Meaningful Encounter
by Cathy Vinson |
|
How
profoundly does God want to touch us? How great is His desire to be made real in our
midst? Just how relational does He want to be?
"Someone there. It was this that filled with abiding wonder the first members of the
Church of Christ. The solemn delight those early disciples knew sprang straight from the
conviction that there was One in the midst of them. They knew that the Majesty in the
heavens was confronting them on earth: They were in the very presence of God."
(AWTozer from THE DIVINE CONQUEST)
How are we treating this God in our midst? He is. He waits for ministry into the now,
ministry that moves into an encounter.
For example, He wants to meaningfully touch the freshly divorced. "Deep calls unto
deep." Wherever that point of entry for Jesus can be, there will be healing. He is
all relevance. Let us not count Him less.
I Thess 1:5: "Our Gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with
the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction." God does not merely desire an exchange of
words. He wants a demonstration that "deeply convicts" or "fully
assures." (Plerophoria=pleros-full + phero-to carry, full-carrying, entire
confidence, full assurance.) Like an evergreen branch drooping with snow, every word can
desirably be laden with conviction and relevance.
What occurs when this happens? We are meaningfully encountered: transformation.
"Water may change from liquid to vapor, from vapor to snow, and back to liquid again,
and still be fundamentally the same...surface changes leave him exactly what he was
before...The changes are in form only; they are not in kind" (AWT). What we are after
is new creation (2 Cor 5:17). (Kainos=new, unaccustomed, unused, "not new in time or
recent, BUT new as to form or quality, of different nature...")
To know possible transformation has always been there can be painful, because we have
waged efforts and are still getting away only with words and surface changes. Let us not
deny our longing for MORE, our yearning to touch and be touched meaningfully. Let us
uncover the hunger.
"Before we can be filled with the Holy Spirit, the desire to be filled must be
all-consuming." Let such longing become our compass point, directing us. |
