This is the first official Mid-Week post.  I have begun re-reading Tozer’s The Pursuit of God, and it is from this that I’ll draw the themes of our Mid-Weeks for a good portion of the summer.  The plan will be to post a new Mid-Week by Thursday each week.  Thanks for reading!

(Want to buy the book and read along? Click the picture below to find it @ Amazon)

 

John 6:44a - No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

I’ve heard this verse many times. I’ve quoted this verse many times.  There is a lot of truth wrapped up in that one sentence.  Tozer, after reading this verse writes this:

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

I whole-heartily agree with Tozer.  I have read and re-read this verse each time finding the doctrine of election inside.  But as I read further in Tozer, I realized how I have a propensity to take this verse and use it to fuel my own complacency.  I allow these encouraging words to be warped into a wrong view of my responsibility in my personal relationship with our Triune God.

Somewhere along the way, many of us have deluded ourselves into believing that we can be saved by God without loving God.  We believe that he “elects” us and as such we are saved (which is true), and then we live as if this in turn means that we are securely buckled into our seats for a roller-coaster ride called life, in which our only responsibility is to keep all hands, feet, and belongings inside the compartment, and the ride ends with cotton candy and eternal membership to Heaven.  We get so wrapped up in the truth of Christ’s once for all sacrifice and our subsequent salvation achieved and accomplished that we completely ignore all that is to follow our “conversion.”

Tozer puts it this way: We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found him, we need no more seek him.

But the truth is, our end-game isn’t “getting in” – it’s so much more than “getting in”…

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. John 17:3

Eternal life is not about “getting in” it’s about ”knowing” God & Christ (though of course, in knowing Him, we do also “get in”).  In what sense do we need to know Him? In a sense similar to how I “know” my second cousin’s best-friend’s dog groomer who I’m friends with on facebook? Or is it in a sense similar to how I “know” my Dad or closest friend - knowing his back story, knowing his likes and dislikes, knowing his expectations, knowing his motives and his personality? Obviously it’s the latter.  Being “saved” isn’t like making it through the security checkpoint @ the airport, we don’t get saved by Christ in the way the security guard waves us through.  We may never see that security guard again, his once for all action of waving us on got us into the terminal, but Christ’s once for all action brings us into a relationship.  We can (& must) now seek our God so that we can know him more.  Our salvation came in a once-for-all action and from this action we must live active lives.

This week, think through how you view your salvation and your relationship with the one true God. Do you know him like family or like facebook?

Tozer’s going to push us to have lives that are passionate about our God and about our relationship with him.  It will be challenging I’m sure and I pray our lives look more active in our pursuit of God on the other side. 

Note: Take time and read through Psalm 84 this week, it’s a good example of passion for God.

*quotes/themes drawn from The Pursuit of God, Chapter 1*