Mysticism and how it Violates Scripture and Christian Growth

Mysticism is the attempt to directly experience God through various “spiritual” techniques. It attempts to do this apart from believing the truths of God. I can understand wanting to lay aside the attempt to understand God. It can be very frustrating. Sometimes, we yearn to just turn our mind off, find a safe refuge, and just experience the peace of God.

However, this is not the Scriptural way to find God’s peace and blessings. Instead, in many ways the Bible instructs us that finding God’s blessings has to come through the knowledge of God:

·        Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. (2 Peter 1:2-3)

It’s God’s truth that transforms:

·        Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2)

However, to a large degree, the church has ignored this biblical counsel in its pursuit of mystical experience. Instead, practices found in the spiritual formation movement - silence, imagination and visualizations - which promise quick results, have achieved enormous popularity.

Richard Foster is a prime example of this movement. In the late 70s, he wrote a book —Celebration of Discipline - that is still highly popular today. While some of it is good, other parts envision a different God. For example, Foster wrote:

·        Often we assume we are in contact [with God] when we are not…Often people will pray and pray with all the faith in the world, but nothing happens. Naturally, they are not contacting the channel. We begin praying for others by first centering down and listening to the quiet thunder of the Lord of hosts. Attuning ourselves to divine breathings is spiritual work, but without it our praying is vain repetition. Listening to the Lord is the first thing…(34)

There is nothing wrong with waiting and listening for God. Regarding prayer, I do many extra-scriptural things. I journal as a form of prayer and I also like to walk as I am praying. However, I would violate Scripture if I taught that everyone needs to journal in order to have a full and blessed relationship with God. However, Foster claims that “without it [his disciplines] our praying is vain repetition.” In essence, he is writing that what Scripture teaches isn’t adequate to truly “connect” with God—that we need to add additional practices.

However, according to Paul, Scripture is sufficient to make us complete in regards to our relationship with God:

·        All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16-17)

However, Foster insinuates that we are not complete without his techniques of “centering down and listening to the quiet thunder of the Lord” and “attuning ourselves to divine breathings,” we are simply not going to have our prayers heard, let alone answered. This amounts to adding to God’s Word (Deut. 4:2). Indirectly, he is claiming that God’s Word isn’t sufficient without his practices.

Perhaps even worse, Foster claims that if “nothing happens,” it means that we have simply failed in “contacting the channel” of God despite the fact that we are trusting our Savior in faith. This means that faith alone isn’t enough to sustain contact with God. If “nothing happens,” it signifies that our faith wasn’t enough and we’ve failed to make contact. This is in contrast to the many verses that claim that God is close to those who trust in Him. For instance, Proverbs assures us that if we trust in God, we connect with Him:

·        Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

However, Foster’s teaching undermines this most basic confidence. It teaches that our God is more interested in mystical techniques than in trust and obedience. However, this contradicts God’s assertions about what He values. For example, Micah 6:8 reads:

·        He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Nowhere is there any mention of practicing certain spiritual techniques. Besides, Foster’s god is no longer close to the brokenhearted as the Bible assures us (Isa. 57:15; 66:1-2). Consequently, those who have despaired in themselves and are trusting in God alone will be disappointed by God unless they learn Foster’s disciplines. How discouraging and how contrary to Scripture to be informed that we are “missing the channel” when our prayers aren’t immediately answered! Had Abraham been nurtured on such teaching, he would have thought that he was “missing the channel” because he had not received his promised child after decades of waiting!

Instead, James 4 instructs us that we miss “the channel” when we ask with “wrong motives”:

·        You ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. (James 4:2-3)

At other times, it’s sin that blocks us from God. However, Scripture never tells us that we receive not because we lack the right spiritual practices!

Foster also teaches unbiblically about the imagination:

·        Imagination opens the door to faith. If we can ‘see’ in our mind’s eye a shattered marriage whole or a sick person well, it is only a short step to believing that it will be so. (36)

There is nothing wrong with exercising our imagination, but there is a lot the matter with believing that we can move mountains with it. This thinking seems to claim that we have power that we clearly don’t have. Instead, Jesus claimed that without Him, we can do nothing at all (John 15:3-5). Foster’s teaching places our faith in our ability to imagine and not in God alone (Psalm 62). Besides, if it’s about us and the quality of our imaginations, our attention will naturally focus on ourselves, the source of our hopes. This will enslave us to self-preoccupations.

