How to Find Him

Go to a church meeting where there is speaking in tongues. Pray like mad beforehand that God will give you the Holy Spirit. He only gives the Holy Spirit, as far as I know, to people who believe that Jesus is the Christ so exercise yourself and ensure beforehand you do indeed believe. If you aren't sure, hunt down whatever it is you need to convince you (for me it was partly a matter of understanding thoroughly the New Testament Gospel accounts and comparing them, via some decent TV programs, with the relevant archeology). Go to a meeting at this church. For me it meant going with someone who had been able to assure me that those in the church did have the Holy Spirit, as manifest in the speaking in tongues (this person would have probably recognised it if there had been anything spurious or pretentious about it). If God gives you the Holy Spirit and He comes on you at the meeting you might feel an awesome sense of heaviness weighing on you or awareness of something like that. For me, all this resulted in me being in the congregation as the 'pastor' came to the front and spoke in tongues. Because, I think, the Holy Spirit had already come upon me, I was able to spiritually 'hear' the words spoken as if they were in my own language even though my ears recognised that the words were in an angelic 'tongue' (spiritual language). Ideally, the speaker should ask that God will let him interpret too or that someone else will interpret too so that you have it confirmsed what was said, in comparison to what you 'hear'. (Some have to rely on this interpretation if the Spirit didn't make them able to 'hear' it themselves.) Strictly speaking this is how to find the Spirit of God but indirectly this amounts to finding Jesus, the Christ because it is the way this Spirit proclaims Jesus to you as the Christ, the Lord, the one to hope in and the one to trust and to love that amounts to much of what it means to find Jesus Christ. It is this experience which can impart that trust and hope to you (hopefully love too, but it is resulting actions and obedience which will confirm this).  To find Jesus Christ Himself is a matter of Him revealing Himself to you. To find the God and Father of Jesus Christ is a matter of Him revealing Himself to you. This can be in dreams and visions and open encounters. Rather than you finding Him, He finds you! Take the testimony and proclamation from The Spirit and add that to the revelation of God and Jesus Christ to you and know Him, whom to know is, in Christ words, eternal life. If this all seems strange to you I can only say 'of course'. You really do need to believe for yourself though; for your own sake and for the sake of His Name.

