The Pursuit of God
AW Tozer
A.W. Tozer’s best seller, this book has been called “one of the all-time most inspirational books” by a panel of Christian magazine writers.
Tozer brings the mystics to bear on modern spirituality, grieving the hustle and bustle and calling for a slow, steady gaze upon God. With prophetic vigor and flowing prose, he urges us to replace low thoughts of God with lofty ones, to quiet our lives so we can know God’s presence. He reminds us that life apart from God is really no life at all.
Tozer writes from his knees, a posture fit for presenting the character of God in all its demanding grandeur. “Arise, O sleeper!” is his word to us, and yet if we heed the call, we will see that to arise is not to stand, but to kneel before the God of heaven in humble contemplation. To pursue God is to know Him, and in our knowing be drawn in.
About A.W. Tozer
A.W. Tozer hailed from a tiny farming community in western La Jose, Pennsylvania. He was converted to Christianity as a teenager in Akron, Ohio: while on his way home from work at a tire company, he overheard a street preacher say, "If you don't know how to be saved...just call on God, saying, 'Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.'" Upon returning home, he climbed into the attic and heeded the preacher's advice.
In 1919, five years after his conversion and without formal education in Christian theology, Tozer accepted an offer to serve as pastor of his first church. That began 44 years of ministry associated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), a Protestant Evangelical denomination, 33 of them serving as a pastor in several different congregations (his first, a small storefront church in Nutter Fort, West Virginia). Later, and for thirty years (1928 to 1959), he was the pastor of Southside Alliance Church in Chicago; the final years of his life he spent as pastor of Avenue Road Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Observing contemporary Christian living, Tozer felt the church was on a dangerous course toward compromising with "worldly" concerns.
In May 1950, Tozer was elected the editor of Alliance Weekly magazine (now Alliance Life), a position he filled until his death in 1963. Alliance Life is the official publication of the C&MA and is currently a bi-monthly magazine. From his first editorial Tozer wrote, "It will cost something to walk slow in the parade of the ages, while excited men of time rush about confusing motion with progress. But it will pay in the long run and the true Christian is not much interested in anything short of that."
Among the more than 60 books that bear his name, most of which were compiled after his death from sermons he preached and articles he wrote, at least two are regarded as Christian classics: The Pursuit of God and The Knowledge of the Holy. Many of his books impress on the reader the possibility and necessity for a deeper relationship with God.
Biographical text taken from Wikipedia