Rooted and Grounded

A couple of months back, I was reading the book The Best of A.W. Tozer and in it I ran across the following paragraph:

"The heart of a man is like a musical instrument and may be played upon by the Holy Spirit, by an evil spirit or by the spirit of man himself. Religious emotions are very much the same, no matter who the player may be. Many enjoyable feelings may be aroused within the soul by low or even idolatrous worship. The nun who kneels 'breathless with adoration' before an image of the Virgin is having a genuine religious experience. She feels love, awe and reverence, all enjoyable emotions, as certainly as if she were adoring God. The mystical experiences of Hindus and Sufis cannot be brushed aside as mere pretense. Neither dare we dismiss the high religious flights of spiritists and other occultists as imagination. These may have and sometimes do have genuine encounters with something or someone beyond themselves. In the same manner Christians are sometimes led into emotional experiences that are beyond their power to comprehend. I have met such and they have inquired eagerly as to whether or not their experience was of God."

I have really thought a lot about that. Can Christians have experiences that they believe are from God, experiences that included feelings of awe and reverence, but that experience not be of God? As I was thinking this through, I happened to be on the internet one night and ran across this blurb while doing some research on the 'Bridal Paradigm' teaching.

"The Bridegroom message is a call to active intimacy with God. The Bridal message speaks of God’s invitation for us to experience the deep things of His heart (emotions, affections). To enjoy active intimacy with Jesus includes feeling His heart for us. The Bridal message speaks of experiencing Jesus’ emotions (desire, affections)."

What really jumped out to me here was the references to "experiencing" and "feeling". Now I don't necessarily have anything against experiences. However, I do think there is a real danger in putting your focus on experiences and feelings. Too many people today are chasing after emotions - looking for the next experience that will give them goosebumps. But when I read the Bible, the vast majority of experiences I see referred to are bad ones - or at least 'bad' in the sense that they don't appeal to the flesh.

Look at what Paul says:

Romans 8:38 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You see, Paul was convinced that Jesus loved him. Not convinced by feelings or emotions - in fact looking at the things he went through he was convinced even in the absence of them. He realized that true love is not about feelings - true love is an agape love - a sacrificial love.

This love is explained best in the following statement:

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

Doesn't our relationships in life itself teach us this very lesson? Love starts out all full of emotions and feelings, but over time you realize that real love - true love - is not about that at all. True love is so much deeper. And if you continue to chase after those first feelings and emotions, you'll be sorely disappointed over time. In fact you'll just move from one relationship to another - one experience to another - forever chasing that elusive satisfaction.

It's the same in our relationship with Christ. We should be rooted and grounded in His love, confident of His love whether we feel it or not. He has already told us that we will experience tribulations, trials and sufferings. But He also said that he would never leave us. He will always be there, whether I feel it or not. If we continue to chase after the emotional highs, we may find ourselves allowing our heart strings to be 'played' - experiencing feelings that may not be from God at all.

Ephesians 3:17-19 That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

He Knows

He knows me.

Psalms 139:1 O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.

He knew me before I was born.

Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you"

He knows my name.

Revelation 3:5 "He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels."

He knows His plan for me.

Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. "

He knows how many hairs are on my head.

Matthew 10:30 "And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered."

He knows my heart and my thoughts.

Psalms 139:23 "Search me, Oh God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts."

He knows my comings and my goings.

Psalms 139:3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.

He knows the words I'm going to speak before I even speak them.

Psalms 139:4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.

He knows the day I'm going to die.

Psalms 139:16 All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Don't every forget that He knows you better than you know yourself.

He knows exactly what you are going through.

He knows the worry, the fear, the anxiety and the anxiousness.

He knows the thoughts you think in the night hours. The thoughts that you can't confide to another person.

He knows the unforgiveness that you so desperately want to let go of.

He knows the hurt that you can't even put into words. The hurt that other people can't understand.

He knows ... and He loves you so much.

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

Living in Enemy Territory

I saw a movie once called "The Matrix". The plot is kind of complicated, so I won't try to explain it all in detail here. Suffice it to say that in the movie the human race is enslaved and each person is kept in a comatose state in a kind of 'cocoon'. But even though their body is in a vegetative state their minds are alive and well. The trick is that each person thinks they are living a normal life. In their minds they get up and go to work, they eat, they sleep, they play with their kids, etc.. But it's all just an illusion in their minds. There is no real job, no real family, no real food. They have no idea that they are enslaved.

However, there are a few people that have broken free and live in the real world. But the real world is enemy territory. Civilization has been destroyed - there are no jobs, the food is terrible, danger around every corner - a pretty miserable existence and as far from a normal life as you can get. But at least their eyes are open to reality and they are free. To me the allegory regarding this world is obvious. We get up and go to work, make and spend money, love and are loved. We think that we are alive and free. But it's all just an illusion. The Bible says those without Christ in this world are dead and in bondage.

