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What Is Christianity?
John Wesley found his favorite definition of
Christianity in the title of a book written in the 16th
century by Henry Scougal, a Scotsman: The Life of God in
the Soul of Man. That's it! Possessing the life of God
in your soul—and that can only come through Jesus Christ.
E. M. Bounds
No erudition, no purity of diction, no width of mental
outlook, no flowers of eloquence, no grace of person can
atone for lack of fire. Prayer ascends by fire. Flame gives
prayer access as well as wings, acceptance as well as
energy. There is no incense without fire; no prayer without
flame.
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Charles Kingsley
Make a rule—and pray God to help you to keep it—never, if
possible, to lie down at night without being able to say, "I
have made one human being, at least, a little wiser, a
little happier, or a little better this day."
Dr. A. T. Pierson
From the day of Pentecost, there has been not one great
spiritual awakening in any land which has not begun in a
union of prayer—though only among two or three. No such
outward, upward, movement has continued after such prayer
meetings declined.
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John Climacus
We know the utility [value] of prayer from the efforts of
the wicked spirits to distract us during the divine office;
and we experience the fruit of prayer in the defeat of our
enemies
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About 1977, I was fasting for long periods and praying about
3 hours a day. In the beginning I found it very difficult to pray for any length
of time. My mind wandered everywhere, and after about
15 minutes of kneeling my entire body ached. I don't know if it was a spiritual battle
or a flesh battle, but it was definitely a battle. To help myself, I recorded 90 minutes of Jimmy Swaggart's
praise and worship songs on a 90-minute cassette tape—45
minutes on each side. I would then force my body to stay
kneeling until at least one side of the tape had finished.
It wasn't long before I recognized all the songs near the end of
the tape, especially the last one.
During this time, I had one particular prayer that I
repeated every day for many
weeks—"Father, please show me what it means for You to be
God"—not tell me, show me.
It was Tozer, I believe who said there was a prayer that
should precede all prayers: "May the You to Whom I pray be
the true You, and may the I who prays to You be the true
me." And I wanted to know what it meant for my Father to be
God, that I might pray to Him properly.
One morning I started my cassette tape, knelt down, and
after a time of praise and worship, said, "Father, please
show me what it means for You to be God," and immediately
a holy presence manifested at my right side. I could not
see Him, but I could feel Him—actually, I was
afraid to look up lest I should see Him.
At the same time, a pressure at the back of my shoulders
pushed my upper body down between my knees. The position I was very uncomfortable, and
twice I tried to push myself into an upright position, but
each time the pressure on my back shoved me back down again.
Then what happened next is difficult to explain so that it
means to you what it perhaps should.
I felt holiness radiating
from the presence at my right side. There were no
sounds, no words, just this terrible holiness radiating from
that presence—and over the years I have become certain that
it was an infinitesimal amount of God's total holiness, an
amount so small that it could not have been measured by any
human means.
That felt holiness drove me into an agony greater than
anything I had ever known, and I tried to dig myself deeper
into the hardwood floor, away from the awful presence of
that holy being. Then sins began to roll through my mind,
creating even greater agony.
Now here is the strange thing.
The sins were not mine, and they were not the moral
things that we all consider grievous sins. They were things
that the very vast majority of us never consider to be sins:
irreverence and disrespect toward
God. Acting toward Him, and coming before Him, in
ways that we would never act toward or come before even
human dignitaries. Sins of
irreverence and disrespect that we individually and
collectively commit every day.
The holiness continued to radiate from the being at my
right side, the sins continued to roll through my mind, and
I continued to agonize and cry and beg God's forgiveness,
saying over and over "We don't understand, we don't
understand." Then as abruptly as that holy presence came, He
left. The pressure lifted from me, I pushed myself upright,
and my cassette tape clicked off. I was exhausted, and could
hardly do anything the rest of the day.
Over the months, I came to a few conclusions:
- I prayed, "Father, please show me what it means for
you to be God," and He showed me not love, as many might
say he would, but holiness—that's what it means for Him
to be God.
- Sins of irreverence and disrespect are as offensive
to God as moral sins—perhaps even more offensive, for
they are sins directly against Him.
- In every true revival of the past, sinners were
convicted of their sins by a measure of God's holiness
being revealed to them—that's why they were in such
agony over their sins.
- Without the righteousness of Jesus Christ no human
being can enter into the awful presence of God's
holiness—it would be more painful than hell.
- God is indeed "a consuming fire"—of holiness.
Here is another strange thing.
I always had trouble with all the killings and plagues in
the Old Testament, could not understand how God could do
such things. About a month after this revelation of what it
means for my heavenly Father to be God, I was reading the
Old Testament and suddenly realized I no longer had any
problem with what God did. God was God and that ended it
forever. I don't understand how this change came about, but
it did.
See you at the house!
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