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Monday, March 23, 2015

"We Would See Jesus" by Roy Hession, part 1

He is our peace; He is our power; He is our victory; He is our revival. There is nothing beyond Him.

We Would See Jesus by Roy Hession
The book and companion study guide are full of everyday useful tools. Scripture backs all of the instruction.
   First we need to see God and His purpose for life. Then we see God in the face of Jesus Christ. Next we learn that Jesus Christ is all we need. The following chapters allow us to see Jesus as the Truth, the Door, the Way, and the End. The following are just a few random quotes from the book or study guide.
   “Two emphases stand out today…First of all, instead of stressing holiness in order to see God, the emphasis is on service for God…There tends to be today an emphasis on the seeking of inner spiritual experiences…not as much from a hunger for God as from a longing to have an inner experience of happiness, joy and power, and we find ourselves looking for ‘it’ rather than God Himself…Both these ends fall utterly short of the great end that God has designed for man, that of glorifying Him and enjoying Him forever. They fail to satisfy God’s heart and they fail to satisfy ours…the purpose of life: to see God, and to allow Him to bring us back to the old relationship of submission to Himself…that to see God and be in living relationship with Him is the supreme goal of life is not to insist on anything strange or unnatural. It is the very purpose for which we were created…In what ways are you trying to use a formula to make the Christian life ‘work’?
   “All we need to know of the Father has been revealed in the Lord Jesus with such simplicity that a child can understand…perhaps with such simplicity that unless we become as little children we will not understand, for so often it is our intellect that gets in the way…for, seeing Him, we see all, and every need of our hearts is met…
   “it is not merely that He supplies our need, but He becomes Himself the fulfillment of our need. He is ever ‘I am that which My people need.’ Oh, the grace of it…
   “…our first and basic need? It is to know the truth-about ourselves and about God…our first step is to be willing to see the whole truth about ourselves and the God with whom we have to do, as it is revealed in Jesus Christ…He Himself is the truth. Therefore, truly to see Him is to see the truth. If we are asked, Where do we see Jesus as the truth, we reply, Supremely on the cross of Calvary. There in Him we see the whole naked truth about sin, man, and the God with whom each of us has to do. The very scene that reveals the richest and sweetest grace of God towards man also reveals the starkest truth as to what man is. If grace flows from Calvary, so does truth, for both ‘grace and truth come by Jesus Christ’ (John 1:17)…
   “…The Bible tells us that it is sin, and only sin, that separates man and God (Isa. 59:2). By ‘sin’ it means the attitude of self-centeredness and independence of God which is common to us all, and the many acts of transgression which have issued from that attitude…sin always builds a wall between us and God…However, even when a Christian identifies the sins that have separated him from God, he often occupies himself with the problem of how not to sin again rather than with getting back to God and to peace… It is just here that we flounder for lack of knowing how to get back; how to get through the many barriers that sin has brought…Truly our need, then, is to see a way through the wall.  This is the point at which the Lord Jesus meets us again…He Himself is the Door. (John 10:9)…Jesus stands immediately available to us as our Door, open on street level, and we could so quickly enter in if we were willing to bow our heads at His cross…(The author gives quite an explanation of the location of the door; it is always open and how to get in.)

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