Encountering Christ ( 2)
Encountering Christ ( 2)
Every one of us loves to meet God, but he does not know the way nor the manner. The answer is easy. You can meet Christ in every place, but the most beautiful place is Golgotha.
If you want to meet Christ, go to the Garden of Gethsemane, walk on the way of Golgotha, and ascend upon the cross.
In the furnace of fire, the three youths met the Lord. He walked with them in the midst of the flames and they were not harmed. In the lions’ den, Daniel met the Lord.
In the life of pleasure, man often becomes far from God, but he meets Him in tribulation and pain.
Pleasure occupies the senses, and in it man clings to delight. But pain lifts the heart to God. Therefore God granted us pain, because it is a way to Him…
Pleasure makes man not feel the need, but in tribulation he feels his need and seeks the face of the Lord.
Jacob the father of the fathers saw God in pain. Our holy fathers lived in tribulations. And when they did not find them, they would distress themselves…
But in order to meet the Lord, there must be in you a desire for the meeting.
Yet this is not a rule. Among the most wondrous examples is the story of Saul of Tarsus, who was on his way to persecute the Lord and His children with all cruelty and violence, carrying letters by which he dragged men and women to prison… And on the way, the Lord met him and drew him to Himself…
If pains are among the best fields for meeting the Lord, prayer also is among the best fields for meeting.
I admire the expressions of the Psalmist who tasted God and met Him, when he says, “I have sought Your face; Your face, O Lord, I will seek. Do not hide Your face from me.” “With all my heart I have sought You.”
The Bride of the Song did not suffice with seeking, but she also roamed the streets searching for Him, striving for the sake of this meeting…
The Lord Jesus Christ does not ask merely for the meeting, but rather for abiding in Him: “Abide in Me, and I in you.” What is the meaning of this mutual abiding? It is an expression greater than our minds and greater than our hearts.
As the branches abide in the vine, as the body abides in the head… Truly as the Scripture said: this mystery is great… It is not merely a meeting; it is indwelling, God’s indwelling in you. As He says, “You are the temples of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you.” God looks at your heart and says, “This is My resting place forever; here I will dwell, for I have desired it.”
Your heart is the place in which Christ wants to lay His head.
For this you cry out, “Amen. Come, O Lord Jesus.” Come, O Lord, and dwell. I will open to You all the doors. And the Lord answers, “Tonight I must enter your house.”
Therefore meeting the Lord is a meeting within, not without. Many search for God here and there, while God is within them and they do not perceive.
God is present everywhere, around you and within you, and you do not perceive. When Augustine of Hippo realized this truth, he said: You were with me, O Lord, but in the excess of my misery I was not with You.
Therefore meeting God means sensing God in your life.
You, O Lord, are within me; You are with me. But I lack the sense and the perception. I lack the trained senses by which I see God. “Open, O Lord, the eyes of the servant that he may see.” Therefore the Lord rebukes us saying, “Having eyes, you do not see.”
Many had the Lord with them, and He spoke to them, yet they did not perceive Him nor know Him.
The two disciples of Emmaus met Him and did not recognize Him. He spoke to Mary Magdalene, and she thought Him the gardener. He spoke to Samuel, and he thought Him Eli the priest. Moses the prophet also did not perceive the Lord at the bush, so the Lord cried out to him, “Take off your sandals, for the place on which you stand is holy ground.”
God is present in your life and in the life of people. But the problem is that the senses are not trained… You meet the Lord and do not know Him.
To meet the Lord also, you must meet with Him in the goal. As the proverb says, “Among the conditions of companionship is agreement.”
Also among the obstacles that prevent meeting God are preoccupations…
It is the first war in this generation: there is no person who is free in order to meet God… All are busy. Even those who serve God are also busy with the service! It seems to me that if God appeared in this generation, we would say to Him, “Go now, and when we have time we will call for You”!!
If you want to see God, be occupied with Him, think of Him…
Let Him be your goal and your preoccupation, and all else secondary matters.
