God -- Sermons; Jesus Christ -- Sermons; Sermons, English -- 20th century
Are you saying, "My soul thirsteth for God, for the Living God"? Then you
will have a Personal revelation of God Himself, for that is the only way
the life of God can enter into your soul and mine. Are you longing to find
God? It is not that we find Him, but that He finds us, making Himself to
us the great Reality. We may know wonderful things _about_ Him, but that
is not enough. We must really know Him in our hearts!
The very longing which you have for this personal revelation of God comes
from the loving Father Himself, and He says, "I will give them a heart to
know Me": [Footnote: Jer. xxiv. 7.] so we need never think, ah! it is
beyond me, for He promises to _give_ us the heart to know Him.
I had a striking instance of this some years ago. A working man who could
not read or write told me that he had been converted at our meeting. He
died in the Union Infirmary, and I heard afterwards that he had been a
blessing to many in the ward. He said to me one day, "I want to tell you
_what God is to me_." In very simple words he described how he could see
it all plainly. How in the beginning, sin came into the Garden of Eden and
then God revealed Himself to the sinner so as to bring him back to
Himself. Again and again his simple testimony was, I must tell every one
_what God is to me_. This man had learnt to know God personally through
his own need as a sinner, so it is not by earthly education that we find
God, but through the Holy Spirit's teaching, and then in the Word He
reveals Himself more fully.
It is "through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord that grace and
peace are multiplied to us," [Footnote: 2 Pet. i. 2.] so if we have not
more and more grace and peace coming into our souls it is because we do
not really know God.
It makes all the difference in our life when we can say, God is now my
living Father; for it means God in His infinite love has taken my life
into His, and by this personal link of love I take His life into mine.
When He assures us that He is the Living God, it means that He lives and
cares for us. All things, great and small, are under His control. We have
an illustration of this in the present war. Think of our Navy, scattered
over seven oceans, yet all under the control of the Commander-in-Chief,
Sir John Jellicoe. Not one vessel can move without his orders, no ship can
be attacked without his knowledge; the wireless apparatus is at work night
and day communicating every detail. It brings Sir John word of any
submarine sighted, or of any movement in all the seas round our country,
and it carries his orders far and near.
When God tells us that He is the living God, we know that He cares for us
in the same way as a mother cares for her children. We had a touching
illustration of this about a year ago.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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