Monday, July 03, 2017

We Can Experience God Now and Here

Chicago

(Linda and I are still on vacation. We'll be home this weekend. I'm looking forward to preaching at redeemer this Sunday morning on some things God showed me at our conference last week. I'll share a couple of testimonies of healing. Plus, we'll pray for anyone who would like prayers for healing.)

One of my philosophical heroes is Dallas Willard. Willard was a brilliant phenomenologist who made major contributions to this area of philosophy.

The best book Linda and I read in the last six months is a series of reflections on Willard's life, called Eternal Living: Reflections on Dallas Willard's Teaching on Faith and Formation. Dallas was presence-driven, believing we can know God, experientially.

Gary Moon says the "greatest discovery and most important theme of [Willard's] writing was: We can live our lives in a constant and transforming friendship with a loving God." (In Ib.).

Dallas believed in "the here, now and forever presence and experiential reality of God.,, He believed God is present in a real sense and that when you talk with him a two-way conversation is possible. And for Dallas, the light and life of God was very real and present." (Ib., Kindle Locations 299-307). 

This is my experience as well, which I partially document in my book Praying. Willard, myself, and many others have discovered the reality of Jesus' words, "You will experience the truth, and the truth will set you free." Now, and here.