Woke this morning with A.W. Tozer’s thoughts in my head. I have the honor of speaking to young people today, and I feel the weight of this one opportunity to give them something of substance, of value. I have run the gamut of topics on friendship evangelism, but this morning I am settling in the reality that the only thing I have to give is what I have been given. The understanding, and revelation of the overwhelming Love of God. If we don’t know Him, truly spend the time to cultivate our relationship, and depth of heart response, we have nothing to give a world mired in shallow existence. I must ask again and again, am I talking about, around, to Him, or am I communing with Him? Our God is a God who has chosen to relate to us through the familiar language of emotions, feelings and personality. He is a God who feels and as such, can be touched. He is unashamed to declare His emotions, and passion for His people and to show us the great extent He will go to demonstrate his love for. Hebrews 12:3 ” Consider him that endured…lest you become weary” Why? Because when we gaze upon the love of God as demonstrated in the giving of His son, we come to know there is nothing that can separate us from His love.
The modern scientist has lost God amid the wonders of His world; we Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His Word. We have almost forgotten that God is a Person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can.
God is a Person, and in the deep of His mighty nature He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires and suffers as any other person may. In making Himself known to us He stays by the familiar pattern of personality. He communicates with us through the avenues of our minds, our wills and our emotions. The continuous and unembarrassed interchange of love and thought between God and the soul of the redeemed man is the throbbing heart of New Testament religion.
I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. 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 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.
A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God
