Diving Into the Knowledge and Pursuit of God

     O how I long to delve deep into the knowledge of God! To truly lay my entire life at His feet as a living sacrifice and surrender all. It seems as though, with cries such as these, that the depths of my being yearn even more, but groan at a level that I, on my own, cannot bear. Without any way to truly express the pain felt over my own depravity, my spirit literally groans and this takes the place of words. Although unintelligible, the Spirit of God interprets, Jesus Christ intercedes, and the Father hears, but o how I long to delve deeper still into the knowledge of God!

    
     Faintly, but present even more, I hear angels, or perhaps Holy Spirit, singing, "Come up higher! Come up higher!" And my soul cries and yearns and stretches because of the battle between my flesh and my spirit. I crave to go up higher, but my flesh nags and nags that such a thing does not exist. So, I sit and question on how I am supposed to "go up higher," as the spiritual realm keeps singing. My spirit has no difficulty in understanding the "hows," but, with the battle raging, how am I supposed to quiet my flesh enough to hear the things of the spirit (Spirit)?

     And, of course, the blood of Christ covers my garments, thus putting an end to sin and making the battle a victory for God. But woe to those who believe not in resistance! We must gird ourselves with the full armor of God. Do not be deceived. Therefore, the spirit and the flesh live contrary to each other; and if such a thing exists within my being, am I myself divided? If my spirit longs for the depths of the knowledge of God, but my flesh seeks after the approval of man and a high position, how do I silence the part of me that desires the temporary, carnal, and worldly? How do I silence the flesh?

     When the spirit seeks after a separate peace, and even more, a unified alliance, but the flesh lives contrary to agreement with the spirit, what action can align the two? I know the Sunday school answer to this one!! Jesus...And rightly said, Jesus Christ has redeemed us from the power of the enemy, but Jesus does not make our own choices. Within covenant, He fights for us, but the battle continues to rage, and with such a contrary within us, how can we fully incline our spirit to Christ if the battle divides our full capacity? There must be more!
     Thus, the question arises to the throne: "Jesus, what could be better than You walking and living face-to-face with me?" For He Himself has told us that the Spirit comes as a Helper and that the coming of the Spirit is better than such a face-to-face as God walking amongst us. But a simple conversational answer to my pleas!


     And, therefore, the truth of the matter surfaces as the crux of plunging into the knowledge of God. The Spirit of God within grants us the power to dive in, but our (my) lack of trust and relationship with Holy Spirit has kept me in this state of spinning my wheels in the pursuit of the knowledge of God. He (Holy Spirit) lives within as the Spirit of Jesus Christ. We have better than the face-to-face with God because God dwells within! And the answer to going up higher with God comes in such a simple format that everyone who truly seeks God knows it before they seek it.
     It comes in the aspect of relationship. In my pleas, I find myself desiring the results of a deeper walk with God without putting forth the effort to actually take that deeper, more difficult path. I cry out, "Manifest Yourself to me!" and He replies, "Manifest yourself to Me!" Because relationship requires a duel balance, it only makes sense that both sides of a relationship must pour in the same amount. Otherwise, one carries the weight and the other simply causes an off-balance to things.
     The beauty of all of this comes when we actually put forth the effort to go up higher, and we realize that God has such a stronger desire for us to come up higher than we can ever muster up. So, the pain within me that yearns for more and more of the knowledge of God also dwells within God at such a greater magnitude. He yearns to manifest Himself to us. He does so, however, in His own timing and in such a way that we will yearn for Him and hunger for Him more and more.

     When we find such a desire within us (which should exist within every believer) to know God more, we (I) often allow it to slowly die away. This generation has seemed to rely upon "mountaintop experiences" instead of cultivating intimacy with God to glow with His glory in any circumstance. God beckons to this generation to jump into the fire, but this generation seems satisfied with dancing around another man's fire. In reality, when we pour our lives out as sweet perfume upon the feet of Jesus, we come to know the consuming fire that God is. And when one touches such a fire, they themselves become consumed!

     A.W. Tozer poses the question on how we would respond if one of the Seraphim mentioned in Revelation 4 came down to earth and stood in our pulpits. Keep in mind that these Seraphim have meditated upon the knowledge of God for all of eternity. Tozer writes, "Would he not charm and fascinate his hearers with rapturous descriptions of the Godhead? And after hearing him...would we not thereafter demand of those who presume to teach us that they speak to us from the mount of divine vision, or remain silent altogether?" (The Knowledge of the Holy, p. 71).
     And the "campfires" that we call "mountaintop experiences" tend to die away because of the poking and prodding and refining that God does when we begin to seek out the knowledge of Him. This happens because when we seek after knowing God, we seek after becoming like God. And we ourselves live far from that reality. The refining process, therefore, causes much pain and requires much energy and humiliation.


     A true hunger for God, nevertheless, counteracts this pain. We find ourselves beginning to walk in the flesh instead of the Spirit because we slowly stop feeding the spirit, and we feed the flesh instead of starving it. When we eat food that upsets our stomach, we do not stop eating for the rest of our lives. If we did so, our bodies would die. In the same way, our spirit needs food regardless of the bitterness of the transforming process.
     Revelation 10:8-11 and Ezekiel 2, 3:1-14 speak of such a process. The Word has sweetness upon our lips, but as we meditate upon it and digest it, we find that our inward man finds it bitter. At that point, we often back down from pursuing God, but it is that point that God uses to weed out those who truly hunger for Him.
     And that process of our renewal continues on and on and on because, as children of God, the Spirit of God dwells within, and when we beckon for Him to manifest Himself to us and truly live through us, He comes in to remodel the inward abode that we have so neglected. He comes to completely renovate our lives. This involves pain. Will we still pursue? Oh how great is the kindness and goodness of God that He does such a process within us to bring us closer to Himself!

    

     And such a journey has become my groaning for the past few weeks. I can hear God beckoning me to "Come up higher!" and I know how: prayer, fasting, meditation, and study of the Word. But that does not merely include a cliché listing of such disciplines. It requires a lifestyle. A lifestyle of fasting. Fasting of time, energy, and all selfish desires. Such a decision requires taking up a cross and loving God in such a way that every other love appears as hate. It requires denying and dying to myself daily to follow Him. And such a journey does not end until life on this earth ends. There will always be higher grounds. We live for eternity, but we die daily.

     And the funny thing about all of this? I long to jump in deeper more than I desire to remain where I am. Woe to the complacent! Woe to those satisfied with not going higher! Woe to the babes who should be fully grown! Here I am God! I'm tired of this inward battle to stay where I am! LORD, I want to know You!