The Pursuit of God by Aiden W. Tozer Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Pursuit of God
Book Review: Great Communicator who knew God
Summary: 5 Stars
I would say that this is one of my favorite books. Tozer communicates in a way that makes you think. He knows how to make you get you thinking about your 'religious' ways and pursue the living God. This man can communicate in a way that is not over your head, but yet takes you deep. If you haven't read this book and would like to have a more intimate relationship with Him, this book is a very good place to start as it will direct you to the God of the Word.Book Review: Great for spiritual guidance, but can't analyze too deep
Summary: 3 Stars
Pursuit of God is a compelling book that draws upon Tozer's intimate experiences with God to impart godly wisdom to those who have a zealous hunger for more. The book is full with spiritual food for thought, and is great to pick up and read a chapter or two even after you've finished it as an accompaniment for daily readings of the bible.In a sense of nourishing and aiding the Christian to be in the right perspective with God, it is an invaluable tool. However, the overarching blanket statements found throughout the book will leave a sensitive reader asking a lot of theological questions that will hinder him/her from getting the most out of the book.
Referring to a previous review since it's a good example, Tozer asserts that "the pronouns 'my' and 'mine' look innocent enough in print but... ...They are verbal symptoms of our deep disease." His point is true and sound, that the relentless pursuit to gratify the self manifests the fallen nature of man through sin. However, saying that the word "my" is a verbal symptom of our falleness goes too far, for it would mean that Jesus' poignant cry in Matt 27:46 (originally from David in Psalm 22), "Eli Eli lama sabachthani" or "My God My God why have you forsaken Me?" are symptoms of His deep disease of sin (Eli is El for "God" with the pronomial suffix i) in saying the words "my" and "me" (or using the pronomial suffixes since He spoke Aramaic).
While the author obviously didn't mean this, people who read and analyze every word and point will find many similar statements that will leave them cautious of what Tozer states.
The overall point is excellent, with each chapter saturated with sobering and blessful admonitions. Most will not even notice the occassional overarching statements. Most will probably be greatly encouraged in their spiritual walk. However, when one does deep investigations into the semantics and the implications of what Tozer says, it will provide a mixed and muddled picture of how to walk the Christian life.
Bottom Line: Excellent read, but theologically sensitive and nit-picky readers may wrestle with it.
Book Review: Great theology from one who has not been to seminary
Summary: 4 Stars
Aiden Wilson Tozer was a man who did not have a formal theological education. However, he wrote a book that could well be a complementary reading to a systematic theology textbook, further explaining the things of God where the systematic theology text does not go into. In fact, Tozer even said that "The books on systematic theology overlook this [the things he discusses], but the wise will understand." His deep insights would definitely come from God himself, and I am humbled by the life of Tozer who takes much time in prayer, study, and seeking the mind of God. His life as described by James Synder in the forward truly depicted a man in pursuit of God. Leonard Ravenhill once said of Tozer as "Men like him are not college bred but Spirit taught."For a book written in 1949, this man was ahead of his time, and what he wrote about is still relevant and applicable today. His writing sounds to me like that of a modern day prophet, who could see into the happenings of Christianity, to foretell and forth-tell what would be problems ahead of us, and warn us of the impending dangers if we do not get back onto the straight and narrow (Matt 7:13-14). As I read this book, I can relate it to Christianity today, the pitfalls and the dangers which Tozer had warned about more than half a century ago. There are many warnings that Tozer had put forth, and I will attempt to draw some of the lessons of Tozer to what is happening today.
Is There Food In The House?
Right from the opening of the book, the preface already sounds a rebuke to Bible teachers who do not go beyond the fundamentals to teach in and with the presence of God. In fact, while reading Tozer's book, it reminded me of Tommy Tenny's book The God Chasers, which is based out of the same verse of Psalm 63:8, and the whole issue of whether there is food in the house of God. Tozer warns that "it is a solemn thing, and no small scandal in the kingdom, to see God's children starving while actually seated at the Father's table." This rebuke I do not take lightly, but humbly, and it requires me to walk the road Tozer took to put food at the Father's table.
Before Tommy Tenny, there was A.W. Tozer, and the warning rings the same 50 years later. Tozer rightly assessed that today, even though many Christians hold the right opinion of God, true spiritual worship is decreasing, and continually decreasing. Just as William Seymore prophesied during the Azusa Street Revivals that in the last day, the Great Pentecostal Movement would see an overemphasis on praise to a God they no longer pray to, we see this prevalent in Christianity today and God's people must return to their prayer closets, just like how Tozer did. As much as we may study from the Bible how the Israelites were stiff-necked people and did not heed the warnings of God, I do not see much difference today. With many prophecies and warnings, only a handful heed them. The rest of us are no different from the stiff-necked Israelites.
