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TGIF Today God Is First Volume 2 by Os Hillman
Friday, January 27 2012
“Jesus answered: Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?’” (John 14:9).
The disciples had been with Jesus for three years. They’d seen miracles – dead men came back to life, the sick were healed, and water was turned to wine. These were but a few of the hundreds of miracles they saw Jesus perform. However, even after these experiences, they lacked one important thing – intimacy with Jesus. They didn’t really know Jesus.
This must have been a great disappointment to Jesus. He’d invested so much into developing a close and intimate relationship with the twelve. Consider that they spent three years with their Master. They learned about Him during those years. However, they had knowledge without intimacy. They experienced God‘s power individually and He even performed miracles through their own lives. Sometimes it is easier to do the work of God without the intimacy with God.
A friend once commented about the current condition of much of the mainline churches today: “You’d think the trinity was the Father, Son and Holy Scriptures versus the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There’s never been a better description of the Church today.
But, alas, this is a challenge to my own walk with God. It is easy for me to fall into this trap of working so hard for Jesus that I forget to work with Jesus. Jesus desires intimacy more than works. He tells us in John 15:5: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” Whatever works we do must be a fruit of our intimacy with Him.
Lord, help us not to just know about you. We desire to know you.
Related articles
- New Bible Versions REMOVE ‘Father’ and ‘Son Of God’ Because It Offends Muslims (atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com)
- Statement on “Son of God” Translation (wycliffeusa.wordpress.com)
- The Holy Spirit (God’s reprover) that deals with the negative side of life (ptl2010.com)
- The Grace of God defined in the Holy Scriptures (ptl2010.com)
- Father, Son and Holy Scriptures? (wdednh.wordpress.com)
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Reblogged this on PUMABydesign001's Blog.
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After reading this beatufiul and instructive post, I can see why you “liked” my post on waiting for, and walking into, a place of quiet. It is only there that we can truly walk WITH Jesus! So glad you dropped in at ChristianBlessings, where I just posted my second contributing author post at the invitation of ptl2010.com. I pray you will find time to drop in at my own blog, http://granbee.wordpress.com, where my journey critterfolk seek a constant walk into the fuller and fuller Light told to them by the Babe’s eyes in that stable.
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We can consider our walk with Christ like viewing our surroundings from different height levels. I can walk out of my home and look at my neighborhood from my front lawn and get one perspective. If I climb on my roof and look at my same neighborhood from a higher view … suddenly things look different; I see and understand more about what I’m so familiar with. I imagine seeing the same neighborhood from the height of maybe being in an airplane … wow! what a view! what a different perspective. Our walk with Christ is the same … our spiritual growth gives us greater understanding the “higher” we get in Him …
We have to “get off the ground” in our spiritual walk …
Don’t know if that makes sense as the thought seems to get lost in the writing … Have a great weekend!
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