Look At Me

Apart from a couple of times, the Apostle Paul spoke very little of his blinding encounter with the Lord, but I do see him wanting to share the One who made it all possible.
Its very interesting, down through the centuries, God touches a person, and seemingly over night, a whole movement or eventually a denomination is birthed out of one persons experience.
Maybe as my friend says in this quote from his testimony, "I did not do this so you would have yet another experience… but to show you that I live in you and I am as close as your breath."

I really wonder no mater how real or powerful the experiences are that the Lord permits us to have, was it done so that we could look good, important, having some kind of newly discovered super status?

Let me share an experience I had recently, it is fall here in our neck of the woods, and winter is soon going to pay its long visit to us. We still have the old wooden/glass windows and I had to put on the storm windows in preparation for the colder weather coming.
Here's the deal, before putting the storm windows on, I had to clean not only those windows, but also the outside windows the storms were going on, why, so I could continue to see as clearly as possible through out the winter months. Funny thing, I rarely ever notice the storm windows at all, but I am still able to see clearly through them, the portal to the outside world.

This may not be the best analogy, but somehow I see Jesus being lost in the shuffle of the new experiences we have, being much more focused on it/them, then in Him, the one who simply brought to birth through much anguish, His divine order.

Its interesting how Paul said, when he came to the church, he preached Christ and Him crucified and nothing else! Maybe the experiences He allows us to have is to point out our great need to receive in a deeper ever expanding true knowing of what it means to be loved unconditionally.

Its funny but sad, how its possible to exchange continuing to grow in the grace and knowledge of His love, for ever deeper experiences. So many look upon those gifted ones, anointed ones and become so despondent, thinking, 'If only I too could have that happen to me,' while forgetting His words of truth, "And I will make you witnesses of Me!"

Rich

This is a small portion of my friends testimony.

Permit me now to share my personal experience in such a realization by revelation of Christ in me. I had a most wonderful and remarkable preparatory experience one day in 1975, which was from my Father, to once and for all time deliver me from seeking Him in outward experiences.

At this point in my Christian life I had been saved about 7 years and was a founding teaching elder in a church we and three other couple had founded. Yet, I still had a burning desire to know Him in a deeper way, at any cost.

One weekend I had been reading a little booklet someone had given me six years earlier, but I had not yet read it. It was called "A Simple Way to Touch the Lord". The premise was that if I wanted to touch the Lord in reality I could just call or breathe out His name – "Lord Jesus." The writer cited the many scripture references of the people of God who "called upon the name of the Lord." He said by example, if one wanted to have the presence of their mate elsewhere in the house, they could call, as I do my wife - "Linda". Well, this sounded too simple.

Nevertheless, it was the Monday following that weekend in which I had read the little booklet and I was driving on an overnight business trip from my home in Foxboro, Massachusetts to Connecticut. I recall that it was early morning with the sun rising as I drove past two lakes on either side of US Route 6 in Rhode Island, when I said to myself – "Well I’ve read this booklet long enough – let’s try it."
So then, alone but feeling conspicuous, I simply called upon His name – and breathed out the words from deep within "Lord Jesus."
I immediately sensed an almost liquid presence of the Lord welling up within me. The tears flowed as I pulled my car over to the side of the road. I recall then saying to myself in my head "I can’t wait to get back tomorrow night to tell my fellow elders of this new "experience" – BUT as I was speaking, I heard what seemed to be the audible voice of God speaking to me saying, "I did not do this so you would have yet another experience… but to show you that I live in you and I am as close as your breath."