Moreover he said, I am the God of thy
father and Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. Exodus 3:6
TRUE
CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE MUST ALWAYS INCLUDE a genuine encounter with God. Without
this, religion is but a shadow, a reflection of reality, a cheap copy of the
original once enjoyed by someone else of whom we have heard.
It cannot
but be a major tragedy in the life of any man to live in a church from
childhood to old age and know nothing more real than some synthetic god
compounded of theology and logic, but having no eyes to see, nor ears to hear,
and no heart to love.
The
spiritual giants of old were men who at some time became acutely conscious of
the real Presence of God and maintained that consciousness for the rest of
their lives.
The first
encounter may have been one of terror, as when a “horror of great darkness”
fell upon Abram, or as when Moses at the bush hid his face because he was
afraid to look upon God. Usually this fear soon lost its content of terror and
changed after a while to delightsome awe, to level off finally into a reverent
sense of complete nearness to God. The essential point is this: these were men
who experienced God!
How
otherwise can the saints and prophets be explained! How otherwise can we
account for the amazing power for goo d they have exercised over countless
generations? Is it not that they walked in conscious communion with the real
Presence and addressed their prayers to God with the artless conviction that
they were addressing Someone actually there!
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