See you do agree with me.
Now some tricky questions: Do we need a personal intimate relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ? Does the Holy Spirit still work? Be warned, I enjoyed the Renewal in Missouri Movement which has now died out. I loved my RIM pastor.
Don't worry if you trash RIM I understand.
“Now some tricky questions: Do we need a personal intimate relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ? Does the Holy Spirit still work?”
Not tricky at all. Of course you need a personal intimate relationship with your Lord. But remember, it is He who initiated it and He who sustains it. His hand touched you in baptism, and called you His own dear child. His voice tells you Sunday after Sunday (and in between if you choose to avail yourself of your pastor’s calling diligently), after you have confessed your sins, that your sins are forgiven, now go and sin no more. He is the One who gives you of His crucified and risen body and blood. How much more personal do you want? And if such things have become cold and formal in our mind and heart, it is because of our failing not His intent and will. These are the very things that Jesus was speaking of in Matthew 28:19-20: “... teaching them to observe (read: participate in) all things that I (not Moses) commanded you, and, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” That’s an awfully firm and personal promise. Believe Him. Do as He exhorts. He will keep His promise.
I won’t trash RIM. It has done a good enough job of that all by itself.
Must go. Duty calls.