God's Pursuit of Man: Tozer's Profound Prequel to The Pursuit of God

Redemption is not a strange work which God for a moment turned aside to
do; rather it is His same work performed in a new field, the field of human
catastrophe. The regeneration of a believing soul is but a recapitulation of all
His work done from the moment of creation. It is hard to miss the parallel
between generation as described in the Old Testament and regeneration as
described in the New. How, for instance, could the condition of a lost soul
better be described than by the words, “without form, and void” with darkness
“upon the face of the deep” (Genesis 1:2)? And how could the strong yearnings
of God’s heart over that lost soul be more perfectly expressed than by saying
that “the Spirit of God brooded upon the face of the waters” (see 1:2)? And
from what source could light come to that sin-shrouded soul had God not said,
“Let there be light” (1:3)? At His word the light breaks and the lost man arises
to drink of eternal life and follow the Light of the World. As order and
fruitfulness came next to that ancient creation, so moral order and spiritual
fruit follow next in human experience. And we know that God is the same and
His years fail not. He will always act like Himself wherever He is found at
work and whatever work He is doing.

Whatever else it embraces, true Christian experience must always include a
genuine encounter with God. Without this, religion is but a shadow, a reflection
of reality, a cheap copy of an original once enjoyed by someone else of whom
we have heard. It cannot but be a major tragedy in the life of any man to live in
a church from childhood to old age and know nothing more real than some
synthetic god compounded of theology and logic, but having no eyes to see, no
ears to hear and no heart to love.