The pure of heart shall see God.
When you are pure of heart, God reveals Himself everywhere. Now I’m not saying everything is God because that is heresy. So no, Buddha isn’t Jesus – ha ha ha! But this world is Christ’s and He is in everything. He is everywhere and reveals Himself all over this world. It just isn’t in churches and during quiet times where God reveals Himself. He wishes to be seen in all our world, not just in our religious, labeled boxes.
What does this mean? Does this mean He can be witnessed in our common occurrences? Does He wish to be seen as I walk through my day? Yes, yes, yes! If God is in me, and is my life, then my days are a witness of Him in my doings. He is alive! He is alive in my life as my life. When I walk out my door, I am looking for Christ to be Christ in my world. After I read the Word and study the scriptures, I get up to see them alive and evident in my world. I don’t leave Christ with the Word; I seek Him to be the Word in my world. The Word was made flesh in Christ and now the Word is alive in me as He continues to walk His Life out in me.
Without the Word
If Christ was only in His Book, what would I do if the Book was taken from me? I’m not elevating experience over Scripture but if I am not experiencing the Life of Christ in my life, I’m in trouble. If I was thrown in prison without a Bible, I could still experience His Life through His Spirit. He would not leave me destitute of His Word because He is the Word living in me. If this isn’t true, I am truly destitute. Then I am chained to a book and reliant on pages to be God for me. God is ALIVE! Christ left His Spirit with me to reveal His Life to me. His Word and His Spirit are living. If I was denied a physical Bible, He still is the Word through His Spirit.
Now I live in the USA where we can still have as many Bibles as we want. I have several in every room of my house. I love the Word. His Spirit reads it with me, enlightening His Life and Truth to me. And then I continue with the Spirit of Christ to witness that same Life and Truth in my world. He is the Life incarnate. He is revealing Himself all about my world.
The pure of heart will see God only in the Word? No, everywhere. His Life is the Word and His Life is everywhere! I have fellowship with Him everywhere. Sure we ingest the Life from the Word of God but then we must experience that Life in our Life. He is not limited to my study of the Words. He is excitingly revealed in His Life, lived and experienced. His Word should be evidenced in my life or I am handicapped.
Christ is the Word and the Life
The legalist told Jesus that He was blasphemous with this truth. The Sadducees and Pharisees limited their experience of God to the study of His Torah. Jesus came to shatter their boxes and said, “I am the Word!” The Life of the Word goes beyond the written limits of the Words. If the Word is not living, I am pitiable indeed. Then my only touch of my Father is when I am sitting reading. What if I was blind? Perhaps I could not read, what then? What if I was imprisoned? Am I then isolated from my God? Does my illiteracy prevent me from fellowshipping with God? Do the walls of a prison isolate me from the Word of God? No, His Spirit is the living expression of His Word. The Life of His Son was the Word made flesh. And the Scriptures are His written Word.
My Life in the Word
If the Word of God is not evidenced in my living experience, I am a tragedy! The Words of Truth are presented so I can know God, not so I can study and satisfy my mind. Our God has worked to destroy the barriers made by us thinking we know (the Tree of Knowledge), I’m not going to hem Him in now with a refusal to experience His Word in Life.
This is the essence of the new covenant! God’s people will know Him. They will not have to be taught, for He will make Himself known in their hearts and their minds.
But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day, says the LORD: I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, “You should know the LORD.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already. And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”
Hebrews 8:10-12 NLT
We can’t read the Word & ‘make it be so’, it takes the Spirit. His Word comes so personally in our daily lives & walk…it’s where He reveals the subject, to reveal Himself in it, to bring us into it with Him, in Him. Christ is the Source of the Word. There is no self-resource in me, & that is the box Jesus came to shatter. These barriers of thinking I know?! limitation, confining, stifling. Who can think of Abraham, where he came from (& where we came from!), all he saw & lived & knew God in, without this… Read more »
[…] know it would seem safer to rely on prayer to bring in revival. Or our enlightenment in theological study would seem safer. But revival isn’t birthed from my doings or my knowing; Love brings in revival […]
John, this post was a perfect guide to the union of the Word with Christ. Brilliant explanation in the words of the Spirit. I was reduced to tears of joy. (I just had to comment).
[…] to the transcriptions of this and of these podcasts and you’ll see the post. It’ll be linked to the post. You can always do that, and, you know, anything we reference in here, whether it’s a CD […]
[…] Now you are interested in the Word without the Spirit. (John) Yeah. I’m writing a blog right now about being so involved with the words in the Bible that you’re not involved with […]