“Stand up, son of man,” said the voice. “I want to speak with you.” The Spirit came into me as he spoke, and he set me on my feet. I listened carefully to his words. (Ezek. 2:1-2 NLT)
Last week we saw that the Holy Spirit gave Ezekiel an awesome and awe-inspiring vision of the absolute holiness of God. But notice that this overwhelming affective experience is immediately followed by speech. The Holy Spirit enables us to hear and to understand the voice of God. Thank God that He reveals Himself to us on every level of our being, both the affective and the cognitive.
Throughout his ministry, Ezekiel would be given these powerful experiences of God’s glory, experiences where the prophet is moved and shaken in his emotions. Thank God for that. But…unless that affective experience is undergirded with concepts and truth is conveyed through cognition, the affective will always fall short. When we look at great revivals across the history of the church, the outcomes are too boringly similar. Not long after these great outpourings of emotion, unless there has been some solid undergirding of the word of God, where truth is allowed to judge our feelings – you can write it down— again and again there is going to be some drifting into craziness, either theological or behavioral.
Our God, being personal, and not a personalized force, wants to talk with us. That is one of the great truths of our faith. It is seen so clearly throughout the Bible. In Genesis 12:1 we are told, “Yahweh said to Abram….” Before that God spoke to Adam about the Tree of the Knowledge of God and Evil. All these are one person speaking to another and conveying important truth by cognitive means.
Called To Be Transformed 