#9: Gaining an Experiential Knowledge of God From The Secret of Adoration
by Andrew Murray
Now this is eternal life: that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent
(John 17:3).
The knowledge of God is absolutely necessary for the spiritual life. It is life eternal. Not the intellectual knowledge we receive from others or through our own power of thought, but the living experiential knowledge in which God makes Himself known to the soul.
Just as the rays of the sun on a cold winter’s day warms the body, imparting its heat to us, so the living God sheds the life-giving rays of His holiness and love into the heart that waits on Him.
The life-giving power of the true knowledge of God.
How is it that we so seldom experience the life-giving power of the true knowledge of God?
Because we do not give God enough time to reveal Himself to us.
When we pray we think we know how to speak to God well enough. But we forget that one of the first things in prayer is to be silent before God that He may reveal Himself. By his hidden but mighty power, God will manifest His presence resting on us and working in us.
To know God in the personal experience of His presence and love is life indeed.
You have no doubt heard of Brother Lawrence. He had a great longing to know God, and for this purpose went into the monastery. His spiritual advisers gave him Prayer Books to use, but he put them aside. It helps little to pray, he said, if I do not know the God to whom I pray. And he believed that God would reveal Himself.
He remained a long time in silent adoration in order to come under the full impression of the presence of this great and holy Being. He continued in this practice until he later lived consciously and constantly in God’s presence and experienced His blessed nearness and keeping power.
As the sun rising each morning is the pledge of light through the day, so the quiet time waiting upon God for Him to shine on you will be the pledge of His presence and His power resting on you all day.
Christian, make sure that the sun has risen upon your soul.
Learn this great lesson that the sun proclaims each day. Believe that the living God will work in you with His love and His almighty power. God will reveal Himself as life and light, joy and strength to the soul that waits upon Him.
Let the light of Your face shine on us (Psalm 4:6).
Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10)
Reference
Murray, Andrew, The Secret of Adoration. London: Marshall Morgan & Scott 1914.
