Recently I’ve seen a number of mentions of books along the lines of A. W. Tozer’s Pursuit of God<\/i> and John Piper’s Desiring God<\/i>. While I never read Piper’s book and read Tozer’s book so long ago I don’t remember any of it, I do remember that I found Tozer’s book unhelpful, and every indication is that Piper’s book is of a similar vein. Another book of this type is Francis Chan’s Crazy Love<\/i> (which I read more recently than Tozer’s book). <\/p>\n
In every case, the Christian is told to love God better. I remember a phrase from Piper: “… to savor him duly….” I may be misquoting but I particularly remember the sense that one has a certain duty to properly savor God. I also recall from Crazy Love<\/i> the old saw that we are “commanded to rejoice always.” <\/p>\n
The problem I have with all this is that it puts the onus on us. By this I mean that we are given a kind of standard to live up to: have we pursued God? Have we loved him enough? Have we rejoiced properly? Have we savored him duly? <\/p>\n
The simple fact is that the Bible hardly focuses at all on our love for God. Instead we see God’s faithful love that always seeks us: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). <\/p>\n
This is a love that always takes the initiative, that bears the cost of loving us, that remains faithful: <\/p>\n
\nThe saying is trustworthy, for:<\/p>\n
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
\nif we endure, we will also reign with him;
\nif we deny him, he also will deny us;
\nif we are faithless, he remains faithful — for he cannot deny himself. <\/p>\n
– 2 Timothy 2:11-13<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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