Introduction
- The focus is on pursuing God and addressing hindrances to that pursuit.
- Philippians 3:7-14 is referenced as an example of Paul’s pursuit of God, despite his accomplishments.
- Paul counted his former gains as loss for Christ.
- He suffered the loss of all things to win Christ.
- Paul pressed toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God.
- The primary issue hindering the pursuit of God is self.
- Self ministers to the flesh instead of the spirit.
- The goal is to identify areas where we need to “strip away” self and allow God to own us.
Being Made in His Image
- Humans have the capacity to know God, unlike other creatures.
- Sin separates us from God, causing us to run from Him.
- Born-again believers have a willingness to go toward God.
- Matthew 7:8 promises that those who ask, seek, and knock will receive, find, and have doors opened to them.
- Hebrews 10:19 discusses having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
- Jesus opened the way into the holiest of holies, but many remain content in the outer court.
- Sin separates us from God and hinders our pursuit of Him.
- John 4 discusses worshipping God in spirit and in truth, as the Father seeks such worshippers.
The Blessedness of Nothingness
- Before creating man, God prepared the world with useful and pleasant things for man’s use.
- These “things” were meant to be subservient to man, with God holding the central place in the heart.
- Problems began when “things” were allowed to enter the human heart, displacing God.
- Luke 9:23 states that to follow Christ, one must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Him daily.
- Denying self involves removing self (or “things”) from the throne and replacing it with God.
- The sin nature within us has a fierce passion to possess and control things.
- Children are naturally selfish and want to possess things.
- God must be Lord of all or not at all.
- Abraham’s example: He wasn’t allowed to love Isaac more than God.
- God tested Abraham to see if Isaac had taken His place in Abraham’s heart.
- Abraham had to prove he possessed nothing but the Lord.
- Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac, demonstrating that God was his ultimate priority.
- The test revealed that Abraham possessed nothing greater in his heart than God.
- If we are set upon the pursuit of God, He will bring us to this test.
- The pursuit of God is abandoned when anything other than Christ takes the top spot.
Removing the Veil
- There often remains a “veil” between us and God, leading to a superficial Christian life.
- Hebrews 10:19 discusses boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
- The “instant cure” for religious ills is to become aware that we are in God and God is in us.
- This awareness would lift us out of narrowness and burn away impurities.
- With the veil removed by Jesus’ flesh, we have every right to enter the holiest place.
- The reason we don’t pursue God is because of sin.
- The question is posed: What keeps us from going into the holiest place?
- The answer is often given that we are cold, but there is something more serious: the veil of flesh.
- This veil is our fallen nature living on, unjudged, uncrucified, and unrepudiated.
- There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free.
- We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us.
- A person cannot crucify themselves; it requires God’s help.
- The crucifixion is a spiritual activity where we open our hearts to God and ask the Holy Spirit to do what only He can do.
- Many try to do it themselves and end up just “acting it out” without truly being in His presence.
- The Holy Spirit can crucify the flesh and deal with the veil in our heart.
- If you are tired of self and need help, the Holy Spirit can do what you can’t.
- It’s time to deal with the uncrucified self-life and get the veil removed from our heart.
After Hitting God
- Psalms 34:8 encourages us to “taste and see that the Lord is good.”
- The Bible assumes we can know God with the same immediacy as we know physical things.
- The Bible assumes a relationship is possible between man and God.
- The reason many know so little of habitual communion with God is our chronic unbelief.
- Faith enables our spiritual sense to function.
- If we want to pursue Christ, we must do it with faith.
- Where faith is defective, there will be inward insensibility and numbness towards spiritual things.
- We have established bad thought habits, thinking of the visible world as real and doubting the reality of the spiritual world.
- At the root of the Christian life lies belief in the invisible.
- The great unseen reality is God.
- We must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
- We must avoid pushing the spiritual world into the future; it is present.
- The spiritual world parallels our familiar physical world, and the doors between the two are open.
- A person seeking God is going in and out of these two worlds all day long.
- The soul has eyes and ears with which to see and hear in the spiritual realm.
- The reality of God is a present reality.
The Universal Presence
- The pursuit of God requires recognizing that God is everywhere and that He is here.
- Psalms 139:7 asks, “Whither shall I flee from thy presence?”
- God dwells in His creation and is everywhere indivisibly present in all His works.
- While God dwells in His world, He is separated from it by a gulf forever impassable.
- You cannot physically “get to God” by traveling; He is already here.
- Because of our spiritual connection with God, we are always able to pursue Him.
- Adam tried to hide from God after sinning, but could not.
- David also had thoughts of trying to escape from God’s presence, but realized it was impossible.
- Paul assured the Athenians that God is not far from any one of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being.
- If God is present at every point in space, why has that presence not become the one universally celebrated fact of the world?
- Jacob, in the wilderness, realized, “Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.”
- The presence and the manifestation of the presence are not the same.
- There can be one without the other.
- On our part, there must be surrender to the Spirit of God, for His work is to show us the Father and the Son.
- If we cooperate with the Spirit of God in loving obedience, God will manifest Himself to us.
- The difference between a nominal Christian life and a radiant life is the manifestation of God’s face.
- Our pursuit of God is successful because He is forever seeking to manifest Himself to us.
- All He has ever done for any of His children, He will do for all of His children.
- The difference lies not with God, but with us.
- Tozer believed it to be spiritual receptivity or spiritual awareness.
- Some are simply open to heaven and respond to the Holy Spirit’s urges.
- The tragic results of lacking this are shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, and a glorification of men.
- It will require a determined heart to wrench ourselves loose from the grip of our times and return to biblical ways.
- If you want God, He will come to you.
- Let any man turn to God in earnest and exercise himself unto godliness.
- The universal presence is a fact.
- God is here, and He is always 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 bidding.
- This is the Pursuit of God.
