Into ME, see! (intimacy)

Billy Graham, in his latest book, tells about how he was on a college campus when a sophomore said, “Mr. Graham, you won’t let us down, will you?” Graham wrote, “Puzzled, I asked him what he meant. He explained, ‘Please tell us how to find God. That’s what we need.’ " (Editor's note: Read previous Graham "expose" posts on Jan. 23 and Jan. 11)

Graham said, “This lament of an honest student became a challenge to me to explain simply and plainly how to find Christ . . . First, you must be convinced that you need Him. If you feel that you are self-sufficient, capable of meeting life head-on and under your own power, then you will never find Him . . . Many divine promises hinge on a condition: ‘IF we walk in the light…the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin…IF we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (I John 1:7, 9)

“ . . . You must count the cost. This is what I explained to one of the students seeking truth. It is important to note that Jesus discouraged superficial enthusiasm. He urged people to consider the cost of being His disciple: ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me (Luke 9:23). Jesus said, ‘Count the cost…whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.’ (Luke 14:28, 33)

“Like the rich young ruler of old, the student who asked how to find God went away sad. He did not count the cost and was not willing to pay the price of openly acknowledging Jesus Christ as his Savior. Rather, he counted his self-sufficiency more valuable than dependence upon the Lord.”

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John 17:3 says, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”

Jordan explains, “Eternal life is not just living forever because you’re going to do that anyway. It’s to KNOW the Father. Not just, ‘Hi, how are you?’ It’s to have an intimacy (in-to-me-see) relationship where you share His life.

“Paul said, ‘I want this stuff to get a grip on you that God would grant you the spirit of wisdom, revelation and knowledge of Him. Not of you; of Him! This ain’t about YOU!’

“That’s a revelation! Somebody says, ‘Well, I go to church down there and I don’t get anything out of it.’ Well, bless your heart, it ain’t about you getting something out of it. It’s about Him. Probably if you aren’t getting anything out of it, it’s because HIM isn’t there. I mean, HE isn’t being put out too much. If ‘Him’ is being preached and you aren’t getting anything, well maybe the problem’s on you then.

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“When you knew Christ after the flesh, you knew Him after the prophetic program He had with the nation Israel, just like Romans 9: 3-5 talk about. We don’t know Him that way anymore. Why? There’s been a change in the program.

“Paul says in II Cor. 5:17, ‘Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.’

“There’s something new being formed today. Old things, the old program; that’s not your old personal habits here! This isn’t talking about, you know, when you get saved everything changes. A guy will say, ‘When I got saved, I quit smoking, I quit drinking, I quit carousing around. I lost any appetite and taste for that. God just made me a new man!’

“Agh, pfft! I know better than that! You may have just swapped one sin for another. Brother Reynolds used to say at the (Mobile Rescue) Mission, ‘Guys come down here to the mission and get drunk. I go out to these churches and I see people drunker on pride than anybody could ever get on Smirnoff.’

“You know why? Smirnoff will knock you out eventually! You pass out. Pride, it doesn’t quit. It just rides you constantly. Sins of the spirit you don’t get over that way. What this verse is talking about is not just the fact that I’ve got a new leaf turned over in my life when I trusted Christ. It’s that I became a new person. I got a new identity. I got moved out of Adam into Christ. I got moved out of that old man into this new man. Out of an old creation into this new creation.

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“There’s some folks who don’t like this stuff preached, and when they don’t like it you know what they do? They fight. So Paul says in II Timothy 2:3, ‘You’re going to suffer opposition and how you fight as a good soldier is part of what that review up there (in heaven) is going to be about. That has to do with your understanding of what’s really going on out there.’

“Verse 12 says, ‘If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us: and he says if we suffer.’ The word ‘suffer’ means to allow. We’re used to thinking about it as pain. It really means, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.’

“If you endure hardness as a good soldier of Christ, you suffer, and so you shall also reign. If we deny Him, He’ll deny us. That’s like I Cor. 3 where it says you get a reward (in heaven) or you suffer loss. If you don’t have a capacity to do a job because you didn’t here (on earth), which meant you had the capacity to endure the opposition, there’s some jobs up there that you can’t have. Got that?

“You say, ‘Well, what about if I deny Him?' What’s verse 13 say? If we believe not, what? Paul’s gospel: 'If God’s faithful, He can’t deny Himself.'

“You worried about all the people who can’t understand Paul’s gospel. People who fight over Paul’s gospel. If you got saved, you had to believe Paul’s gospel but everybody believes Paul’s gospel to some extent. It’s just where are you from zero to one hundred.

“If you just got in the front door at one and never grew anymore, at least you’re in the front door at one, because if you’re a member of the Body He won’t ever deny you. But the point of the passage is don’t stay at a No. 1—head up to No. 100.

“The hope of glory out here has to do not just with the fact that you get a bigger house on a wider street with a nicer neighborhood in heaven. You been worrying about that, hadn’t you? That you’re going to have MORE authority over people isn’t it because it ain’t about you!

“You’re going to have a capacity for His character, His wisdom, His understanding, His knowledge to be manifest in the ages to come. All that God is free to do for you through Jesus Christ is manifest in you.

“That’s the ministry now and you’ll have that capacity of what you know to reign with Him. So your hope of glory out there is Christ in you NOW! See why He wants you to know the riches of the glory . . . ‘Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.’

“Isn’t that neat? Now the judgment seat of Christ isn’t something I’m scared of; it’s something I’m looking forward to so we can rise and shine.”