There are those whom another love keeps away from the Lord, occupying the heart…
Another desire, another lust, their heart is attached to it; therefore they are preoccupied with it away from the Lord. Thus he who loves the Lord is occupied with Him. He sees Him in everything. If a blessing or help or deliverance comes to him, he says, this is from God. If he hears a good word, he says, this is the voice of God. If he sees a righteous person, he says, he is the image of God. Always on his tongue and in his heart:
“Beloved is Your name, O Lord; it is my meditation all the day.”
“Your name is sweet and blessed in the mouths of Your saints.”
The whole problem of meeting relates to love, to the love of God.
God finds those who preach about Him, who build houses for Him, and who interpret His law. But the more important thing is: where are those who love Him? And God says, “My son, give Me your heart.”
Do you want to meet God? You must love Him.
Do you think that meeting God is merely slogans we place and titles? No. It is love and emotion. And you cannot love God if there is another love that occupies you. There are those who love people, and those who love titles, or money, or knowledge, or authority, or lusts. In all this the Lord says:
“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me…” And the Scripture says, “The love of the world is enmity with God… If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
Therefore the Lord rejoiced in Peter when he said, “We have left all and followed You.” Have you also left everything for God, and has God become for you all in all?
Be occupied with God, love Him with all your hearts, give Him your affection.
“God is love. He who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” In this way meeting God can be accomplished…
It is not enough that we read the Scripture, but we must love it…
In the law of the Lord is your delight, and in His law you meditate day and night. You say to the Lord, “I rejoiced at Your word as one who finds great spoil.” “In Your name I will lift up my hands; my soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness.” “I found Your words like honey and I ate them.”
In this way you meet God in His words, if you open to them your heart with love.
And as you love the word of God, you love His Church, you love His service, you love His kingdom, you love His heaven, you love His children.
Is your heart the dwelling place of God, or have you sublet it to others?
God says to you, “My son, give Me your heart.” You say to Him: I have come late, O Lord; others preceded You. My heart has been taken by so-and-so, and by such-and-such a thing. If my heart were empty, I would have given it to You, but sorry, it is occupied.
God works by His grace to empty your heart, so that it may become His, and you meet Him and He meets you. This emptying comes by renunciation…
You feel that everything is trivial beside God. So you renounce everything, that God may become all in all. And thus you meet Him without obstacle… And you cannot renounce the world and its matters unless this world has lost its value in your sight… I like in this the saying of Paul the Apostle:
“I have lost all things, and I count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ… and be found in Him.” “What was gain to me, this I have counted loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ.”
Abraham the father of the fathers left for the sake of the Lord his family, his clan, and his father’s house. For His sake he even went to offer his only son as a burnt offering. As though he were saying to the Lord: I, O Lord, have none but You; no family, no clan, no son. You are everything to me, and there is none but You. Since I met You, I no longer know anyone else but You…
David—in his love for God—said what is harder than this:
“I have become like a beast before You, but I am with You continually” (Ps. 73).
The important thing is that I be with You; it does not matter what condition I am in. He who meets You cannot depart…
When God created man, He was for man all in all. Then other loves began to enter into the heart of man, and from that time his meeting with the Lord diminished, fear replaced love, and he began to flee from the face of God…
We need to re-evaluate matters, so that we feel that everything beside God is rubbish, and nothing competes with Him in our heart…
And if we do not renounce of our own accord, the grace of God works to strip us until the heart remains for the Lord.
Among the examples of this is Job the righteous: the Lord stripped him of wealth, children, fame, dignity, friends, and even health… And in this stripping, he met God, and his eyes saw Him… The meeting with God is what determines its time, place, and manner…
Who would have thought that the Magi, whose eyes were always fixed on the stars, would meet the Lord of all the stars in a manger of oxen! And it was the meeting of faith…
Article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – in El-Keraza Magazine – Seventh Year (Issue Thirteen) – 26-3-1976
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