7/4/2023

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE READING:

“When the thousand years are complete, Satan will be released from his prison, and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—to assemble them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the seashore. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death—the lake of fire. And if anyone was found whose name was not written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” (Revelation 20.7-8, 14-15)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S:

In case you missed the allusion in 20.8, “…and their number is as great as the sand of the seashore,” let me bring it round for our consideration and reflection. In Genesis 22, we hear a dialogue between God and Abraham. In that dialogue, God makes a promise to Abraham. The promise is given because Abraham was obedient to God. We must dearly understand the kind of faith it took for Abraham to be obedient. It is framed for me by a teaching of Jesus (Matthew 19.14- Suffer little children to come to me…) and the viewing of a newly released movie starring Jim Cavaziel titled “The Sound of Freedom.” From the beginning of creation, we have been caught into the juxtaposition of “being truly free.” That conversation has continued down through the ages with a centering on “What price freedom?” And on this day in the United States, being July 4, we are presented once again with those questions: What is authentic freedom? and What price freedom?

If freedom means “I can do whatever I want and the consequences do not matter,” then we have not understood authentic freedom. If the price of freedom is considered as “what I am willing to give to get whatever meets my need,” then we truly do not understand the cost of freedom. When Jesus spoke to His disciples who were “so concerned for His welfare believing they were protecting His physical, social, emotional, psychological and spiritual energy (and theirs as well if it wasn’t actually their top priority)” saying “Expend all your energy if making it possible for all children to come to me for to such belongs the Kingdom of Heaven,” it was about pursuing authentic freedom with the willingness to pay the ultimate price. It was, as we can easily ascertain, the benchmark for His own life and ministry. He was the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom from sin. Our lives as God’s children were more important to Him than His own. By faith He was willing to offer Himself for us so we could not only believe that God so loves us but that we would follow and accept His benchmark as our own. And on Mount Moriah, Golgotha’s hill, God again provided the necessary sacrifice so that humanity would not seize the belief that children were expendable resources to satisfy its lust of the flesh which seeks to be free from all authority but its own.

When Abraham acted in obedience, and it was no easy task to do (and without faith it would have been impossible to do) to journey up Moriah with Isaac and there offer him to God, it was an act of authentic freedom with a willingness to pay a great price. What was that price? The price was his own grasp on the legacy which God had promised. How would Abraham been able to see the fulfillment of that promise if not for trusting in the word and will of God? What was that promise? We hear it in Genesis 22.17+, “‘By Myself I have sworn,’ declares the LORD, ‘that because you have done this and have not withheld your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will multiply your descendants like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will possess the gates of their enemies. And through your offspring all nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.’” His descendants? When the promise was first made there were no opportunities for descendants because Abraham and Sarah were old and childless. The human possibility of children seemed far beyond their grasp. With an intervention, Sarah lowered herself to a “law of the land” and offered her handmaid to Abraham to become a surrogate “wife/mother.” From that union was born Ishmael the son of Hagar the handmaid and Abraham. But, this was according to human law and not God’s will. Jealousy forced Hagar and Ishmael out into the desert, not their own but that of Sarah. God would keep His covenant with Ishmael as Abraham’s son. That legacy would cause Arabic nations to rise up as numerous as the “stars in the heaven and grains of sand by the sea.” But, it was not what God had in mind for Abraham and Sarah. Now, the son born from their blessed union was being asked by the One who caused it to happen to be sacrificed to Him. If Isaac were sacrificed then how would Abraham become “the father of nations”? The answer is difficult but obvious: God’s will be done.

Mighty ones of God, let this be the only definer of authentic freedom and great price: God’s will be done. Jesus confessed it in the Olive Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus professed it on the Cross of Calvary on Golgotha’s hill of Mount Moriah. He said and affirmed, “Not My will but Yours be done, Father.” With that we are then confronted with the Enemy of the Empty Cross, the Empty Tomb and the Empty Room. He will be, and is now, gathering his own progeny of the promise of his lie. His lie is an inauthentic freedom which inactuality is bondage of heart, mind and soul to unending torment and eternal emptiness. His lie is paved with a great price of forfeiture of all riches for the poverty of sin. Those who allow themselves to believe in the lie (freedom to be who you want to be in this world without consequence) will be as numerous as “the sand of the seashore.” The contradistinction is clear. But, the result is even more clear: that which is not authentic will perish and that which is not of great price will return to the dust from which it came. So what then is hell and the lake of fire all about? It is about the soul. And that is the greatest loss of all and one which God feels and experiences Himself in the exchange for freedom. Don’t ever think this was, is or will ever be easy for God.

A PRAYER FOR TODAY:

You are our God and we shall be Your people in spirit and in truth. Continue to dwell among us. Let the revelation by Your Holy Spirit inspire us to greater service in a more refined identity. We do not live as ourselves for ourselves. Rather, we live in Christ as He lives in us. We declare it with all the elders and angels in Heaven, saying “Holy, holy, holy is He who was and is and is to come.” In Jesus’ name we live, serve and pray. AMEN.