A W Tozer, The Pursuit of God, n.d.

Nicholas was a true follower of Christ, a lover of the Lord, radiant and

shining in his devotion to the Person of Jesus. His theology was

orthodox, but fragrant and sweet as everything about Jesus might

properly be expected to be. His conception of eternal life, for

instance, is beautiful in itself and, if I mistake not, is nearer in

spirit to John 17:3 than that which is current among us today. Life

eternal, says Nicholas, is "nought other than that blessed regard

wherewith Thou never ceasest to behold me, yea, even the secret places

of my soul. With Thee, to behold is to give life; 'tis unceasingly to

impart sweetest love of Thee; 'tis to inflame me to love of Thee by

love's imparting, and to feed me by inflaming, and by feeding to kindle

my yearning, and by kindling to make me drink of the dew of gladness,

and by drinking to infuse in me a fountain of life, and by infusing to

make it increase and endure."[2]

Now, if faith is the gaze of the heart at God, and if this gaze is but

the raising of the inward eyes to meet the all-seeing eyes of God, then

it follows that it is one of the easiest things possible to do. It would

be like God to make the most vital thing easy and place it within the

range of possibility for the weakest and poorest of us.

Several conclusions may fairly be drawn from all this. The simplicity of

it, for instance. Since believing is looking, it can be done without

special equipment or religious paraphernalia. God has seen to it that

the one life-and-death essential can never be subject to the caprice of

accident. Equipment can break down or get lost, water can leak away,

records can be destroyed by fire, the minister can be delayed or the

church burn down. All these are external to the soul and are subject to

accident or mechanical failure: but _looking_ is of the heart and can be

done successfully by any man standing up or kneeling down or lying in

his last agony a thousand miles from any church.

Since believing is looking it can be done _any time_. No season is

superior to another season for this sweetest of all acts. God never made

salvation depend upon new moons nor holy days or sabbaths. A man is not

nearer to Christ on Easter Sunday than he is, say, on Saturday, August

3, or Monday, October 4. As long as Christ sits on the mediatorial

throne every day is a good day and all days are days of salvation.

Neither does _place_ matter in this blessed work of believing God. Lift

your heart and let it rest upon Jesus and you are instantly in a

sanctuary though it be a Pullman berth or a factory or a kitchen. You

can see God from anywhere if your mind is set to love and obey Him.

Now, someone may ask, "Is not this of which you speak for special

persons such as monks or ministers who have by the nature of their

calling more time to devote to quiet meditation? I am a busy worker and

have little time to spend alone." I am happy to say that the life I

describe is for everyone of God's children regardless of calling. It is,

in fact, happily practiced every day by many hard working persons and is

beyond the reach of none.

Many have found the secret of which I speak and, without giving much

thought to what is going on within them, constantly practice this habit

of inwardly gazing upon God. They know that something inside their

hearts sees God. Even when they are compelled to withdraw their

conscious attention in order to engage in earthly affairs there is

within them a secret communion always going on. Let their attention but

be released for a moment from necessary business and it flies at once to

God again. This has been the testimony of many Christians, so many that

even as I state it thus I have a feeling that I am quoting, though from

whom or from how many I cannot possibly know.

I do not want to leave the impression that the ordinary means of grace

have no value. They most assuredly have. Private prayer should be

practiced by every Christian. Long periods of Bible meditation will

purify our gaze and direct it; church attendance will enlarge our

outlook and increase our love for others. Service and work and activity;

all are good and should be engaged in by every Christian. But at the

bottom of all these things, giving meaning to them, will be the inward

habit of beholding God. A new set of eyes (so to speak) will develop

within us enabling us to be looking at God while our outward eyes are

seeing the scenes of this passing world.

Someone may fear that we are magnifying private religion out of all

proportion, that the "us" of the New Testament is being displaced by a

selfish "I." Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all

tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are

of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard

to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers met

together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each

other than they could possibly be were they to become "unity" conscious

and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.

Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified. The body

becomes stronger as its members become healthier. The whole Church of

God gains when the members that compose it begin to seek a better and a

higher life.

All the foregoing presupposes true repentance and a full committal of

the life to God. It is hardly necessary to mention this, for only

persons who have made such a committal will have read this far.

