September 15, 2004

Reading: John 11:17-28

 

“The master is come, and calleth for thee” (28) KJV

Sometimes, as believers in Jesus Christ, we take for granted the glorious truth that the Sovereign Creator of the universe has created a personal relationship with those whom He has called to Himself. How gracious the Lord is to his people in the special and distinguishing applications of his grace. Jesus does not simply send his gospel to the church, or house, or family; but he speaks by the soft, but powerful whispers of his love, to the individual soul. It is to you individually that the word of His salvation is sent. When your heart needs the strength of One greater than yourself, it is the Holy Spirit, the divine Comforter, who draws alongside and reminds us that “underneath are the everlasting arms.” At such times it does not matter what God says to the church, or once said to Israel thousands of years ago, but only that we are comforted and strengthened by the words of Jesus to us individually, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” Heb 13:5.

Those who believe in God and not in His personal relationship with His people do not know salvation and can take no comfort in the present or hope for the future. Many “believe in God”, but seek comfort and enlightenment in the ‘spirit world’, denying a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, tragically, to their eternal loss, the Holy Spirit is not a part of their world. Enlightenment and spiritual awareness, they believe, can be attained by their own efforts in the manipulation of their mind and control of their emotions and thoughts. Some claim to have reached such a self-achieved plateau, but salvation is not a part of it.

Even during the time when Israel, as a nation, was God’s chosen people, His dealings were with individuals: Enoch walked with God, Moses was God’s friend, and most certainly did David revel in his individual relationship with Jehovah. So it is with the church today. While Jesus is building His church His interest and concentration is in His role as our mediator, personally representing us as individuals to His Father.

Let us never be led astray by failing to remember that we are the living stones, individuals, with which Christ is constructing His church. Each stone molded perfectly by the Master Architect and placed strategically in His master edifice, the church.

How important it is for us to constantly be in His Word, for in it God speaks to us individually. When I read His Word I should always expect the Holy Spirit to speak to me. It is wonderful to read how God has spoken to others and to hear their personal testimony, but that is not the purpose for the Word of God. It is God’s chosen way to speak to us individually. God will speak to me differently than with you yet from the same words. The Holy Spirit applies God’s Word to our heart and understanding as we have personal needs.

“My soul, I hope that thou art always upon the look out, and art getting to thy watch-tower to hear what the Lord thy God hath to say to thee, by his word, by his providences, his chastisements in love, and in all the gracious manifes­tations of his favour. Now, Lord, thou art calling me by thy word and providence in a way of grace: by and by I shall hear thy voice in the hour of death and judg­ment. And who shall say how very powerful, sweet, and gracious, that call is, when Jesus cometh to take his people home to himself, that where he is, there they may be also? ‘I hear my Master’ s voice,’ said a highly favoured servant of God in the moment of his departure. Perhaps a loud voice, a glorious distin­guishable voice to him that is called, when no bystan­der is at all conscious of the sound. Hence another said, when he was dying, ‘I shall change my place, but not my company.’ Jesus, master, in that hour be it my happiness to say, “let me hear thy voice, let me see thy countenance: for sweet is thy voice, and thy coun­tenance is comely” Robert Hawker.