Host: Good morning. This is The Pursuit of God Daily for Sunday, October eighteenth. Today we finish the first chapter of The Pursuit of God, Following Hard After God, with its closing paragraph and Tozer's own prayer.

Reader: Matthew thirteen, verse forty-four. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

Reader: From A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, chapter 1, Following Hard After God. The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One. Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness. Or if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss, for having the Source of all things he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight. Whatever he may lose he has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately and forever.

Reader: O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still.

Reader: Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.” Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Host: Notice the word Jesus uses in that parable: joy. The man who found the treasure did not sell everything with a grim face. For joy thereof he goeth and selleth all that he hath. He was not losing; he was gaining. That is very close to what Tozer is saying this morning. When God Himself is our treasure, the other good things of life take their proper place. We may still enjoy them, and thank God for them, but they are no longer necessary to our happiness.

Paul lived this. In Second Corinthians chapter six, after listing stripes, imprisonments, and sleepless nights, he describes the Christian life this way: as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things. Having nothing, and yet possessing all things. Tozer is saying the same truth from the other side: whatever we lose, we have actually lost nothing, because we have the Source.

And this is not a cold detachment from the world. The prophet Habakkuk looked at a failing harvest, the fig tree without blossom, the fields with no meat, the stalls with no herd, and said, Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. His joy did not rest on the crops. It rested on God.

How can we be sure God is enough? Paul answers in Romans chapter eight: He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? The cross is the proof. A God who gave His Son will withhold nothing truly good from those who are in Christ.

Then Tozer closes the chapter not with a conclusion but with a prayer: I want to want Thee. That is an honest place to begin. If our desire for God feels small, we can ask Him to enlarge it.

Here is one way to carry this into today. Think of one thing you are holding tightly, something you feel you could not be happy without. Name it before God, thank Him for it, and then tell Him plainly that He is your treasure, and that thing is not.

Host: Father, thank You for giving us Your Son, and in Him, all things. Loosen our grip on lesser treasures, and make Yourself our joy. We have prayed with Tozer that we might want You more; grant it, Lord, by Your Spirit. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Host: Remember Habakkuk's song: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD. Go with God.