Host: Good morning. This is The Pursuit Podcast for Monday, October 12. Today we begin chapter one of The Pursuit of God, Following Hard After God, with the first of seven readings. Tozer opens by asking where our seeking of God actually starts.

Reader: Psalm sixty-three, verse eight. My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.

Reader: From A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, chapter 1, Following Hard After God. Christian theology teaches the doctrine of prevenient grace, which briefly stated means this, that before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man.

Reader: Before a sinful man can think a right thought of God, there must have been a work of enlightenment done within him; imperfect it may be, but a true work nonetheless, and the secret cause of all desiring and seeking and praying which may follow.

Reader: We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit. “No man can come to me,” said our Lord, “except the Father which hath sent me draw him,” and it is by this very prevenient drawing that God takes from us every vestige of credit for the act of coming. The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after Him; and all the time we are pursuing Him we are already in His hand: “Thy right hand upholdeth me.”

Reader: In this divine “upholding” and human “following” there is no contradiction. All is of God, for as von Hügel teaches, God is always previous. In practice, however, (that is, where God’s previous working meets man’s present response) man must pursue God. On our part there must be positive reciprocation if this secret drawing of God is to eventuate in identifiable experience of the Divine.

Reader: In the warm language of personal feeling this is stated in the Forty-second Psalm: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?” This is deep calling unto deep, and the longing heart will understand it.

Reader: The doctrine of justification by faith⁠—a Biblical truth, and a blessed relief from sterile legalism and unavailing self-effort⁠—has in our time fallen into evil company and been interpreted by many in such manner as actually to bar men from the knowledge of God. The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless.

Reader: Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego. Christ may be “received” without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver. The man is “saved,” but he is not hungry nor thirsty after God. In fact he is specifically taught to be satisfied and encouraged to be content with little.

Host: Tozer is saying something that both humbles us and frees us. Humbles, because every desire we have ever had for God was first planted by God. And frees, because if He started it, He means to finish it. The apostle John puts it in one line: We love him, because he first loved us. And just before that, in first John chapter four, verse ten: Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Our seeking is never the first move. The Father sent the Son, and the Spirit draws us to Him, before we ever lift a hand.

But Tozer will not let us stop there and grow passive. He holds two things together, and so does Scripture. Paul writes in Philippians chapter two, verses twelve and thirteen: work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. God works the willing; we do the following. That is exactly the shape of our opening verse. David says, my soul followeth hard after thee, and in the same breath, thy right hand upholdeth me. The pursuit is real effort, and the hand underneath it is real grace.

Then Tozer turns to a warning. He is not questioning justification by faith; he calls it a Biblical truth and a blessed relief. Tozer is saying that the gospel can be received as a transaction and then set on a shelf, so that a person counts himself saved but has no hunger for the One who saved him. The cure is not to doubt grace, but to let grace do what it always does, which is to draw us nearer. Jesus said in Matthew chapter five, verse six: Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

So here is something to carry into today. Any small pull you feel toward God this morning, to pray, to open His word, to be quiet before Him, is not your own idea. It is His hand on your shoulder. Do not wait for a stronger feeling. Answer the pull you have. Take five unhurried minutes at midday, read Psalm sixty-three slowly, and simply follow where He has already begun to lead.

Host: Father, thank You that You sought us before we ever sought You, and that You sent Your Son for us while we were far off. Keep us from being content with little. Stir in us a real hunger for You, and as we follow after You today, hold us fast in Your right hand. In Jesus' name, amen.

Host: We love him, because he first loved us. Go with God.