Photo by Christian Buehner on Unsplash
This isn’t my story of a Close Personal Relationship with Jesus, but some encounters are mentioned to help you along the way.
I was dedicated to God before I was born. It is a story within itself, but this isn’t the place to share it.
My mother kept her promise, making sure I was in and around the church and that the doors were open to everything. My father was involved, but my mom was the driving force.
God called me into ministry when I was twelve years old and spoke to me while I was at home from college to pursue a different path (I was studying accounting).
I obeyed, got married, and attended Bible College.
I was selected as the assistant pastor of the campus church and, within a year, promoted to senior pastor (I was 27 years old).
I was in a flourishing church, in denominational leadership, and traveling abroad, holding conferences and crusades, when my wife informed me that she was taking our two daughters and leaving.
It rocked my religious world.
I took a sabbatical and never went back.
I realized I had some serious decisions to make. I could raise a clenched fist toward heaven and curse God, or I could fall on my face and cry out to the Lord I had dedicated my life to following.
I chose the latter, which is how a close personal relationship with Jesus began.
I know the Apostle Paul (who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament) was never married, but he understood my peril.
In his letter to the Christ-followers in Phillip, he says this:
“Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant – dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ
and be embraced by him. I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ – God’s righteousness.
I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself.”
Philippians 3:8-10 The Message
The things I once thought were so important
It took a tragedy for me to realize that I had religion or ritual for God but not a relationship with him.
I was very disciplined to read the Bible daily.
I memorized scriptures—even chapters.
I prayed for at least an hour every morning.
In my mind, I had a relationship with God because I religiously did these things every day.
When I preached, I followed the prompting of the Holy Spirit over my prepared sermons.
I remember sharing my routine with one of my parishioners and being angered by their “well, that’s religious” response.
I thought, how dare you say that?
It was important to me to do these things because it meant I was close to God. It was not until I allowed God, the Holy Spirit, to touch my heart (the inner core of my being) that I realized the discipline of reading, praying, and listening for God’s voice is important but is only the door into the temple (the outer court at that).
I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally
The disciplines help me experience God’s presence, voice, and guidance, but a close personal relationship is what happens next.
I tell a story about an Old Testament man named Enoch. For three hundred years (God made humanity to live forever) he walked with God until one day he stayed with God.
“Enoch walked steadily with God. And then one day he was simply gone: God took him.”
Genesis 5:24 The Message
I am using thirty years since it is difficult to wrap our minds around three hundred years.
For thirty years, Enoch dedicated his life to getting close to God. It is important to have a close personal relationship with him.
It doesn’t happen instantly. The daily disciplines of reading, praying, and listening begin to work in your life as you daily wait for God to speak with you.
Postmodern humanity is impatient, and it is almost lost in postmodern Western humanity, but patience is the next step to finding a close personal relationship with Jesus.
A point of understand
I believe in the triune God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Each is entirely God, and each has an identity in the scriptures.
The Old Testament shows God the Father and God the Holy Spirit with references to God the Son.
The New Testament shows God the Son and God the Holy Spirit with references to God the Father.
Jesus is God the Son.
In my journey to a close personal relationship with God, I have been privileged to experience God encounters where I know (it isn’t a natural intellectual knowledge, but a spiritual knowledge) that it is the presence of the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.
This is why I call it a close personal relationship with the Godhead. I do not know if everyone will have such an encounter, and what is essential is getting close to him.
Why must you have a close personal relationship with Jesus?
I will explain that next time.
A close personal relationship with the Godhead provides you a living hope. It is a living anticipation full of expectation of something good happening.
A close personal relationship with the Godhead is a journey. I invite you to follow along. As I learn, I will pass it along so you, too, can learn. I hope that as you learn, you can pass it along so that I (and others) might learn.
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