It also suggests that we can coerce God through our imagination and fails to give adequate acknowledgment to the will of God (James 4:13-16), as if God has no plan or will of His own – as if He is no more than a passive blob waiting for us to learn how to exercise our minds before He can bless us.

Although imagination can be used profitably when writing a children’s book, it has no place in regards to connecting to God. Instead, the Bible refers to imagination as an evil to which people resort in favor of the Word of God.

Similarly, Foster’s teachings portray God as unwilling or unable to heal without the right visualizations:

·        Imagine the light of Christ flowing through your hands and healing every emotional trauma and hurt feeling your child experienced that day. Fill him or her with the peace and joy of the Lord. In sleep the child is very receptive to prayer since the conscious mind, which tends to erect barriers to God’s gentle influence, is relaxed. (39)

Why worry about performing the right visualizations if God is the healer! Instead, Foster would have us place our faith in our ability to “Imagine the light of Christ flowing through your hands and healing every emotional trauma,” and not in Christ Himself. In contrast to Foster, it is so liberating to not have to worry about the quality or intensity of my prayers and visualizations and instead to look to Christ alone.

However, there are even more toxic implications to this teaching. Foster is claiming that we have the power to “Fill him or her with the peace and joy of the Lord” – that we can channel God’s healing power through our visualizations. This places us in charge of God’s grace, dispatching it in whichever way we choose.

Besides, the Bible never teaches visualizations. If anything, it teaches against them as aids to worship (Exodus 20:4-6).

Foster’s teaching also calls into question the omnipotence of God, by claiming that our conscious mind “tends to erect barriers to God’s gentle influence.” In essence, Foster is saying that our mental activity can block God’s mercy. If our conscious mind can interfere with God’s grace and plan for our lives, we cannot confidently place our trust in Him. In contrast, Isaiah identifies sin as the real impediment:

·        Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. (Isaiah 59:1-2)

This teaching also disparages the mind that God has given us. According to Foster, rather than recognizing that God gave us a mind to serve and adore Him (Mat. 22:37), the conscious mind is an impediment to “God’s influence.”

Armed with this understanding, the mystic attempts to deactivate the mind in the hope of experiencing God directly. The writer Brennan Manning (The Signature of Jesus) claims that:

·        “The first step in faith is to stop thinking about God in prayer…” “Contemplative spirituality tends to emphasize the need for a change in consciousness…we must come to see reality differently.” “Choosing a single, sacred word…repeat the sacred word inwardly, slowly, and often.” “Enter into the great silence of God. Alone in that silence, the noise within will subside and the Voice of Love will be heard.” (Ray Yungen, A Time of Departing, 83).

However, the Bible requires us to be mentally sober and watchful to guard against deceivers (Mat. 7:15), taking all thoughts, philosophies, and false teachings captive according to the teachings of God (2 Cor. 10:4-5).

How does Foster justify his teachings? Although, he appeals to the Christian mystics and desert fathers and their spiritual “triumphs,” some of his justification is based on imagination:

·        Scripture tells us that John was “in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” when he received his apocalyptic vision (Rev. 1:10). Could it be that John was trained in a way of listening and seeing that we have forgotten? (14)

If he was, Scripture is silent about it. Perhaps this is the best place for Foster to exercise his discipline of silence!

The Gospel: A Matter of Specific Truths or Experiences

How specific must the Gospel message be? People answer this question in various ways. Emergent Church guru, Tony Jones, writes that it isn’t even about a set of doctrines or beliefs:

• Jesus did not have a “statement of faith.” He called others into faithful relationship to God through life in the Spirit…he was not concerned primarily with whether individuals give cognitive assent to abstract propositions [His teachings] but with callings persons into trustworthy community through embodied and concrete acts of faithfulness. The writers of the NT were not obsessed with finding a final set of propositions. (Jones, The New Christians, 234) 

This is clearly inaccurate. In a sense, the Apostle Paul did have a “statement of faith!” He had been very specific about the Gospel he was preaching, so specific that he warned:

• But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned! (Galatians 1:8-9)

Paul was very definite that there are a set of teachings that comprise the Gospel. In his mind, Peter was acting out a different and poisonous gospel when he withdrew from eating with Gentile believers upon the arrival of the Judaizers (“false brothers,” Gal. 2:4; the “circumcision group,” 2:12). Because Peter cowardly withdrew, Paul accused him of requiring the Gentiles to become Jews to qualify for Christian fellowship (Gal. 2:14).

