Everyone who really loves Jesus wants to help people believe in Him. So we tell them. We give them teaching and take them to preaching services and Bible studies.
Is that really how we form and change beliefs – through knowledge?
Enoch walked with God.
From the day I made Jesus Lord of my life, I prayed earnest prayers that I would be good enough to walk with God as Enoch did. As Adam did. That was the one great desire of my heart.
The God I had heard about most of my life seemed so far away – so holy and perfect and I was not. I knew that God loved me. Intellectually, I knew, but deep down I believed I wasn’t good enough to be loved.
The idea of just going for a walk with God seemed like a dream. Why did I want to so much?
Daddy Walked with Me
Several years later my wife, her parents and I were going to our weekly family dinner in Hong Kong. We walked to the restaurant together. As we began to walk, Daddy Chan reached out and took my hand.
The whole world stopped for me at that moment.
I felt four years old again. Daddy had my hand. I felt so loved by the wonderful man who was my wife’s father. We had never had a conversation without an interpreter as my Cantonese was so limited. But he loved me. And I loved him.
The walk to the restaurant was far too short for me. As I felt the pressure of Daddy’s gnarled hand on mine I began to understand God’s love in a way that my mind never could. My heart filled with God’s love.
I had felt God’s presence before, but not like a father. Daddy Chan held my hand and walked with me several times before he went home to God. Each time I was reminded how God wanted to walk with me. My strongly held beliefs about my unworthiness and a distant God were shattered in an instant as I experienced God’s love through the gnarled hand of my wife’s dear father.
It is the Truth You Experience that Sets You Free
Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you.
John 8:32 (MSG)Ginṓskō is the Greek word “know”/ ”experience” in this verse. It means: “to know, especially through personal experience”.
It is the same word used in Luke 1:34 (KJV) “Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be [that I will have a son], seeing I know not a man?”
I’ve had many experiences with God since then. God goes through my heart to show me things my mind will never grasp. The greatest changes in my life have come through specific times when God connects my heart with His. He calls it the “living word”. Words wrapped in the presence and experience of God, Himself.
What experience have you had with God that radically changed what you believe?
About Dave Milford
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