God is desirous of communicating Himself to us in a Personal
manner. In the Scriptures we have the foundation, the basis, the
cause and reason of our Faith laid out before us; but He wills that we
go beyond this basis, this reasoning of Faith into experience of
Himself. For this end, then, He fills us with the aching desire to find
and know Him, to be filled with Him, to be comforted and consoled
by Him, to discover His joys. He fills us with these desires in order
that He may gratify us.
By being willing to receive and understand as only through the
medium of the _written_ word we limit God in His communications
with us. For by the Holy Ghost He will communicate not by written
word but by personal touching of love brought about for us by the
taking and enclosing of Jesus Christ within the heart not only as the
Written Word, the Promise and Hope of Scripture, but as the Living
God.
For this end inward meditation and pondering are a necessity.
* * *
How is it that we so often find great virtue, remarkable charity and
patience amongst persons who are yet not conscious of any direct
contact with God? They have never known the pains of repentance,
neither have they known the sublime joys of God. Are these the
ninety-and-nine just persons needing no repentance? Instinctively,
and almost unconsciously, they hold to, and draw upon, the
Universal Christ--or Spirit of Righteousness; but they have not laid
hold of nor taken into themselves that Spirit of the Personal Christ,
whom Christians receive and know through Jesus. He is the Door
into the unspeakable joys of God. What are these joys of God? They
are varying degrees of the manifestation and experience of
_reciprocal_ Divine Love.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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