Knowing God

The very best thing we can do in this hour is to know God.  The type of knowing I am referring to is not knowing about God, although that would be good.  Knowing God in the manner I am referring to, is knowing God relationally.  It is knowing what He likes, what He is doing on the earth, what He is sending, releasing or withholding. 

Where can you go to know the Lord?

While the prayer room, the worship event, the sermon and the small group meeting are all great places, even places of encounter; the best place to know God is in your inner man.  The Christ who dwells within you desires for an internal meeting and transformation.  The pace, security and direction you need for life in this day, is found within.  The Kingdom of God is within you.  The holy dwelling of God in within true believers.  It is great to have outward signs and wonders, but these will do little fi we do not abide in Christ Jesus and have authentic fellowship with Him.

There are many distractions that keep us from encountering the Lord.  We often stop at worship, prayer or peaceful feelings.  We are easily distracted from pressing on to the prize.  Jesus prayed that we would be one with Him, with the Father.  How often do we press on until union with God is achieved?  How often do we go beyond wondrous feelings and enter into holiness and sanctification?  Our God is a consuming fire and union with Him burns, wonderfully burns.

In the garden of Gethsemane Jesus asked the disciples to watch and pray with Him, then he went a little further and prayed.  Why didn’t Jesus gather them up into a small group, hold hands and pray words of encouragement over one another? I am not slamming that type of prayer, but what to reveal it limits.  There is this prayer of corporate prater of seeking the Lord in intimacy.  Together along!  Together alone we encounter the Lord.  This has been a pattern from Jesus, the disciples, the desert Fathers, the monastic movement and through all cultures of God’s redemption. 

In the time we live the influence of media and people is so powerful that we must literally fight to be free from it’s rule over us.  It is about being a part of a body but connected to the head.  We will find our unity, maturity and security all related to our connection to His headship. 

Finding God in the prayer closet at home is great,  But we also need to be able to enter into the fullness of God in public.  This is learned by entering into the fullness of God in public.  We need, you need, to be able to enter into union with God in public.