When God Breaks Through

"I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth" (Jeremiah 1:8-9)

Pascal wrote on a piece of paper a brief account of his experience, folded the paper and kept it in a pocket close to his heart, apparently as a reminder of what he had felt. Those who attended him at his death found the worn, creased paper. In Pascal's own hand it read:

"From about half-past ten at night to about half-after midnight - fire! O God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob - not the God of the philosophers and the wise. The God of Jesus Christ who can be known only in the ways of the gospel. Security - feeling - peace - joy - tears of joy. Amen"

Were these the expressions of a fanatic, an extremist? No. Pascal's mind was one of the greatest. But the living God had broken through and beyond all that was human and intellectual and philosophical. The astonished Pascal could only describe in one word the visitation in his spirit: "FIRE!"

What we need among us is a genuine visitation of the Spirit.

Nothing can prevent the spiritual rejuvenation of the soul that insists upon having it.

~A. W. Tozer~

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The Being and the Seeing

"They shall know that I am the Lord their God ... that I may dwell among them: I am the Lord their God" (Exodus 29:46)

Adam sinned and, in his panic, frantically tried to do the impossible; he tried to hide from the presence of God. David also must have had wild thoughts of trying to escape from the Presence, for he wrote, "Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?" (Psalm 139:7).

Then he proceeded through one of his most beautiful psalms to celebrate the glory of the divine immanence. "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me" (139:8-10).

And he knew that God's being and God's seeing are the same, that the seeing Presence had been with him even before he was born, watching the mystery of unfolding life.

At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His presence.

~A. W. Tozer~