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Seeing God for yourself © John Stemmons, Amazing Grace Church, Fujisawa, Japan - 091608 |
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On the journey to the heart of God, there are certain milestones that I believe are common to the experience of those seeking God. They are: 1) being born-again, 2) learning the will of God, 3) learning to obey God, 4) knowing God, and 5) seeing God for yourself It is in seeing God that the terrible wound is exposed that God can then heal. This is what I believe is meant by this passage: DT 32: 39c. I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand. Being born-again is so simple that literally all that is required is to say, "Yes" to the gospel. Eternal life is given as a free gift. RO 5:15-17; EP 2:8-9; RO 10:9 It is obviously impossible to obey God if you don't know his will. Many people assume that whatever they like or want is also the will of God, making God nothing but an extension of themselves. I have long maintained that anyone, Christian or not, will do the will of God all the time, providing that it is something that they want to do anyway. But God's will is often different from our own and unless one knows God's will, they will continue to live as if they had never been born-again These folks, measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves, miss the Christian life that God wants them to enjoy. RO 12:1-2; 2 COR 10:12 Learning to obey God involves winning the war between the mind and the spirit. RO 8:5-8. We are cautioned not to "lean to our own understanding", and to "walk by faith, not by sight". PVB 3:5; 2 COR 5:7. Our natural senses and so-called common sense may fail us, but God cannot fail us. The obedience of faith is the only road to the heart of God. RO 1:5; 16: 26. We don't lose our salvation when we are disobedient, but we cannot go forward to knowing and seeing God. God wants us to be obedient for our own good, not his. We should obey because of enlightened self-interest, not because of some supposed "duty" to God. How can it be a "duty" to obey when eternal life is described as a "free gift"? RO 5: 15-18; EP 2:8-9 Knowing God is a profound experience that people want to share with those they care aboutcand, as they grow, even with those they do not know. Knowing God is made possible by desiring and seeking God, and knowing and obeying his will. Those who do not know God are often irritated by the confidence with which some assert God's will. Not knowing God themselves, they resent the relationship between God and people who do know him. The Pharisees hated Jesus, demonstrating that relationship with God works and religion does not. Seeing God for ourselves is the heart's desire of God's people, beginning with Job, in the oldest book of the bible. JOB 19:25-27; MT 5:8 @Seeing God is a dangerous proposition for which we must be prepared. When you see him, you will also see yourself as you really are. That exposes a wound that only the Savior can heal. Until you realize the problem, you have no use for the solution. Others that have seen God have a common denominatorctheir lives were changes forever. There are so many of them in the biblecand today. I believe it to be the high calling of God, the very meaning and purpose of life. Nothing else will satisfy the intellect and emotions of man but to see God for yourself. This is my prayer for you, that as you desire God, that God will reveal himself to you and that you can see God for yourself. 1 JN 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. |
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