MEETING w i th
GOD/ by Vance Havner
w e n e e d a fresh
I h a v e no fancy name for it but the one thing needful is a brand-new experience of God among His people. I do not care what your favorite name for it may be. We have named it aplenty, but most of us have never known it. The filling of the Spirit, full surrender, consecration, the victorious life, perfect love, revival—whatever you call it—most of us don’t have it! Too much of our orthodoxy is correct and sound but it is like words without tune, statutes without songs. It does not stir the wells of the heart. It has lost its hallelu jah, it is too much like a catechism, not enough like a camp meeting. We may smile at our spiritual forbearers, call some of them primitive and antiquated, but they had a vividness and vitality, a fervor and fire, that makes us look like fireflies beside their flaming torches. We need a heart warming like Wesley knew that eve ning on Aldersgate Street;-We need to find what Fletcher reached when, after wearying all hours of the night seek ing peace, his eyes fell upon the verse of Scripture read ing, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord” (Ps. 55:22). We may have it in a motto on the wall but the Word hung up in the house is one thing and the Word hidden in the heart is another. I do- not mean that we are to copy their experiences. For one it may be as cyclonic and tempestuous as Finney’s
dramatic meeting with the Lord. For another it may be as serene as an autumn sunset, as with A. B. Earle when a sweet heavenly peace filled his soul, and a calm, child like trust took possession of his whole being. We may rise from our knees singing “Onward, Chris tian Soldiers” like a camp-meeting Methodist; or we may feel so subdued that we can only whisper “Abide With Me.” But—whatever form it takes—we all need a fresh meeting with God! For one it may mean nights of prayer, not because God is slow but because we are stubborn. It may mean tears of repentance, for our spiritual eye-sight is bad these days and we see better after our eyes are cleared by the salti ness of godly sorrow. It may mean giving up something that displeases God, or undertaking something that pleases God. But whatever may be necessary, one man with a glow ing experience of the Lord is worth a library full of arguments. We are God’s witnesses, not His lawyers, and we have been apologetic when we should be apostolic! People do not usually find God at the end of an argument. Simon Peter usually comes to Jesus because Andrew went after him with heavenly compassion and holy compulsion. Call it what you will, we need a brand-new meeting with God.
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21
JANUARY, 1961
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