A.W. Tozer - The Pursuit of God

God formed us for His pleasure, so that we can enjoy the sweet and mysterious mingling of kindred personalities. He meant us to see Him and live with Him and draw our life from His smile.   

God is so vastly wonderful, so utterly and completely delightful that He can, without anything other than  himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature, mysterious and deep as that nature is.  p.40

A.W. Tozer - The Knowledge of the Holy

“A true and safe leader is likely to be one who has no desire to lead, but is forced into a position of leadership by the inward pressure of the Holy Spirit and the press of the external situation. Such were Moses and David and the Old Testament prophets. I think there was hardly a great leader from Paul to the present day but that was drafted by the Holy Spirit for the task, and commissioned by the Lord of the Church to fill a position he had little heart for. I believe it might be accepted as a fairly reliable rule of thumb that the man who is ambitious to lead is disqualified as a leader. The true leader will have no desire to lord it over God's heritage, but will be humble, gentle, self-sacrificing, and altogether as ready to follow as to lead, when the Spirit makes it clear that a wiser and more gifted man than himself has appeared.”

"If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for."

“Yet if we would know God and for other's sake tell what we know we must try to speak of his love. All Christians have tried but none has ever done it very well. I can no more do justice to that awesome and wonder-filled theme than a child can grasp a star. Still by reaching toward the star the child may call attention to it and even indicate the direction one must look to see it. So as I stretch my heart toward the high shining love of God someone who has not before known about it may be encouraged to look up and have hope.”

"We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech. She can never escape the self-disclosure of her witness concerning God."   Chapter 1

"Without doubt, the mightiest thought the mind can entertain is the thought of God, and 

the weightiest word in any language is its word for God. Thought and speech are God’s 

gifts to creatures made in His image; these are intimately associated with Him and 

impossible apart from Him. It is highly significant that the first word was the Word: 

“And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” We may speak because God 

spoke. In Him word and idea are indivisible."  Chapter 1

"The man who comes to a right belief about God is relieved of ten thousand temporal 

problems, for he sees at once that these have to do with matters which at the most 

cannot concern him for very long; but even if the multiple burdens of time may be lifted 

from him, the one mighty single burden of eternity begins to press down upon him with 

a weight more crushing than all the woes of the world piled one upon another. That 

mighty burden is his obligation to God. It includes an instant and lifelong duty to love 

God with every power of mind and soul, to obey Him perfectly, and to worship Him 

acceptably. And when the man’s laboring conscience tells him that he has done none of 

these things, but has from childhood been guilty of foul revolt against the Majesty in the 

heavens, the inner pressure of self-accusation may become too heavy to bear." Chapter 1

"We learn by using what we already know as a bridge over which we pass to the 

unknown. It is not possible for the mind to crash suddenly past the familiar into the 

totally unfamiliar. Even the most vigorous and daring mind is unable to create 

something out of nothing by a spontaneous act of imagination. Those strange beings 

that populate the world of mythology and superstition are not pure creations of fancy. 

The imagination created them by taking the ordinary inhabitants of earth and air and sea 

and extending their familiar forms beyond their normal boundaries, or by mixing the 

forms of two or more so as to produce something new. However beautiful or grotesque 

these may be, their prototypes can always be identified. They are like something we 

already know."  Chapter 2

"That God can be known by the soul in tender personal experience while remaining 

infinitely aloof from the curious eyes of reason constitutes a paradox best described as 

Darkness to the intellect but sunshine to the heart. Frederick W. Faber"  Chapter 2

Though God in this threefold revelation has provided answers to our questions concerning Him, the answers by no means lie on the surface. They must be sought by prayer, by long meditation on the written Word, and by earnest and well-disciplined labor. However brightly the light may shine, it can be seen only by those who are spiritually prepared to receive it.  Chapter 3

“As nothing is more easy than to think,” says Thomas Traherne, “so nothing is more difficult than to think well.” If we ever think well it should be when we think of God.  Chapter 3 

A.W. Tozer - The Pursuit of God

"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."


"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 obedient 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 the jaw. He must be expelled from our soul by violence as Christ expelled the money changers from the temple. And we shall need to steel 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."


"A fairly accurate description of the human race might be furnished to one unacquainted with it by taking the Beatitudes, turning them wrong side out and saying, "Here is your human race." For the exact opposite of the virtues in the Beatitudes are the very qualities which distinguish human life and conduct.
In the world of men, we find nothing approaching the virtues of which Jesus spoke in the opening words of the famous Sermon on the Mount. Instead of poverty of spirit we find the rankest kind of pride; instead of mourners we find pleasure seekers; instead of meekness, arrogance; instead of hunger after righteousness we hear men saying, "I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing"; instead of mercy we find cruelty; instead of purity of heart, corrupt imaginings; instead of peacemakers we find men quarrelsome and resentful; instead of rejoicing in mistreatment we find them fighting back with every weapon at their command.
Into a world like this the sound of Jesus' words ("Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth") comes wonderful and strange, a visitation from above. It is well that He spoke, for no one else could have done it as well; and it is good that we listen. ... He is the only one who could say "blessed: with complete authority, for He is the Blessed One come from the world above to confer blessedness upon mankind."



This is not a mere metaphor, but an accurate analysis of our real spiritual trouble. 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. They express the real nature of the old Adamic man better than a thousand volumes of theology could do. They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease. The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God's gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution.


Our Lord referred to this tyranny of things when He said to His disciples, `If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.' (Matt. 16:24-25).


Breaking this truth into fragments for our better understanding, it would seem that there is within each of us an enemy which we tolerate at our peril. Jesus called it `life' and `self,' or as we would say, the self-life. Its chief characteristic is its possessiveness: the words `gain' and `profit' suggest this. To allow this enemy to live is in the end to lose everything. To repudiate it and give up all for Christ's sake is to lose nothing at last, but to preserve everything unto life eternal. And possibly also a hint is given here as to the only effective way to destroy this foe: it is by the Cross: `Let him take up his cross and follow me.'


The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and abnegation of all things. The blessed ones who possess the Kingdom are they who have repudiated every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing. They are `poor in spirit.' They have reached an inward state paralleling the outward circumstances of the common beggar in the streets of Jerusalem; that is what the word `poor' as Christ used it actually means. These blessed poor are no longer slaves to the tyranny of things. They have broken the yoke of the oppressor; and this they have done not by fighting but by surrendering. Though free from all sense of possessing, they yet possess all things. `Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'