I AM dreaming. An old friend is beside me. “Why do I not get on?” I ask; “I am at a stand-still.”
“You do not read God’s Word enough,” he replies. “Take it up many times a day—read a verse or two if there is no time for more.”
Then I awoke. This set me pondering. We do not get on nowadays as we should. Can it be that my dream was true, and that we give too little attention to reading God’s Word?
When Samuel was young, he had a dream or vision. Several times God called him, with the ultimate result that He made known to him, young as he was, what He was about to do. Then it says: “The Lord revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the Word of the Lord” (1 Sam. 3).
With Timothy it was much the same; faith and salvation had come to him through the Holy Scriptures (2 Tim. 1:5, 3:14, 15). And it was to him that the aged Paul wrote, “Give attendance to reading,” as if, even though he had grown somewhat older and was publicly serving God, there was a danger of this being neglected.
There was nothing mystical in this. God does make Himself known to us by His Word.
Many years ago a few young people, who were alike desiring a greater knowledge of divine things, used to meet together. They especially wanted to know what communion with God meant, and they imagined that it was very mysterious and extra-spiritual. They thought “I will manifest Myself to him” (John 14:2121He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. (John 14:21)) would be almost a visible appearance, instead of the presence of Christ known to us by the Holy Ghost.
Now their earnest desires were quite right, and God does and did satisfy the longing soul, but they were in danger of being led astray by their imaginations. God is still to be known to us in His Word as He was to Samuel, only much more so because the Holy Spirit is here to turn our hearts to Christ. An old servant of God was the means of helping these young people. He said that many Christians often wished to have counion with God and thought it impossible, and too high to attain to. “It is a very simple thing,” he said. “Communion with God is about Christ. It is hearing Him speak to us by His Word and replying to Him. God looks down and He says to you: ‘This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’ You can reply: ‘Thank God, He is the beloved Son, He pleases me too.’ That is communion.”
“God is satisfied with Jesus,
I am satisfied as well.”
Perhaps if we read the Bible more and prayed more, we should not have so much need to complain of not getting on. “Prayer and fasting” (fasting is the contrary to indulging the flesh but not only as regards food) are often forgotten by us, and so we are not instruments in God’s hand as we might be; while if we would have a dependable weapon in our own hands it must be “the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” S. R. H.