Latest / The Pursuit of God Daily / Following Hard After God, part 4 of 7: Seeking the One Already Found

Transcript

Following Hard After God, part 4 of 7: Seeking the One Already Found · The Pursuit of God Daily

• 0:00
  Host: Good morning. This is The Pursuit of God Daily for Thursday, October fifteenth. We continue in chapter one of The Pursuit of God, Following Hard After God, with the fourth of seven readings, where Tozer turns to the saints who sought God even after they had found Him.
• 0:16
  Reader: Psalm twenty-seven, verse four. One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple.
• 0:31
  Reader: From A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, chapter one, Following Hard After God. David’s life was a torrent of spiritual desire, and his psalms ring with the cry of the seeker and the glad shout of the finder. Paul confessed the mainspring of his life to be his burning desire after Christ. “That I may know Him,” was the goal of his heart, and to this he sacrificed everything. “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may win Christ.”
• 1:09
  Reader: Hymnody is sweet with the longing after God, the God whom, while the singer seeks, he knows he has already found. “His track I see and I’ll pursue,” sang our fathers only a short generation ago, but that song is heard no more in the great congregation. How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers. Everything is made to center upon the initial act of “accepting” Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the Bible) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls.
• 1:45
  Reader: We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him we need no more seek Him. This is set before us as the last word in orthodoxy, and it is taken for granted that no Bible-taught Christian ever believed otherwise. Thus the whole testimony of the worshipping, seeking, singing Church on that subject is crisply set aside. The experiential heart-theology of a grand army of fragrant saints is rejected in favor of a smug interpretation of Scripture which would certainly have sounded strange to an Augustine, a Rutherford or a Brainerd.
• 2:24
  Reader: In the midst of this great chill there are some, I rejoice to acknowledge, who will not be content with shallow logic. They will admit the force of the argument, and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray, “O God, show me thy glory.” They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God.
• 2:47
  Host: Tozer is saying something that sounds like a riddle at first: the believer seeks the God he has already found. David had been anointed king, had known God's deliverance again and again, and still he wrote, One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after. Paul had met the risen Christ on the Damascus road, had preached Him for years, and still he counted all things loss that he might win Christ, and be found in him. Finding did not end the seeking. It began it. The Scriptures hold both sides together. Psalm one hundred five, verses three and four, says, let the heart of them rejoice that seek the LORD. Seek the LORD, and his strength: seek his face evermore. Notice that the seekers are already rejoicing. They are not anxious strangers hoping to be let in. They are children of the house who want more of their Father's face. And notice the word evermore. There is no point in this life where the Bible tells us to stop. The prophet Hosea gives the same shape: Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning. Knowing God is a following on, a walk, not a single step. And the promise attached to it is as sure as sunrise. God is not reluctant to be found by those who keep pressing toward Him. Tozer grieves that many have been taught to treat the first moment of faith as the whole of it. Our standing before God does rest wholly on Christ, received by faith; Paul says we are found in him, not having our own righteousness. But that settled standing is exactly what frees us to seek without fear. We do not seek God to earn our place. We seek Him because our place is secure, and the One we have found is worth knowing more. So here is one way to carry this into today. Take Psalm twenty-seven, verse eight, as your answer whenever your mind is quiet, in the car, at the sink, between tasks. When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek. Say it back to Him, and mean it, a few times through the day.
• 4:44
  Host: Father, You have found us in Your Son, and we thank You that our place with You is secure. Do not let us settle down as though we had seen all there is of You. Stir in us the desire David knew and Paul knew, to behold Your beauty and to know Christ more. When You say, Seek My face, let our hearts answer, Thy face, Lord, will we seek. In Jesus' name, amen.
• 5:05
  Host: Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his face evermore. Go with God.