Amazing grace and amazing mysticism both demonstrate God’s glory! Let’s embrace them both!

Christian mysticism is to experience direct connection with and communication from the living resurrected Heaven-based Jesus through His real-life presence in the ever-present Holy Spirit. It’s not some kind of nebulous, subjective, or imaginary experience. It is ultimate reality.

Christ-centered mysticism is supernatural power from on high. It changes the phrase “Christ in you, the hope of glory,” from mere theology into the inner objectivity of joyous life-changing actuality.

Too many Christians run from mysticism. They say that such direct encounters with the living Jesus aren’t possible. They keep Jesus at arm’s length by using the academic approach to Him instead of the mystic approach. However, the simplest sincere prayer is a form of mysticism–seeking to connect directly with God.

Yesterday my wife and I were praying on the phone with a couple friend. My wife asked them to ask God to open doors of ministry opportunities for me. Sam began to quote Acts 1:6-7. As he quoted it, he paraphrased it by putting my name in it and saying that I will be a witness in various locations. This morning I went to a blog I read regularly, and the author had started today’s post with the very same Scripture verses.

So, is Christian mysticism real? Is Jesus really living inside of people and communicating with them today? What are the odds against my friend Sam applying a Scripture to my life one evening and a blog writer who doesn’t know Sam using the same Scripture the next day? If that only happened once, you might write it off as coincidence, but things like that happen to me almost every day.

For more than a year, Jesus has been telling me that He isn’t letting me see a lot of fruit from my writing to protect me from my pride. A couple of weeks ago I read about a Christian book written in 1675 that I had never read, “Pia Desideria” (“Heartfelt Desire for a God-Pleasing Reform of the True Evangelical Church.”) by Philip Jacob Spener, so I ordered it. Last night I began to read it and came to these words by Mr. Spener: “If God does not give you the pleasure of seeing the result of your work quickly, perhaps He intends to hide it from you, lest you become too proud of it. Seeds are there, and you may think they are unproductive, but do your part in watering them, and ears will surely sprout and in time become ripe.”

Receive and obey thoughts from God. Resist, refute, and reject thoughts that go against Him.

Tormenting thoughts and desires
Don’t have to be obeyed.
When persistently resisted
They’ll eventually fade.