A Revival Key: Spiritual Receptivity

I am on a fresh search for God these days. I know Him, but I know Him enough to know that my current state is below what is available.I want to know Him more in vibrant, personal, moment-by-moment intimacy—because everything flows from the presence of the Lord. Everything.A. W. Tozer, as always, helps me. A staple of my life is The Pursuit of God, which Tozer wrote on one night and day while traveling on a train from Chicago to McAllen, Texas. When he stepped off the train, this greatest of his books was completely finished. It’s an inspired book and worth reading regularly.Tozer writes of how most deeply spiritual men were very different in temperament and gifting:

Their differences must have been incidental in the eyes of God and of no significance. In some vital quality they must have been alike. What was it?I venture to suggest that the one vital quality which they had in common was spiritual receptivity. Something in them was open to heaven, something which urged them Godward. Without attempting anything like a profound analysis, I shall say simply that they had spiritual awareness and that they went on to cultivate it until it became the biggest thing in their lives.They differed from the average person in that when they felt the inward longing they did something about it. They acquired the lifelong habit of spiritual response. They were not disobedient to the heavenly vision. As David put it neatly, “When Thou saidest, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto Thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek” [Psalm 27:8].

In these common days, when revival is so desperately needed, it should be the great pursuit of our lives to be men and women who find the door into His presence with increasing frequency and intensity. Everything we long for, everything God wants, everything others need, is found there.