There is today no lack of Bible teachers in the Western Church to set forth correctly the principles of the doctrines of Christ, but too many of these seem satisfied to teach the fundamentals of the faith year after year, strangely unaware that there is in their ministry no manifest Presence, nor anything unusual about their personal lives. Honestly, the whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless. Christ may be “received” and the man “saved”, but the man is not hungry nor thirsty after God. In fact, I would say he is specifically taught to be satisfied and encouraged to be content with little.
And this is absurd! The continuous and unembarrassed interchange of love and thought between God and the soul of the redeemed man is the throbbing heart of the New Testament! To have found God, to be a “saved” man, and STILL to pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love, scorned indeed by the “too-easily-satisfied” religionist, BUT justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart! If we look to the holy men and women of the past we will soon feel their desire after God. They mourned for Him, they prayed and wrestled and sought for Him day and night, and when they had found Him the finding was all the sweeter for the long seeking!
How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers! Everything is made to center upon the initial act of “accepting” Christ and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have been led astray into the belief that if we have found Him we need no more seek Him. The experiential heart-theology of a GRAND army of fragrant saints (2 Corinthians 2:14-17) is rejected in favor of a smug interpretation of Scripture which would certainly have sounded strange to Paul, Peter, Augustine, John Wesley, John Calvin, or Martin Luther.
But praise be to God, for there are some among the Western Church and other ministries who are not content with this shallow logic. They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God! They don’t want to be complacent, for they understand complacency to be a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. They understand that God waits to be wanted.
However, the simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its place are programs, methods, organizations, and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. We must simplify our approach to Him. We must strip down to essentials (and they are FEW). We must put away all effort to impress, and come with the honesty of childhood.
For the man who has God for his treasure has all things in One. Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness. Or if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss, for having the Source of all things he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight. Whatever he may lose he has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately, and forever.
The Church has plenty of scribes, those who tell us what they have read, but SO few prophets, those who tell us what they have seen. The hard voice of the scribe sounds over the prophet for it sounds super evangelical, but the Church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with their inward eye upon the Wonder that is God. And yet so MANY fail to realize that this penetration, this push, into the sensitive living of God, the presence of God, is for all children of God! Pray that God reveals ALL His glory and presence to you in the same way He did with Moses!
But understand it will call for self-sacrifice, that it will be difficult, even painful at times. Look at the early psalms of David and how He just cried out to God! Insist that the work be done in very truth and it will be done. The cross is rough, and it is deadly, but it is effective. It does not keep its victim hanging there forever. There comes a moment when its work is finished and the suffering victim dies. After that is resurrection glory and power, and the pain is forgotten for the joy that the veil is taken away and we have entered in actual spiritual experience with the Presence of the living God. The later Psalms of David testify to this!
Simplify your life and pray, seek, speak, and thank God for His presence 24/7. He is your Father and you His child, so of course He will give you His presence, just understand He will ask for all of you in return so that He and He alone is the center of your Heart! And understand when His presence washes over you then of course you will do the same things as Jesus Christ, and even greater things than these! (John 14:12-14) I, no We, don’t need nor should we desire the gospel of the American Church, but instead we should diligently pray, seek, pursue, ask, desire, and crave the gospel of the Kingdom!
– A.W. Towzer, The Pursuit of God
