The first chapter of Tozer’s classic deals with a fact too seldom considered by Christians around the world: we are saved to follow hard after God. We are not saved for comfort or for a get-out-of-hell-free card. We are saved to follow God with everything we have so that we can know Him and be changed more and more into His image.
As Tozer writes:
[Our salvation] 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. That is where we begin, I say, but where we stop no man has yet discovered, for there is in the awful and mysterious depths of the Triune God neither limit nor end.
It is this mighty longing and following after God that Tozer’s book aims to foster. It is this holy desire that it aims to ignite. Again, Tozer writes:
The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of the Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.
When I read those last two sentences I cried. I cried on my behalf and on behalf of so many I know that keep Jesus waiting for us to want Him. I picture Christ desiring of us what He heard from the Psalmist in Psalm 63 (one of my very favorites):
O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me. - Psalm 63:1-8 (NIV)
What about you? Do you want Him? Do you find yourself with a “stiff and wooden” attitude toward God? The next few posts consider what in the world to do about it. Until then, pray that you would have the desire to follow hard after God!
