Book Excerpt

JUST A DOOR

Selections from the book “My Way to Christ” by Lucian Cristescu

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JUST A DOOR!

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Faith is not a rare bird that is here today and gone tomorrow. Faith comes into existence, like any conviction or feeling, following an act of knowledge. To the extent that I know someone trustworthy, a feeling of reliance upon them is born in my heart. Now, for faith to appear, it is first necessary to have direct contact between myself and the Lord Christ.

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Who is searching for whom?

The Bible reveals to us first of all that it is not man who seeks God, but God who seeks man! It is not man who finds and then carries God around in his soul, but quite the opposite! Let us read Isaiah 46:1-4 which shows the contrast between the two images: a “god” carried on the back and lost through carelessness, and a God who carries people Himself:

“Bel bows down, Nebo stoops; their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: your carriages were heavy loaden; they are a burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down together; they could not deliver the burden, but themselves are gone into captivity. Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are carried by me from the belly, which are borne from the womb: And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.”

— Isaiah 46:1-4

It is not man who carries God with the risk of losing Him, but God, in His unspeakable mercy and patience, who carries us! Even the life we now have in our veins is a sign of His love. Christianity does not have a God who hides!

Look at Adam. He hides in the bushes from the face of God. But God Himself is the One who comes looking for him (Genesis 3:9). Remember Jonah who, fleeing from God, ends up being thrown from the ship into the waves, swallowed by a great fish, and while he was in the belly of the whale, God approaches him there at the bottom of the sea and answers him (Jonah 2:2). In Jeremiah 31:3 it is written: “The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.”

This is the God of the Bible, this is the God of Christians, a God who Himself comes out to meet man. Jeremiah 29:14 declares: “And I will be found of you, saith the Lord…”. It is amazing! In other words, the Lord says: “I will act in such a way that when you fumble about or when you do not think of Me, I will come before you and cross your path (Isaiah 52:12), so that you may find Me.” That is how our God is. You don’t need to climb mountains to get to Him, because He Himself comes to meet you.

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Quiet Prayer

In the volume Gânduri albe (White Thoughts) (Cartea Românească Publishing House, 1986, page 450), the Christian poet Vasile Voiculescu compares faith and prayer to swimming. The bigger and noisier the movements in the water, the weaker, more uncertain, and closer to drowning the swimmer is! Those who don’t know how to swim make the most disorganized, noisy, and grandiloquent gestures with their arms or legs. But perfect swimming is done without straining. You float almost entirely submerged in the water, molding with the water, barely moving. That is serious, true swimming.

Faith and true prayer are like this act of silent and smooth floating. It is the same as this surrender into the power of the waters… How simple it is to pray! He who is a true swimmer discovers a secret: that you don’t need to escape the water! For it is the water itself that supports you. It throws you upward. If you have air inside you, the water alone brings you up. You don’t need to fear it. It is enough to let yourself go into its will. Beautiful illustration of abandoning oneself to God’s love. It supports you, and it is enough to believe, admit, and move forward.

Three Landmarks of Prayer

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Faith in Presence

To be able to truly pray, you must believe in the reality of God’s presence. You don’t have to win His attention; He has already descended beside you!

2

Authentic Prayer

You must believe that He has the desire and power to enter your heart. Before Him, every human being is a house without a door, an open book.

3

Need for Communication

The reality of God’s desire to communicate with us. God is love and continually longs for communication with His children.

With prayer, it is as if someone said to you: “Dear one, the doors stand wide open. Come in! Everything is prepared…” And you have nothing else to do but enter!

Any desire, even a secret one, He knows it and comes to meet it. It is like Adam in the Garden of Eden. Seeing how the animals passed two by two before him, Adam felt a void in his soul. Everything was perfect and yet inside him a longing was born. And man would have remained in confusion if God had not said: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him” (Genesis 2:18).

Before man even prayed, God invented the family. Man only had to discover that God had already offered the answer!

Prayer – The Work of God

Do you understand then how it is with prayer? It is by no means our intervention upon God’s heart, but prayer is God’s intervention upon man’s heart.

“Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”

— Romans 8:26-27

What is prayer? I would answer: it is His work in my heart! We don’t even know how to pray. But the Holy Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.

Now, when you bow down in your room before God for prayer, when you timidly try the experience of speaking with Him, remember that He has already prepared everything. He is already there, right beside you. He wants to open your heart and unseal the tongue of prayer so that, at last, communion takes place.

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Just a door

One of the most sublime images in the Gospel is that of Revelation 3:20. Here the Lord says: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” Yes, this is prayer!

“Prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend.”

— Steps to Christ, ch. 11

What is prayer? Is it an effort to constantly climb, risking a fall at any time? By no means! Do you hear Him? He is here and stands at your door. He knocks! If you want, you will open your heart to Him, and He will come in. This is prayer.

Is it hard? Is it hard to get in touch with Him? He has already traveled the immense distance to you. He set foot on this earth, staining it with His blood, to remind you that He covered all that distance.

How easy it is to believe! How easy it is to pray! God did everything, and man has nothing left to do but receive everything, for free.

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PRAYER, BETWEEN LIES AND TRUTH

“As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”

— Isaiah 66:13

Whenever I meet passages like this, my heart relaxes before the divine revelation. And dwelling upon the Word, I am amazed at how God knows how to find touching comparisons with which to convince doubting man of the consistency of the relationship He desires with us.

Practically, the only models we humans can understand are those we build in the inter-human dimension. That is why God reveals Himself here as a mother, there as a father, further as a husband or a brother… And the lesson is by analogy.

The Savior, however, upon His ascension, sat on the throne of majesty in heaven. I, who remained on earth, ask myself how I can get in touch with Him?

Our relationship with our Creator is a relationship of faith, born through knowledge and growing in the study of His Word or in personal prayer.

How to pray?

To the question “How?”, we expect a complicated, difficult, and confused answer. But everything is so simple! What you have to do is kneel down and say: “My Savior, You are here at the door and want to come in… Behold, I call You: come in!”

Two Inspired Metaphors

In contrast to these wrong concepts, there are two inspired definitions:

Needs… and needs

Almost all our prayers refer to material, physical, health needs… God does not despise them, but we have a deeper need: we are in the middle of a spiritual battle, and sin crowds us. The Savior bears the name Joshua (The One who saves) precisely to deliver us from sin within.

Three Spiritual Ages

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TOGETHER!

God ordained three ways to obtain communion with Him:

Prayer does not change God toward us, but changes us through fellowship, unburdening, and healing.

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