G_d has set us free in profound ways. And He has poured out truth on us that absolutely sets us more free than we ever thought free could be.
He is our Friend. Really.
And we can be His friend. Really.
How?
Stop trying, and just get to know Him. Him. Just and only Him. He has made all the preparations, He paid all the costs, and He has made the Way.
i am not talking “about” Him; not knowledge of Him, or of theology or doctrine or spiritual disciplines… and definitely not about religion.
Him.
you and Him. The Best of Friends, forever… OK, go ahead and think about the texting acronym :)… Maybe now, every time we do, we will realize that there REALLY is a real BFF.
Him.
No really… How do we do this? Well, this blogger has a habit of deferring to experts on matters of the Spirit. One guy who found a clue to the secret, was an adventurous Major who went from being a windmill of activity, to a vessel in receipt of the Great Love of a great God. And in that transaction, began an adventurous friendship with God that spanned decades and continents and spilled out onto tens of thousands of others. This spilling prompted many of those splashed by the joy of Ian’s and Jesus’ friendship to seek more of the same.
This writer is one of those men!
Major Ian Thomas’ story….
At the university Ian became a leader in the Inter-Varsity Fellowship group. If ever there was any evangelistic activity going on, this youthful zealot was “buzzing around the place, every holiday, every spare moment”! He started a slum club down in the East End of London “out of a sheer desire to win souls, to go out and get them. I was a windmill of activity until, at the age of nineteen, every moment of my day was packed tight with doing things. Thus by the age of nineteen, I had been reduced to a state of complete exhaustion spiritually, until I felt that there was no point going on.”
“Then, one night in November, that year, just at midnight, I got down on my knees before God, and I just wept in sheer despair. I said, ‘Oh, God, I know that I am saved. I love Jesus Christ. I am perfectly convinced that I am converted. With all my heart I have wanted to serve Thee. I have tried to my uttermost and I am a hopeless failure.’ That night things happened. I can honestly say that I had never once heard from the lips of men the message that came to me then but God, that night simply focused upon me the Bible message of Christ Who Is Our Life. The Lord seemed to make plain to me that night, through my tears of bitterness: ‘You see, for seven years, with utmost sincerity, you have been trying to live for Me, on My behalf, the life that I have been waiting for seven years to live through you.'” That night, all in the space of an hour, Ian Thomas discovered the secret of the adventurous life. He said: “I got up the next morning to an entirely different Christian life, but I want to emphasize this: I had not received one iota more than I had already had for seven years!”
