Monday, December 19, 2005

Intimacy with God - a quote

Erwin Raphael McManus in The Barbarian Way (Nelson Books) has this to say (p.61):

Somehow Christianity has become a nonmystical religion. It's about a reasonable faith. If we believe the right things, then we are orthodox. Frankly whether we ever actually connect to God or experience His undeniable presence has become incidental, if not irrelevant. We have become believers rather than experiencers. To know God in the Scriptures always went beyond information to intimacy. We may find ourselves uncomfortable with this reality, but the faith of the Scriptures is a mystical faith. It leads us beyond the material world into an invisible reality. We become connected to the God of eternity. ... God is Spirit. To walk with God is to journey in the spiritual realm.

What Erwin McManus says about Christianity in general is true also of Christadelphians: "It's about a reasonable faith. If we believe the right things, then we are orthodox. Frankly whether we ever actually connect to God or experience His undeniable presence has become incidental, if not irrelevant." I used to think that one of the best descriptors of the Christadelphian faith was that used as the title of a booklet (published, I think, by CALS or perhaps CMPA) - "A religion that makes sense". The main point of our preaching was that it made sense. We didn't preach in a way which helped people to connect with God, to encounter Him in their daily lives, or to experience the touch of heaven. So long as it made sense it must be true, and ought to be accepted. So we argued and debated and tried to convince people through logic and reasoning that it must be true because it made sense. I discovered that that wasn't enough, and it was the realisation that God was actually listening to my prayers, that Jesus was actually beside me as I went about my life, that the Gospel is real, relevant and life-changing, that friendship - intimacy even - with the Almighty was not only possible but that it is God's desire, that my life took a sudden turn and I set out on a new direction in my spiritual journey. That was over 25 years ago, and life has never been the same! My faith still makes sense (mostly - although there are a lot of things I simply don't fully understand, yet), but it has taken me beyond the merely intellectual and into relationship with God.

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