The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine QUOTES

101 " Only to sit and think of God, Oh what a joy it is! To think the thought, to breathe the Name; Earth has no higher bliss. Father of Jesus, love's reward! What rapture will it be, Prostrate before Thy throne to lie, And gaze and gaze on Thee! "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

102 " We imitate each other with slavish devotion and our most strenuous efforts are put forth to try to say the same thing that everyone around us is saying—and yet to find an excuse for saying it, some little safe variation on the approved theme or, if no more, at least a new illustration. "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

103 " 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: The Human Thirst for the Divine

104 " Similarly, the presence of God is the central fact of Christianity. "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

105 " God formed us for His pleasure, and so formed us that we as well as He can in divine communion 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. But we have been guilty of that "foul revolt" of which Milton speaks when describing the rebellion of Satan and his hosts. We have broken with God. We have ceased to obey Him or love Him and in guilt and fear have fled as far as possible from His Presence. "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

106 " We must put away all effort to impress, and come with the guileless candor of childhood. "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

107 " But the very ransomed children of God themselves: why do they know so little of that habitual conscious communion with God which the Scriptures seem to offer? The answer is our chronic unbelief. Faith enables our spiritual sense to function. Where faith is defective the result will be inward insensibility and numbness toward spiritual things. "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

108 " There is today no lack of Bible teachers to set forth correctly the principles of the doctrines of Christ, but too many of these seem satisfied to teach the fundamentals of the faith year after year, strangely unaware that there is in their ministry no manifest Presence, nor anything unusual in their personal lives. They minister constantly to believers who feel within their breasts a longing which their teaching simply does not satisfy. "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

109 " Over against all this cloudy vagueness stands the clear scriptural doctrine that God can be known in personal experience. A loving Personality dominates the Bible, walking among the trees of the garden and breathing fragrance over every scene. Always a living Person is present, speaking, pleading, loving, working, and manifesting Himself whenever and wherever His people have the receptivity necessary to receive the manifestation. "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

110 " The truth of Wesley's words is established before our eyes: "Orthodoxy, or right opinion, is, at best, a very slender part of religion. Though right tempers cannot subsist without right opinions, yet right opinions may subsist without right tempers. There may be a right opinion of God without either love or one right temper toward Him. Satan is a proof of this. "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

111 " The labor of self-love is a heavy one indeed. Think for yourself whether much of your sorrow has not arisen from someone speaking slightingly of you. As long as you set yourself up as a little god to which you must be loyal there will be those who will delight to offer affront to your idol. How then can you hope to have inward peace? "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

112 " The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God's estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto. He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring. "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

113 " We are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the Lord out of fear for their safety; this is especially true when those treasures are loved relatives and friends. But we need have no such fears. Our Lord came not to destroy but to save. Everything is safe which we commit to Him, and nothing is really safe which is not so committed. "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

114 " The soul has eyes with which to see and ears with which to hear. Feeble they may be from long disuse, but by the life-giving touch of Christ alive now and capable of sharpest sight and most sensitive hearing. "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

115 " Many have found the secret of which I speak and, without giving much thought to what is going on within them, constantly practice this habit of inwardly gazing upon God. They know that something inside their hearts sees God. Even when they are compelled to withdraw their conscious attention in order to engage in earthly affairs there is within them a secret communion always going on. Let their attention but be released for a moment from necessary business and it flies at once to God again. This has been the testimony of many Christians, so many that even as I state it thus I have a feeling that I am quoting, though from whom or from how many I cannot possibly know. "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

116 " The whole Bible supports the idea. God is speaking. Not God spoke, but God is speaking. He is by His nature continuously articulate. He fills the world with His speaking Voice. One "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

117 " Faith looks out instead of in and the whole life falls into line. "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

118 " O God, quicken to life every power within me, that I may lay hold on eternal things. Open my eyes that I may see; give me acute spiritual perception; enable me to taste thee and know that thou art good. Make heaven more real to me than any earthly thing has ever been. In Jesus’ name, Amen. "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

119 " The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God, and the church is famishing for want of His presence. "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine

120 " Among the famous sayings of the Church fathers none is better know than Augustine’s ‘Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.’ The great saint states here in few words the origin and interior history of the human race. God made us for Himself: that is the only explanation that satisfies the heart of a thinking man, whatever his wild reason may say. Should faulty education and perverse reasoning lead a man to conclude otherwise, there is little that any Christian can do for him. For such a man I have no message. My appeal is addressed to those who have been previously taught in secret by the wisdom of God; I speak to thirsty hearts whose longings have been wakened by the touch of God within them, and such as they need no reasoned proof. Their restless hearts furnish all the proof they need. "

― A.W. Tozer , The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine