IN THE FOOTSTEPS of A.W. Tozer

“O God, I have tasted of Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and make 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.  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.”

TWENTY-FOUR
“Man was created to soar into the heights of eternity and fellowship with God.  God made him to look back on the everlasting vanishing point that was, and on into the eternal vanishing point that will be and feel no age nor count birthdays, but like God, live in God.”
~~~
“I do not know any title I would prefer than ‘The Friend of God.’”
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“The whole outlook of mankind might be changed if we could all believe that we dwell under a friendly sky and that the God of heaven, though exalted in power and majesty, is eager to be friends with us.”
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“By our own attitudes we may determine our reception by Him.  Though the kindness of God is an infinite, overflowing fountain of cordiality, God will not force His attention upon us.  If we would be welcomed as the Prodigal was, we must come as the Prodigal came; and when we so come, even though the Pharisees and the legalists sulk without, there will be a feast of welcome within, and music and dancing as the Father takes His child again to His heart.”
~~~
“God is a Person and can be known in increasing degrees of intimate acquaintance as we prepare our hearts for the wonder.  It may be necessary for us to alter our former beliefs about God as the glory that gilds the Sacred Scriptures dawns over our interior lives.  We may also need to break quietly and graciously with the lifeless textualism that prevails among the gospel churches, and to protest the frivolous character of much that passes for Christianity among us.  By this we may for the time lose friends and gain a passing reputation for being holier-than-thou; but no man who permits the expectation of unpleasant consequences to influence him in a matter like this is fit for the Kingdom of God.”
~~~
“When we are willing to consider the active will of God for our lives, we come immediately to a personal knowledge of the cross because the will of God is the place of blessed, painful, fruitful trouble.

The Apostle Paul knew about that.  He called it ‘fellowship of Christ’s sufferings.‘  It is my conviction that one of the reasons we exhibit very little spiritual power is because we are unwilling to accept and experience the fellowship of the Savior’s sufferings, which means acceptance of the cross.”
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“Oneness with Christ means to be identified with Christ, identified with Him in crucifixion.  But we must go on to be identified with Him in resurrection as well, for beyond the cross is resurrection and the manifestation of His presence.”
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“We are not unwanted children; God greatly desires our fellowship.”
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“I believe that the Holy Spirit has a natural habitat.  By habitat, I mean He makes Himself at home, heard or felt; it is where He can speak and where He can live.  That natural habitat is nothing else but the soul of a man or woman . . . so the Holy Spirit wants to come into your soul and live in it.  Not weekending there, not a houseguest for a while, but making your soul a permanent habitation.  The most natural thing in the universe is for the Creator to indwell the soul of man.”
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“I firmly believe it is important that we get still and wait on God.  And it is best that we get alone, preferably with our Bible outspread before us . . . Then in the quietness of the moment, and as we draw near to God, we will begin to hear Him speak in our hearts.  This is the most important part of our initial walk with God.  To follow God arbitrarily is one thing, but I take great pleasure in the Scripture that says, ‘He that hath ears to hear, let him hear’ what the Spirit sayeth (Luke 8:8).  The saints of old always followed that voice.  They got quiet enough to hear that ‘still, small voice of God’ speaking to them.

For the average believer, the progression will be something like this: first, a sound as of a Presence walking in the garden; then a voice, more intelligible, but still far from clear.  Then the happy moment when the Spirit begins to illuminate the Scriptures, and that which had been only a sound, or at best a voice, now becomes an intelligible word –– as warm, intimate and clear as the word of a dear friend.  Then will come life and light, and best of all, ability to see and rest in and embrace Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and All.”
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“The importance of reading the Bible is not reading but fellowship with the Author.  The proper reading of the Bible must be in the same Spirit that authored it.”
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“Often we will have to leave our friends behind in order to concentrate on our Friend.”
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“Let the inquiring Christian trample under foot every slippery trick of his deceitful heart and insist upon frank and open relations with the Lord.”
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“God wills that we should push on into His Presence and live our whole life there.  This is to be known to us in conscious experience.  It is more than doctrine to be held, it is a life to be enjoyed every moment of every day.”
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“At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His Presence.”