He

We can say to Him 'You are the One. You are God. You are Supreme.' as we pray. But what is that actually saying? Is it enough? I think not. There is still something in reserve. Of the Christ, the Son of God, we can say that He is the Supreme King over all God's creation. We know that there has to be One ruler in the Universe who is the ultimate ruler under whose rule every other ruler must submit; this seems logically inevitable if you believe in some kind of order throughout the Universe by which the laws of physics and other science are maintained (unless, like some scientists you just think the laws of physics and other science maintain themselves or are immutable and pre-existent). In reserve there is another accolade we seldom admit to, the proclamation 'You are He'. 'He' is such a small word with such a huge meaning to us. It is that inner awareness I (and I assume other people besides myself) have of a person not only above all others but such a person on whom we can all put all our hope. To be a ruler and to be powerful more than any other other and to be worthy of the submission of everyone and everything is one thing. To be every person's ultimate hope is quite another. Such a person has more than just power. They have something I cannot describe by my psyche knows is surely there in somebody. This ultimate person my psyche calls 'The HE'. I don't know why. I have an awareness, perhaps from society, perhaps from something greater within me, that others too reserve a word, a concept in their hearts they too would perhaps call 'He'. Reserved for the One person who really deserves their trust and all their hope when all other hopes and trusts fail. Reserved for the One person who lives up to their hopes, even their feeblest hope and pulls them through despite all the setbacks, failings and weaknesses, despite even the worst sins and shameful acts and activities. I had the feeling and when I think of it I recollect that feeling of such a person when I remember it - I had this feeling that I had met that person when I experienced the existence of Jesus Christ some years ago. I related this in a previous blog post, describing a walk through deluging rain to a river near my home and how on my way back, still aware of the power of God to send floods on helpless people in punishment for failing to live up to His standards, suddenly the compulsion came on me almost like an audible voice yet more primal and powerful than that (as it were communicating directly to my spirit almost circumventing my mind, perhaps only those experiencing it would understand this description) 'saying' to put down my umbrella. I had a big golfing umbrella up, in all the extreme downfall of rain, but as I put the umbrella down not a drop of rain, it seems, touched me since the rain stopped so suddenly at that exact moment. I immediately became conscious of the person I could only believe was Jesus, the Lord. I asked for a certain sign as proof later when I got home and (though the sign was a bit embarrassing to relate here) I got that exact proof in the middle of the night such that it had to be Him. I cannot easily say to any 'god' or powerful entity of any kind 'You are Supreme' but I cannot say of anyone except this one person I met that day 'You are HE' (referring to that ultimate person on whom all our hopes are placed). I do have it in my heart that that accolade goes to no other person except this One who made Himself known to me that day. So, yes, very thankfully and with due fear in stating it, Jesus Christ is HE. Ultimately though, I suspect that the reason people have this hope in the ultimate One who will not disappoint their hope is that they have the testimony in their psyche that God Himself has given about the One called the Christ down the ages, even from most ancient times. This testimony is seen in ancient texts purporting to originate from times as early as the times when writing itself first developed and this testimony focuses on the Christ as the Elect One of God, the Son of Man, the Righteous One who was originally at the right hand of God and was foretold to eventually come from God to the Earth so that all could put their hope in Him. So it is certain now after the coming of Jesus that He who so many call Jesus Christ is indeed this One who was to come. As one of His apostles and first teachers worded it "we have the testimony of the prophets made certain". So we can all be thankful - but let's not forget what was done to Him, perhaps by people like ourselves, prone to jealousy and evil influence: Let's not forget He was executed in such grisly fashion by crucifixion under Roman rule and the same system of government as did this is to some extent still part of the system we have today. There is no escaping the truth of our heritage in this world that we have folly to the heart of society and even the Christ, Jesus, took the sharp edge of it and died, all the while submitting to God, His father's will. He is an example to us all of submission unto death to the will of the One God He called 'The Father', our father and His, the same God who raised Him a few days later from the dead and seated Him once again at His right hand until that time He comes again to rule a thousand years and afterwards to judge the living and the dead.

He is before all things and in Him all things hold together. This is He.

What is in a name?

Wrote the 'Bard': "A rose by any other name would doubtless smell as sweet".

What is in a name?

I long mused about the mystery of 'names'. I saw the Narmer tablets of ancient, predynastic Egypt where standard bearers sport 'noms', symbols held aloft on poles as standards. Today in Bristol children parading with their schools in the St Pauls Carnival were carrying numbers on poles. 'Names', 'noms' and 'numbers' all sound like they have common ancestral meanings and visual imagery. The numbers carried by the children, the noms carried by the ancient Egyptian men, each have a purpose. The children are judged in their schools for their carnival parade garb and dancing and the numbers they are given and display allow judges to distinguish schools by something other than their usual name (perhaps so they are not prejudicial in their judging by the opinions of or links to the schools). Always throughout history, I believe, there has been importance given to a symbol held aloft by a person or party. This symbol can carry special power - the power of a 'name' ('nom', 'number').

So we find from most ancient times a special meaning ascribed to important names (names of rulers) and especially to one particular name, the name of the Elect One, the Son of Man, in heaven, ruler under God of all the Universe over all other rulers (whether man or angel/spirit). The Lord of Spirits gives this one Son of Man the most special of all 'names' and the greatest power of all is given to the name of this most chosen one, the Elect One. In fact, this name was so powerful that it was given to angels that they could use it to overcome the evils of the fallen angels. Later in history it was given to humankind to allow them to be saved from their own evils and the evils around them which could cause them to sin against each other, against themselves and against God. Mysteriously this Son of Man took flesh in the first century AD and was given a verbally manifest form of this spiritually supreme name, the name meaning The LORD saves, the name 'Jesus', 'Yeshua', ''Isous'. Believe in this name for salvation and use it to ask God for the saving Holy Spirit. Only having the Holy Spirit from God as He gives to believers only can lead to true immortality beyond death. This is the outcome of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name alone people can be saved.

What is in a name? Everything we really need.