You Can Touch Him - Bola Olu-Jordan
Precious Calvary greetings in Jesus’ name.
We rejoice and we are so blessed for this twelfth year anniversary edition of CryOut magazine. In planning and praying for this edition, God makes the salient truth known to us again, that our efficiency, without His sufficiency, is only deficiency. Except the Lord builds the house, the labourers are building in vain. Except the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen are watching in vain. Only God can do His own work His own way. But we rarely allow Him to. We are consumed by zeal to work for Him without working according to His pattern. The theme of this edition centres on serving God by what we feel, see, touch and do. The sense of work, the activities of the labourers, the presence of armed watchmen, and the thought of being busy for the Lord always provide a form of religious satisfaction and fulfilment of serving God in us. But serving God is really touching Him in Spirit and not necessarily through any human or physical object. The former is faith while the latter is religion. Like Israel, we want to serve and worship the God we can see, touch or hold. But that must only be done in spirit, by faith. That is what differentiates sons from slaves. God is Spirit and we must touch Him in Spirit. Our worship and service must be in Spirit and in truth, not in emotions and feelings. Even though we do not see Him, we still can touch Him in our hearts. When a child matures, he no longer needs diapers or a uniformed maid to feed him or her. But its appalling that many of us still need titles and collars to tell us what to do and at “… the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.” (Heb 5:12-13) We have been too long under the control of uniformed maids, school masters, tutors and governors. We can relate with these people because we can see, touch, and hold them, but we cannot relate with our Father because we feel He is high up there and that we can’t touch Him. But He is with us and desires a relationship with us. We can actually touch Him, by faith. The time appointed by the Father is now (Gal 4:2-3). Let us leave the basic principles where we need to be guided to stand. Let us grow up to maturity in God through Jesus and walk with Him. God is Spirit, and without His Spirit, we cannot experience Him. Let us desire the Holy Spirit to initiate a personal relationship with God in Jesus so that we are no longer tied to the apron strings of school masters, whose ambition is to build religious empires for themselves. Our testimony must be that Christ is formed in us. This is a work of faith, not a religious activity. It is different from the miracles and breakthrough that the school masters dangle before us as carrots to bring us to themselves. When we are in the Spirit, we can touch Him and other things can follow. It’s night already, and our redemption is nearer than when we first believed. God is coming for disciples, not converts; sons and daughters, not toddlers. He is coming for childlike, but not childish believers who continually need milk, desire to be caressed and carried about by every wind of doctrine by hired housemaids. It is time to grow up to maturity. The inheritance of eternal life belongs to sons, not babes. God is maturing and bringing sons to glory. As the future heir of the Kingdom, we are no less than servants as long as we do not mature, even though we are the lord of all (Gal. 4:1). We pray and believe that you will be blessed by several articles in this edition. Different writers express God’s dealings and revelations in their hearts, but you are ultimately responsible to God. May you be edified; may your heart be renewed and may the fire of revival break forth in your heart to God. “Let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.” (1Thes 5:6). |
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