one more thought...

Hello!
Well, I finished the book and must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it.
My prayer for myself and those who are reading this too is that it won’t be another piece of knowledge accumulated but a true hearts desire to experience more of Christ’s glory in our daily lives and see Him ‘High and lifted up’ (see Isaiah 6:1) just like Isaiah had a heavenly vision of the glory of the Lord and was enthralled by it.

In Ch.13 page 66, J. Owen writes: ‘If we are satisfied with the mere idea of the glory of Christ as a piece of information obtained from scripture, we shall find it has no transforming power for our lives. Let us love Christ with full purpose of heart; let our minds be filled with thoughts of delight in him; let our trust in him be constantly exercised; then virtue will proceed from him to purify our hearts, increase our holiness, strengthen our graces and fill us sometimes with “joy inexpressible and full of glory”(1Peter 1:8) It is good if the love of our heart is quickened at the same time as our understanding is enlightened.
Mere knowledge and no love leads to empty formality.
All love and no knowledge leads to superstition.’

I just started to read R.C Sproul’s book The Soul’s Quest for God, it is good and also ties in with what Owen says. In this particular chapter he talks about Ezekiel. (I will paraphrase) Ezekiel was a prophet who was sent to speak warnings of woe and sorrow to the people because of their sins. Any good prophet had a tremendous task in front of him and it wasn’t an easy one at all (there were also false prophets who cared about themselves and people’s opinions). God told Ezekiel to eat the scroll in Ez.2, he not only chewed it but had to swallow it. So we too need to digest the Word of God. The words Ezekiel spoke weren’t easy words but Sproul writes that why was it sweetness + honey to his soul? He tells of 2 reasons: he saw a remarkable vision and was captured by the visible manifestation of God’s Glory in heart and soul by an understanding of the holiness of God and secondly, ‘he understood that even God’s wrath and judgement are an expression of his purity. The Christian who seeks a deeper experience of God by ignoring the hard sayings of scripture gets nowhere.’
May we too experience more of this each day and ask the Lord to illumine His truth to us.
God bless you all,
Cynthia Mason.