Encountering Christ in Prayer

At the heart of faith is a personal encounter with the loving Christ that is beyond all reasoning, beyond all words, and beyond all relationships. This personal encounter takes place in prayer. Christ is not an idea. He is a person. When we pray, we meet with the person Christ. Remember, salvation is about “knowing” him and not just knowing about him. Jesus said, “And this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Like any other relationship you have, knowing him intimately comes from spending time with him. When we spend time talking and listening to him, we begin to see him, ourselves, and the world more clearly—the fire within us burns brighter.

There is nothing like the Christian religion when it comes to the presence of God in relation to humans. In no other faith do we witness God going so close to people. The life of faith is about a journey with the living God established through Christ's work on the cross. This personal life with God dominated the language of the apostles. Thomas Oden writes: “When the apostles began to try to express what happened to them, they did not begin with a system of metaphysics or ethical injunctions or scientific data, but rather with their experiential testimony of an interpersonal encounter with Christ that made ‘all things new.’ I pray that today you reach out for him and personally invite him into your life through prayer.

-Matt