When the Spirit illuminates the heart, then a part of the man sees which never saw before; a part of him knows which never knew before, and that with a kind of knowing which the most acute thinker cannot imitate. He knows now in a deep and authoritative way, and what he knows needs no reasoned proof. His experience of knowing is above reason, immediate, perfectly convincing and inwardly satisfying.
~A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)
The Holy Ghost destroys my personal private life and turns it into a thoroughfare for God.
~Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)
There shall come forth a Shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a Branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what His eyes see, or decide disputes by what His ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of His waist, and faithfulness the belt of His loins. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
~ from Isaiah 11
Oh beloved, it is true. There is an eternity for a reason. For without the boundlessness of this place, there would be no place for Him to fit. Anything that is smaller than infinite simply will not do.
One. Three. And Seven.
There is no way to describe Him. And even as we get to know Him, with the sense of knowing His heart more each day, we do not even begin to feel the normal kind of comfortable familiarity that comes after years of knowing someone. For just as we touch upon a new chamber of His heart, it opens into another hall filled with dazzling treasure and new aspects of Light and Life and Love.
We try at first. In coming to know Him, it is usually through a specific tradition within His church. Something within the way that denomination presents that Jesus is The Way and The Truth and The Life, resonates within us. The Spirit then speaks to us, and calls us to new Life in Him.
As we begin to grow, though, we notice that there seem to be so many other people who call themselves believers, but look and sound so very different from us. The areas of relationship with G_d that they emphasize seem almost like a foreign language.
And as we grow through the infancy our our faith, we can begin to fear that other believers are so different from us. And this actually is a good thing, for it drives us into our Heavenly Father’s arms, and more deeply into His revealed Word that we might better understand his plan of salvation.
Our first response as we grow into childhood seems to be that we then begin to giggle and make fun of the other children in the family. They are so different.
However, as we grow into adolescence, a danger emerges. We can begin to disdain those who are not like us. We, in our “teenage” pride, think that our way of believing is equivalent to Him being the Way. We know that the road is indeed narrow, and we feel more comfortable with going down precisely (what we believe to be) the middle of that road.
And then we see it.
We finally begin to grow up.
The Gospel is enormous.
Oh no. It is not, in any way, that we begin to play fast and loose with the revealed Word. In fact, we become more convinced than ever that The Word is the authority for our lives and faith. And our conviction comes from the fact that we are coming to know the Author. And the Author is taking control of our very lives.
Rather, what we begin to see is that G_d simply will not fit within the model He showed us when we first met Him. Just as a baby simply needs hugs and milk, we were given just what we needed to flourish at first. And just as a baby grows into adulthood, we begin to see that the Person we are coming to know is endlessly fascinating.
We begin to see that the way is not a way of believing, but believing in The Way. And The Way is a Triune, Seven-Spirited Being with Manifold wisdom and strength. And as we begin to see this, our tiny little attempts at categorizing the way that The Way saves those who look to Him – and His finished work on the cross – fall pretty flat.
Actually, they look a little silly. Kind of like the pictures we put up on the refrigerator for our kids when they are little.
We begin to see that our own emphasis on a certain aspect of the Gospel is not because we are the only ones who get it right. We begin to see that they are just the way that The Way, used to bring us into relationship with Him. And all the other people who are best seeing The Way through the other facets of the Gospel are going through the same experience.
Can we see it? Once we do begin to see, the fear and doubt and pride begin to melt away. We simply begin to see that the Good News so incredibly good, that is cannot be contained within a single lane on the road.
So, are you struggling with how other people are living out the Gospel? That’s OK. You are growing. Use the time to dive into His Word. Bathe in it… Drench… Marinate… Along the way, let Him Love you into the fullness of full-grown faith. And if you do, a day will dawn in your life wherein you will see that the Spirit of G_d saved you in just as unique a way as He did for everyone else who believes.
