The Pursuit of God - - A.W. Tozer

I read this as part of my devotionals at night and found it to be very thought-provoking. Since I read it right before I went to bed, I often had a hard time falling asleep because I was thinking about what was said. Some of the most stimulating ideas came from his chapters on "The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing," "Apprehending God," "Meekness and Rest," and "The Sacrament of Living"...

"The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing"
Although we live on this earth and may own things on this earth, everything is really God's in the first place; He just lets us take care of it. God wants us to be willing to give back to Him what is rightfully His (like Abraham with his only son Isaac; Genesis 22). It is only when we can surrender everything to God that we will possess nothing, yet have much.

"Apprehending God"
God is as real as the birds in the air or the flesh of my own body. Yet, so many Christians live as if He is nothing but some sort of idea; they don't recognize Him as reality and, thus, don't treat Him that way... But the Father is real and personable; He isn't just some nebulous force that cares about the multitudes but not the individuals. He is real, in this room even now, and is really waiting for us to run into His arms.

"Meekness and Rest"
Jesus offers to take our burdens away and call on Him - for His burden is light and His yoke is easy. How many times have we heard that before? But I like how Tozer pointed out that the burden is created by ourselves! We carry around our pride, pretenses, and artificiality... we want to be, look, and appear to be better than we are and must hold a burden to keep it up. But Jesus doesn't care about any of that! He wants you and me for who we are... it's really a part of self-denial and loving God more than ourselves.

"The Sacrament of Living"
God created us for His glory - ultimately. We were created to have a relationship with Him in which we praise and glorify Him in all that we do... this is what fulfills our design. Isn't it sad, then, that we've strayed so far from our original intent that we think such a relationship to be detrimental, hard, or even boring! How God must frown! We are to glorify Him in absolutely EVERYTHING we do! So live it!