Following Hard After God

Words of Encouragement for The Fellowship of the Burning Heart
from A.W. Tozer’s book, The Pursuit of God
Chapter 1: Following Hard After God

 My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me. (Psalm 63:8)

 “Christian theology teaches the doctrine of prevenient grace, which, briefly stated, means that before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man.” [Prevenient Grace is a wonderful John "Wesleyism"]

 “We pursue God because, and only because, he has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit.”

 “The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after him.”

 “We have almost forgotten that God is a person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can. …but full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter. It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of both can be explored.”

 “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.”

 “You and I are in little (our sins excepted) what God is in large. Being made in his image we have within us the capacity to know him.” … The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition. That 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.”

 “To have found God and still to pursue him is the soul’s paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too easily satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart.”

---