As a Christian, I have been set free. I was blind but now I can see. However, I now realize that I'm living in enemy occupied territory. The longer I'm here and I see the results of the enemy's tactics the more I just want God to put an end to it. Like all of us, I frequently wonder when is God going to invade? But just like you, I have friends and relatives who haven't come over to this side yet. So I feel this pull within me; one side of me looking for His coming, the other hoping He will delay for awhile longer.

C.S. Lewis said it best in his book Mere Christianity.

"God will invade. But I wonder whether people who ask God to invade openly and directly in our world quite realize what it will be like when He does. When that happens, it is the end of the world. When the author walks on the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right; but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else - something it never entered your head to conceive - comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left? For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistable love or irrestistable horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up. That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last forever. We must take it or leave it."

2Peter 3:8-12 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.

I'd Rather You Be Cold or Hot

It never ceases to amaze me how little thought people really give to the existence of God. I mean, if you really believe that God exists and that He created you ... don't you think you just might want to see if there is anything He wants from you? In fact, of all the subjects we could debate or discuss, isn't this the only one that really matters? Yet it seems to me that although people say they believe in God, they don't really give the subject of God the attention it rightly deserves.

Let me give you an example. Last Sunday, in front of 300+ people, I made the statement that "God spoke to me". I stated this very clearly, even enunciating where I was when He spoke and exactly what He said to me. There were people sitting in the audience with whom I'm acquainted that I know are not Christians. Now I'm sure if you asked them they would say they believe in God, but their life doesn't exhibit any fruit of being a Christian. So for the sake of the discussion let's just agree that they are unbelievers. Later in the week I ran across these same people. The odd thing to me is that they treated me exactly like they had treated me before I made this statement. We talked about the weather, our families and other mundane stuff. But they made no mention of my "speaking with God".

Now let's think about this for a second. Either what I said was true, God Himself really did speak to me ... or I'm a raving lunatic who thinks he talks to God. Either way, there should have been some reaction from them. If they had believed what I said was true, then I would have thought they would have wanted to discuss it. Did I really hear from God? Do I really know Him? If they thought I was a raving lunatic, then I would have expected them to run the other way as fast as they could. But they did neither of these things. They just went on about life just as if they'd never heard me make the statement in the first place.

If you really think about it though, isn't this what the majority of people do? There is a group of people in this world that don't believe in God at all. And on the other end of the spectrum there is a group of people that not only believe but have surrendered themselves to Him and serve Him with all their heart. But in the middle is the majority ... people who more than likely say that they believe in God but really never give God or even the subject of God the attention they both deserve. Jesus calls this state "lukewarm" and said He'd much rather us be cold or hot. I can understand that. As odd as it sounds, I can respect a person that has at least given the subject of God their attention and then made a decision not to believe. I can't understand it, but I can respect it. But there is no excuse to be so emotionally or intellectually lazy that you don't even address it. That I can't understand.

Luke 17:26-30 "Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed."

God Lives in Me

I've heard people state from time to time that it is foolish of Christians to believe that God actually 'lives' inside of them. "Is there a hole or something down in there where He stays?" is how I believe I've heard it phrased.

Granted, this is an odd thing. While the Bible clearly states that the Spirit of God lives or dwells inside us ....

John 14:16-18 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.

1Corinthians 3:16 Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God lives in you?

... it is obvious to us that there isn't a specific place or location within us where He resides. So how do we explain the biblical statement that God can actually reside within us?

Let's look at it from a different viewpoint (for readers of C.S. Lewis, you'll recognize this analogy from his book "Mere Christianity"). Let's say that we were scientists and we came to this planet to observe life here. We would observe a various assortment of things like electricity, lettuce and dogs. Now as scientists, we can only learn from what we observe. We can't get 'inside' of the lettuce or the dog to know what is going on. Whether they have a mind, whether they can think or reason, whether they have morals ... we can only infer those things from watching their actions.

But when it comes to humans, it's a entirely different story. We can learn not only from observing their actions, we also get an entirely different viewpoint because we are human! And when I look inside myself, I see something that I absolutely cannot explain. I see that I have a spirit. That spirit feels emotions and it thinks and it plans and a million other things. But where does it live? Where does it dwell? How can it even exist inside of me when I'm only made up of blood and tissue and fluids?

So can I explain how the Spirit of God lives inside of me? No, I can't. But I also can't explain how my own spirit lives inside of me, either. And when I look at it from that perspective, it doesn't seem that odd at all that His Spirit can dwell with my spirit .. wherever that may be.

Ecclesiastes 11:5 As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.

Welcome to my Blog!

I've wanted to create a blog for a couple of years now, so I've finally done it. Not sure why ... I guess it's just because I have things I want to say from time to time and maybe this is a good way to do it. I can't promise I'll post on a regular basis ... sometimes life just doesn't allow that. But my intention is to post at least once a week, so we'll see how it goes. Anyway, for those of you reading thanks for stopping by!