To See...As I Have Seen # 1

To See....As I Have Seen # 1

"Psalm 63:1, 2"

We live in a day of mediocrity where, we are satisfied just to reach our emotional high in a meeting. A total commitment to the things of God is exchanged for a mere "assent" to truth. When our desire for God does not include doing the will of God and carrying through on it. What does all this lead to? A lack of spiritual reality - of spiritual passion.

In Psalm 63 David cries out in the wilderness (not in the temple, not on the throne):

O God, Thou art my God; early will I seek Thee: my soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; To see Thy power and Thy glory, so as I have seen Thee in the sanctuary."

Can we see his intensity - the depths of his cry and the strength of his longing? Can we see his dissatisfaction with the status quo and his determination to see until he finds? Here is the responsibility of every Christian - on the mission field, or the homeland, the young, the old - we are responsible to translate our spiritual vision to an earthly reality.

They've got a saying in South America which says, "To live without suffering is to die without glory." If there is no hurt, if there is no challenge, if there is no enlargement, there will not be any glory and there will be no fulfillment. 

We live in a day when the church is seeking fulfillment. We heal everybody's hurts, real and imagined; past, present, and future. We try to get people to feel all right. We talk about a "good self image." We're convinced that it is a sad thing if somebody's got a poor self-image. God help us!! God pity us!! You know, it's not in what we think about ourselves! The Bible is talking about a vision of God! The Bible is talking about a world out beyond! The Bible is talking about something, done on earth as it is done in Heaven! Talking about a being put in harmony with God and then we will not wonder: "am I all right, or am I not all right; am I okay, are you okay?"

Frustration is the state of the world. Frustration is the state of the church. If we get to talk one on one with almost anybody, there is always this element, "what I would like to be or what I would have liked to have been, or what I would like to attain to." And we have all these people who are waiting when they are young, waiting and twiddling their fingers and their thumbs. And when they are older, looking back to what could have been but never was. And you've got to face it that in over ninety percent of the young people it never will be. And ninety to ninety-nine percent of the of the Christians never live to see their dream, but not because God doesn't want to do it.

Once again I remind you of what Tozer used to say, "When we come before the throne of God, we are not, not, not going to be able to say to God, "God, I would have liked on earth to have reached, to have possessed, to have known such a place, such a condition, such a level of faith or ministry..." or whatever it is. We will not be able to say that because God will turn around and say, "Child, I gave you everything you needed to fulfill everything you've seen." He is talking about spiritual vision. God does not demand of us anything He has not shown us!

We've got a lot of people going around trying to transmit something they've only heard about. It's not as easy as we think it is to learn the process. You've all heard the famous saying that it takes twenty years to make a preacher; because it takes that long to understand and see what God wants us to see.

Look at Job, look at all he had to go through, until there at the end, he said, "Lord, I had heard, but now, now mine eyes see." This is what God wants to bring us to. I'm talking about transferring the spiritual vision to the natural would around us. I'm talking about knowing that God has given us a revelation of His truth. Something that He wants us to possess. We're responsible to see. David starts out here saying, "O God, Thou art my God." You've got to start there.

I remember when I first went to the mission field. There was a man of God down there that had many, many experiences. The Lord had really used him down through the years. One day he came and was talking and he said, "You know, Paul, you have to come to the place where you can say, "This is my God. This is the God who speaks and the God who backs that which I do." This is not just the God of the Bible. This is not just the God of church history. This is not just the God of the doctrines of the saints. This is my God. And be able to say, "I know that my God is with me."

Maybe one thing that's lacking in the Twentieth Century is the knowledge that God has total authority. I cannot say, "My God", and then do my will. It's got to be "My God Thy kingdom come." And a lot of times, somehow subconsciously, it's "God, my kingdom come. God my ideas, plans, purposes, desires be fulfilled. Lord, bless me. Lord go with me."

~Paul Ravenhill~

(continued with # 2)