The Pursuit of God: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Summary:

In this chapter, Tozer touched on the importance of giving everything fully to God and not having anything for yourself. The main story he touched upon was the story of Abraham and how he was so in love with his son that he began to put him first and before God. God is a jealous God and wants us to always put him before all things in this world. Sin brought about the love of ‘things’. So God told Abraham to kill his son. Only when God saw that Abraham was willing to listen and do as God said, did God stop Abraham from doing it.

Tozer touched on the verse talking about taking up your cross and denying yourself. Through the chapter, the point is made that if you feel you can’t give something up without yearning for it or feel like you can’t live without it, your priorities are not with God and that you are living for this world and not for God. He makes the point to touch on that it's not just material goods we as sinful people do this with, but also with the people around us. We can feel we need to worry about or care about others more than we do about God. Giving those things and people over to God and making them his and not ours is where things change. It is not “mine” it is “His”.

Analysis:

I think this chapter touched on a lot of things we do not really ever think of sometimes. We do not normally think of the things we live with every day becoming more important than God. For example the people we spend our time with, the music we listen to, our hobbies, our food, and our money. Money is an everyday thing that we use to thrive and strive in society. Little do we think that this has become something that has taken importance over God. Denying yourself daily is really realizing what you're pursuing more than God and not putting it down to follow God more closely. Everyone is guilty of it. There are so many things in this life that seem to come before God, even time can be more important.  We get so caught up in me, mine, ours that we forget about God. My car is God’s. My money I earn to pay my bills is God’s. My friends are God’s even though they spend time with me. It is so important to focus on what is God’s and not what is mine. Because in reality, it's not mine. All of this, all my “things” are Gods. I was given everything as a gift. It can be taken from me.

What I Have Learned:

From this chapter I have learned that I really need to focus my attention on God more and really focus on where my priority is. I know I struggle with this and it is something I need to apply to my life, in general, all the time.