How easy it is to be familiar with Christ and take away from the sacredness of His presence. It is the mistake people make as they are either too familiar or too distant. We are to treat neither God nor people with familiarity. When we prevent familiarity from creeping into our attitudes toward people, it doesn’t take away from intimacy but it allows the presence of God to take its awesome place in each other. When God’s presence takes that place, He reveals the mystery of each other’s portion in the sacredness of time.
Lot was too familiar with Abraham, and yet Abraham treated him properly as a child of God. Miriam and Aaron were very familiar with Moses and treated him as an earthly brother (Numbers 12). But God spoke for His man and declared that He spoke with Moses mouth-to-mouth. In consequence for her familiarity towards God’s man, Miriam was shut up with leprosy for seven days. Her familiarity deceived her into thinking that she could speak against God’s man, using the excuse of an earthly relationship.
It is the man who knows the heart of God by grace who is spiritually cautioned against familiarity, as typified in the life of David. David would not become familiar with King Saul because God had anointed Saul, though at that very time Saul was a murderer in his heart. David honored God’s anointing before he ever became familiar enough with the situation to react, even if it meant his life.
- Atmospheric Cycles - January 30, 2018
- A Walk That Defeats the Enemy - July 14, 2017
- Don’t Be an Abstract Christian - March 18, 2017
