Can you endure some ramblings?
So someone says to me this week, “Oh, I believe God can do the miraculous. But we don’t need the gifts.” I think cessationists do a great injustice to the gospel. We serve a living God, not a heavenly computer. The guy who said that believes that we don’t need miraculous gifts because we have the bible now, and it has all we need. The gifts had their time. Now they’re done because we have the bible. I remember John Wimber saying that the bible is the menu, not the meal.
This menu tells us what God is like, how he moves in history, and what he requires of us. It opens us up the movings of the Spirit, and introduces us to a God who works for those who wait for him. This is why I have always loved this picture.
It looks like Jesus is there serving/providing for, the people. Got the truth from the bible. The image is nice because it gives me a visual to contemplate. But all that is worthless without meeting with him, experiencing him, waiting for him (as Isaiah text above indicates) and trusting him to work for me. My friend might still agree with me to this point. It’s just that I have found that when I wait on him, he brings miraculous entrees to the table from time to time. If I don’t wait, but get up from the table and don’t anticipate what he may be bringing, I don’t get to participate.
I’ve been thinking about this kind of stuff a lot, because of what my friend said, and also because another guy sent me an email about possibly visiting our church. I’m not sure he will ever come, but I wondered about his experience with Jesus. From what I could tell, he’s trying to connect with God without giving up some of God’s restrictions.
Hmmmm. The truth be told, God lets all of us experience him without giving up some of God’s restrictions in our lives. We’re sinners. We sin. And we’re never perfect, yet he allows us to experience him, profoundly sometimes.
If you’re someone who sits at the table and experiences what Jesus has for you, are you always COMPLETELY CLEAN when you sit there? Doesn’t he touch you first? Then it’s the joy of that touch that motivates us to pursue purity and holiness. We want more of his touches, more of his intimacy.
St Bernard of Clairvaux elaborated on the Song of Solomon’s description of the kiss of a lover, and compared that kiss with an intimate kiss with Jesus. “Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth,” she said. So SB talked about kissing Jesus’ feet (which pictured genuine conversion), his hand (pictured making progress), and the kiss of his mouth (which very few ever experience).
Don’t you want the most he has for you? Don’t you want that kind of intimacy?
Told you I was rambling.
Catch a Wave 
