The Pursuit of God and Other Classics Quotes

“All He has ever done for any of His children He will do for all of His children.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“The greatness of God rouses fear within us, but His goodness encourages us not to be afraid of Him. To fear and not be afraid—that is the paradox of faith.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“True faith is not passive but active. It requires that we meet certain conditions, that we allow the teachings of Christ to dominate our total lives from the moment we believe. The man of saving faith must be willing to be different from others. The effort to enjoy the benefits of redemption while enmeshed in the world is futile.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“Nor is faith meritorious; it is simply confidence in the goodness of God, and the lack of it is a reflection upon God’s holy character.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“God will not hold us responsible to understand the mysteries of election, predestination and the divine sovereignty. The best and safest way to deal with these truths is to raise our eyes to God and in deepest reverence say, “O Lord, Thou knowest.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“He promised much, but promised no more than He intends to fulfill.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“No point is nearer to God than any other point. It is exactly as near to God from any place as it is from any other place. No one is in mere distance any further from or any nearer to God than any other person is.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“divine immanence. God dwells in His creation and is everywhere indivisibly present in all His works.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“Apart from sin we have nothing of which to be ashamed. Only an evil desire to shine makes us want to appear other than we are.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“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.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“Were all the nations of the earth to unite in one great federation and call a man to head that federation, that man would be honored above any other man that ever lived. Yet the humblest man who heeds the call to follow Christ has an honor far above such a man;”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“In the beginning God.” Not matter, for matter is not self-causing. It requires an antecedent cause, and God is that Cause. Not law, for law is but a name for the course which all creation follows. That course had to be planned, and the Planner is God. Not mind, for mind also is a created thing and must have a Creator back of it. In the beginning God, the uncaused Cause of matter, mind and law. There we must begin.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“The Bible will never be a living Book to us until we are convinced that God is articulate in His universe. To jump from a dead, impersonal world to a dogmatic Bible is too much for most people. They may admit that they should accept the Bible as the Word of God, and they may try to think of it as such, but they find it impossible to believe that the words there on the page are actually for them. A man may say, “These words are addressed to me,” and yet in his heart not feel and know that they are. He is the victim of a divided psychology. He tries to think of God as mute everywhere else and vocal only in a book. I”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“When religion has said its last word, there is little that we need other than God Himself.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“But unless the weight of the burden is felt the gospel can mean nothing to the man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and no burden. Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“We have all had teachers who sought to educate us by feeding alien ideas into our minds, ideas for which we felt no spiritual or intellectual kinship. These we dutifully tried to integrate into our total spiritual philosophy but always without success.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“The world wants the church to add a dainty spiritual touch to its carnal schemes, and to be there to help it to its feet and put it to bed when it comes home drunk with fleshly pleasures.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“Let a man question the inspiration of the Scriptures and a curious, even monstrous, inversion takes place: thereafter he judges the Word instead of letting the Word judge him; he determines what the Word should teach instead of permitting it to determine what he should believe; he edits, amends, strikes out, adds at his pleasure; but always he sits above the Word and makes it amenable to him instead of kneeling before God and becoming amenable to the Word.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“Among the plastic saints of our times Jesus has to do all the dying and all we want is to hear another sermon about His dying; Jesus does all the sorrowing and we want to be happy. But, my brethren, if we were what we ought to be, we would seek to know in experience the meaning of the words, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“Back of every wasted life is a bad philosophy, an erroneous conception of life’s worth and purpose.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“Our error today is that we do not expect a converted man to be a transformed man, and as a result of this error our churches are full of substandard Christians.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“True faith brings a spiritual and moral transformation and an inward witness that cannot be mistaken. These come when we stop believing in belief and start believing in the Lord Jesus Christ indeed.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“The cross that ended the earthly life of Jesus now puts an end to the sinner; and the power that raised Christ from the dead now raises him to a new life along with Christ.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“The causes of my uneasiness are these: 1. The lack of spiritual fruit in the lives of so many who claim to have faith. 2. The rarity of a radical change in the conduct and general outlook of persons professing their new faith in Christ as their personal Saviour. 3. The failure of our teachers to define or even describe the thing to which the word faith is supposed to refer. 4. The heartbreaking failure of multitudes of seekers, be they ever so earnest, to make anything out of the doctrine or to receive any satisfying experience through it. 5. The real danger that a doctrine that is parroted so widely and received so uncritically by so many is false as understood by them. 6. I have seen faith put forward as a substitute for obedience, an escape from reality, a refuge from the necessity of hard thinking, a hiding place for weak character. I have known people to miscall by the name of faith high animal spirits, natural optimism, emotional thrills and nervous tics. 7. Plain horse sense ought to tell us that anything that makes no change in the man who professes it makes no difference to God either, and it is an easily observable fact that for countless numbers of persons the change from no-faith to faith makes no actual difference in the life.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“It is a grave error for us evangelicals to assume that the children of God are all in our communion and that all who are not associated with us are ipso facto enemies of the Lord.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“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.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“Without doubt, the mightiest thought the mind can entertain is the thought of God, and the weightiest word in any language is its word for God. Thought and speech are God’s gifts to creatures made in His image; these are intimately associated with Him and impossible apart from Him. It is highly significant that the first word was the Word: “And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” We may speak because God spoke. In Him word and idea are indivisible.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics

“To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart.”
― A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God and Other Classics