What's Wrong With This Picture?

What’s wrong with This Picture?

One of the most amazing things about the way we were created, is how sensitive we are to the world around us. For instance, we have the ability to see a single photon! The eye is so sensitive it requires a neural filter, so we do not get over loaded by all the input our eyes are able to detect. We can feel ridges through our fingertips as small as 13 nanometers, it is said that if our fingertips were as large as the earth, they could detect the difference between a house and a car. We can recognize over one trillion smells, and in our ears, sense the differences in atmospheric pressure as small as one billionth of one atmosphere. This is all pretty amazing when you think about it, but what is more amazing, is that the God who created us with such sensitivity, could come to dwell in us bodily, as through His Spirit, and most appear completely unaffected! The truth is, most who attend church and call themselves Christians, live a spiritual life that is completely subjective, in other words, they really aren’t sure of anything at all, and to them, that is what faith is for.

In Scripture, the sending of the Holy Spirit was meant to remove the subjectivity from the Christian life. It is completely illogical for Jesus to say that He sent Him so we would not be left alone as orphans, so as to comfort and direct our lives, and then us be left to wonder if He is really with us at all. Most will not define their experience that way, but it is obvious, Christ has little effect on most who say they know Him. Is it possible that we could be so sensitive to everything else, and yet so insensitive to the indwelling and presence of our creator? The question we need to ask is not, is what I see in most who say they know Christ today normal, but rather, is it possible that the very God of heaven could invade my life and Him actually have so little effect? You see in the Old Testament God shouted from the mountain, in the Gospels He spoke from the lips of Jesus, and now He reveals Himself as boldly in our inner man, as His Spirit comes to bear witness with ours. The power of God to reveal Himself on the mountain is actually meant to be no less tame, now in the spirit of man. The problem with most is very simple, they have yet to be born again, and they have yet to experience the presence of God! The presence of God in us was meant to be a transforming, transfiguring event, not a subtle ripple through our conscience. In the New Testament, the filling with the Spirit was a life shattering moment! The New Testament gives us a picture of what a genuine encounter with Christ produces, something far different from the counterfeit most have come to accept. Satan would have you to believe that His presence, is not really “His presence,” the same way he did when he said, “you will not surely die!”  

Everyone who says they know Christ needs to ask themselves a couple sobering questions. First should be, is what I see in Scripture the exception or the rule, for all those who encounter the living God? And secondly, is it logical or even possible, for the God who created me so sensitive to everything else, to live within me, and me be affected so little? If we say we have been saved, and we are not at the same time overwhelmed continually by His presence, we are lying to ourselves, for such is the true nature of being born again!  

Rev. Joel M McDuffie Jr.

2/13/2017