The Pursuit of God*
As I enter into a deeper sense of knowing God, I encountered this book. Not that this is the reason why I'm pursuing God even more right now, but this book had been helpful in revealing things in my life that the Lord is asking me to dump. Reading this book is a journey towards seeing God in His full presence.
Listed below are things I've learned while reading this book:
1. "We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit." (related to John 6:44)
At first I thought my desire to seek God even more came from my own goodness. I've been stressed out and I haven't talked to God intimately for the past few weeks because of all the tasks I needed to finish. A time came when I don't have any other thing to do, I said to myself, "Thiz iz it, Pancit! Time to seek God." I intended to allot the best of my time knowing Him until I found out He was the One who put the urge in me to pursue Him even more.
The lack of pursuit in knowing God has brought me to this low state.
Have you ever felt so far from Him despite knowing He is near? It's as if there are no revelations, there are no Eureka moments, the intimacy level is very low.
And this has caused depression for a few people, including me. Good thing, even before we give up in our lowly situations, He's right there to remind us that all we have got to do is to seek Him. He said all those who seek Him earnestly will find Him (Luke 11:9). In seeking Him, we need to strip down all the things we've held on to, all that we are and all that we gained in this world. Remember what the Lord has given to the Levites when He divided Canaan among the tribes of Israel. He said, "You will have no inheritance in their land, nor will you have any share among them; I am your share and your inheritance among the Israelites." A.W. Tozer quoted, "The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One." When we seek God alone, we don't need anything more for He is and He has everything that we need.
2. Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us.
More than 2000 years ago, Jesus died on the cross for our sins. The moment He took His last breath, the veil that covered the Presence of God to His people was torn. It simply means that we are now accepted in His presence, we can have full access in the God Almighty. The sacrifice for all sins from their time until now and for forever has been accepted.
The Lamb of God took away the sins of the Earth.
There is a veil covering God's full presence whenever I come to Him. It is not the veil that Jesus tore in the temple. This veil that I am talking about is the veil that is made up of:
SELF-love
SELF-righteousness
SELF-admiration
SELF-sufficiency
3. When we lift our inward eyes to gaze upon God, we are sure to meet friendly eyes gazing back at us, for it is written that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro through out all the Earth.
The Lord is waiting for us to see all things in His presence. We might think that the presence of God will just be there whenever we pray and worship Him. Yes it is true, but His presence is also there whenever we do our daily task, whenever we are tired and lonely, whenever we don't want to do the right thing, whenever we unconsciously commit sin, and all of the time we take our breath on Earth.
I like the example A. W. Tozer gave regarding God's nearness to us. Some people find God near to them when they are happy and blessed. Some others find Him far whenever their prayers are unanswered. But Tozer described it as something more than that. Being near or far does not mean distance but experience . A father may say, "I felt my son is coming nearer to me as he gets older." Yet the son has lived by his father's side all his life. He means that the boy is coming to know him more intimately and with deeper understanding. They are becoming one in mind and heart. So when we ask God of His presence, we are not asking for Him to literally come near to us, but for us to become more aware of His divine presence.
Does God play favoritism when it comes to allowing people in His presence? I believe that the problem is not with God but with us. His will for all of us is the same. He wants everyone to come to His presence that is why Jesus is the World's Sin Bearer. All He has ever done for one of His children, He'll do it for all. His promises written in the Bible is not just for all who read it but also for all the others who does not. The difference lies among the response of His children whenever they feel the inward longing to seek God. Will you be spiritually aware or not? People like Moses, David, Peter, Paul, Martin Luther, St. Francis and even A. W. Tozer cultivated their spiritual awareness to the point where Heaven is more real than where they truly stood.
My prayer is that all people will turn to God earnestly, to exercise himself unto godliness, to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust, obedience and humility so that he may have the same faith in his mighty and weaker days.
4. 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.
We live our lives in two different ways. Holy and unholy. The holy ones include our prayer and worship time, our fasting habits, our church activities and such other acts as spring directly from faith. The unholy ones may vary from all our daily, ordinary activities like eating, sleeping, working and performing dull duties on Earth. But the revelation from Jesus' life is this: He lived on Earth as a man yet without sin. He lived in the body without performing a non-sacred act. A. W. Tozer quoted, "His presence in human flesh sweeps away forever the evil notion that there is about the human body something innately offensive to the Deity."
Let us assume that the one reading this note is a follower of Christ who wholeheartedly obey God's will in his life. This man should not think that his body is abominable in God's sight because of things he's done on Earth. It is rather to lift up everything he does into a living heavenly kingdom and turn the whole life into a sacrament where every subsequent act express consecration that leads to the glorification of our God. This man must have an aggresive faith believing all acts offered to God is accepted. Until then, he may see that performing dull duties on Earth like cleaning the bathroom floor can be as holy as an act of winning a soul for Christ. "It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, IT IS WHY HE DOES IT." If we all desire to bring glory to God in everything we do, we must have faith that our God the Father accepts it through and only through our Lord Jesus Christ.
With this in mind, I have resolved in my heart to seek God in everything I do, in all the words I say and in all the thoughts that run through my mind. Yes, I am a sinner but Christ died for my sins so that I can have an intimate relationship with the Father. My sins are washed by His blood so that His holiness may be seen in all things I offered to Him. And whenever I talk to Him, I know He listens for He is universal. I desire to give Him the highest praise for He is worthy. And together with all the angels and saints, I will forever say, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty; the whole Earth is full of His glory!" (Isaiah 6:3)
*Tozer, A. W. 1948. The Pursuit of God. Pennsylvannia: Christian Publications, Inc.
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