02/26/10 today

Isaiah 35

 ¹ The desert and the parched land will be glad;
       the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
       Like the crocus, ² it will burst into bloom;
       it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
       The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
       the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
       they will see the glory of the LORD,
       the splendor of our God.

 ³ Strengthen the feeble hands,
       steady the knees that give way;

 ⁴ say to those with fearful hearts,
       "Be strong, do not fear;
       your God will come,
       he will come with vengeance;
       with divine retribution
       he will come to save you."

 ⁵ Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
       and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

 ⁶ Then will the lame leap like a deer,
       and the mute tongue shout for joy.
       Water will gush forth in the wilderness
       and streams in the desert.

 ⁷ The burning sand will become a pool,
       the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
       In the haunts where jackals once lay,
       grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

 ⁸ And a highway will be there;
       it will be called the Way of Holiness.
       The unclean will not journey on it;
       it will be for those who walk in that Way;
       wicked fools will not go about on it.

 ⁹ No lion will be there,
       nor will any ferocious beast get up on it;
       they will not be found there.
       But only the redeemed will walk there,

 ¹⁰ and the ransomed of the LORD will return.
       They will enter Zion with singing;
       everlasting joy will crown their heads.
       Gladness and joy will overtake them,
       and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

This is so beautiful.  What a picture!  I think about the new believers when I read about those who walk in the Way.  And I know that this was not their physical reality any more than it is ours in this lifetime.  But what a picture of the Kingdom of God when He is on His throne and all heaven and earth bow down to our Lord!.  ‘The unclean will not journey on it...  only the redeemed will walk there.’   In the millennium Jerusalem will literally be on earth as the capital of God’s Kingdom, remade in perfection after the earth has been cleansed of sin.  There will be none of the effects of sin left on the earth and all will be beautiful.  The land will be glad, fertile, and as Eden was, it will be beautiful beyond our imaginings.  I read the scripture above and dream of a city whose founder and maker is God.  Of a place where joy overtakes all who live there and sorrow and sighing have gone away.

But more than this, as beautiful as it is I dream of a place where Jesus Himself will be the light that we walk by.  A place that is where His physical presence is literal, where I can walk with Him and talk with Him and listen to His voice.  My heart lies in that city, with my Sovereign Lord.  It is the place that, though I have never seen it, it is truly home for a sojourner in this foreign land.  I long for that place.

Isaiah 52:7 

 ⁷ How beautiful on the mountains
       are the feet of those who bring good news,
       who proclaim peace,
       who bring good tidings,
       who proclaim salvation,
       who say to Zion,
       "Your God reigns!"

How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. Yes how beautiful. They come along the path that leads to the Kingdom of Heaven bearing the very spark of eternal life, like Olympic athletes, with them.  But instead of igniting the flame in an arena they light others along the way and share the good news about the eternal city of God which sparks whosoever that they may also come. 

2 Kings 13:20-22

²⁰ Elisha died and was buried.
      Now Moabite raiders used to enter the country every spring. ²¹ Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man's body into Elisha's tomb. When the body touched Elisha's bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet.

How awesome!  How is it that I miss these little jewel nuggets of God’s power?  Oh Lord that I would be such a person!  Oh that I would be able to give myself to You to this extent.  Sorrow and sadness will pass away in the Kingdom as we take up residence with our Saviour.  May our lives be such that as we walk towards that great city that we would be as these bones were, so that any who touch us would spring from death to life and be transformed with the power of His love into fellow sojourners heading home. 

In Assault on Eden, writer Virginia Stem Owens reflects: “We are all of us somewhere on that long road that runs from the gate of Eden, closed forever to human habitation, to the gate of the New Jerusalem that stands perpetually open to receive the glory and honor of nations. And along each part of the road wander pilgrims.”

