Tommy Tenney - The God Chasers: My Soul Follows Hard After Thee

TOMMY TENNEY

T H E

God

Chasers

Pursuing the Lover

of Your Soul

The God Chasers, Personal Study Guide,

and Devotional Journal

E X P A N D E D E D I T I O N

Copyright 2005 Destiny Image Publishers

All rights reserved. This book is protected under the copy-right laws of the United States of America. This book may not be copied or reprinted for commercial gain or profit. The use of short quotations or occasional page copying for personal or group study is permitted and encouraged. Permission will be granted upon request. Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible. Scriptures marked NIV, NRSV, and NAS are from the New International Version, New Revised Standard Version, and the New American Standard, respectively. Emphasis within Scripture is the authors own. Please note that Destiny Images publishing style capitalizes certain pronouns in Scripture that refer to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and may differ from some Bible publishers styles.

Take note that the name satan and related names are not capitalized. We choose not to acknowledge him, even to the point of violating grammatical rules.

Destiny Image Publishers, Inc.

P.O. Box 310

Shippensburg, PA 17257-0310

Speaking to the Purposes of God for This Generation and for the Generations to Come

ISBN 0-7684-2287-6

(From The God Chasers ISBN 0-7684-2016-4)

(From The God Chasers Interactive Study Guide ISBN 0-7684-2105-5) (From The God Chasers Daily Meditation & Personal Journal ISBN 0-768-2040-7) For Worldwide Distribution

Printed in the U.S.A.

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 / 10 09 08 07 06 05

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Contents

Part One

The God ChasersPersuing the Lover of Your Heart....

v

Part Two

The God ChasersInteractive Study Guide............ 153

Part Three The God ChasersDaily Meditation & Personal Journal . 219

Part One

The God Chasers

Contents

Introduction There Have Always Been God Chasers Chapter 1

The Day I Almost Caught Him............

Running hard after GodPs. 63:8

Chapter 2

No Bread in the House of Bread........ 17

Crumbs in the carpet and empty shelves

Chapter 3

Theres Got to Be More................ 35

Rediscovering the manifest presence of God

Chapter 4

Dead Men See His Face................. 51

The secret path to His presence

Chapter 5

Do We Run Away Or Go In?............. 67

A chance to meet the One you always knew was there Chapter 6

How to Handle the Holy................ 83

Moving from anointing to glory

Chapter 7

Hes Done It Before; He Can Do It Again... 101

Send the rain, Lord!

Chapter 8

The Purpose of His Presence............ 113

Divine radiation zonespresence evangelism

Chapter 9

Dismantle Your Glory................... 123

The burial of mans glory is the birth of Gods glory Chapter 10

Moses 1,500-Year Pursuit of Gods Glory... 139

You cant seek His face and save your face

Introduction

There Have Always Been God Chasers

As long as there has been God, there have been God chasers.

History is filled with their stories. Mine is just another. Stories of this type can be read as road maps to the Holy of Holies, or to places of access to the heavenly.

God chasers transcend time and culture. They come from every background imaginable. They come from every era of time that has existedfrom Abraham the wandering herdsman, to Moses the adopted stutterer, to David the shepherd boy. As the parade of time continues, the names keep popping up: Madame Jeanne Guyon, Evan Roberts, William Seymour of Azusa Street fameuntil we reach today. Really, only history can tell us the names of God chasers, but theyre there. Are you one? God is just waiting to be caught by someone whose hunger exceeds his grasp.

God chasers have a lot in common. Primarily, they are not interested in camping out on some dusty truth known to everyone. They are after the fresh presence of the Almighty. Sometimes their pursuit raises the eyebrows of the existing church, but usually they lead the church from a place of dryness back into the place of His presence. If youre a God chaser, you wont be happy to simply follow Gods tracks. You will follow them until you apprehend His presence.

The difference between the truth of God and revelation is very simple. Truth is where Gods been. Revelation is where God is. Truth is Gods tracks. Its His trail, His path, but it leads to what? It leads to Him. Perhaps the masses of people are happy to know where Gods been, but true God chasers are not content just to study Gods trail, His truths; they want to know Him.

They want to know where He is and what Hes doing right now.

Sadly, today the bulk of the Church is like some proverbial detective holding a magnifying glass in his hand and studying where God has been. Of course, a hunter can determine a lot by studying the tracks of an animal. He can determine which direction its going, how long it has been since it passed there, how much it weighs, whether it is male or female, and so on. Unfortunately, the Church today spends countless hours and much energy debating where God has been, how heavy He was when He was there, and even His gender. To true God chasers, all these things are immaterial. They want to run hard and hot on this trail of truth until they arrive at the point of revelation, where He presently exists.

A God chaser may be excited about some dusty truth, and may even be thrilled somewhat over determining the weight of the kabod, or glory, that passed in the path, and how long ago it was. But thats just the problem. How long ago was it? A true God chaser is not happy with just past truth; he must have present truth. God chasers dont want to just study from the moldy pages of what God has done; theyre anxious to see what God is doing.

There is a vast difference between present truth and past truth.1 Im afraid that most of what the Church has studied is past truth, and very little of what we know is present truth.

If you want to recognize a real God chaser, think of a whoop-ing, barking, tail-pounding dog trembling with excitement. Just give God chasers the scent that God is nearby and see what happens. As the Bible says, the scent of water causes many things to happen.2 Like bloodhounds on a trail, theyll get most excited when they reach their prey. In this instance, their prey is His presence.

All I can say is, Im a God chaser. And so are a lot of those who have had God encounters. Why dont you come join the company of God chasers?

We just want to be with Him.

Endnotes

1. See 2 Pet. 1:12.

2. See Job 14:9.

Chapter 1

The Day I Almost Caught Him

Running hard after GodPs. 63:8

We think we know where God lives.

We think we know what He likes, and we are sure we know what He dislikes.

We have studied Gods Word and His old love letters to the churches so much that some of us claim to know all about God.

But now people like you and me around the world are beginning to hear a voice speak to them with persistent but piercing repetition in the stillness of the night: