just some thoughts...

“The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God and the Church is famishing for want of His presence. The instant cure of most of our religious ills would be to enter the Presence in spiritual experience, to become suddenly aware that we are in God and God is in us. This would lift us out of our pitiful narrowness and cause our hearts to be enlarged. This would burn away the impurities from our lives as the bugs and fungi were burned away by the fire that dwelt in the bush.”

-A.W. Tozer

I read that in “The Pursuit of God” a few weeks ago and the words keep coming up in conversation and discussion about the church. It seems like Christians all around me are famished for God’s presence and I think A.W. Tozer’s observations hit the nail on the head. What if we entered into spiritual experience? What if w truly understood that we are in God and God is in us. How would that change the way we live our daily lives? How would it change the way we view and serve this world?

It seems like the topic of conversation the past few weeks in my circle has been, “works”. “Works can’t save you” and “you can’t earn your salvation” are concepts the church wants to make sure their congregation really understands. Here is an analogy I have kind of been imaging up in my head as I have been listening to people…imagine your relationship with your spouse. What if you took out the trash, tucked your kids into bed at night, did the dishes, sat and listened to your wife share their feelings/ frustrations, and even kissed them goodbye in the morning because it made you a “good husband/wife”. What if your only purpose in doing all those things were to live up to the standard of what a “good spouse” was, but you had no desire to do it out of your love for the person? You would quickly become burned out and feel a lack of love in your life. That is the equivalent to “doing” just for the sake of “doing” what God requires of you. But what if you did the same things in your relationship with your spouse, not because you had to, but because you deeply loved the person and wanted to pour out as much of your love into their life as possible? The actions might look the same, but the heart would be different. One person is burned out by the action and the other is energized by the action.
I think that is one of the differences between the average Christian wandering through life famishing for God’s presence and one walking through knowing they are in God and God is in them. I really believe a lot of entering into God’s presence and an intimate relationship with Christ has to do with our understanding of what that means…to be aware that God in us means we share his heart…and God’s heart beats for people. He has an intense love for them I believe he wants to pour into our hearts…if the world is perishing for a lack of knowledge of God then I need to do a better job of knowing God so I can share Him with them.