Cultivating Receptivity

I have been reading through Tozer's Pursuit of God and have found it insightful and thought-provoking.  I like a man who does not only point out problems but holds forth the biblical solution.  While there is no shortage of self-proclaimed watchmen these days, those who cultivate the presence of God are surprisingly few.  After acknowledging the reality of God and our need for utter dependence upon the Holy Spirit, Tozer follows it up with the responsibility of man to labour to seek God and be receptive to His voice.  I find this convicting because of my own lame efforts yet encouraging at the same time because of the assurance provided by God in His Word.  Tozer wrote:

"Receptivity is not a single thing; it is a compound rather, a blending of several elements within the soul.  It is an affinity for, a bent toward, a sympathetic response to, a desire to have.  From this it may be gathered that it can be present in degrees, that we may have little or more or less, depending upon the individual.  It may increased by exercise or destroyed by neglect.  It is not a sovereign and irresistible force which comes upon us as a seizure from above.  It is a gift of God, indeed, but one which must be recognized and cultivated as any other gift if it is to realize the purpose for which it was given.

Failure to see this is the cause of a very serious breakdown in modern evangelicalism.  The idea of cultivation and exercise, so dear to the saints of old, has now no place in our total religious picture.  It is too slow, too common.  We now demand glamour and fast flowing dramatic action.  A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals.  We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God.  We read our chapter, have our short devotions and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar.

The tragic results of this spirit are all about us.  Shallow lives, holy religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit; these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul.

For this great sickness that is upon us no one person is responsible, and no Christian is wholly free from blame.  We have all contributed, directly or indirectly, to this sad state of affairs.  We have been too blind to see, or too timid to speak out, or too self-satisfied to desire anything better than the poor average diet with which others appear satisfied.  To put in differently, we have accepted on another's notions, copied one another's lives and made one another's experiences the model for our own.  And for a generation the trend has been downward.  Now we have reached a low place of sand and burnt wire grass and, worst of all, we have made the Word of Truth conform to our experience and accepted this low plane as the very pasture of the blessed...

What God in His sovereignty may yet do on a world-scale I do not claim to know:  but what He will do for the plain man or woman who seeks His face I believe I do know and can tell others.  Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days.  Any man who by repentance and a sincere return to God will break himself out of the mold in which he has been held, and will go to the Bible itself for his spiritual standards, will be delighted with what he finds there." (Tozer, A. and Snyder, J. (2017). The Essential Tozer Collection. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House, pp.67-69.)