When the habit of inwardly gazing Godward becomes fixed within us we

shall be ushered onto a new level of spiritual life more in keeping with

the promises of God and the mood of the New Testament. The Triune God

will be our dwelling place even while our feet walk the low road of

simple duty here among men. We will have found life's _summum bonum_

indeed. "There is the source of all delights that can be desired; not

only can nought better be thought out by men and angels, but nought

better can exist in mode of being! For it is the absolute maximum of

every rational desire, than which a greater cannot be."[3]

_O Lord, I have heard a good word inviting me to look away to Thee and

be satisfied. My heart longs to respond, but sin has clouded my vision

till I see Thee but dimly. Be pleased to cleanse me in Thine own

precious blood, and make me inwardly pure, so that I may with unveiled

eyes gaze upon Thee all the days of my earthly pilgrimage. Then shall I

be prepared to behold Thee in full splendor in the day when Thou shalt

appear to be glorified in Thy saints and admired in all them that

believe. Amen._

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Nicholas of Cusa, _The Vision of God_, E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New

York, 1928. This and the following quotations used by kind permission of

the publishers.

[2] _The Vision of God_

[3] _The Vision of God_

VIII

_Restoring the Creator-creature Relation_

     Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above

     all the earth.--Psa. 57:5

It is a truism to say that order in nature depends upon right

relationships; to achieve harmony each thing must be in its proper

position relative to each other thing. In human life it is not

otherwise.

I have hinted before in these chapters that the cause of all our human

miseries is a radical moral dislocation, an upset in our relation to God

and to each other. For whatever else the Fall may have been, it was most

certainly a sharp change in man's relation to his Creator. He adopted

toward God an altered attitude, and by so doing destroyed the proper

Creator-creature relation in which, unknown to him, his true happiness

lay. Essentially salvation is the restoration of a right relation

between man and his Creator, a bringing back to normal of the

Creator-creature relation.

A satisfactory spiritual life will begin with a complete change in

relation between God and the sinner; not a judicial change merely, but a

conscious and experienced change affecting the sinner's whole nature.

The atonement in Jesus' blood makes such a change judicially possible

and the working of the Holy Spirit makes it emotionally satisfying. The

story of the prodigal son perfectly illustrates this latter phase. He

had brought a world of trouble upon himself by forsaking the position

which he had properly held as son of his father. At bottom his

restoration was nothing more than a re-establishing of the father-son

relation which had existed from his birth and had been altered

temporarily by his act of sinful rebellion. This story overlooks the

legal aspects of redemption, but it makes beautifully clear the

experiential aspects of salvation.

In determining relationships we must begin somewhere. There must be

somewhere a fixed center against which everything else is measured,

where the law of relativity does not enter and we can say "IS" and make

no allowances. Such a center is God. When God would make His Name known

to mankind He could find no better word than "I AM." When He speaks in

the first person He says, "I AM"; when we speak of Him we say, "He is";

when we speak to Him we say, "Thou art." Everyone and everything else

measures from that fixed point. "I am that I am," says God, "I change not."

As the sailor locates his position on the sea by "shooting" the sun, so

we may get our moral bearings by looking at God. We must begin with God.

We are right when and only when we stand in a right position relative to

God, and we are wrong so far and so long as we stand in any other

position.

Much of our difficulty as seeking Christians stems from our

unwillingness to take God as He is and adjust our lives accordingly. We

insist upon trying to modify Him and to bring Him nearer to our own

image. The flesh whimpers against the rigor of God's inexorable sentence

and begs like Agag for a little mercy, a little indulgence of its carnal

ways. It is no use. We can get a right start only by accepting God as He

is and learning to love Him for what He is. As we go on to know Him

better we shall find it a source of unspeakable joy that God is just

what He is. Some of the most rapturous moments we know will be those we

spend in reverent admiration of the Godhead. In those holy moments the

very thought of change in Him will be too painful to endure.

So let us begin with God. Back of all, above all, before all is God;

first in sequential order, above in rank and station, exalted in dignity

and honor. As the self-existent One He gave being to all things, and all

things exist out of Him and for Him. "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to

receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things,

and for thy pleasure they are and were created."

Every soul belongs to God and exists by His pleasure. God being Who and

What He is, and we being who and what we are, the only thinkable

relation between us is one of full lordship on His part and complete

submission on ours. We owe Him every honor that it is in our power to

give Him. Our everlasting grief lies in giving Him anything less.

A W Tozer, The Pursuit of God, n.d.

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