Imagine that you are in the same room with God and you desire to ask Him questions and converse with Him because you really want to know Him. But for some reason you are afraid to talk to Him because this is God Almighty, the same God that was revealed in the Old Testament to kill whole groups of people and to even deal with His own people in a wrathful and angry way. Yes, you are afraid of this God so you will not take a chance to talk to Him and then you do something kind of crazy. You get up and leave the room and you begin a quest to find people who say they know God or at least they have heard about Him and you talk to these people instead of talking to God Himself.
I have had some incredible experiences with the Lord over the years. Time and time again God has revealed Himself to me as the Father whom Jesus spoke about and revealed to all who would listen. I have known God to be incredibly loving and kind and at times this revelation has led me into wonderful worship experiences. But, there have been times when I have left the room, and because of this I either started to look for a way to still know about God or I just remained absent from His presence.
Recently during a time of prayer, I want to say conversation, with God I heard Him speak to my heart. I was expressing some frustration in my relationship with Him and He spoke to me with some instructions. I could tell, or better yet, feel His heart of compassion and He told me to filter everything that I hear or think I know about Him through the revelation of Him given by Jesus in the story of the prodigal Father. You can find this story in Luke 15 in the Bible. We use the word prodigal to describe the fact that the son had left and was lost to the Father but even before this the Father was prodigal to the son because the son was not experiencing the love, compassion, and grace of the Father.
I began to do this right away; I filtered everything about God through this revelation of the Father. Later that same morning I had a scheduled meeting with some friends and during the conversation I began to share what God spoke to my heart earlier that morning. All of these men were what you would call mature believers and they had functioned as pastors for years yet I could sense the relevancy of this word and one of them asked me if this was prophetic. Because it was so fresh to me I told him I wasn’t sure but I thought it might be a prophetic word for the body of Christ. Now I am sure.
Since that time I have recognized sin in my life. This all happened recently yet I still struggle with sin and if you are real with yourself, so do you. But an interesting thing is happening also, instead of leaving the room where God is I am learning to stay there; and if I recognize that I have left, I return immediately. I believe guilt and shame related to sin are the reasons why we tend to refuse to approach God. These two things cause a fear that is not godly because this fear does not move us to know God but to flee from Him. Adam and Eve experienced this fear and they ran away and it causes us to do the same thing.
This morning I had another experience with the Lord in prayer and He reminded me that His love for me had not changed. It had not changed since when He spoke to me about the prodigal Father, and it had not changed even before that but I had forgotten. How soon we forget the extravagant depth of His love. God spoke to me about how He is love and He can’t stop loving.
Recently I came across an article about the prodigal Father and in it the writer wrote:
“About seven hundred years ago, a German mystic by the name of Meister Eckhart, once said, “Nobody at anytime is cut off from God.” And then he also said, “It is just impossible to lose God.” But somehow, sometime, somewhere in life, we have forgotten this. We have placed limits on the love of God. We often think and feel that if we do certain things we can win God’s love, and if we do some things, we can lose that love, that we will be cut off from him. But God’s love is always there for us, says Meister Eckhart. We cannot buy his love, and we do not have to win God’s love by what we do and accomplish. This does not mean we do what we simply want to do, or do nothing in the face of evil and injustice. But it is one thing to do good things because we have been possessed by God, and another to attempt to buy God’s love. Look at the story. The father forgave and loved his prodigal son even before the son asked his father’s forgiveness. The love and forgiveness were always there. The prodigal father did not ask his son to apologize or to prove himself again trustworthy so as to earn his father’s love. No, the father’s love was simply a given. Love was a constant, abiding, and unchangeable reality. And so is God’s love.”
We can remain in the room with God, “Nobody at anytime is cut off from God”. If we listen closely we can hear God asking the same question He asked of Adam and Eve, “where are you”?
Attempts to know God without coming to Him cause us to be very judgmental. We think we know God but we really do not, we just know about Him. God has given us the Bible to help us come to know Him. But after years of reading and study let me share with you something I think can happen if we read the Bible like a text book. We may gather information about God which will lead us to try and get more information from others but we do not experience His heart and love. I suggest we read the Bible as the love book that it is. Join me as I filter my reading of the Word through the revelation of the Father heart of God revealed in Luke 15. Jesus said, “If you see Me you have seen the Father”. Do you see Him? Are you recognizing that Jesus is the Great Filter and that it is really impossible to really know God without Him?
“Come unto Me all of you who are burdened and heavy laddened and I will give you rest”. Instead of running away let us come. Allow the Holy Spirit to open your eyes to the love of God. Talk with Him and about Him from firsthand experience. This is the heart of God for you.