Simplicity of Christianity
Tozer notices that the simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found in us. Today's Christianity has so many fads which have the potential of drawing people away from the personal relationship with God into a faddish relationship with God. The "in thing" in the 90's and early 21st century Christianity is the praise and worship movement, where the most adored position in church is to be a worship leader. Christians go to where the latest and most popular worship band is playing, and tell that they can worship God better there. Such moves are not in itself bad, but where Christians place their focus on can be detrimental. If their focus is on the act of worship rather than true spiritual worship of God, it is like a person in love with the feeling of love, not really wanting to truly know the person he is suppose to be in love with. All this will not satisfy the longing of the heart, as Tozer explains, but the shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship and that servile imitation of the world all testify that we know God only imperfectly.
Knowing God
Central to Christianity, and the very basics of it is to know God. Tozer explains that if we find God amid all the religious externals, we must first determine to find Him, and then proceed in the way of simplicity in a child-like faith. We are warned that when we seek God, "the evil habit of seeking God-and effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation." The world is perishing for lack of knowledge of God and the Church is famishing for a lack of His presence. We must remove every and in seeking Him, and to get back on our knees to pray, enter and live our whole life in His presence. In fact, Tozer defines "believing" as "directing the heart's attention to Jesus," and "faith" is the "gaze of the heart at God." This is the sole focus of a Christian, not a God-and, but God and God alone.
This knowledge of God is not a head knowledge, but a Biblical perspective of having a relationship with the living God. Tozer warns us that Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His Word. It would sound paradoxical that a Christian who studies God's Word could end up losing God, just as how modern scientists have lost God amid the wonders of His world. We need to give up all for all of God. This personal relationship with God is of utmost importance, and the end is not the act of "accepting" Christ and praying the sinner's prayer. Tozer points out an interesting fact that "accepting" Christ is a term not used in the Bible, but we use it so often today. In actuality, it is God who accepts us as His children through adoption. If man "accepts" Christ, it connotes that man greater than God, but it is contrary, and God being greater accepts us to Him.
Tozer follows through to show that theology is always practical. He rebukes man's idea of reality, and those with lofty intellectual peaks whose ideas are "brain-deep" but not "life-deep." Tozer insists that Christians are those whose beliefs are practical and are geared into his life, and "by them he lives or dies, stands or falls for this world and for all time to come."
The Pathway to His Presence
Because of Tozer's relationship with God and his views on Christianity, his writings show deep theology in a practical manner. He is able to explain profound truths of God in a picturesque manner, and at times through allegories, to help us "taste and see" God. Tozer often brings us to points that we have to choose and decide where we want to take our faith and walk with God to. It is either God, or not. However, not to leave us to decide but not knowing the destination, Tozer describes the result of taking the pathway to His presence. It is, however, not an easy road, but warns us of the all we have to give up to get there.
Tozer shows the immanence of God through the foundation he laid, i.e. the knowledge of God. The reason one feels God is near but not another is not that God is far, but that we do not know He is near. When we want to draw near to God, it is not in a measurable distance, but a nearness of relationship like a father saying of his son, "I feel closer to him than 3 years ago." He goes on to question why some people "find" God in a way that others do not, and states that the will of God is the same for all, that God has no favorites in His household. All that God has ever done for any of His children He will do for all of His children, and that the difference does not lie in God but with us.
With this claim that Tozer made, I question the complete and total validity. Is the will of God for every Christian the same? I beg to differ that each Christian has a unique will, calling, purpose and destiny that only he can fulfill, and no one else. However, the close relationship that God desires with every of His children is the same. Because each of us are different, God then relates to us differently. If we seek what is another's, we may get disappointed that we do not get there, but in actuality, God has something different for us. Just like in hearing the voice of God, I have learnt that when I read an author writing about how God speaks to him, it is really simply how God speaks to him, but does not totally apply to me. In the natural, we have also learnt that we relate differently to different people around us. Hence, each individual needs to discover how God speaks to him in the uniqueness of how God created Him.
Conclusion
At the end of the preface, Tozer wrote and humbly claimed that "This book is a modest attempt to aid God's hungry children to find Him. Nothing here is new except in the sense that it is a discovery which my own heart has made of spiritual realities... Others before me have gone much farther into these holy mysteries... but if my fire is not large it is yet real." Such is the humility that this man had. Tozer's life showed that the more a person knows God, the more humble he becomes.
Book Review: Great!
Summary: 5 Stars
The book was great! The price was really amazing and the book was in a good quality, just like the seller described.
I received the book probably a couple days before the first expected day, which was even better.
Book Review: I'm Amazed!
Summary: 5 Stars
i have never read such an intruiging book as this. the words tozer uses and the thooughts he invites into your head will no doubt draw you closer to the one true God.