Why Is God’s Glory Central to The Pursuit of God?

Short answer: God’s glory is central to The Pursuit of God because Tozer believes the Christian life is disordered whenever God is treated as small, peripheral, useful merely for blessings, or secondary to the self. His call to pursue God is ultimately a call to recover a God-centered life in which God’s worth, majesty, holiness, and presence become the believer’s highest reference point.

The book begins with hunger for God Himself

Tozer’s central concern is not simply that Christians need better habits. It is that they need God Himself.

That distinction is about glory. If God’s gifts matter more to us than God, our loves are disordered. If religious activity becomes more important than the One we worship, the form has displaced the center.

Moses’ request to see God’s glory appears in the original introduction as a fitting summary of the book’s burden. Tozer repeatedly returns to the desire to know God as God rather than merely use Him as a means to another goal.

Glory restores proper scale

Chapter 8, “Restoring the Creator-creature Relation,” is especially important. Tozer argues that many spiritual problems arise because human beings think too highly of themselves and too lightly of God.

God’s glory restores proportion:

God is Creator; we are creatures.
God is self-existent; we are dependent.
God gives; we receive.
God deserves worship; we are worshipers.
God is sovereign; we are servants and children under His rule.

This is not meant to crush human dignity. Biblical dignity itself comes from being made by God and called to live for His glory.

God’s glory exposes rival glories

Tozer’s teaching about possessions, pride, reputation, and self-life all connect here.

We naturally seek glory in smaller things:

being admired;
being successful;
being right;
being needed;
owning more;
appearing spiritual;
controlling outcomes.

When God’s worth becomes clearer, these rival claims can be seen more honestly.

The goal is not to become indifferent to all human achievement. It is to stop asking created things to provide ultimate identity and worth.

Glory and intimacy belong together

Some Christians assume that emphasis on God’s majesty makes personal relationship impossible. Tozer refuses that separation.

The God he wants believers to know personally is also the high and holy God.

Healthy intimacy with God therefore includes reverence. We approach through grace, yet we do not reduce God to a peer, therapist, or spiritual accessory.

Knowing God’s glory makes grace more astonishing, not less personal.

Glory gives worship its center

Worship is not mainly about whether the believer enjoyed the music or found the service inspiring. Worship is response to God’s worth.

The more clearly God’s character is known, the more worship has substance.

This is why Tozer’s pursuit of God is not ultimately a pursuit of spiritual feelings. The object is God Himself.

Glory gives the book coherence

Many of Tozer’s themes can seem separate until they are viewed through God’s glory. Why surrender possessions? Because God is worth more. Why confront the self-life? Because self is occupying attention that belongs to God. Why cultivate faith and receptivity? Because God’s unseen reality deserves to govern life. Why restore the Creator-creature relation? Because reality is distorted when the creature claims the center. Why make ordinary work worship? Because God’s glory is not limited to explicitly religious settings.

Seen this way, the ten chapters are not ten unrelated spiritual techniques. They are different ways of asking whether God is actually supreme in the believer’s perception, affection, and practice.

God’s glory does not make people insignificant

A God-centered life is sometimes caricatured as though human beings become worthless. Scripture presents something richer. Human life has dignity because God created people in His image, Christ loved and redeemed His people, and believers are called to meaningful service.

The problem is not human value; it is misplaced ultimacy. Tozer’s emphasis helps the believer stop demanding that achievement, approval, possessions, or ministry establish ultimate worth. God’s glory frees us to receive creaturely dignity as gift rather than seize divine centrality for ourselves.

Put It Into Practice

Read a passage that emphasizes God’s greatness—Isaiah 6, Psalm 96, Psalm 145, or Revelation 4–5. List what the passage says about God before writing anything about yourself. Then turn those truths into praise and ask which rival “glory” most competes for your attention.