I enjoyed this excerpt or I should say page since it is rather long, from the book, “Love Slaves” by Samuel Brengle. It was something I clipped after reading it and pasted to my journal notes because it reminds me of my own personal revelations of Christ and how I continually return to these special moments and memories. These memories are usually when God spoke to me in a personal way though His word, through a dream, through divine revelation and conversations to help me understand His word more clearly, know His love more deeply or be assured of His will more confidently.
Although God by His Spirit speaks to me daily through His word, through others, through books and commentaries I read, through my journaling, meditating and especially though my prayers, there are times, rare and sacred times when He has spoken to me so sweetly, so specially and so personally that goes beyond all these other conversations. Times I hold very close to my heart in much the same way as I hold dear those rare and special occasions when my husband goes out of his way to surprise and remind me of his own love and concern for me.
My husband communicates his love to me everyday as he interacts with me, much like God Himself does; but there are special occasions, special circumstances, special times when his communication techniques goes outside the ordinary and he goes to extraordinary measures to reveal his love to me. My husband may remember something I like or I’ve been wanting and surprise me by buying it and bringing it home for me. He may see something I need or would particularly enjoy, that I don’t even know I need or exists and he will get it for me. He leaves me hidden notes, in books I’m reading, sometimes on the bathroom mirror to remind me of his love for me and how much he appreciates me. These occasions are rare and often catch me by surprise and I suppose that’s what makes them so special and so unique. They don’t occur everyday and are not meant to. And they rarely occur more then once in the same manner so I can’t expect or anticipate them. They are just out of the way special.
I have found that God often operates in the same way when He communicates his own love to me in a special manner. There are ways He shows His love to me everyday and then there are times when He goes out of His way to reveal His love and concern for me that are very rare, personal and unique. These are often times when He has gone out of His way, to strengthen my faith and reveal His presence and love for me. Times that usually deal with a hidden hurt in my heart where He brings me healing by going out of His way to show me how much He does truly understand the suffering I underwent or am going through. Times when I am overcome by fear and He teaches me how I can trust Him and floods me with an overwhelming comprehension of his love.
I love this quote because as I said it reminds me of my own personal revelations of Christ and God the Father. As Christians, we know and love the same person, God the Father, Jesus Christ His Son and the Holy Spirit. Although different persons and roles, they are the same in character and essence. So we often share the same stories and the same experiences because God often interacts with us the same way because He is the same personality and doesn’t change. It is like having the same Father, because we do share the same Father. We share the same relationship and can share the things we enjoy most about his personality and habits because the other person completely understands and knows what we are talking about because they know the same person.
This is one of the reasons why I love reading the old Christian classic’s so much. I always want to know and hear the stories of how God interacted personally with them, men like Charles Spurgeon, Arthur Pink, Samuel Brengle, Watchman Nee, Jonathan Edwards, Andrew Murray, John Bunyan, A.W. Tozer, etc…. How did God reveal Himself and interact with each of them personally? What did He reveal about Himself to them? What did they love and enjoy most about God? How close were they able to come, fellowship, know and enjoy God in this life? That’s what I want to know and that’s why I love reading their books and listening to their stories even though they are already gone because I get to see and know more about the person I myself love along with them, God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
I can learn in a few hours or days by reading their books and journals what took them a lifetime of reading, wrestling, studying, praying and fasting to learn. I love being able to climb up and stand upon their shoulders to see Christ and I know they are more and glad to lift me up higher so I can Him more clearly. I just wish I could retain it all. I read a lot and now you know what and why. I want to know God. I want to know everything we have been given to know about God and I want to know Him for myself. I believe I can say I do know Him myself as much as He has revealed Himself to me anyway, and how small a part that is when I think of His infinity! I can’t wait for eternity when I can dwell in the house of the Lord and behold His face forever completely uninterrupted. I know that sounds absolutely boring for some as I have been told and there very well and probably will be very many other things to do in heaven, but not for me.
Sometimes we avoid talking about Christian experience because it is so subjective and it can be. But what is the Christian life, what is the Christian story and testimony and witness if not sharing the same experience of knowing God the Father through Jesus Christ by the Spirit? If our Christianity does not include personal experiences of our daily interactions with Him, then all we are left with is empty spirituality, wishful thinking, pointless doctrine, past memories and historical stories. My God and your God lives and dwells among us by His Spirit and because of this we can know Him, interact with Him daily and our lives are a shared experience of our knowing God the Father, through Jesus Christ.
