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 Give attendance to reading



In identifying with the Truth we mentioned that it was a case of pursuing God's will, and seeking to walk in His ways. You do not really know the Truth until it becomes a part of your being. Honor the Word, the written Word. Read it much. But know of a certainty that it is not really yours until it comes alive within you. I have read the Bible through many times, just as a matter of "reading" it... typed it out once along with footnotes and references for my own study Bible... memorized large portions of it in my earlier days... I honor the Word of God, as much as anyone. And yet many times as I read it I am keenly aware that at the time it seems to fall far short of meeting my basic earnest desire to know God. However, it has been a source of great encouragement to know that simply in reading the Word with an open heart one is exposing himself to the power and to the authority of that Word, unaware as you may be of this at the time. Paul said, "Give attendance to reading..." But we would excuse ourselves on the basis that we do not understand it too well, or it becomes tiring and monotonous, and we do not get any particular blessing from it. We hope rather for the miracle that would make the printed page to shout at us with clarion call. I have personally never had that experience. And perhaps it is good that it has been this way so that I can encourage others. Many times we find ourselves reading some very beautiful Scriptures that carry with them a living Word; but its true benefit may not come to us until weeks, or months, or years later.

We have been speaking of God's ways... the greatness of His ways... and how foreign God's ways are to the ways of men. We sincerely trust that what we have said will not merely be received as good teaching and good doctrine; but that it will encourage everyone who reads this writing to "search and try their ways" as the Bible admonishes, For we are persuaded that if there is a genuine "search" in this area, God will be faithful to shew His people His way in this great hour, in this hour of impending crisis. Man's day quickly draws to a close. God is looking for and preparing a people, who will come to know His thoughts and become acquainted with His ways. For of this present generation of the Church. even of the evangelical and charismatic Church, it can rightly be said (as was said of the Israelites of old) "THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN MY WAYS."


George H. Warnock


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 Re: Give attendance to reading

Identifying with His Way

As we begin to identify with God's Way, then it is that the Word of God and the Truth of God begin to take on reality to those who seek to know Him. True we identify with the Lord when we receive Him, and Christian "baptism" is a mark of that identification. But that is just the beginning. From then on and throughout life there must be a continual identifying with Him if we hope to attain to the highest prize of all, of "knowing Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings." And as little by little we learn to walk with Him, so does the Word of God become more and more meaningful to us. Once the story of Joseph was just that, a beautiful story. But now it means more, because in small measure at least we have been able to identify. He had a vision... and we have a vision. He would like to see it fulfilled, but he soon learned that only God Himself can fulfill the vision that He has given. He does not give us the vision as an incentive to work on, but as a seed of truth to embrace and allow it to fulfill God's purpose in our lives. We find with the prophet that in eating of the Book, it is like honey in the mouth, but bitterness in the belly; and we wonder how a Word so sweet can become an experience so bitter. But as Joseph cherished the vision, the fulfillment of it became more and more distant and more and more impossible. Finally he discovers himself in a foreign land, completely cut off from the family that he saw in the vision--a prisoner and a slave rather than a king and a ruler. To try and figure out what might have gone wrong would only lead to further frustration, so he simply tries to forget it all. (Eventually when his first son is born he will call him, "God has caused me to forget.") He cannot deny what God showed him, but he will just lay it aside or put it in a bottle, seal it, and cast it upon the waters. And yet in and through it all God was consistently and without any intermission working out all the intricate details in Joseph's life that would eventuate in the vision being gloriously fulfilled, only on a much higher and loftier plane than Joseph ever imagined as a young lad who dreamed the dream. Gone were the thoughts of greatness. Gone the thought that some day I'm going to be somebody great, and all you boys are going to have to recognize it. Here was a man of the Way who in walking with God became a stranger in his own home, a byword among his own brothers, a dreamer whose dreams soon vanished when he was sold to the Ishmaelites and became a stranger in a foreign land. And so the vision of greatness was fulfilled in the perfection of God's order; but it was only fulfilled as Joseph found grace to identify with God's Way; and in so doing the dream itself was utterly transformed until it became a transforming experience in Joseph's own heart; and a vision of mercy, of deliverance, and of compassion for those who had mistreated him. The man of the Way, whose feet were hurt in fetters of brass, and whose soul was laid in iron, was recognized for what he was: the elect of God, marked with the mark of God and destined to become Zaphnathpaaneah, ...a name which signified to Pharaoh and the Egyptians: "A Saviour, or Sustainer of Life."


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The People of the Way

Jesus is the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE-not merely the way-shower, the truth-giver and the life-imparter. In other words, He doesn't just tell us what to do, explain to us what He means, and give to us a portion of His own life. We must become ONE with Him in all three areas. We must be fully identified with Him. Then as we begin to identify with Him we discover areas of Truth and Life that we could never discover through much study and effort. The people of the New Testament Church in their early beginnings used to refer to themselves as the people of the Way. I used to ponder this a lot. Saul persecuted "this Way," and after his conversion he testifies that he worshipped God after the "Way" that men called heresy. God's people are a people of the WAY. They are going somewhere... not after they die, but NOW. They have purpose, vision, enlightenment; and are but pilgrims and strangers in the earth. Like Abraham of old God's people know that they are in the land that God promised them, but it is still not "home." All the promises of God in Christ Jesus are meaningful to us and very real, but if we are truly a people of the Way, as Abraham was, we have that feeling that we are not really at home... there just must be something more to Life than we have yet experienced. Take note of this: Abraham was in the land that God had promised him and his Seed forever... but he just knew in his heart that there must be much more to the "land" than what he had seen as he walked through the length and breadth of it. He confessed that he was but a "pilgrim and a stranger"--and the Holy Spirit reminds us that such a testimony as this indicated that he and his Seed were "looking for a City which hath foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God" (Hebrews 11:10). (And don't forget the true Seed of Abraham is "Christ" and those who are in Him--See Galatians 3:13-29.) All the blessed assurances of the New Testament concerning our position in Christ and our blessedness in Him were never intended of the Lord to cause us to relax in the joy and contentment of that blessedness--but to create within us a hunger to attain to that high calling which as yet reaches far beyond our grasp. Happy is that man or woman who comes to that place in his walk with God when--in spite of all the knowledge and understanding he may have concerning his inheritance in Christ Jesus, he still finds it within his heart to say: "Yes, I thank thee, O Lord, for thy Truth, and for all you have given... but I am not fully satisfied... there is something lacking... what is it Lord?" For then the Lord who is ever pleased with that individual who delights in Him more than he delights in his knowledge of the Bible... the Lord Himself is pleased to reveal His Way more clearly. Then that hungry one comes to understand that the reason he cannot be satisfied in his present state is because in walking with God, God will not let him be satisfied. And God will not let him be satisfied because there is more, much more that God desires to lead him into.

There is a difference between being "dissatisfied" and "unsatisfied." We must always be thankful for everything God has done for us and brought us into; yet ever desirous of going on with God into the fulness of His intention. Always satisfied with the fresh manna that He gives daily for our every need, but even as we partake of it there remains that unsatisfied hunger to partake of the Old Corn of the land of our inheritance. There is more, much more. There are still heights in God to attain; there are still oceans and depths in God to explore, that we never thought were within the realm of possibility in this life.

George H. Warnock


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