I'm currently reading through A.W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God, and in it he touches on the nature of the human heart, both as it was originally created and as it is now fallen.
In the second chapter titled, "The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing", he writes, "There is within the human heart a tough, fibrous root of fallen life whose nature is to possess, always to possess. It covets things with a deep and fierce passion... The roots of our hearts have grown down into things, and we dare not pull up one rootlet lest we die. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God's gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution."
The truth of this struck me as I was reading this. Though we pursue God and desire Him above all else because He is most worthy of our praise, though we pray and worship Him, though we read His Word and renew our minds with verses calling us to seek first the kingdom of heaven; we still live in this body of flesh, struggling to put off wordly distractions, expectations, desires, and the sin that so easily entangles us.
From Tozer's perspective, this is because each of our hearts, the place in each of us that God desires to dwell, were created to possess Him alone, to have a passion for Him above all else, to be rooted into His firm foundation and no other.
As our pre-fallen hearts were originally formed by God's hand, Tozer explains, "In the deep heart of the man was a shrine where none but God was worthy to come. Within him was God; without, a thousand gifts which God had showered upon him."
We have allowed these external gifts to replace God, and our heart's desire to possess makes idols of the things of this world, choking out God's goodness and power in our lives. And yet, He has shown us the way to be overcomers through Christ.
"If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it." Matt 16:24-25
Tozer answers, "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... Though free from all sense of possessing, they yet possess all things."
"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matt 5:3
And as Jesus comforted his disciples who were also distracted with worry about the cares of the world, the Father also says to us, "Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you." Luke 12:31
What amazing grace! In God's mercy and goodness, despite our selfish hearts and the idols we put up in our lives, He still desires to dwell within us and to make His very presence known to us.
His passion is for us; He delights in us, and He promises our greatest satisfaction in Him as He becomes the single possession of our hearts.
How great is our God!
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First I have a confession that completely illustrates the nature of the fallen heart (this is a vulnerable moment for me, try not to judge too harshly...). When I first started reading this post, my immediate thought was "The Pursuit of God is MY book!" "The second chapter rocked MY world!" And I was so consumed with my self-centeredness that I was distracted from the rest of the post. Ugh. Anyway, once I got over myself I read the post again and can now say "Thank you for the post, Jessica. I am with you!"
Tozer also described the LORD in this chapter as (paraphrased) the one source of all satisfaction. To really know that, to experience it and believe it in the depths of my heart, is my desire and my prayer. I mean, imagine... every good and wonderful thing we've ever known put together wouldn't satisfy us as much as the LORD! And that is how we possess nothing because we don't need any of it to be fulfilled. The question is, what does it take to get us to that point? This is something I am constantly asking the LORD to work out in me. I'm not there yet, but we are definitely making progress....
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