"I now grant you the right to eat and drink at My table in that Kingdom." Luke 22:29-30......."As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God." Romans 8:14 "When they were alone, He expounded all things to His disciples." Mark 4:34 "When I talk about the mystical level of knowing God, I am speaking of that which pierces the Cloud of Unknowing - the area that cannot be discerned by human knowledge and understanding, that rises above the intellect and even theology and goes into the area of experiencing the presence of God." A.W. Tozer "In a kneeling position I can see the furthest - into the very heart of God." E. Stanley Jones.
To be considered a "spiritual mystic" sounds very creepy to most of our logic and reason based Christianity. We often view such people as "weird" and commonly say that "they are so heavenly minded that they're of no earthly good." The fact that Paul was such, as were brethren like John and Charles Wesley, Dwight Moody, Charles Spurgeon as well, doesn't seem to register very deeply with us. And who was of a more "mystical" bent than Christ Himself?
I've written before, and likely will again, that we tend to live far more as orphans outside the Kingdom, than as sons and daughters made welcome, as Christ says in Luke, at His Kingdom table. The Father wants to be known, and intimately, by His children. Reason and logic, as Tozer says, will never take us past that Cloud of Unknowing. Mark 4 tells us that Jesus shared all things with His disciples when He was alone with them. This came after Jesus Himself spent great amounts of time alone with His Father. He was the fullness of His Father's heart and mind, and He calls us to share in it as well. If we will realize this, then the idea of being a "mystic" is not so strange after all.
We will understand that being such a person is not to be an exception, but a Kingdom standard. Yet we continue to accept a life and walk that is far below that standard. Someone said to the effect that being completely submerged in the life of Christ is to appear out of your mind to the bulk of the professing church. Francis Chan tells the story of one of his congregants rebuking him for being much too fanatical in his relationship with Christ. He told him that there was a middle road that should be embraced. It seems obvious that many in the church are embracing that road. I'm not sure who said it, but it was that we were to live lives that were "gloriously lopsided" for Christ. How lopsided for Him our your and my life today?
The Father doesn't call us to spend a literal 24 hours on our knees each day, but He does call us to live in such a way in our hearts with Him. When we are always in an attitude of worship, we are then living on our knees before Him. And when we do, we can, as Jones says, see into the heart of the Father. We will, as Tozer says, pierce the Cloud of Unknowing. Jesus will expound to us all things as we can receive them, all the while sitting at His Kingdom table. And we'll find that being a mystic is a pretty wonderful thing after all. Becoming, as one said, "So heavenly minded as to be of much earthly good."
Blessings,
Pastor O
We will understand that being such a person is not to be an exception, but a Kingdom standard. Yet we continue to accept a life and walk that is far below that standard. Someone said to the effect that being completely submerged in the life of Christ is to appear out of your mind to the bulk of the professing church. Francis Chan tells the story of one of his congregants rebuking him for being much too fanatical in his relationship with Christ. He told him that there was a middle road that should be embraced. It seems obvious that many in the church are embracing that road. I'm not sure who said it, but it was that we were to live lives that were "gloriously lopsided" for Christ. How lopsided for Him our your and my life today?
The Father doesn't call us to spend a literal 24 hours on our knees each day, but He does call us to live in such a way in our hearts with Him. When we are always in an attitude of worship, we are then living on our knees before Him. And when we do, we can, as Jones says, see into the heart of the Father. We will, as Tozer says, pierce the Cloud of Unknowing. Jesus will expound to us all things as we can receive them, all the while sitting at His Kingdom table. And we'll find that being a mystic is a pretty wonderful thing after all. Becoming, as one said, "So heavenly minded as to be of much earthly good."
Blessings,
Pastor O
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