written in 1949, this man was ahead of his time, and what he wrote about is still relevant and applicable today. His writing sounds to me like that of a modern day prophet, who could see into the happenings of Christianity, to foretell and forth-tell what would be problems ahead of us, and warn us of the impending dangers if we do not get back onto the straight and narrow (Matt 7:13-14). As I read this book, I can relate it to Christianity today, the pitfalls and the dangers which Tozer had warned about more than half a century ago. There are many warnings that Tozer had put forth, and I will attempt to draw some of the lessons of Tozer to what is happening today.

Is There Food In The House?

Right from the opening of the book, the preface already sounds a rebuke to Bible teachers who do not go beyond the fundamentals to teach in and with the presence of God. In fact, while reading Tozer's book, it reminded me of Tommy Tenny's book The God Chasers, which is based out of the same verse of Psalm 63:8, and the whole issue of whether there is food in the house of God. Tozer warns that "it is a solemn thing, and no small scandal in the kingdom, to see God's children starving while actually seated at the Father's table." This rebuke I do not take lightly, but humbly, and it requires me to walk the road Tozer took to put food at the Father's table.

Before Tommy Tenny, there was A.W. Tozer, and the warning rings the same 50 years later. Tozer rightly assessed that today, even though many Christians hold the right opinion of God, true spiritual worship is decreasing, and continually decreasing. Just as William Seymore prophesied during the Azusa Street Revivals that in the last day, the Great Pentecostal Movement would see an overemphasis on praise to a God they no longer pray to, we see this prevalent in Christianity today and God's people must return to their prayer closets, just like how Tozer did. As much as we may study from the Bible how the Israelites were stiff-necked people and did not heed the warnings of God, I do not see much difference today. With many prophecies and warnings, only a handful heed them. The rest of us are no different from the stiff-necked Israelites.

Simplicity of Christianity
Tozer notices that the simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found in us. Today's Christianity has so many fads which have the potential of drawing people away from the personal relationship with God into a faddish relationship with God. The "in thing" in the 90's and early 21st century Christianity is the praise and worship movement, where the most adored position in church is to be a worship leader. Christians go to where the latest and most popular worship band is playing, and tell that they can worship God better there. Such moves are not in itself bad, but where Christians place their focus on can be detrimental. If their focus is on the act of worship rather than true spiritual worship of God, it is like a person in love with the feeling of love, not really wanting to truly know the person he is suppose to be in love with. All this will not satisfy the longing of the heart, as Tozer explains, but the shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship and that servile imitation of the world all testify that we know God only imperfectly.

Knowing God
Central to Christianity, and the very basics of it is to know God. Tozer explains that if we find God amid all the religious externals, we must first determine to find Him, and then proceed in the way of simplicity in a child-like faith. We are warned that when we seek God, "the evil habit of seeking God-and effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation." The world is perishing for lack of knowledge of God and the Church is famishing for a lack of His presence. We must remove every and in seeking Him, and to get back on our knees to pray, enter and live our whole life in His presence. In fact, Tozer defines "believing" as "directing the heart's attention to Jesus," and "faith" is the "gaze of the heart at God." This is the sole focus of a Christian, not a God-and, but God and God alone.

This knowledge of God is not a head knowledge, but a Biblical perspective of having a relationship with the living God. Tozer warns us that Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His Word. It would sound paradoxical that a Christian who studies God's Word could end up losing God, just as how modern scientists have lost God amid the wonders of His world. We need to give up all for all of God. This personal relationship with God is of utmost importance, and the end is not the act of "accepting" Christ and praying the sinner's prayer. Tozer points out an interesting fact that "accepting" Christ is a term not used in the Bible, but we use it so often today. In actuality, it is God who accepts us as His children through adoption. If man "accepts" Christ, it connotes that man greater than God, but it is contrary, and God being greater accepts us to Him.

Tozer follows through to show that theology is always practical. He rebukes man's idea of reality, and those with lofty intellectual peaks whose ideas are "brain-deep" but not "life-deep." Tozer insists that Christians are those whose beliefs are practical and are geared into his life, and "by them he lives or dies, stands or falls for this world and for all time to come."

The Pathway to His Presence
Because of Tozer's relationship with God and his views on Christianity, his writings show deep theology in a practical manner. He is able to explain profound truths of God in a picturesque manner, and at times through allegories, to help us "taste and see" God. Tozer often brings us to points that we have to choose and decide where we want to take our faith and walk with God to. It is either God, or not. However, not to leave us to decide but not knowing the destination, Tozer describes the result of taking the pathway to His presence. It is, however, not an easy road, but warns us of the all we have to give up to get there.

Tozer shows the immanence of God through the foundation he laid, i.e. the knowledge of God. The reason one feels God is near but not another is not that God is far, but that we do not know He is near. When we want to draw near to God, it is not in a measurable distance, but a nearness of relationship like a father saying of his son, "I feel closer to him than 3 years ago." He goes on to question why some people "find" God in a way that others do not, and states that the will of God is the same for all, that God has no favorites in His household. All that God has ever done for any of His children He will do for all of His children, and that the difference does not lie in God but with us.

With this claim that Tozer made, I question the complete and total validity. Is the will of God for every Christian the same? I beg to differ that each Christian has a unique will, calling, purpose and destiny that only he can fulfill, and no one else. However, the close relationship that God desires with every of His children is the same. Because each of us are different, God then relates to us differently. If we seek what is another's, we may get disappointed that we do not get there, but in actuality, God has something different for us. Just like in hearing the voice of God, I have learnt that when I read an author writing about how God speaks to him, it is really simply how God speaks to him, but does not totally apply to me. In the natural, we have also learnt that we relate differently to different people around us. Hence, each individual needs to discover how God speaks to him in the uniqueness of how God created Him.

Conclusion
At the end of the preface, Tozer wrote and humbly claimed that "This book is a modest attempt to aid God's hungry children to find Him. Nothing here is new except in the sense that it is a discovery which my own heart has made of spiritual realities... Others before me have gone much farther into these holy mysteries... but if my fire is not large it is yet real." Such is the humility that this man had. Tozer's life showed that the more a person knows God, the more humble he becomes.