A few weeks ago I heard a brother and missionary named Rolf Kleinfeld share some of his experiences of the mystery and miraculous workings of the Father through Christ on the mission field. He shared experiences that so many of us here in America would find not just hard to believe, but in some ways we would call them outright weird. Unspoken is the truth that while we would not openly call such workings false, there would be in many of us the lingering suspicion that what we heard wasn't true. I believe this would be so because we in our American church culture, have lost a great degree of the mystery of the Kingdom, and the Father who rules over all of it. We've exchanged His mystery for logical thought and human reason. As I heard one person say, "We've reduced His mystery to what our rational minds can grasp." What we end up with is a God who is very much like ourselves, and just about as powerless.
The other day I read once more the 77th Psalm and was struck by the 19th verse. It speaks of the Red Sea experience where God parted the sea to enable His people Israel to escape the pursuing Egyptians. They were blocked by what they saw as a immovable obstacle that was all any of them could see. In His parting of the sea, He revealed to them a pathway none of them knew was there. None but the Father and Moses. Such is the result for all who live by their own understanding. We can only see with our natural eyes, and understand with our own understanding. We try to bring Him down to our level, while He consistently seeks to bring us up to Himself. In 2 Kings 6, the prophet Elisha and his servant are surrounded by a hostile Aramean army. The servant saw only the army, Elisha saw the chariots of fire from heaven that surrounded that army. His cry to the Father for his servant was, "Lord, open his eyes that he might see!" Is that our heart cry? For those we love, lead, pastor? For ourselves? Or, have we become so comfortable with our natural sight, understanding, wisdom, that we are among the first to call anything that is beyond our own reasoning and logic as not legitimate, not real, not even "scriptural?" We revere the story of Christ raising Lazarus from the dead, but how many of us truly believe that such a miracle could occur today in our family, our church, our lives? When we come together in what we call "worship" do we really expect to experience anything out of what we feel is "the norm?"
Matthew 13 says that the Father has entrusted us with the knowledge of His mystery. He is a mystery that He longs for us to discover and know in ever greater and deeper ways. He doesn't just want us to know truth, but to know the One who IS Truth. Gaining that knowledge will challenge our human reasoning, for He is greater than all of it. Our natural minds cannot and will not grasp Him, but if His Spirit truly lives within us, He will lead us into ever more wondrous knowledge and understanding of Himself. Then, Tiegreen's question to us becomes all too real. What will we do with that knowledge? Will we follow Him onto the pathway our natural sight didn't see? If we do, He will take us to the border of the spiritual relationship and experience in Him we were created for. Israel, constantly living in their own sight and understanding, refused to go beyond that border, and so dwelt instead in the wilderness. Will we? Or will we enter in to the wonder of knowing, discovering, the mystery of He who is our God? Again and again in our lives, He will bring us to pathways we didn't know were there. Whether we see them, or miss them, depends upon what we know of Him. If we're content with facts about Him, they'll remain hidden, but if we will step out into the depths of His mystery, a mystery He longs to reveal, we will see, follow, and walk upon them....with Him. His pathway lies before us. Do we see it? Or, do we just keep stumbling along in our own understanding?
The other day I read once more the 77th Psalm and was struck by the 19th verse. It speaks of the Red Sea experience where God parted the sea to enable His people Israel to escape the pursuing Egyptians. They were blocked by what they saw as a immovable obstacle that was all any of them could see. In His parting of the sea, He revealed to them a pathway none of them knew was there. None but the Father and Moses. Such is the result for all who live by their own understanding. We can only see with our natural eyes, and understand with our own understanding. We try to bring Him down to our level, while He consistently seeks to bring us up to Himself. In 2 Kings 6, the prophet Elisha and his servant are surrounded by a hostile Aramean army. The servant saw only the army, Elisha saw the chariots of fire from heaven that surrounded that army. His cry to the Father for his servant was, "Lord, open his eyes that he might see!" Is that our heart cry? For those we love, lead, pastor? For ourselves? Or, have we become so comfortable with our natural sight, understanding, wisdom, that we are among the first to call anything that is beyond our own reasoning and logic as not legitimate, not real, not even "scriptural?" We revere the story of Christ raising Lazarus from the dead, but how many of us truly believe that such a miracle could occur today in our family, our church, our lives? When we come together in what we call "worship" do we really expect to experience anything out of what we feel is "the norm?"
Matthew 13 says that the Father has entrusted us with the knowledge of His mystery. He is a mystery that He longs for us to discover and know in ever greater and deeper ways. He doesn't just want us to know truth, but to know the One who IS Truth. Gaining that knowledge will challenge our human reasoning, for He is greater than all of it. Our natural minds cannot and will not grasp Him, but if His Spirit truly lives within us, He will lead us into ever more wondrous knowledge and understanding of Himself. Then, Tiegreen's question to us becomes all too real. What will we do with that knowledge? Will we follow Him onto the pathway our natural sight didn't see? If we do, He will take us to the border of the spiritual relationship and experience in Him we were created for. Israel, constantly living in their own sight and understanding, refused to go beyond that border, and so dwelt instead in the wilderness. Will we? Or will we enter in to the wonder of knowing, discovering, the mystery of He who is our God? Again and again in our lives, He will bring us to pathways we didn't know were there. Whether we see them, or miss them, depends upon what we know of Him. If we're content with facts about Him, they'll remain hidden, but if we will step out into the depths of His mystery, a mystery He longs to reveal, we will see, follow, and walk upon them....with Him. His pathway lies before us. Do we see it? Or, do we just keep stumbling along in our own understanding?
Blessings,
Pastor O
Pastor O
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