Sunday 23 November 2008

In the presence of awesome majesty

Following is a paragraph from this initial draft of my Abbadie paper, which I hope you will find stimulating and refreshing. Hope you know God's blessing as you preach tomorrow, and that your time together is really blessed with God's special presence.

http://cache.smashwire.com/bookCovers/b3e835a17350c2d17891ac7fcb83c50cac030cfb

Here it is:


I must ask you, and myself, “When did I last truly acknowledge God and His wisdom when I reflected upon what I know about Him? When was my heart last moved to worship and praise when I thought about the little I already know about Him? When was my proud heart last slain by my tiny knowledge of God?"

I’m not going to answer these questions audibly, and neither are you; but what I am doing, and I hope you are going to do, is answering them silently as we stand before this awesome God. But answer them we must if ever God’s church is to re-discover that relationship with God, which is, ironically, proof that we believe that He exists. He’s there, but we know that if we come too close to Him, He will mess with our lives! He will search us, and show us what we really are like – and we couldn’t stand that! We have never really been intimate with God, and so used are we to this lukewarm relationship with Him that we imagine this is normal! And if this is normal, then there is no need to get closer to Him – that’s to be too extreme. So we all walk at a safe distance away from this “consuming fire,” and fool ourselves into thinking that we are doing pretty well.

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