In many ways I feel I am still a beginner with a lot to learn about God and how to follow His ways. But in other ways I feel that no church offers the level of depth of teaching or experience that I find myself requiring in my soul.
To the modern, casual Christian, I’m sure they would consider me to have gone off the deep end. And yet, there is so much depth there that I feel I’m just beginning to get beneath the surface of it all.
But why do I say that I am a Christian Mystic? Well, because I have experienced God, and other supernatural things several times throughout my life. Both in the forms of dreams, and in waking, public experiences. And, from all of the various denominations and groups of “scholars,” the mystics are the ones I feel most fully aligned with.
Now, there are many mystics throughout history, all the way back to the apostles Peter and Paul, and before them, the prophets, and Moses, and Abraham.
No, I’m not saying that I think myself an equal with Peter or Paul, or Moses or Abraham, or any of the mystics of history. I simply feel most aligned with them in my belief in, and experience of God.
God is my first love. God is my focus. God is my joy. God is my comfort. God is my strength. God is my everything. I do not worship men, but as a man that worships God, I do feel a brotherhood with other like-minded, and like-hearted, men.
I used to think that I had to study God in order to know Him. I used to think that the only way to know God was to decipher some special knowledge out of the Bible, and my mind would be satisfied having grasped the Holy One. But then I experienced God. I was sitting in the middle of a fairly full church congregation, with a sermon in progress. I was not paying attention to what was going on around me, but I was fixated on worshiping God in prayer. As I prayed I felt energy begin to move through my body, like the tingling of a limb that’s falling asleep. Then the energy began to surge, and the only thing I can compare it to was as if I was being delightfully electrocuted at high voltage. Then, I was in heaven, praising and worshiping God, with a host of others at his feet. And the joy of that experience - though brief, and quite disruptive to the congregation that day - changed me.
I no longer need to study books to know God. I know Him. I do believe in God. I do believe in Jesus. I do believe in the Holy Spirit. I do believe that Jesus was God in human form, born of the virgin Mary, lived a perfect life, was crucified and died for my sins, was buried, was resurrected on the third day, and ascended into heaven. I do believe that Jesus paid it all for me; that my sins are forgiven because Jesus took the punishment that was due to me. I believe that salvation is by faith alone, in Christ alone.
I don’t believe any of that any less because I know God. I just have knowledge that takes all uncertainty out of the belief I had before. Knowing God, experiencing God, does not change what the Bible says. It still applies. But it does change the person. Before God was an idea, and I, at most, tried to imagine what it would be like to be with Him. But now I know what we have to look forward to, and I can’t wait to be in heaven with Him.
I don’t know what God has in store for me in this life, but whatever it is I will gladly do it if it means I get to enjoy God’s presence more and more in heaven. Oh, the words of this world cannot even express how wonderful it is. Even the thoughts of I and me and mine are foreign in the joy-filled presence of God. The fact that we have to speak that way in order to communicate is an example of how far fallen we are from God’s glory.
Oh, God, I love you. I want to serve you and glorify you by sharing everything I know about you with everyone around me. Please help me speak with love and wisdom and truth. Please guide my tongue so that you will be glorified, and many will seek you sincerely and diligently. Thank you for allowing me to experience your presence. Thank you for allowing me to know you. You are marvelous, and glorious, and wonderful. You fill me with awe, and joy, and worship. There is nothing better than being in your presence, my God. Holy, holy, holy art thou, Lord God Almighty!