Experiencing God

Reports from each of the small groups studying Experiencing God this summer have all been great. Each team has either six or seven members and, from what I have gathered, the members of each team are not only gaining a greater understanding of God, but are growing closer to one another at the same time.

That's the way it is supposed to work. When God's people get closer to Him, they naturally grow closer to one another. When we seem to be drawing farther from each other, that is evidence that we are not growing in Christ and have drifted farther from the Father.

Holiness in individuals brings wholesomeness in the church.

In a sermon that I recently listened to, David Platt, Pastor of Brook Hills Church in Birmingham, AL, said, "God is more interested in the sanctity of His people than He is in the success of His church."

In 1 Cor. 2.9, Paul quotes from Isaiah 64.4, "Since the beginning of the world men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen any God besides You, Who acts for the one who waits for Him."

Many people have applied this verse to the future when all of the people of God are gathered together in His presence in Eternity. But I believe the verse speaks of a more contemporary time, because Paul goes on to say in 1 Cor. 2.10, "But God has revealed these things to us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God."

The Spirit knows the deepest thoughts of God, and we are the recipients of those thoughts. By the Holy Spirit, we have been given a look into the mind of God concerning salvation and the grace of God that no other people have ever had before the time of Christ – including the prophets who wrote foretelling the coming of Christ.

The world cannot conceive of such knowledge because it can only come from knowing Christ and being filled with the Holy Spirit. (1 Cor. 2:14) Earlier in the New Testament, the Apostle John wrote, "Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God." (John 8:47)

However, things are very different for those who know Christ as Savior. In a later verse in 1 Cor. 1, Paul wrote, "We have the mind of Christ." (1 Cor. 10:16)

There is a joy that accompanies such knowledge, but these verses are about more than just joy and happiness. There is a certainty that God does talk to His people and that He is constantly teaching us more and more about who He is through His word and through our walk with Him – through our daily experiences of seeing Him at work in our lives as well as in the affairs of the world.

This is the theme of Experiencing God. We are called to know Him and to experience Him and to glory in HIm as our Lord. Henry Blackaby has pointed out that the Bible is a God-centered book and the message is a God-centered message.

The Bible is not the story of the progress of man from his deadly state of sin to eternal life, but it is the story of God working out His purposes among men and through men. Throughout Scripture, it is God who takes the initiative in all of the affairs of men.

There is so much to be learned in this study that I pray you are taking it seriously and spending the time required to comprehend what is meant by experiencing God.