Today
I'd like to reread a chapter from the book- The Pursuit of God. God bless us all as we seek to have God first
and foremost in our lives.
VIII
(The Pursuit of God) by A. W. Tozer
Restoring
the Creator-creature Relation
Be thou
exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all the earth.--Psa.
57:5
It is a
truism to say that order in nature depends upon right relationships; to achieve
harmony each thing must be in its proper position relative to each other thing.
In human life it is not otherwise.
I have
hinted before in these chapters that the cause of all our human miseries is a
radical moral dislocation, an upset in our relation to God and to each other.
For whatever else the Fall may have been, it was most certainly a sharp change
in man's relation to his Creator. He adopted toward God an altered attitude,
and by so doing destroyed the proper Creator-creature relation in which,
unknown to him, his true happiness lay. Essentially salvation is the
restoration of a right relation
between man and his Creator, a bringing back to normal of the Creator-creature
relation. A satisfactory spiritual life will begin with a complete change in
relation between God and the sinner; not a judicial change merely, but a
conscious and experienced change affecting the sinner's whole nature.
The
atonement in Jesus' blood makes such a change judicially possible and the
working of the Holy Spirit makes it emotionally satisfying. The story of the
prodigal son perfectly illustrates this latter phase. He had brought a world of
trouble upon himself by forsaking the position which he had properly held as
son of his father. At bottom his restoration was nothing more than a
re-establishing of the father-son relation which had existed from his birth and
had been altered temporarily by his act of sinful rebellion. This story
overlooks the legal aspects of redemption, but it makes beautifully clear the
experiential aspects of salvation.
In
determining relationships we must begin somewhere. There must be somewhere a
fixed center against which everything else is measured, where the law of
relativity does not enter and we can say "IS" and make no allowances.
Such a center is God. When God would make His Name known
to mankind He could find no better word than "I AM." When He speaks
in the first person He says, "I AM"; when we speak of Him we say,
"He is"; when we speak to Him we say, "Thou art." Everyone
and everything else measures from that fixed point. "I am that I am,"
says God, "I change not."
As the
sailor locates his position on the sea by "shooting" the sun, so we
may get our moral bearings by looking at God. We must begin with God.
We are
right when and only when we stand in a right position relative to God, and we
are wrong so far and so long as we stand in any other position.
Much of our difficulty as
seeking Christians stems from our unwillingness to take God as He is and adjust
our lives accordingly. We insist upon trying to modify Him and to bring Him
nearer to our own image.
The
flesh whimpers against the rigor of God's inexorable sentence and begs like
Agag for a little mercy, a little indulgence of its carnal ways. It is no use.
We can get a right start only by accepting God as He is and learning to love
Him for what He is. As we go on to know Him better we shall find it a source of
unspeakable joy that God is just what He is. Some of the most rapturous moments
we know will be those we spend in reverent admiration of the Godhead. In those
holy moments the
very thought of change in Him will be too painful to endure.
So let us begin with God. Back of all, above all, before
all is God; first in sequential order, above in rank and station, exalted in
dignity and honor. As the self-existent One He gave being to all things, and
all things exist out of Him and for Him. "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to
receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for
thy pleasure they are and were created." Rev_4:11
Every
soul belongs to God and exists by His pleasure. God being Who and What He is,
and we being who and what we are, the only thinkable relation between us is one
of full lordship on His part and complete submission on ours. We owe Him every
honor that it is in our power to give Him. Our everlasting grief lies in giving
Him anything less.
The
pursuit of God will embrace the labor of bringing our total personality into
conformity to His. And this not judicially, but actually. I do not here refer
to the act of justification by faith in Christ. I speak of a voluntary exalting
of God to His proper station over us and a willing surrender of our whole being
to the place of worshipful submission which the Creator-creature circumstance
makes
proper.
The moment we make up our minds that we are going on
with this determination to exalt God over all we step out of the world's
parade. We shall find ourselves out of adjustment to the ways of the world, and
increasingly so as we make progress in the holy way. We shall acquire a new
viewpoint; a new and different psychology will be formed within us; a new power
will begin to surprise us by its upsurgings and its outgoings.
Our
break with the world will be the direct outcome of our changed relation to God.
For the world of fallen
men does not honor God. Millions call themselves by His Name, it is true, and
pay some token respect to Him, but a simple test will show how little He is
really honored among them. Let the average man be put to the proof on the question
of who is _above_, and his true position will be exposed. Let him be forced
into making a choice between God and money, between God and men, between God and personal ambition,
God and self, God and human love, and God will take second place every time.
Those other things will be exalted above. However the man may protest, the
proof is in the choices he makes day after day throughout his life.
"Be
thou exalted" is the language of victorious spiritual experience. It is a
little key to unlock the door to great treasures of grace. It is central in the
life of God in the soul. Let the seeking man reach a place where life and lips
join to say continually "Be thou exalted," and a thousand minor
problems will be solved at once.
His
Christian life ceases to be the complicated thing it had been before and
becomes the very essence of simplicity. By the exercise of his will he has set
his course, and on that course he will stay as if guided by an automatic pilot.
If blown off course for a moment by some adverse wind he will
surely return again as by a secret bent of the soul. The hidden motions of the
Spirit are working in his favor, and "the stars in their courses"
fight for him. He has met his life problem at its center, and
everything else must follow along.
Let no
one imagine that he will lose anything of human dignity by this voluntary
sell-out of his all to his God. He does not by this degrade himself as a man;
rather he finds his right place of high honor as one made in the image of his
Creator. His deep disgrace lay in his moral derangement, his unnatural
usurpation of the place of God. His honor will be proved by restoring again
that stolen throne. In exalting God over all he finds his own highest honor
upheld.
