Tozer, A. W. (Aiden Wilson) (2011-03-24). The Pursuit of God (p. 20).
In the opening of his book, The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer presents the idea that if a person has everything he or she could ever want but does not have God, then that person is bankrupt. On the other hand, when a person has God, then he or she is richer than the greatest king and he or she won't be wanting.
The idea of a person having God correlates with the concept of perspective, because if a person's perspective is realistic, wise, and humble, then a person knows of his or her needs, leading to his or her true satisfaction. What I mean is this: as the author of Ecclesiastes writes, all of life is fleeting, a fact that is known even without it being written down. Life is short, and all treasures and objects are fleeting. Things do not last, while God and the people He has made indeed are eternal. This truth should motivate each of us to value what is lasting: God and other people.
The entire world is fleeting, here today and gone tomorrow. However, items corrode. Love remains.
As a wise professor of mine once said, things are meant to be used and people are meant to be loved-not the other way around.
We will mess up. We will live in love and then stumble and fall. A hard truth, except that it allows God to pick us back up, so even in our sin God is made much of.
What we often forget, however, is that though people are made to be loved, they are not made to be idolized. When a person becomes our satisfaction, then we are indeed placing our hope in sinking sand. Not that people can't be trusted, indeed we should trust one another. People are made for community, but we are not made for idolization. There is a difference.
When we begin to find ultimate satisfaction in another person, then we are in actuality using that person for our own gain. Is this the love of Christ?
Lastly, people are gifts. If a person's satisfaction is solely placed in another person, whether it be man, wife, parent, child, or friend, then on what will that person stand upon, in what will he or she rest in, when his or her foundation is gone from underneath?
Tozer's argument is this: God is our only source of fulfillment and grace is our only means, and when we grasp this in full, we will truly be standing on solid ground.
When we are living in grace, we are living as humble souls, daily taking up our crosses and following Christ.
In picking up our crosses, in counting everything as loss except the call to follow Him, we are acknowledging that we know our lives are not our own but rather they are meant to be spent for the One who gave us His life undeservingly.
'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'.
Tozer, A. W. (Aiden Wilson) (2011-03-24). The Pursuit of God (p. 20).
In our lives let us pray for divine perspectives, grace prayers.
