The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing

The following are points from the book, "The Pursuit of God", by A. W. Tozer, a man of God from Chicago, Illinois. What he wrote in 1948 is relevant even today. 

The purpose of including his message in point form is so that it would at least whet one's appetite, and that "there may be those who can light their candle at its flame." 

This book has been published by Christian Publications, Inc. Harrisburg, PA.

1. Before the Lord God made man upon the earth He first prepared for him by creating a world of useful and pleasant things for his sustenance and delight.
   
   
2. They were made for man's uses, but they were meant always to be external to the man and subservient to him. 
   
   
3. In the deep heart of the man is a shrine where none but God is worthy to come.
   
4. Our woes began when God was forced out of his central shrine and "things" were allowed to enter. Within the human heart "things" have taken over.
    
5. The heart covets "things" with a deep and fierce passion. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended.
   
6. When the Lord Jesus spoke of denying oneself and taking up one's cross, he referred to the self-life whose chief characteristic is its possessiveness.
    
7. 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 (Mt. 5:3).
   
8. 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.
   
9. The story of Abraham and Isaac dramatically pictures the example of a surrendered life:
    
   Abraham was old enough to be Isaac's grandfather when the latter was born. 
   
   The child became at once the delight and idol of his heart.
    
   God went out of His way to comment on the strength of this affection.
    
   As the boy grew, the heart of the old man was knit closer and closer with the life of his son, till at last the relationship bordered upon the perilous.
    
   It was then that God stepped in to save both father and son from the consequences of an uncleaned love.
    
   An imagination of the agony that night may give us the view of Abraham's bent form and convulsive wrestling alone under the stars.
    
   Even if Abraham had his heart to will, how was he to reconcile the act with the promise?
    
   Before the morning, Abraham had made up his mind that he would offer his son as God directed him to do, and then trust God to raise him from the dead.
   
   God let the suffering old man go through with it up to the point where He knew there would be no retreat, and then forbade him to lay a hand upon the boy.
   
   Now he was a man wholly surrendered, a man utterly obedient, a man who possessed nothing.
   
   Abraham possessed nothing but this "poor" man was rich.
    
   Everything he had owned was still his to enjoy. He had everything, but he possessed nothing.There is the spiritual secret.
   
10. Because possessive clinging is so natural, it is rarely recognized for the evil that it is; but its outworkings are tragic.
     
11. We are often hindered from giving up our treasure to the Lord out of fear for their safety. But we need have no such fears. Everything is safe which we commit to Him, and nothing is really safe which is not so committed.
    
12. The Christians who is alive enough to know himself will recognize the symptoms of this possession malady. Now what should he do?
    He should put away all defense and make no attempt to excuse himself either in his own eyes or before the Lord.
     
    He should remember that this is holy business. No careless or casual dealings will suffice.
    
    He must come in full determination to be heard.
    
    He must insist that God accepts his all, that He takes "things" out of his heart and Himself reign there in power. It may be he will need to become specific.
    
    He would need to go through the experience if he is to know the blessedness which follows. The experience of being freed from the tough old miser within us. Self-life must be torn out of our heart like a plant from the soil; it must be extracted in agony and blood like a tooth from the jaw. It must be expelled from our soul by violence as Christ expelled the money-changers from the temple.
    
13.  If we would indeed know God in growing intimacy we must go this way of renunciation.
     
14. And if we are set upon the pursuit of God, He will sooner or later bring us to the test.
     
15. At that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices for us; just one and an alternative, but our whole future will be conditioned by the choice we make.