The Way + The Holy Spirit
Chasing After Someting
Here’s what I believe is true… We were created to pursue. To desire. To crave. To go after.
We’re all chasing after something. We live in a world filled with driven people who are all in pursuit of something.
Deep in our DNA we are hardwired to go after what we want. Now what we pursue can be a problem. We can choose to pursue the wrong things. There’s no doubt about that. And when we choose to pursue the wrong things that can lead to our destruction. But make no mistake, we were created to pursue. To desire. To crave. To go after.
Te object of that craving, that desire, that pursuit, was always intended to be God.
The Pursuit of God
AW Tozer was a preacher and a self-taught theologian who served a church in Chicago in the 1950’s. He wrote a book he entitled “The Pursuit of God” one night on a train ride from Chicago to McAllen, TX where he had been invited to speak.
As the story goes, Tozer boarded the train that day and asked the attendant for a small writing table for his little room. With only his Bible in hand, he began to write.
At 9 PM, the train attendant came by, knocked on the door and let Tozer know that it was the last call for supper. He wanted to know if he could bring him anything. All Tozer asked for was a little tea and some toast. Then he continued to write. All night long.
When the train pulled into the station in McAllen, TX the next morning, he had finished the book, The Pursuit of God. You can get it on Kindle right now for $1.75 and I highly recommend you download it and read it this week!
Listen to these words from AW Tozer again from the book, “The Pursuit of God.”
“I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.”
– AW Tozer, The Pursuit of God, p.16-17
Created to Pursue
Here’s my contention today… We were created to pursue God. You were created to pursue God.
In fact, I think we see this from the very beginning of the story all the way through to today.
When Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt… do you remember how He led them? In Exodus 13 and 14 we see the people of God led by the Spirit of God with a cloud by day and a fire by night!
People have often wondered… what was that cloud by day and fire by night? In one place, it’s called the angel of God (14.19). In another place it’s called the Lord (13.21). In another place, it’s called the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 63.11).
In every place, it’s understood that it is the MANIFEST PRESENCE of the Living God!
The manifest presence of God continued to lead the people of God all throughout their journeys (Exodus 40.34-38). And it was the pursuit of the presence of God that identified Israel as the people of God! It was their following this cloud by day and this fire by night, the Holy Spirit, that identified them as the children of God.
Gordon Fee, one of the preeminent scholars on the Holy Spirit, says this,
“God’s Presence with Israel is what distinguishes them, not the Law or other ‘identity markers.’”
– God’s Empowering Presence by Gordon D. Fee, (Exodus 33.15-16).
Where We Find Our Identity
This is significant. Here’s why.
About 1500 years later, a Jewish man by the name of Paul who was raised as a devout Jew, in fact, he was quickly rising to the top as the next significant religious leader of the Pharisees, met Jesus on the road to a town called Damascus. He was going to Damascus to capture Christians and put them in jail. But Jesus stopped Him. And when Paul met Jesus on that Damascus road His life was forever changed. He became a follower of Jesus.
Instead of capturing Christians he started planting churches. And Paul was fully aware of the history of Israel and how God had led his people from the very beginning by His Holy Spirit. He pulled on that imagery some 1500 years after the Spirit of God led the children of Israel across the Red Sea when he wrote these words to the church in the city of Rome…
Romans 8.11-14
“11 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.
12 Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. 13 For if you live by its dictates, you will die.”
In other words, you have no obligation to follow, to pursue, your desires that lead to sin. Now you have a better pursuit!
But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.”
When we follow, when we desire, when we pursue the Spirit of the Living God, when we follow His lead… we are CHILDREN OF GOD.
What are you pursuing?
What is it that you’re chasing after? Whatever that is for you, that defines, that identifies, at least in part WHO you are.
We know this in the simplest of terms. If you pursue your passion for music, you’re identified as a musician. If you pursue your passion for art, you’re an artist. If you pursue your passion for sports, you’re an athlete.
And if you pursue God, when you pursue the Spirit of God, you are a CHILD OF GOD!
What does it look like to pursue God?
We looked at a quote from AW Tozer who literally wrote the book on pursuing God. In his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, Scot McKnight tells this story about AW Tozer.
“Although the author [of The Pursuit of God] never boasted about his devotional habits, those few who knew him well knew that the angular man with little formal schooling learned much about his Lord and his God in the secret place. Tozer spent incalculable hours in prayer. Most of his prolonged prayer time — with his Bible and hymnals as his only companions — took place in his church office on the back side of the second floor. He would carefully hang up his suit trousers and don his sweater and raggedy old “prayer pants” and sit for a while on his ancient office couch. After a time his spirit would drift into another realm. In time, he would abandon the couch, get on his knees, and eventually lie facedown on the floor, singing praises to the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Genuine prayer, Tozer reminds us, is about a passion for God and an obsession with entering his presence. God delights in our presence and delights in sharing his presence with us. We are summoned to enter.”
McKnight, Scot. Sermon on the Mount (The Story of God Bible Commentary) . Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
There’s little doubt in which your openness to the Spirit of God in your life will determine your identity and the direction of your life. It’s your desire to GO AFTER God, to FOLLOW God, to SEEK God in the secret place that will set the course for your life.
Because no matter what comes your way in this life, no matter what suffering or heartache, no matter what success or accomplishments, no matter what mountains or valleys are ahead of you… when you desire God then your identity and your direction are set.
Because what you pursue identifies who you are.
Your life reflects what you pursue. And those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
Let’s be honest… we can spend our lives chasing after other things.
We can spend our lives chasing after more money, chasing after the American Dream, chasing after nicer cars and bigger homes, chasing after making a name for ourselves, chasing after recognition, chasing after acceptance, chasing after more likes and more of everything… but in the end, when all is said and done, when we stand before the Living God all that chasing will look foolish.
You were created to pursue the Spirit of God. To chase after the Spirit of God. To follow the leading of the Spirit of God.
Anytime you find yourself chasing after other things, you will always be disappointed. Because you were created to chase, to go after, to pursue, to follow the lead of the Spirit of God.
That’s why Jesus once said, “I am the WAY, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” – John 14.6
God is Pursuing You
You were created to pursue God. But don’t ever forget, God is pursuing you. That’s why God sent His one and only Son, Jesus, from Heaven to Earth.
What we pursue identifies who we are. Will you give your life to pursue the Spirit of Jesus? Will you give your life to pursue the One who is pursuing you?
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