No I’m not trying to write a resume 🙂 Lately I have been mulling over the aspect of ‘hearing’ from God and been really craving His presence in some, any sort of manifestation. I have been increasingly feeling uneasy about not having peace about it… esp as I hear the sermons where it’s repeatedly illustrated as to how certain events or things were confirmed by people around them as an outpouring of the Holy Spirit; or listen to people boldly claim “God told me to…” or “God gave me this vision…”
Thanks to my conservative Baptist upbringing in South India, my science background, and being a sceptic, I have always struggled to tally up such celestial experiences with logic, reason and rationality. Nevertheless, our soul or inner being are acutely aware and sensitive to spirituality and matters thereof. Therefore it is a testament, beyond doubt, to the fact that we are spiritual beings… which then begs the question of Knowledge and Experience.
How do we experience what we know?
What do we know of our encounters or experiences?
Particularly this week, I have felt such burden and heaviness in my spirit to seek Him out. The only best way I can describe those intense emotions is by using King David’s words…
As the deer pants for the water brooks,
Psalm 42:1-3
So pants my soul for You, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
While they continually say to me,
“Where is your God?”
Since Monday I have been crying out to God imploring Him to take away this dense cloud that seemingly barring me to know and experience Him. My lord (notice its not upper case), my bestie, my husband, caught me in the act as I was in tears silently praying in the room; sat next to me he very patiently and intently heard me out as I poured my heart out in anguish and we prayed together. Oh what a blessing to have your spouse not trivialize the matters of faith bestowing utmost importance, regard and reverence, lest …
The stone which the builders rejected [Has] become the chief cornerstone.
Psalm 118:22
Does it sound too clichéd?, Do I sound dramatic?, Are you unable to empathize with my situation as you read?, Does it sound far fetched, to have someone worry about these things… things aren’t necessarily pertaining to the most basic physical needs? let alone have your spouse also join in the action?
I don’t blame you if you felt that way because that was precisely my own struggle concerning God who seemingly speaks to others so effortlessly that I couldn’t shake it off, without actually petitioning it all back to Him. So what’s the protocol? Is there a criteria? Ah the hunger to know and experience…
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner!
Such audacity to demand answers from the living God?! And yet that’s exactly the kind of response God intended from me. My knowledge of the Lord and Savior Christ Jesus seeks validation on experiencing His presence and my experience of His saving grace seeks wisdom and discernment to know His Will and Truth. And so, in ways only God can bring about, my countenance is opened to below revelations, thus answering my prayers. How wondrous are Your works, God! I will sing of His mercies all the days of my life.
Criteria
Good Fruit
Firstly, I was gently reminded of The Holy Spirit’s outworking fruits that are evident in a believer… and such will be known by their fruits. The account of Simon the Sorcerer warrants us to be prayerfully discerning about the accounts (written or narrated) of one’s experiences of God in the manner of dreams or visions or prophecies or miracles, and not taking them on face value. But God’s infiniteness can not be limited only to known or popular expressions of His presence. And so, however insane or ordinary or typical it may sound, people’s accounts of experience can be attested for authenticity, by their fruits.
15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.
16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?
17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.
19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
Matthew 7
Greatest Gift
Knowledge and Experience go hand in hand, complementing one another and completing each other. But what holds them together is Wisdom, demonstrating how they work in our lives. If it’s not rooted in the Fear of the Lord however, the outworking of its knowledge is puffed up, not pure and cannot be attested for authenticity. Christ reminds us in His sermon on the mount that with out the purity of heart one cannot see God. (Matthew 5:8)
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom.
14 But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth.
15 This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic.
16 For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.
17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.
James 5
Further, Apostle Paul admonishes us that in all of our experiences or encounters of God in various manifestations, if there is no love…. then it’s all futile!
1Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.
1 Corinthians 13
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part.
10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
Convention
God’s reconciling love is expressed in the incarnation of Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who demonstrated the greatest act of love by laying down His life for us.
What a love. What a cost. What a price.
5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
9 Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
And such a mind filled with humility and love, can only be achieved by a repentant heart.
May we bear the fruits of repentance with purity in heart, may we express the greatest gift of love above all, and may we truly know and experience God’s presence. Lord, have mercy on us🙏
To God belongs all power, honor and glory! Forever and ever!
©mumwhoprays