We need a personal encounter with God. The only way is to feel your guilt before him and your need of his pardon and forgiveness. That is the way to a personal encounter. Every true gospel message has this at the heart of it. That leads to real union with Christ. Am I dominated by lust or uncleanness or pride? Don’t say, ‘I went to a service tonight and I heard what the preacher said – who do they think they are, driving me down and making me feel bad about myself?’ Here is where God met Jacob at Bethel.
When you come to God, you must have a right spirit, not bouncing confidence, not double minded. You do not just come to ask help with exams, help to have fun in life. You come on his terms. You don’t come self-righteously, saying, ‘I am good enough. He will be pleased to have me.’ Don’t come irreverently. Sadly some churches encourage this as part of a new phenomenon belonging to the second half of the 20th century: bouncing into his presence. He is not your mate down the road, but the living God. He will be the judge of all the earth.
What about us? Is this present life everything to us? Do we live only for material things, and believe the promises of this vain world? All I want is that everything revolves around me. May God help us to be alone, even to literally actually be alone. We want to run when God begins to speak. God can do this for all who truly come to the Lord. He will pardon and forgive and change you totally.
God does not teach by dreams today – for the word is complete. In the past he spoke ‘at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets’ (Hebrews 1:1); now we have everything we need in the finished revelation of the Bible.