~~~

“The world is perishing for lack of knowledge of God and the Church is famishing for want of His Presence.”
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“Over against all this cloudy vagueness stands the clear scriptural doctrine that God can be known in personal experience.  A loving Personality dominates the Bible, walking among the trees of the garden and breathing fragrance over every scene.  Always a living Person is present, speaking, pleading, loving, working, and manifesting Himself whenever and wherever His people have the receptivity necessary to receive the manifestation.”
~~~
“The Universal Presence is a fact.  God is here.  The whole universe is alive with His life.  And He is no strange or foreign God, but the familiar Father of our Lord Jesus Christ whose love has for these thousands of years enfolded the sinful race of men.  And always He is trying to get our attention, to reveal Himself to us, to communicate with us.  We have within us the ability to know Him if we will but respond to His overtures.  We will know Him in increasing degree as our receptivity becomes more perfect by faith and love and practice.”

COME!  I wait to sup with My people, to welcome My Bride to all My Kingly attire, to gather My children so that we may be One.  I speak.  I listen.  I love.  I will harbor with you, but you must come to Me and ask to be made clean with My Blood so that our union will be full.


TWENTY-FIVE
“For that man or woman who has been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, the most natural thing for that person is to lift his or her heart in prayer and praise to God.  God put that response there, and redemption unleashes its capacity.”

~~~

“. . . we shall not seek for proof that God is wise.  The unbelieving mind would not be convinced by any proof, and the worshiping heart needs none.”
~~~
“God wills us that we should love Him for Himself alone with no hidden reasons trusting Him to be to us all our natures require.  Our Lord said all this much better; ‘Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His Righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you‘ (Matt. 6:33)”

~~~

“In the heart of the man was a shrine where none but God was worthy to come.”

~~~

“I want to deliver my soul as a prophet of God to the people, and to explain why we were created and why we are here, not to the satisfaction of the immediate appetite only but to something bigger, grander and more eternal, that we might worship God and enjoy Him forever.”
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“Whenever there is a move of the Holy Spirit, it is always a call for God’s people to be worshipers of the Most High God above everything else.  Whatever else revival does, it must restore our purpose and meaning of being a worshiper.”
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“God made man in His own image and blew in him the breath of life to live in His presence and worship Him.  God then sent man out into the world to increase, multiply and fill the earth with men and women who would worship God in the beauty of holiness.  That is our supreme purpose.”
~~~
“Worshiping God is our first call.”
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“God does not accept any kind of worship.  He accepts worship only when it is pure and when it flows from a heart under the afflatus of the Holy Spirit.  Only such worship, compatible with His holy nature, can possibly be accepted by Him.”
~~~
“Only the renewed man can worship God in a way worthy of and acceptable to Him . . . He cannot worship out of his own heart.  Only the Holy Spirit can worship God acceptably, and He must in us reflect back to God His own glory.  If it does not reach our hearts, there is no reflecting back and no worship.”
~~~
“We need to learn how to worship to please the God who deserves it.”
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“The supreme reason the Lord was born of the Virgin Mary to suffer under Pontius Pilate to be crucified, die and be buried; the reason He overcame death and rose again from the grave is that He might make worshipers out of rebels.”
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“I do not think we should ever work until we learn to worship. And then out of the deep worship flows our work for Him.  Our work is only acceptable to God if our worship is acceptable.”
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“The more intense their worship the more extended their work.”
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“Worship is an awesome thing, and I would rather worship God than any other thing I know of in the entire world.”

~~~

“Jesus, Thy boundless love to me

No thought can reach, no tongue declare;

O knit my thankful heart to Thee

And reign without a rival there.

Thine wholly, thine alone I am:

Be thou alone my constant Flame.”

Jesus, Thy Boundless Love to Me by Paul Gerhardt
~~~
“The Lord of Glory sent the Holy Ghost at Pentecost to get a bride, and He will know her by the jewelry she wears.

And what is that jewelry?

Perhaps the biggest jewel will be that of worship –– the bright, shiny, glorious spirit of worship that rests upon the bride of Christ.  It is something that is implanted deep into the nature of man.  Not all the depravity of human wickedness can destroy that impulse to reach out and up in worship.  When God sees that worship, purified by the Spirit and the Blood, He responds and recognizes it as His.

Our Lord Jesus Christ will know His bride.  He knows who you are, and He knows you by the jewelry He has given you.  ‘He is thy Lord and he shall greatly desire thy beauty, worship thou Him.’”

The call is to come and worship. All the splendor of Heaven is produced, replicated within you when you worship.  O that your worship would be Holy, would be acceptable, would be of the substance, My Holy Spirit to pierce My Heart and make us One.  My Bride comes and she advances by way of her heart of worship.  Come . . .  I bid you come and love.  Come and be loved.  Be forever Mine.


IN THE FOOTSTEPS of A.W. Tozer continued

INDEX