Inspirational Quotes by A.W. Tozer
“Everything in the New Testament accords with this Old Testament picture. Ransomed men need no longer pause in fear to enter the Holy of Holies. God wills that we should push on into His Presence and live our whole life there. This is to be known to us in conscious experience. It is more than a doctrine to be held, it is a life to be enjoyed every moment of every day.”
― A.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
“Come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after God. They mourned for Him, they prayed and wrestled and sought for Him day and night, in season and out, and when they had found Him, the finding was all the sweeter for the long seeking.”
― A.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
“As long as you set yourself up as a little god to which you must be loyal there will be those who will delight to offer affront to your idol. How then can you hope to have inward peace? The heart's fierce effort to protect itself from every slight, to shield its touchy honor from the bad opinion of friend and enemy, will never let the mind have rest. Continue this fight through the years and the burden will become intolerable. Yet the sons of earth are carrying this burden continually, challenging every word spoken against them, cringing under every criticism, smarting under each fancied slight, tossing sleepless if another is preferred before them.”
― A.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
“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.”
― A.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
“He has discovered Himself to some extent in nature, but more perfectly in the Incarnation; now He waits to show Himself in ravishing fulness to the humble of soul and the pure in heart.”
― A.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
“The doctrine of justification by faith—a Biblical truth, and a blessed relief from sterile legalism and unavailing self-effort—has in our time fallen into evil company and been interpreted by many in such manner as actually to bar men from the knowledge of God. The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless.”
― A.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
“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.”
― A.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
“One of the greatest hindrances to internal peace which the Christian encounters is the common habit of dividing our lives into two areas, the sacred and the secular. As these areas are conceived to exist apart from each other and to be morally and spiritually incompatible, and as we are compelled by the necessities of living to be always crossing back and forth from the one to the other, our inner lives tend to break up so that we live a divided instead of a unified life.”
― A.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
“O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. 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 ,
from The Pursuit of God
“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.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
“We must shift our interest from the seen to the unseen. For the great unseen reality is God. He that comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him. This is basic in the life of faith.”
― A.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
“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.” In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
― A.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
“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.”
― A.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
“Self is the opaque veil that hides the Face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction. As well try to instruct leprosy out of our system. There must be a work of God in destruction before we are free. We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us. We must bring our self-sins to the cross for judgment. We must prepare ourselves for an ordeal of suffering in some measure like that through which our Saviour passed when He suffered under Pontius Pilate.”
― A.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
“had everything, but he possessed nothing. There is the spiritual secret.”
― A.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
“The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless. Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego. Christ may be "received" without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver. The man is "saved," but he is not hungry nor thirsty after God. In fact he is specifically taught to be satisfied and encouraged to be content with little.”
― A.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
“The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One. Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness. Or if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss, for having the Source of all things he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight. Whatever he may lose, he has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately, and forever.”
― A.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
“Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego. Christ may be "received" without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver. The man is "saved," but he is not hungry nor thirsty after God. In fact he is specifically taught to be satisfied and encouraged to be content with little.”
― A.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
“The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and giving up of all things. The blessed ones who possess the kingdom are they who have repudiated every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing. These are the “poor in spirit.” They have reached an inward state paralleling the outward circumstances of the common beggar in the streets of Jerusalem;”
― A.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
“Our woes began when God was forced out of His central shrine and “things” were allowed to enter. Within the human heart, “things” have taken over. Men have now, by nature, no peace within their hearts, for God is crowned there no longer, but there in the moral dusk, stubborn and aggressive usurpers fight among themselves for first place on the throne. This is not a mere metaphor, but an accurate analysis of”
― A.W. Tozer ,
from The Pursuit of God
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A.W. Tozer (1897 - 1963)
A "20th-century prophet" many called him during his lifetime. For 31 years A.W.Tozer was pastor of Southside Alliance Church in Chicago. He was involved in the missionary alliance movement for most of his pulpit life. A.W. Tozer lived in the presence of God he saw clearly and he spoke as a prophet to the church. He sought for God's honor with the zeal of Elijah and mourned with Jeremiah at the apostasy of God's people.Leonard Ravenhill was a close friend of pastor and writer A. W. Tozer and spoke of him as one of the most influential voices in the Church in America. A.W. Tozer's materials are a mainstay in Evangelical churches in our day and he is one of the most quoted authors. He was a prophet in his day and his writings are even more influential in our day. One of his books: The Pursuit of God, has had over 1 million copies sold world-wide.
Recommends these books by A.W. Tozer:
The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God by A.W. Tozer
Crucified Life: How To Live Out A Deeper Christian Experience by A.W. Tozer
The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer
Aiden Wilson Tozer was born April 21, 1897 on a small farm in Western Pennsylvania, the third of six children. And although he would inspire millions with his preaching and writing, he was given very little education during his childhood.
A. W. Tozer was 66 when he died of a heart attack on May 12, 1963. Buried in a small cemetery in Akron, his tombstone simply and appropriately reads, "A Man of God." He left behind many books that continue to give Christians encouragement and guidance. His writings are as fresh today as when he was alive. His honest and colloquial humor has been known to sweep up congregations in gales of laughter. And his wisdom has left them silent and stunned. For almost 50 years Tozer walked with God, and even though he is gone, he continues to minister to those who are eager to experience God.
A 20th-century prophet" they called him even in his lifetime. For 31 years he was pastor of Southside Alliance Church in Chicago, where his reputation as a man of God was citywide. Concurrently he became editor of Alliance Life, a responsibility he fulfilled until his death in 1963.
His greatest legacy to the Christian world has been his 30 books. Because A.W. Tozer lived in the presence of God he saw clearly and he spoke as a prophet to the church. He sought for God's honor with the zeal of Elijah and mourned with Jeremiah at the apostasy of God's people.
But he was not a prophet of despair. His writings are messages of concern. They expose the weaknesses of the church and denounce compromise. They warn and exhort. But they are messages of hope as well, for God is always there, ever faithful to restore and to fulfill His Word to those who hear and obey.