The facts of God's heart must become the faith of ours. Or rather, His "I AM" must become our "You are."
"I am the Lord...Thou art my Lord" (Exodus 6:2; Psalm 16:2).
Salvation establishes the objective reality of God as our subjective reality. Growing relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit accomplishes the same purpose. Truths that have been eternally true about our Lord become truths that meet us where we are along the pathway of our personal history and experience. We appropriate the Actual, as it were, discovering in practical and living reality the wonder of the God in whom we "live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit" (Galatians 5:25).
The role of born again believers in such appropriation is the faith whereby we open the eyes of our heart to reality. Indeed, we do not bring God into our life and experience when we trust Him and submit ourselves to Him. He has always been there, but we have been blind and asleep to the blessed reality. Therefore, our Lord rather brings us into the truth of our life and experience when we believe His Word. As Jacob mourned when realizing his failure to see at Bethel, so must we also too often confess, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not!" (Genesis 28:16).
The Lord is in "this place" of our lives. He is the "I AM" of it, whatever its circumstance, situation, condition, blessing, or challenge. Our appropriation of such Actuality awaits only the heartfelt and determined affirmation, "You are!" We may not perceive such blessed reality with our senses, and our understanding may fall short of comprehending what our Heavenly Father is doing, and how He is doing it. In our hearts, however, we can believe, as led and enabled by the Holy Spirit who forever bears witness to the glory in which we eternally exist. Yes, God is. He declares unto us, "I AM." We respond, "You are." This is the blessed reality of grace through faith whereby creatures of time and space realize Heavenly realities long before we gaze upon streets of gold and gates of pearl.
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
(Hebrews 11:1)
"I am the Lord...Thou art my Lord" (Exodus 6:2; Psalm 16:2).
Salvation establishes the objective reality of God as our subjective reality. Growing relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit accomplishes the same purpose. Truths that have been eternally true about our Lord become truths that meet us where we are along the pathway of our personal history and experience. We appropriate the Actual, as it were, discovering in practical and living reality the wonder of the God in whom we "live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit" (Galatians 5:25).
The role of born again believers in such appropriation is the faith whereby we open the eyes of our heart to reality. Indeed, we do not bring God into our life and experience when we trust Him and submit ourselves to Him. He has always been there, but we have been blind and asleep to the blessed reality. Therefore, our Lord rather brings us into the truth of our life and experience when we believe His Word. As Jacob mourned when realizing his failure to see at Bethel, so must we also too often confess, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not!" (Genesis 28:16).
The Lord is in "this place" of our lives. He is the "I AM" of it, whatever its circumstance, situation, condition, blessing, or challenge. Our appropriation of such Actuality awaits only the heartfelt and determined affirmation, "You are!" We may not perceive such blessed reality with our senses, and our understanding may fall short of comprehending what our Heavenly Father is doing, and how He is doing it. In our hearts, however, we can believe, as led and enabled by the Holy Spirit who forever bears witness to the glory in which we eternally exist. Yes, God is. He declares unto us, "I AM." We respond, "You are." This is the blessed reality of grace through faith whereby creatures of time and space realize Heavenly realities long before we gaze upon streets of gold and gates of pearl.
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
(Hebrews 11:1)
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