Bryan & Claire Flores
Mission South Africa
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Ever since I was a boy I was brought up in the way, "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.
I remember walking down a path in our field of wild grass in Germfask Michigan. We owned 20 acres of land and as I walked home at age 9, I remember thinking about what my parents would say about knowing God just like I knew them. I had put my faith in Jesus Christ and had been baptized and believed He lived within me. But I would look up to heaven and see the clouds and wish I could know God on a personal level. He seemed distant to a young boy whose faith was just beginning to grow.
When I was a junior or senior in college I remember listening to a preacher at Bethany, the church we were attending, and he was speaking on James 4:8. "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you." He told us that if we came half way to God, God would come the other half.
I remember these words playing throughout my mind as I lay down in bed.
I yearned to know God like Moses and John. These men had literally walked with the Living God. I stretched out my hands to heaven and prayed, Father, I am coming to you half way if you will come the other half.
It was as if God drew near that night. I can only explain it like this. When a man sees the most brilliant of sunsets his natural reaction is Wow! Beautiful! That is amazing.
Or when he smells the most beautiful of fragrances His natural reaction is Ohh that is wonderful. My mentor would always say, "Worship is born out of encounter." When God drew near my natural reaction was Oh God youre beautiful, God Your holy, Jesus I love You. He was everything pure, everything lovely and Holy. What did Jesus say He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him."
Manifest in the Greek is emphanizo; to exhibit (in person) or disclose (by words): - appear, declare (plainly), inform, (will) manifest, shew, signify. O God I want to know You! O God I want them to know You!
So we the children of God groan with expectation. For we have tasted of the beauty of God, that's why we worship." Rom 8:23 Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.
(Romans 8:23) COME LORD JESUS!
Bryan
Cross Walk 2009
Claire
Psalm 1Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly nor stands in the way of sinners nor sits in the seat of the scornful but his delight is in the law of the Lord and upon it he meditates day in night. He will be like a tree planted by rivers of living water who bring forth it's fruit in due season.
Psalm 1
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly nor stands in the way of sinners nor sits in the seat of the scornful but his delight is in the law of the Lord and upon it he meditates day in night. He will be like a tree planted by rivers of living water who bring forth it's fruit in due season.
