Hood Morning Light“It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect. He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet, and setteth me upon my high places.” (Psalm 18:32,33)

The world simply does not grasp the reality of Jesus Christ.

Within the wide, religious realms of Christian profession, there is very little personal relationship with Christ. He is merely a concept, a tradition or a dogma — an impersonal figure around whom religious observances revolve.

The God Who Desires to Know You Personally

Just as with a Muslim who has no personal relationship with God. Nor is there any personal relationship sought by the entity that is the object of Islamic worship. What is commanded is strict obedience and compliance with laws and rituals. And behind it all is the fear of eternal pain that is certain to follow every soul who fails to measure up to this god’s demands.

And this is true of most faiths. Whether they invoke the name of Christ or not. Whether they use the Bible or not. Much of the world talks a great deal about a Jesus they do not know.

But for the Christian believer, who knows Jesus Christ personally, this is not the case. At the moment of salvation, the Christian encounters the God who comes to dwell within him by His Spirit. And so begins an eternal relationship with the Creator of the Universe.

A relationship cherished and desired by the Lord Jesus Christ. Who would free a man from sin, and pain and fear. And who longs to bring the Christian into an amazing inheritance beyond this life.

But, in the reality of Christian experience, there is a tendency to neglect the One who lives within us.

The Lord Designs the Crisis

It often takes a crisis to wake us out of sleep. In fact, one might say that we pretty much go from crisis to crisis. That the hard times are what motivate us toward the deeper life with Christ.

Sin, with its depressing and grieving effects on us, is often the wake-up call. The pain that sin causes us and the revelation of how it affects the Lord leads us to repentance from sin, a deep desire for cleansing, and a restoration of closeness to Christ.

It is out of that experience that we move into a larger understanding of who the Lord really is. Because he has brought us into a larger place. “I called upon the Lord in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.” (Psalm 118:5)

Our tendency in the midst of our sin, is to believe that we cannot have the closeness we once knew; because of the great offense of our disobedience. Because we incorrectly think that our days will only be a kind of Spartan life of work, toil and drudgery with the Lord.

But the reality is infinitely different.

“For thou art my lamp, O LORD: and the LORD will lighten my darkness.” (II Samuel 22:29)

When we confess our sins before the Lord and see how He has made complete provision for us by His work on the Cross, something wonderful happens. Once again, we begin to see how the Lord restores us and lifts us up higher than before. And we see that our forgiveness has already been settled in heaven. With all our sins taken away at the Cross.

It is only our perception that is faulty here. We do not move in and out of a state of forgiveness. That was settled at our salvation. We are not a soul tossed back and forth out of a “saved” status because we don’t measure up.

We have never measured up. And we never will.

Misunderstanding this is why so many struggle with doubts of their eternal security. For the Christian, we have already been forgiven once, for all sins, forever. No more sacrifice can be offered than that which has been offered — which is the precious blood of the Lamb of God. Nothing can ever be added or taken away from the value of His blood.

It is when we try to hide our sins that the Lord is displeased. He wants them brought before Him. To live honestly before Him. And to depend on Him for the strength and work He wants to do through us. And to forget those things which are behind, pressing forward while looking at Christ and not at ourselves.

More Awesome than any Imagination Can Create!

This is where we begin to see how the Lord Himself is the solution to every problem we have been seeking. That He is, in His very Person, the greatest dream and deepest fulfillment of our hearts as well as our imaginations.

Greater than the most amazing movie you have ever seen. More thrilling than any experience you have ever had. More real and tangible than the deepest emotion you have ever felt.

He is, in every facet, the LIFE itself we have been seeking. All that we have sought is wrapped up in Himself.

This may sound like only so much poetry to many Christians that have not seen this for themselves. And it definitely sounds like a lot of sappy nonsense to the world that knows nothing of Christ Himself.

But for the believer, willing to draw near to God, He will see that all the wonders of the world are but a dark, fleeting shadow compared to the staggering reality of who Jesus Christ really is.

Who is ready to lift you up and set you upon His high places.

“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.” (Psalm 139:6)