The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer, Horizon Books, Harrisburg, PA, 1948

The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring us to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that we may enter into Him, that we may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of our hearts.

We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. “No one can come to me,” said the Lord, “except that the Father, who has sent me, draw him.”

The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after Him.

The moment the Spirit quickens us, our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition. That is the heavenly birth without which we cannot see the Kingdom of God. It is, however, not an end but an inception, for now begins the glorious pursuit, the heart’s happy exploration of the infinite riches of the Godhead

To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love, justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart.

Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted.

O God, I have tasted your goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am conscious of my need of further grace. I confess my lack of desire O God. I want to want You more; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me your glory I pray so that I may truly know you.

He moves us to return. This first comes to our notice when our restless hearts feel a yearning for the Presence of God and we say within ourselves, “I will arise and go to my Father.”

God wills that we should push on into His Presence and live our whole life there. This is to be known to us in conscious experience. It is more than a doctrine to be held, it is a life to be enjoyed every moment of every day.

Those who have been in the Presence of God and have looked with opened eye upon His majesty have a unique quality about them. They speak with spiritual authority. They have been in the Presence of God and they report what they have seen there. They are prophets, not scribes, for the scribe tells us what he has read, and the prophet tells what he has seen.

To push into sensitive living experience into the Holy Presence of God is a privilege open to every child of God

The soul has eyes with which to see and ears with which to hear.

The vital quality that the saints have in common is spiritual receptivity, urging them Godward. They have a spiritual awareness and they go on to cultivate it until it becomes the biggest thing in their lives. They are saints because, when they felt the inward longing of the Spirit, they did something about it. They acquired the lifelong habit of spiritual response. As David says, “When you said, ‘Seek my face’, my heart said,’ Your face O Lord, I will seek.’

Spiritual receptivity may be increased by exercise or destroyed by neglect. It is not a sovereign and irresistible force which comes upon us as a seizure from above. It is a gift from God, indeed, but one which must be recognized and cultivated as any other gift if it is to realize the purpose for which it was given.

Faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God.

It is written that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout all the earth. God sees us. When the eyes of the soul looking out meet the eyes of God looking in, heaven has begun right here on this earth.

PS 34:5 Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.

“Life eternal is nothing other than that blessed regard in which You never cease to behold me, yes, even the secret places of my soul. With You, to behold is to give life.” -Nicholas of Cusa.

PS 123:1-2 I lift up my eyes to you,
to you whose throne is in heaven.
As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the LORD our God,
till he shows us his mercy.

If faith is the gaze of the heart at God, and if this gaze is but the raising of the inward eyes to meet the all-seeing eyes of God, then it follows that it is one of the easiest things possible to do. 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.

In our desire after God let us keep always in mind that God also has desire, and his desire is towards us, especially those who seek him. In them God finds a theater where he can display his presence. With them he can walk unhindered and toward them he can act like the God he is.