Instead, Paul argued that fellowship was based on grace and not on following the Law, as Peter already understood. Meanwhile, the “circumcision group” had professed faith in Christ but also insisted that it had to be combined with circumcision. This would make the believer a Jew and enable him to also follow the Law in order to be saved.

The Jerusalem council had dealt conclusively with this question. The circumcision group contended that believers in Christ had to first become Jews:

• Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees up and said, "The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the Law of Moses." (Acts 15:5)

However, the council nixed that motion. Similarly, Paul warned that the Galatians were following Christ for naught if they also trusted in performing the good deeds of the Law (Gal. 3:1-5). A trust in good deeds was incompatible with trust in Christ:

• You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. (Gal. 5:4) 

To many of us, including Jones, this simple addition of the requirement of fulfilling the good deeds of the Law seems quite innocuous. Hadn’t the Jews been saved under the Mosaic Covenant prior to the Cross? What then could be so wrong about simply insisting on the very thing that God had ordained beforehand!

However, to Paul, such a theology was accursed. The Law was supposed to lead us to Christ and then step aside after it had performed its duty (Gal. 3:23). Bringing back what had been fulfilled was a matter of adding to salvation. It was also a matter of denying the sufficiency of Christ’s atoning death, and this addition undermined the Gospel!

The Gospel is very specific. It can’t be added to; nor can anything be taken away from it:

• I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. (Rev. 22:18-19; Deut. 4:2; 12:32)

God’s Gospel was so specific that any adding or subtracting represented a capital offense. Meanwhile, Jones claims:

• The writers of the NT were not obsessed with finding a final set of propositions. 

Although “obsessed” is the wrong word, the “writers of the NT” had the highest appreciation for the proclamation of the exact teachings of the Gospel – so high that any possible distortion carried frightful warnings, while the preaching of the unadulterated Gospel was associated with great blessings:

• For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (1 Cor. 1:18)

• "Now I [Paul] commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” (Acts 20:32)

In contrast to Jones’ assertions, the Gospel had to accord with the truth about God. The Samaritans had a religion similar to that of the Israelites. The Samaritan woman explained to Jesus that their main difference was one of geography:

• Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." (John 4:20)

Against this observation, Jesus emphasized truth:

• "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:21-24)

According to Jesus, salvation was a matter of worshiping God according to truth, according to the specific revelation given to the Jews.

We are obsessed today with discovering a new gospel – one that might bring all religions together. However, in order to do this, the ground-rules have to be changed. Instead of a collection of teachings (and these will differ from religion to religion), a common experience of God is now to be the new gospel – a common “language” or Tower of Babel around which all can rally. Sociologist, writer and speaker, Tony Campolo, advocates this very solution:

• A theology of mysticism provides some hope for common ground between Christianity and Islam. Both religions have within their histories examples of ecstatic union with God, which seem at odds with their own spiritual traditions but have much in common with each other.

• I do not know what to make of the Muslim mystics, especially those who have come to be known as the Sufis. What do they experience in their mystical experience? Could they have encountered the same God we do in our Christian mysticism? (Tony Campolo, Speaking My Mind: The Radical Evangelical Prophet Tackles the Tough Issues Christians Are Afraid to Face [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2004], 149, 150.)

However, Jesus’ Gospel was a preached message to be believed, not mystically experienced:

• Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel." (Mark 1:14-15; NKJV)

Grace came in the form of good news to the shepherds, not in the form of an ecstatic mystical experience:

• But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:10-11)

The good news was a revelation of hope, not a new technique to experience God. Even in the Old Testament, the Jews were primed to receive a saving message, not a mystical high:

• How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, "Your God reigns!" (Isaiah 52:7) 

In fact, in Scripture there is no hint whatsoever of a salvation or union with God through learning techniques to achieve a mystical experience. Frankly, the God of the Bible cares nothing about mind-altering techniques. Instead, He cares about believing and obeying His teachings (Mat. 28:19-20).