Anyone who might feel reluctant
to surrender his will to the will of another should remember Jesus' words,
"Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin." We must of
necessity be servant to someone, either to God or to sin. The sinner prides himself
on his independence, completely
overlooking the fact that he is the weak slave of the sins that rule his
members. The man who surrenders to Christ exchanges a cruel slave driver for a
kind and gentle Master whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light.
Made as
we were in the image of God we scarcely find it strange to take again our God
as our All. God was our original habitat and our hearts cannot but feel at home
when they enter again that ancient and beautiful abode. I hope it is clear that
there is a logic behind God's claim to pre-eminence. That place is His by every
right in earth or heaven. While we take to ourselves the place that is His the
whole course of our lives is out of joint. Nothing will or can restore order
till our hearts make the great decision: God shall be exalted above.
"Them
that honour me I will honour," said God once to a priest of Israel, and
that ancient law of the Kingdom stands today unchanged by the passing of time
or the changes of dispensation. The whole Bible and every page of history
proclaim the perpetuation of that law. "If any man serve me, him will my
Father honour," said our Lord Jesus, tying in the old with the new and
revealing the essential unity of His ways with men.
Sometimes
the best way to see a thing is to look at its opposite. Eli and his sons are
placed in the priesthood with the stipulation that they honor God in their
lives and ministrations. This they fail to do, and God sends Samuel to announce
the consequences. Unknown to Eli this law of reciprocal honor has been all the
while secretly working, and now the time has come for judgment to fall. Hophni
and Phineas, the degenerate priests, fall in battle, the wife of Hophni dies in
childbirth, Israel flees before her enemies, the ark of God is captured by the
Philistines and the old man Eli falls backward and dies of a broken neck. Thus
stark utter tragedy followed upon Eli's failure to honor God.
Now set
over against this almost any Bible character who honestly tried to glorify God
in his earthly walk. See how God winked at weaknesses and overlooked failures
as He poured upon His servants grace and blessing untold. Let it be Abraham,
Jacob, David, Daniel, Elijah or whom you will; honor followed honor as harvest
the seed. The man of God set his heart to
exalt God above all; God accepted his intention as fact and acted accordingly. Not perfection, but holy
intention made the
difference.
In our
Lord Jesus Christ this law was seen in simple perfection. In His lowly manhood
He humbled Himself and gladly gave all glory to His Father in heaven. He sought
not His own honor, but the honor of God who sent Him. "If I honour
myself," He said on one occasion, "my honour is
nothing; it is my Father that honoureth me." So far had the proud
Pharisees departed from this law that they could not understand one who honored
God at his own expense. "I honour my Father," said Jesus to them,
"and ye do dishonour me."
Another saying of
Jesus, and a most disturbing one, was put in the form of a question, "How
can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour
that cometh from God alone?" Joh_5:44 If I understand this correctly
Christ taught here the alarming doctrine that the desire for honor among men
made belief impossible. Is this sin at the root of religious unbelief?
Could it
be that those "intellectual difficulties" which men blame for their
inability to believe are but smoke screens to conceal the real cause that lies
behind them? Was it this greedy desire for honor from man that made men into
Pharisees and Pharisees into Deicides? Is this the secret back of religious
self-righteousness and empty worship? I believe it may be. The whole course of the life
is
upset by failure to put God where He belongs. We exalt ourselves instead of God
and the curse follows.
In our
desire after God let us keep always in mind that God also hath desire, and His
desire is toward the sons of men, and more particularly toward those sons of
men who will make the once-for-all decision to exalt Him over all. Such as
these are precious to God above all treasures of earth or sea. In them God
finds a theater where He can display His exceeding kindness toward us in Christ
Jesus. With them God can walk unhindered, toward them He can act like the God
He is. In speaking thus I have one fear; it is that I may convince the mind
before God can win the heart. For this God-above-all position is one not easy
to take. The mind may approve it while not having the consent of the will to
put it into effect. While the imagination races ahead to honor God, the will
may lag behind and the man never guess how divided his heart is. The whole man
must make the decision before the heart can know any real satisfaction. God
wants us all, and He will not rest till He gets us all. No part of the man will
do.
Let us
pray over this in detail, throwing ourselves at God's feet and meaning
everything we say. No one who prays thus in sincerity need wait long for tokens
of divine acceptance. God will unveil His glory before His servant's eyes, and
He will place all His treasures at the disposal of such a one, for He knows
that His honor is safe in such consecrated hands.
_O God,
be Thou exalted over my possessions. Nothing of earth's treasures shall seem
dear unto me if only Thou art glorified in my life. Be Thou exalted over my
friendships. I am determined that Thou shalt be above all, though I must stand
deserted and alone in the midst of the earth. Be Thou exalted above my
comforts. Though it mean the loss of bodily comforts and the carrying of heavy
crosses I shall keep my vow made this day before Thee. Be Thou exalted over my
reputation. Make me ambitious to please Thee even if as a result I must sink
into obscurity and my name be forgotten as a dream. Rise, O Lord, into Thy
proper place of honor, above my ambitions, above my likes and dislikes, above
my family, my health and even my life itself. Let me decrease that Thou mayest
increase, let me sink that Thou mayest rise above. Ride forth upon me as Thou
didst ride into Jerusalem mounted upon the humble little beast, a colt, the
foal of an ass, and let me hear the children cry to Thee, "Hosanna in the
highest."_
