On the Enjoyment of God

The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?

A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, [a] and to enjoy him for ever. [b]
Ps. 86:9; Isa. 60:21; Rom. 11:36; I Cor. 6:20; 10:31; Rev. 4:11
Ps. 16:5-11; 144:15; Isa. 12:2; Luke 2:10; Phil. 4:4; Rev. 21:3-4

Psalm 63:1 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Psalm 42:1 As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.

1 Peter 2:1 So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. 2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— 3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

“[Aiden] W. Tozer (1897-1963) came to Christ at age 15. Forced by his home situation to forfeit an education, Tozer entered the ministry without either high school or college training.” (The Pursuit of God, p.5) “[He] educated himself by years of diligent study and a constant prayerful seeking of the mind of God. With Tozer, seeking truth and seeking God were one in the same thing.” Even when it came to understanding Shakespeare, Tozer would go to his knees in prayer. “With no teacher but the Holy Spirit and good books, A.W. Tozer became a theologian, a scholar, and a master craftsman in the use of the English language.” (p.6)

“[His] great spiritual discovery was that to seek God does not narrow one’s life, but it brings it rather, to the highest level of possible fulfillment.” (p.7)

Tozer’s prayer was that the Christian would be “marked by a growing hunger after God Himself. They are eager for spiritual realities and will not be put off with words, nor will they be content with correct ‘interpretations’ of truth. They are athirst for God, and they will not be satisfied till they have drunk deep at the Fountain of Living Water.” (p.8) “They desire God above all.” (p.9)

It is in Tozer’s book The Pursuit of God that he titles the first chapter Following Hard After God. He says (p.16), “How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers. Everything is made to center upon the initial act of ‘accepting’ Christ (a term incidentally, which is not found in the Bible) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have been snared in the coils of a spurious [or false] logic which insists that if we have found Him, we need no more seek Him. This is set before us as the last word in orthodoxy, and it has been taken for granted that no Bible-taught Christian ever believed otherwise.” Which of course is not true at all.

So in rejection of this false logic, he replaces those words with these, “To have found God and to still pursue Him is the souls paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart.” (p.15)

Matthew Henry stated it as, “Wherever there is true grace there is a desire for more grace.”

We do not return to the Living Water because it does not satisfy; we return because it tastes so good! Paul is trying to make God-aholics out of all believers when he says “Do not get drunk with wine…instead be filled with the Spirit.”

Tozer quoted St. Bernard as he stated this holy paradox in a musical quatrain:
We taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread,
And long to feast upon Thee still:
We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead
And thirst our souls for Thee to fill.

And if that is not modern enough for you, listen to the Newsboys as they sing of the great paradox of love…

Turn the page
Can’t turn the light out
Every word every line
Carries to my soul
Dark letters on a page
singing so loud
Where did I go wrong not to hear You…

Eighteen years
I guess it was alright
I let You do the thinking
I’d just bide my time
Father to son
Sunday hand me down
Where did I go wrong
Not to hear Your song

Chorus:
It’s a beautiful sound
Movin’ through the crowd
Voices lifted up
On high for You
It’s a beautiful song
We’ve only just begun to understand
Rediscovering You

To have found You
And still be looking for You
It’s the soul’s “paradox of love”
You fill my cup
I lift it up for more
I won’t stop now that I’m free
I’ll be chasing you
Like You chase me

Philippians 2:12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.