What then does the Sufi experience? Well, whatever it is, it is not a saving union with Christ! This alone comes through believing the Gospel message:

• Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the [Gospel] testimony God has given about his Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5:10-12)

Campolo’s hope is not a Scriptural one. However, God’s loving concern and plan for all humanity is, but we have to allow God to achieve His glorious plan in His own way. He does seem to prophecy a time when all who are left in the end will be saved:

• On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The Lord has spoken. In that day they will say, "Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the LORD; we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation." (Isaiah 25:7-9)

Frankly, I don’t know how it will all play out. However, I know God well enough to know that He has a perfect plan in which:

• Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven. The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest. Righteousness goes before him and prepares the way for his steps. (Psalm 85:10-13)

Adam and Eve wanted to be like God, but they pursued this goal in their own way, to their own destruction. Ironically, they pursued the very thing that God had already planned to give them (1 John 3:1-3)! However, they mistakenly thought that they knew better how to achieve this goal than did God. In this, I think that they represent the arrogance of this age, the arrogance of the well-fed and well-endowed, assured that they can come to God (or become God) in any manner they so choose.

Spirituality and Spiritual Techniques

 It is one thing to have the knowledge of God – and this is something we all have – it is another to retain and embrace that knowledge. Scripture warns us that when we reject this innate knowledge there are consequences:

• Since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. (Romans 1:28-32)

We get what we want! Mysteriously, we evolve into those things that we esteem. If we reject reality, we will invent a substitute reality, which we find more agreeable to our culture and lifestyle.

Psychologist and professed Christian, David Benner, rejects the truths of God in favor of an alternative spirituality. He writes:

• Equating faith with beliefs truncates and trivializes spirituality by reducing it to a mental process. Thoughts are, quite simply, a poor substitute for relationship. Some Christians speak much of a personal relationship with God but assume that this is based on holding right beliefs. Is it any wonder that this attempt to reduce Ultimate Mystery to theological propositions so often results in the principle personal relationship being between a person and his or her own thoughts? Cherishing thoughts about God replaces cherishing God; knowing about the Divine replaces knowing the Divine. Whenever the Wholly Other is thought to be contained in one’s beliefs and opinions, divine transcendence is seriously compromised and personal relationship with the Spirit minimized. (Soulful Spirituality, 6)

Benner needlessly denigrates thinking and believing. It is because I know that God loves and forgives me that I can love Him and feel intimate with Him. I know that I am beloved, and this helps me to love others. Our beliefs affect our entire lives – how we feel about ourselves, our attitudes towards others, and how we behave towards them. Meanwhile, as Paul wrote, not having certain beliefs about reality reflects the fact that we have sinfully hardened our heart against Reality.

How are we to attain Benner’s spirituality? Through awareness:

• The spiritual life starts with awareness. Limited awareness equates to a shallow spiritual life. No one can ever be more awake of the self-transcendent than they are aware of things going on within and around themselves. The spiritual journey starts, therefore, with awakening – and with being prepared to awake again and again as we realize that we have once again drifted into sleep. (96)

Awareness is certainly part of the Christian program. We are transformed through the renewal of our minds (Romans 12:2). Jesus equated spiritual freedom with growth in understanding the truth (John 8:31-32). However, is this what Benner is alluding to? Not at all:

• It is a state of active receptivity that opens us up to the sacred. This is exactly how the contemporary Quaker author Douglas Steere understand prayer, describing it as “awakeness, attention, intense inward openness.” Sin, in his view, is anything that destroys this attentiveness. The greatest threat to attention is thought. (97-98)

Well, if awareness is not a matter of thought, what then is it? Contemplative methods:

• Careful attention paid to anything [any object] is a doorway to the self-transcendent. Regardless of how insignificant the object may seem, being truly aware of it has enormous potential for growth of spirit and soul. (98)

Benner then lays out a worshipful description of how to attain awareness, “a doorway to the self-transcendent”:

• Feel it, smell it, look at it from as many angles as possible.  Notice how heavy or light it is, how hard or soft. Don’t analyze it as a scientist. Just allow it to capture your interest and hold your attention. Gaze at it in wonder and curiosity, and allow yourself to see it as if for the very first time. (99)

Benner is not asking us to “Gaze at [God] in wonder and curiosity,” but rather a mere object as “a doorway to the self-transcendent.” Strangely, this sounds like an updated form of idolatry.

Benner might argue that this is not a matter of believing that an object is God but rather using an object to reach the “self-transcendent.” However, this is the very thing that an idolater will explain.

On numerous occasions, I have visited the Hare Krishna temple, where they have many idols which are worshipped. However, the monks and swamis have often assured me that they don’t regard the idol as God, but rather an authorized object through which they worship Krishna.

