SCRIP-BITS

Oh Friends, I’m not sure what I’m going to write on as yet, but I’ve been reading this interesting book, ‘The Pursuit of God’ by A.W. Tozer, and for some reason, my spirit’s been led to begin today with the prayer at the end of the chapter on ‘Apprehending (truly knowing and experiencing) God.’ So here it is: ‘O God, quicken to life every power within me, that I may lay hold on eternal things. Open my eyes that I may see; give me acute spiritual perception; enable me to taste Thee and know that Thou art good. Make heaven more real to me than any earthly thing has ever been. Amen.’ Ah my people, I think it’s a powerful prayer, and very appropriate to today, where many believers only have God in their minds, have a mental image of God as being some nebulous Being in the background of their lives, with no true experience of the living Deity that is always around, seeking to come into our hearts and lives in a much more meaningful way. The prayer causes us to want to focus on eternal things, as we ought to, rather than the earthly stuff that still holds most of our attention. Oh Friends, I get the feeling that believers these days have only a superficial knowledge of God. Christianity has become too much of a feel good, surface movement, lacking the deeper searching and seeking for God. In other words, we all have some idea of God, but how many of us have really experienced Him personally in our everyday lives? How many of us really seek to know Him deeply, in Spirit and in truth, and delve into His Word with that intent? Too many of us view God as some ephemeral, ghost-like personage, existing on the edge of our sub-conscious. But He’s real Friends! He’s a living, breathing, working God; existing in us, with us and around us, waiting to fully come to us. But we have to invite Him in, make a conscious decision to truly want to know Him, then be willing to put out the necessary time and energy to receive Him, to be receptive to His advances, for He’s always there, gently knocking on the door of our hearts. The only real difference between the saint and the ordinary believer is that the former has a greater hunger and thirst for God, and is/was willing to devote the time and energy to satisfy it. My brethren, that is the kind of Christianity we need today on a very broad scale, if we’re to make any real difference in our world, and bring it back to some form of godliness, from the worldwide ungodly phase it’s currently going through. All believers must be willing to get into the saintly groove and work diligently towards truly knowing Jesus. It’s the only way we can offer meaningful testimonies, testimonies of true substance that will significantly impact the lives of the ungodly, as well as other believers. So unless we have some true, godly, life experience to share, telling others to just believe and have faith, won’t do them much good. But to gain that true, godly, life experience, to grow in maturity, we must first diligently seek and follow after God. There’s just no getting away from the fact that to know God, to become mature and versed in His ways, is like improving in any other activity; we have to practice continuously. And in God’s case, we need to do it with total trust, surrender and obedience. And that’s where I believe too many of us believers fall down. We simply are not prepared to spend the time and expend the energy needed to truly know and experience God. It means giving up a lot of stuff, oftimes family and friends too. But it’s no different than giving up stuff to focus on our careers or other activities that are near and dear to our hearts. We can only win, or achieve lofty heights in any endeavour, when all our emphasis is geared towards that particular endeavour. The same steadfast focus is also necessary in our lives when it comes to seriously knowing God. Oh Friends, this is where I was lead today, and I sincerely hope it makes sense and impacts our hearts, minds and souls, enough to make us want to know God better and do the things required to achieve that most worthwhile purpose. And we’ll end with the words of our Bit, which I had a hard time deciding on. They are God’s words, His promise, on the subject, as declared by the prophet Jeremiah: ‘And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.’ Please my people, let’s seek Him, let’s search for Him with all our heart, so that we can mature as children of God, and bring great glory to His Name, as He desires. Much LOVE!…seek and ye shall find…knock and it shall be opened…