Reading about God in books is one thing, but knowing God personally is another. I do know God, He is better then the books, but I love hearing the additional personal stories and experiences about God in books and testimonies. I love hearing stories where my heart leaps and exclaims with the author, “Yes! That is so absolutely true! I couldn’t have described it better myself. He is like that. He has done that with me too. I hate when He does that! I love when He does that! I wish He would do that for me! “ This is very much what it means to know God. When I read the quote below from Samuel Logan Brengle, it was very much one of those instances. So much so that I had to clip it and put it into my own journal my own blog, because it has been a description of my own personal experience just as much as it was of his.
And now finally the quote that I have spent all this time leading up to. I should have just posted the quote like I intended but as usual I got carried away and sidetracked in the intro.
Did you ever have a moment, or an hour, in which you were lost in fellowship with the Lord, having no thought of time or space, in which experiences were wrought in you, emotions swept through you, purity and love and power and comfort and assurance were imparted to you, that you have never been able fully to explain or express in words, or which, possibly, you have felt to be too sacred to try to tell or describe?
Such was Paul’s experience. He was the man to whom the words make reference. And many people who are in Christ, possibly most or all who are in Him, have had some such moment — just a moment, or an hour, long or short it may have been, but indescribably sweet, precious above gold or silver, and memorable above any and all other experiences of life.
Oh, how invaluable is such an experience to a soul, especially in a time of fierce temptation! It sweeps away for ever the intellectual and moral and spiritual fogs and uncertainties that becloud the mind and heart. It fixes a man’s theology. It settles for him the fact that he himself is a living soul, morally and spiritually responsible to God. He feels the breath of eternity in him. Wrapt in that wondrous fellowship he knows there is a Heaven; and to lose God, he knows, would be Hell.
Henceforth to him, Heaven and Hell are realities as assured as light and darkness, as truth and falsehood, as right and wrong. This experience establishes the Godhead of Christ. He knows that ‘Jesus is Lord,’ not by what he has learned from his teacher, from books and creeds, but ‘by revelation,’ ‘ by the Holy Ghost.’
If in hours of depression and temptation, the enemy of his soul should suggest a doubt as to these great truths, he can instantly rout his foe by recalling the intimate revelations of that sacred experience which it is not possible to utter.
There are two experiences mentioned by Paul in this portion of Scripture. One is abiding — the blessed, but common everyday experience that is new every morning and fresh every evening; that the dust and toil of the day, nor the stillness and slumber of the night, do not break nor disturb; it is the very life of the Christian.
The other is a transitory experience; but for a moment, comparatively. ‘I knew a man in Christ,’ that is the abiding experience. We are to live in Christ. Daily, hourly, momently we are to choose Him as our Master, walk with Him, look unto Him, trust Him: obey Him, draw from Him our strength, wisdom, courage, purity, every gift and grace needed for our soul’s life.
The supply of all our need is in Him. Our sap, our life, our leaf and our fruit are from Him Cut off from Him we wither, we die, but in Him we flourish, we bring forth abundant fruit, we have life for evermore. Hallelujah!
‘I knew such a one,’ writes Paul, ‘caught up to the third heaven — into Paradise — and heard unspeakable words:’ that is the transitory experience. It passes in an hour and may, possibly, never in this life be repeated, any more than was the ‘burning bush ‘ experience of Moses repeated, or the ‘still small voice ‘ experience of Elijah, or the Jabbok experience of Jacob, or the transfiguration experience of Jesus. Those experiences were brief, but their effects, their revelations were for eternity.
They were not abiding experiences, but windows opened through which earth glimpsed Heaven. The memory of that vision was imperishable, though the vision passed. The veil was withdrawn, and for one awful, rapturous moment the eyes of the soul saw the face of God, and the spirit of a man had unutterable fellowship with its Father.
The man who has had such an experience will be changed, will be different from his former self, and different from all other men who have had no such experience. Henceforth for him ‘to live is Christ,’ and the great values of life are not material, financial, social, or political, but moral and spiritual.”
– Excerpt from Love Slaves by Samuel Brengle
