Is Christ Real to You?

You get some people, and I had a brother telling me recently about his concern for people who they seem to talk the talk, but they seem to lack a sense of the reality. And you know when your Christianity is all theory, that's bad. That's bad because Christianity deals with more than just a knowledge up here of what the truths are. You know what I see? I see some people - and we don't want to be these people - they know the truth and they try to persuade themselves that what is true of biblical Christianity because it's described in this book, they try to persuade themselves that it's true of them. But we're talking of something - listen, if Christ indwells your heart and you're rooted and grounded in that love that He saturates you with, and you begin to have some idea about the breadth and length and height and depth and to grab hold of this unsearchable love of Christ, and you're filled with all the fullness of God, I guarantee, that's not the kind of thing where you have to sit back and say, "Well, I don't feel the reality of this, but because I believe it in my head, I'm going to try to persuade myself that this is real." That's not what's happening here. That's not the kind of Christianity we find in Scripture. Let me ask you this: is Christ real to you? Is Christ real within you? I'm not talking religion and church and reading your Bible and singing the hymns. Is Christ real to you? Him! Has He come in? And in the same way that He would sit down with somebody and have supper with them, and you would know it, do you know that reality? Because if not, I'm telling you, don't be content. Look, if you're not ready to go further here, if you're content with this, you can be content with that. But I think verses like this are meant to make us not content and to take the prayer as an indication that this is a promise. If Paul weren't under inspiration, we might question: Well, he's fallible. Could he be praying for something God wouldn't maybe perhaps really be willing to give us? But he is under inspiration, which means Paul asking this for us is as good as it being a promise. This is God telling him, "Paul, pray that way for them and let's record it in the letter to the Ephesians for all the future generations to see that this is a very valid and legitimate thing to ask for because I intend to give this." It's a promise.