Guilty

Saints,

I am guilty of relying on other men that spend time alone with God and making their experiences mine.

God bless Paul Washer, Carter Conlon and other sincere ministers of Christ, but I cannot survive on letting men such as these do the work.

It seems I have been content to listen to many messages of men who have known their God and then just sit back as if that were enough. I have been lazy, neglecting the prayer closet and the Word.

Maturity and growth will not come any other way but to do it for yourself.

We can use these men's teachings to spur us on in our faith, but God help us if we sit back and try to use other's revelations and experiences to sustain us.

It is like going on a long journey with a friend and only bringing food for him to eat. No matter how much he tells you about good it tastes or how satisfying it is to his hunger, it will do nothing for your survival.

Murray

I think that a lot of people can make that confession to some extent. Thanks for the post. I especially like the last two sentences.

God bless you, brother. There is no shortcut to maturity apart from spending time alone with God [i]yourself[/i] and reading and studying the WORD [i]yourself.[/i]

My experience would say AMEN to your post..

Blessings,
ginnyrose

neglecting the prayer closet and the Word.

Can well understand this Murray. I too have been guilty. Seems oxymoronic doesn't it ... To use your illustration, maybe it is one of digestion or more properly assimilation, chewing on things.

Quite a few years ago ran into an Orthodox believer at a 'secular' bookstore, struck up a conversation and later on went out to lunch to further converse. Something he said has stuck with me all these years, not very profound, but he also compared all these things to eating, daily. Think my concern at that time was I felt I was not really grasping all that I was consuming and to this day I still consume much, reading everything I can to the ultimate goal;

[i] And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.[/i] Joh 17:3

I just commented to an elderly and precious lady of the faith how appreciative and how my heart flies off to want to know and listen to everything any older saint in the Lord has to say. It is simply a matter of longevity, they know more because they have lived more and when that life has been lived with the Lord ... [i]Tell me! Tell me everything you know and have learned, tell me it all![/i] Is the cry of the heart. It is what we have here in most of these stored up treasures, for the better part these men are finished with this world, everything they have to say has been said, I want to know what they know about our God so that I might be able to do likewise ... somehow to feed others.

To go back to this 'stranger' I met, the emphasis he left me with is how much actually does get down into you, even unaware. It is nourishment, we don't analyze how we eat while we eat or how the process breaks down the food, we just ... eat.

Perhaps all this isn't to say anything in particular. I guess I have noticed that there is also a way of isolation that can have us forgoing other food ... groups? to carry on the analogy and we can become only concerned with self survival. It just can turn one out of the way from the truest sense of why we need this common fellowship. I am thinking of drift here primarily.

Still you are correct, we do have to do our own digesting. I don't know what I am really trying to say with all this brother. I have to hear from the Lord Himself and maybe it is just an encouragement that often we are absorbing far more than we know, it comes back into the hearing and the thoughts months and years down the road. That the Lord has spoken and continues to speak through all these various ways. It is almost ironic to be putting all this out here when of late it has been a time of doing just that which you speak of, more prayer and reading of the scriptures themselves, it had become out of balance, the processing out of whack.

Paradoxically, have read any of this tremendous post from pastorfrin [url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=20793&forum=34] LORD, TEACH US To Pray By ALEXANDER WHYTE [/url] ? I have yet to read through the whole of a separate sermon without stopping at some point to go and practice what is being preached, it is a priceless treasure of experience and thought on the greatest thing we can ever be doing.

Murray,

After reading all the other posts on this thread I do not know whether I can add a whole lot more...

I have been thinking a lot about your post since I read it earlier. It resonates in my heart because it reflects reality to the growing Christian.

One more point: I used to tell our pastor "You preachers sure have a knack for complicating the simplest Bible teachings." He agreed. You know, brother, when you read, study the WORD, knowing that this is written to ME, for MY benefit, that it is GOD'S word especially for me, it makes a huge difference in my comprehension.

Too many theologians' writings have a way of intimidating the average Believer. You get the feeling that unless you have a certain amount of education you will not be able to adequately understand the Scriptures. The only NT writer that would have qualified as being that well educated is Paul, and after the LORD got a hold of him he had to send him to the wilderness to reteach him a few things or so.

Consider the book of Revelation: how many people enjoy the book? Very few, I am afraid. Why? because they think they do not understand prophecy enough to know what the writer means: that it is all a riddle. And too many 'prophets'' writings have encourage this view so you will have to buy their book so you will understand it. Now we need others to bounce off from, but it should never result in us being intimidated, rather it should encourage us to dig deeper. If you do not understand something, file it in the corner of your brain because at some point the LORD will bring illumination to this vexing question.

Blessings to you in your adventure,
ginnyrose

Saints,

That is just it.

The question isn't were you challenged. The question is were you changed?

Oh how I have been challenged from the "revival hymn" to "modern american christianity" to "sinners in the hands of an angry God". These messages and others like them have left me in a puddle of tears many times. And still my flesh manages to rear it's ugly head again.

I am pretty sure my lack of inner reality in Christendom comes down to lack of prayer and intimacy with our heavenly Father.

Even when I was reading my bible often I would still give in to temptation. Reading the Word helps but if it is not coupled with true prayer time it is all for nothing.

I must get past my superficiality and selfishness in prayer or else I am afaid I will remain defeated.

Can anyone tell me how to die to self?

Murray