“The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ, the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him. It will be God working in him to will and to do” (A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, 85).

“Our pursuit of God is successful just because He is forever seeking to manifest Himself to us” (A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, 61).

“The Christian is too sincere to play with ideas for their own sake. He takes no pleasure in the mere spinning of gossamer webs for display. All his beliefs are practical. They are geared into his life. By them he lives or dies, stands or falls for this world and for all time to come. From the insincere man he turns away. The sincere, plain man knows that the world is real. He finds it here when he wakes to consciousness, and he knows that he did not think it into being. It was here waiting for him when he came, and he knows that when he prepares to leave this earthly scene it will be here still to bid him goodbye as he departs. By the deep wisdom of life he is wiser than a thousand men who doubt. He stands upon the earth and feels the wind and rain in his face, and he knows that they are real” (A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, 51-52).

“To put it starkly, the prayers of God’s people apart from the Spirit would be no more efficacious than the prayers of pagans” (Joel R. Beeke & Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology, 440).

“God formed us for His pleasure, and so formed us that we, as well as he, can, in divine communion, enjoy the sweet and mysterious mingling of kindred personalities. He meant us to see Him and live with Him and draw our life from His smile. But we have been guilty of that ‘foul revolt’ of which Milton speaks when describing the rebellion of Satan and his hosts. We have broken with God. We have ceased to obey Him or love Him, and in guilt and fear have fled as far as possible from His presence. . . . The whole work of God in redemption is to undo the tragic effects of that foul revolt, and to bring us back again into right and eternal relationship with Himself” (A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, 32-33).

“Our gifts and talents should also be turned over to him. They should be recognized for what they are, God’s loan to us, and should never be considered in any sense our own. We have no more right to claim credit for special abilities than for blue eyes or strong muscles. ‘For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive?’ (1 Corinthians 4:7)” (A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, 28).

“The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and abnegation 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. That is what the word poor as Christ used it actually means. These blessed poor are no longer slaves to the tyranny of things. They have broken the yoke of the oppressor; and this they have done not by fighting but by surrendering. Though free from all sense of possessing, they yet possess all things. ‘Theirs is the kingdom of heaven'” (A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, 23).

“We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit” (A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, 11).