Well, aren’t they still idols? I suspect that the Canaanites idolaters would have told us the same thing. They were intelligent people. I’m sure that they understood that as soon as they finished carving a piece of wood, it didn’t suddenly become a god. I would imagine that they too had regarded their handiwork as no more than a sacred object through which to contact their gods, like a telephone of sorts.

However, this form of worship is beneath the dignity of our God. Paul warns that it is corrupted:

• They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. (Romans 1:23-26)

Scripture’s point is that God wants to be worshipped through the vehicle of truth and not image. When the Samaritan woman gave her exposition on religion to Jesus, she reduced it to a matter of location or physicality. However, Jesus elevated it to a matter of spirit – I think He had sincere commitment in mind – and truth:

• You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:22-24)

Jesus equated worshipping God in truth – something that the Samaritans weren’t doing - with “salvation.” Consequently, spirituality is not a matter of location, objects or even meditating on objects but meditating on God in truth alone (Psalm 1), uncluttered by objects or icons.

Jeremiah declared that this understanding of God is more precious than anything else we might boast in:

• This is what the Lord says: "Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth.

I have found such joy and comfort in the Word of God. One example out of thousands should suffice. John assures us that:

• If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

This little truth of God, alone, has made the difference between joy and depression, confidence and self-contempt, even life and death. Alone, this little truth has produced gratitude, thanksgiving, the salvation of the broken-hearted, and a determination to follow our Lord joyfully, even until the end.

We Feel about God the Way We Think about God

Our ideas about God are powerful. If we think that God is fickle and changeable, we will not be able to trust Him, and therefore feel thankful towards Him. If we think that He only reluctantly gives us eternal life, it will be hard to love such a God.

The way we were raised and our deep seated feelings powerfully affect the way we think and feel about God. I grew up with deep roots of self-loathing. In order for me to love myself – and also for others to love me – I believed that I had to be very successful at what I did. If instead I failed, I experienced the perfect storm of torment.

Even coming to Christ didn’t change my emotional wiring. If I performed well on a spiritual level, I felt confident that God and the world would find me acceptable. If I failed to live up to my lofty standards, powerful feelings convinced me that I wasn’t lovable. As I was sure that people would now reject me, I was also sure that God would reject me. In fact, my feelings of self-condemnation persuaded me that I was under God’s condemnation.

I delved into Scripture, but as long as I was convinced that I could somehow learn to be spiritual enough for God, it proved to be no more than words to me. God’s reassurances found little resting place in my heart.

I had to first die to my last vestiges of self-confidence. The Apostle Paul explained his spiritual passage this way:

·        We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. (2 Cor. 1:8-9)

Paul learned that he couldn’t grow in God-trust until he died to self-trust – our default position. I had to learn the same lesson, and it was a horribly painful lesson. I had to find myself utterly helpless and hopeless – to the point of desperation where I could only cry out, “Lord, help me!”

It was during this time of desperation that Scripture began to come alive for me. One day I read,

·        Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, (Romans 8:1)

These words burst upon me like a rainbow after a storm. I now realized that my feelings of self-condemnation did not come from God but from me. I also began to learn more about God – that He didn’t desire the destruction of even the greatest sinners but simply that they would confess their sins, and come to Him (Ezekiel 18:23).

With these new revelations, my thinking began to change, and with my thinking came my feelings. I began to believe that He loved me even though it had become clear to me that I didn’t deserve anything from Him (Eph. 3:16-19; Luke 17:10).

What we think is so critical to everything else in our lives. When I think grateful thoughts towards me wife, I feel grateful. When I think about who Christ is and what He has done for me, I feel close to Him – so close that sometimes I cry out with tears of thanksgiving.

Scripture is an anchor for my soul, balm for my hurts, hope for my doubts, comfort for my fears. Scripture directs my thinking and consequently my feeling. Peter even stated that our knowledge of God is critical for receiving all spiritual blessings:

·        Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. (2 Peter 1:2-3)

I write these things because the church disparages meditation on the truths of Scripture. It erroneously believes that it can bypass Scripture and magically experience God through learning several contemplative techniques never even hinted at in Scripture. It’s like exploring a cave without a light. We might think that we are experiencing the cave. However, we are merely experiencing our own ideas about the cave.

The knowledge of God is a roadmap, without which, we will surely get lost and perhaps wander over a precipice.