To Know Him

We can do so many things in the church. We can sing songs. We can preach sermons. We can listen to sermons. We can serve in Sunday School. We can have fellowship. We can study the Bible. We can sing in the choir. But I am learning what it is like to see all this going on without skipping a beat, and yet in the fulness of activity we miss the only thing that really matters.

To know Christ and Him crucified...
How desperately we need to receive from the Father a new revelation of His majesty in such splendor that we will tremble once again, that we will learn to fear Him once again, that we will shake to the very core of our souls with the understanding of Who He is and all He has done to have for Himself a people. Do you dare plead with David, "Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name" (Psalm 86:11)?

Does God want to dwell in your church? Can He look from the height of His sanctuary and see a people, large or small, that He will sing over with indescribable delight? Or does He turn away with grief every time we meet, because we have not His fear in our hearts? We have our fancy buildings, our numbers may be growing, we may even meet for prayer once a week, but is this what the Living God wants? A people who say, "Look what we have built for You, Lord! Isn't it magnificent?", whether they be external structures or internal agendas. We have our conferences, our missions weeks, our prayer meetings, and we have forgotten that all of this means nothing if Jesus Christ does not reign as LORD in all of it, down to the smallest, most seemingly insignificant of details. Why else would a church cancel its youth service for the Super Bowl without a second thought? Leonard Ravenhill had it right when he said that there is indeed a king in America, whose name is Sport and his wife is Entertainment. And with sadness in His heart, tears in His everseeing eyes, Jesus Christ responds, "The heaven [is] my throne, and the earth [is] my footstool: where [is] the house that ye build unto me? and where [is] the place of my rest? For all those [things] hath mine hand made, and all those [things] have been, saith the LORD: but to this [man] will I look, [even] to [him that is] poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word" (Isaiah 66:1-2). Can God say of your church, of your family, of your individual life, "This [is] my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it" (Psalm 132:14). Or do we turn Him away, and effectually say, while walking the world's way, "Sorry, but there is no room in the inn"?

We have taken for granted the promises of Jesus Christ, thinking that by quoting them over and over again, we can somehow fulfill them with our rhetoric or our gimmicks. As if declaring, "We are gathered in the Name of Christ, so He is in our midst," can actually make it so. How dare we say, "for Christ's sake", for it is not for Him at all anymore. Do we understand what it cost Paul to be able to utter those words without guile on his lips? "From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus" (Galatians 6:17, also see 1Corinthians 4:10, 2Corinthians 12:10). God has always been after one thing: A holy Bride for Himself, whose very existence is one of an ever-arising aroma of the Son to the Father. He has sought from the creation's inception a man, a woman that He can call His own, who will be satisfied with nothing other than satisfying the Father's heart. He wants those who will be His prisoners, captives of His love whose lives He can waste in any way He sees fit (See Mark 14:3-9).

But we want our programs, we want the safety of knowing exactly what will happen in our services as we ostensibly worship away any vestige of God's presence. God departs while we sing, because instead of a pleasing fragrance a stench finds its way into His nostrils. "Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; [it is] iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear [them]" (Isaiah 1:13-14). We have made God so weary with our vain religious offerings that while we sing "holy, holy, holy", the Holy Spirit cries, "INIQUITY!"

It is a strange thing to think that while we purport to be doing the very thing required of us by a holy God, we can actually heap judgement upon our own heads by speaking His name in vain. Oh, not as a curse like the world does, but by not truly desiring to meet with God for His glory alone. We tread upon the poor every time we reject the Presence of Christ in our meetings, because that is the only place they can find true and abiding riches. We cast off the widow by saying "no thank you" to God's invitation into His throne room in our pathetic little meetings, because He alone can be the Husband they need. Do we really want to hear God's voice? Then be ready to receive whatever word He will speak, for good or for evil, for blessing or for cursing, for encouragement or correction. We say, "I have always served You, God." He says, "Repent." What if the fire of God's jealous love were to touch your life's most inward parts? What would be revealed by that fire?

My Jesus, to know You... Do we really want to know Him and Him crucified? It will cost everything, dear brother and sister. No more claim of independence. No more plans that cannot be disrupted or utterly disposed of. No more walking our own ways. No more demands laid before God's footstool for our own perceived "needs". No more me. No more... It cost Jesus Christ everything to purchase for Himself that Bride from captivity. Do you think it will cost us anything less? No, it will cost everything to be everything God has longed for in a people amongst whom He can walk with delight, finding nothing worthy of censure.

There is nothing else worth living for. There is nothing else worth dying for. If only we will learn what it means to be crucified with Christ that we might belong irrevocably to Him. "And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts" (Galatians 5:24). The flesh with every self-asserting and self-serving "but I..." must go if we are to know Him in all verity.

Still He calls, to this very hour Jesus Christ calls for all who will come and belong to the King, accepting the full weight of responsibility that comes with being a son or daughter of His Father. In this experienced reality there will be no greater delight than to please His heart. And every blow and accusation of insanity with which the church and the world strike cannot deter from God's will any longer. As His glory has become the one lodestar of your life, your soul aches the simple prayer of the the pauper, "Lord Jesus, just to be with You...". The Eternal Christ responds, "You have I made a prince and a priest unto My Father" (Revelation 1:5-6). Will you be as jealous for God's glory as He is Himself? There is no other way than to fling yourself at the nail-pierced feet of the Son of God and never depart from that place, abandoning yourself completely to Almighty God and demanding nothing in return. Your only desire henceforth is to minister day and night unto the Lord of majesty, beholding His face in intimacy. This is true communion, this is what it is to know Him.