I want the presence of God Himself, or I don’t want anything at all to do with religion.
~AW Tozer
Thus says the LORD: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
~ Jeremiah, The Weeping Prophet, in Jeremiah 17
“Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate My holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be My people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses.
~ Ezekiel, The Prophet Strengthened by G_d, in Ezekiel 36
Oh beloved, it is true.
There are things we try to learn, but cannot until we experience them. And this fool of a writer has learned only late in his own life of the place of strength, that is known as His Presence.
Oh, it is true that G_d is everywhere. But there is a place that is different. It is not so much that He is different, but it is in us being different. It is when we get quiet enough, and soft enough – that He finally breaks through.
But, the softening. The breaking through. The path to this is terrible.
Each of us, to a man, were convinced that we really just needed to improve ourselves enough to get into His graces. Each of us, to a man, were hard-hearted. Oh, we did not think that we were. But our hardness was so hard as to have our hearts frozen. We could not sense His Life and Presence, because there was no sense within us. We were statues. We were headed only to be crushed in the stone-piles of eternity.
Somehow though, we dashed up against something, somewhere that was even harder than us. And the hardness of our falling upon it, made a spark. It dashed out into the darkness around us. We did not know that we were in such a fuel-rich environment, but the spark encouraged the Fire we never saw coming.
And suddenly, in the light of this blaze, we saw ourselves. We were aghast. All along, we thought we were not doing so badly. But now, we had come to realize that we were not even doing anything. We were dead. We were stone-cold, and stone-hard dead. We had been trusting in this flesh of ours, but now we came to see how dry and useless were.
Can we see it?
This dryness and deadness is some of the best news we have ever received. For, the fire started by our sparking up against the hardness of life, was not just to illuminate our darkness. No, The Fire has an even greater purpose. But, things are about to get hot.
The fire is not just from a fuel source. The Fire is The Source of all fuel. And as He burns closer to us, we actually are burned away. The stone is vaporized, and in its place He puts a heart that now actually works. It beats to His rhythms and cares and feels in ways we never thought possible.
At first, we thought the fire was just to save us from our deadness. But, in retrospect, we learn that the fire is not just an agent. The Fire is Him. He is a fiery, quiet gale that has both crushed our old man to dust, and now melts our new hearts with a sense of His Great Love.
So, do you feel like you are doing fine? That your life is going ok? Maybe it is, if you know Him. But, if you do not, then you could not be more gravely mistaken. Are you feeling as though things are hard, and getting harder? This may be some of the best news you have ever gotten.
Tonight is your night beloved. Time to experience His Fire. It will blow you away.
The great danger facing all of us…is not that we shall make an absolute failure of life, nor that we shall fall into outright viciousness, nor that we shall be terribly unhappy, nor that we shall feel (that) life has no meaning at all – not these things. The danger is that we may fail to perceive life’s greatest meaning, fall short of its highest good, miss its deepest and most abiding happiness, be unable to tender the most needed service, be unconscious of life ablaze with the light of the Presence of God – and be content to have it so – that is the danger. That someday we may wake up and find that always we have been busy with husks and trappings of life and have really missed life itself. For life without God, to one who has known the richness and joy of life with Him, is unthinkable, impossible. That is what one prays one’s friends may be spared – satisfaction with a life that falls short of the best, that has in it no tingle or thrill that comes from a friendship with the Father.
~ Phillips Brooks
