Is it a crazy
assumption that God will do now as has been described of Him doing in the
past? Nothing unsettles our
sensibilities quite like the long wait for God to act today as we have heard He
did before. Every rational thought
argues against willful anticipation of
supernatural entries into our fussy world.
It seems absurd to the common mind that the Lord still operates within
the same paradigm as records indicate He once did. And yet that is precisely what we are
expected to believe when we take even the most casual glance at the Scriptures. The" Fairy Tale" motif swirls about
within the interpretive dance steps of
the normal Christian's take on life lived out daily. In fact what is "Christian" today
is generally not what once was Christian when everything said about God in
Scripture was believed. The Church
assumed rightly God acted in their today as He had during the today of Moses or
Elijah. They realized the Lord would
grip them relentlessly "now" even when they went through the fire,
even when they fell into the water. It
did not come easily. Peter had to first
get wet and Silas had to wait in twitching pain for his prison midnight but
eventually they came around. Personal
experience made the difference for them just as it does here for us. The prayer had to be uttered, the cry
bellowed, the worship to the God of heaven offered. It was only then that Elijah saw things just
as Moses had, Peter saw things as Elijah had and Paul saw things as Peter
had. The skeptic does not die peacefully
but in fits and starts and with loud moans and lusty screams. The man without God is a hollow shell. But add the Lord Jesus Christ to him and He
lives vivaciously, vividly, like a bright beam of sunlight piercing the night
sky. You, joined with the Lord will see
all that Elijah did, all that James did and not feebly either but decidedly,
firmly. We stumble over little unseen
miracles because we live with meager faith; we grip the majesty of God with the
loosest of holds because we are more
content to hear about God than we are to know Him. "Taste and see that the Lord is
good", implies that you must do something about your hunger and thirst if
you are ever to gain the smallest sense of God.
The historical documents have been given us not that we might dream of
days gone by but that we might do the very things the saints of the past
did. Stay in the shallows of common
faith and you will merely read the tales of God; go out of the harbor where
storms threaten to dump you in the sea and the Majesty of the Almighty will
find you . You will no longer make your
way through the shadow lands of legendary ghosts; you will instead enter the actual world where
Christ reigns and you join with Him in His Glory. Stop making so much of the God of ancient
times if you don't intend on taking hold of the Christ who today stands before
you and whispers, "Come".
Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, "You of
little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Matthew 16: 8 NIV
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