So then along our own personal road to Glory we are not alone.  Many are on that road with us.  But each of us has been gifted with unique abilities that allow us to traverse our own paths and touch unique lives in ways that we alone are created to do.  Therefore we must also not simply walk blindly along stumbling and bumping into all manner of obstacles.  No, we must reach for that goal by an earnest effort to know God.  Walking in the light of His Word and having a right view of Him brings us to an understanding of ourselves and the reason for our creation.  To simply aim for Christ is not enough.  We must reach with all we are for Him and hurl ourselves into His being.  With dedication to both lose ourselves in Him and gain the understanding of who God made us to be - will give us our purpose and focus in this life.  We are not there until we get there!   Rather we must fight through the nothingness of life and live with purpose and the goal that He has placed in us.

And in the hearts of all who are skillful, I have put skill, that they may make all that I have commanded.  Exodus 31:6  God had a plan to build a tabernacle even before Moses was born. Not only did God give specific instructions to Moses, but He had prepared ahead of time skilled men and women for His purpose.

Have you considered that you were gifted by the Creator with innate skills which empower you to fulfill a unique role?

Most people do not know how to separate their innate skills from their occupational identity.  Understanding your innate skills will give definite guidance in choosing a next assignment from the Lord. 

“For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”(Hab 2:14)  “You will either join Him in His passion for His glory among the nations or miss it.”

It all goes together, our paths, our goals, our resources, our gifts, our destination, our purpose.  Our Lord desires to know us, to have deep connection with us.  He placed in our being the desire to know Him intimately.  Everything in creation is for that purpose.  We are all somewhere along the path heading to home.  We all have specific personal parts that He made in us to reflect who He is and to be used by Him to draw others to Him.  Our roll in His plan is unique to us.  There is no one else He made just like each one of us.  But by the same token we are all the same, all created in His image and so greatly loved.  Our makeup is divine.  We have been created with the breath of God breathed into us.  Unique, interdependent, cohesive parts of the whole that makes up His church, His body, His bride. 

Until the time when we arrive home to be with Him forever the best life we could ever live here is to fulfill the purpose we have been created for.  Not in a general sense, as in, created to glorify Him, to worship Him, to spread His message and bring others to Him.  Those are macro views of our purpose in remaining here for now.  But we must seek to know Him so well that with every whisper of His instruction to us, our ears perk up and hear loudly and clearly what He desires from us.  We must make a sober assessment of ourselves so that we can identify those things that He has placed in us as His divine tools for His Glory.  Then we must pursue excellence in those areas so that we can show ourselves able workers:  ¹⁰For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

To this end a search for one’s purpose is more important than any other task a Christian could take on outside of the seeking Him in order to accomplish that purpose.   A sober self assessment is therefore in order.

Christian doctor, Paul Tournier - 1976.

The Strong and the Weak. Philadelphia:  Westminster Press.

Here is a brief excerpt taken from his closing comments.

The true meaning of a religious experience does not lie in the transformation it effects in our lives, but in the fact that in it we have known God. That is what is lasting, even if our life remains a mixture of the divine and human. That is what helps us to accept the drama of human life, which results from the very fact of the unending conflict in us between the divine and the human.

It is indeed to the extent to which our experience has borne real fruit, to the extent to which our lives and our natures have undergone palpable, manifest change, that we can witness to the power of God. But that power goes far beyond our puny witness. What matters is not our experiences, but the fact that in them we have known the power of God’s grace. That is a thing we do not forget, even if the day must come when the weaknesses, temptations, and sins from which we had thought ourselves finally delivered reappear on the horizon; even if we must tirelessly battle on against our nature.

That is our task, to battle on, to hold our own against our inborn tendencies (to strong or weak reactions), which we were given when we were given life itself, and which will be with us as long as we live. But the battle will not be the same as it was before. The faith born in us as the result of concrete religious experience, survives even if we backslide. What is radically changed is the climate of our lives. Though our innate tendencies will remain with us, we shall on the other hand find it possible to break out of the vicious circles… Then if we still discover in ourselves, to our dismay, strong or weak natural reactions, far from being discouraged, we shall see them as opportunities for new deliverances.

The Christian life is not a decisive and radical experience undergone once and for all. It is an uninterrupted series of experiences in which by God’s grace even defeat and backsliding generate new victories. (p. 248, 249)