7/12/2023

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE READING:

“No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and His servants will serve Him.”

(Revelation 22.3)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

Of course, without Christ we wouldn’t even be in the position of favor to “serve” God and the Lamb for all eternity. And without Christ, we wouldn’t understand that this “service” to which was are invited to on this side of the grave and called to do on that side of the grave is far more than “a job.” On this side of the grave, we weary and lament the fact of serving, working and laboring another day. We find discontent in our work (sometimes even our Christian charitable work of spreading the gospel of salvation through Christ) and pursue “retirement.” No small wonder that so many virtually loathe their “daily bread” as if it were a kind of jail sentence where prisoners are fed only “bread and water.” Yet, because of Christ we must consider the reality that “as it is on earth is merely a reflection of as it will be in Heaven.” Yes, we will work all the days of our lives but not under the curse. What is the curse? It is the penalty of our decision to act in sin and not in obedience to the Word of God. To best remember and understand this, we must go back to the “sentencing” of Adam, Eve and the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. (Genesis 3:14-19)

To the Serpent: “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly. You will eat dust all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel.” [Whatever curse is already upon livestock and all wild animals, the Serpent-Satan will be the most cursed. The greatest curse is to be a feared enemy of humanity relegated to being pursued and eventually killed by the descendant of the very one who had been chosen to bring down God from His throne in heaven. I suppose there is a lesson there “to be careful of what you ask for.” I believe the next line is most telling. The diet of Satan will be “dust.” I cannot help but connect this word to another one which says “From dust you came and to dust you shall return.” It is the allusion which is no illusion. Dust is the synonym for death. Satan speaks of life without God. Yet, without God there is no life- not even his own. What Satan sentenced himself to in all his endeavors is to sow the seed of death. For his “service” he is not given bread and water. No, his diet is dust. All things that end up in death, that is life without God, are set on his table in the presence of his adversaries. It is the opposite of what the shepherd psalmist declared was the mercy of God. (Psalm 23.5) As he sows, so shall he reap and the consequence of his appetite for life without God is “life without God” meted out by Jesus the Christ who is the offspring of Eve who is the “mother” of Mary.]

To Eve (and all those who are women): “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” [They say that the ordeal of passing kidney stones is greater than those experienced by women giving birth to a child. I have not given birth to a child as I am not a woman, but I have had bouts with kidney stones. One of them so severe, I thought death would be a blessing. Strange, is it not, that our desire is to not experience severe pain. Oh, we tolerate that pain which brings us gain as long as it is not severe. If it is severe then we blame God for it. We excuse ourselves from culpability and pray there is no liability for whatever our pain caused others including ourselves. And while I have not given birth to a child, I know firsthand the challenge of bringing a child into this world. I know the labor I had to exert in order to stand alongside of the one who was giving birth to a blessing of life which makes life and the pain of childbirth worth going through. The lesson is “this too shall pass….but not without a price.” And how many women, and men but from a different perspective, have a desire for the “gain” (a life from out of their life) with no “pain.” And sometimes, that “pain” which is hoped to be avoided is the reality of dependence upon a man. Yep, I heard it in the minds of some who just read that “I don’t need a man and I am not going to let any man rule over me.” And if that man is not allowing Christ to rule of him as Christ embraces God’s rule over Him, then it is most understandable. But, to what extent of effort will we go in order to maintain the rebellion against the Word of God? Because of the decision to authenticate a bad choice for one’s self (to live without the rule, reign and providence of God thinking we can escape death [our dust to dust], the awfulness of such a relationship is made a reality. This is the real pain in life!]

To Adam (and all those who are men): “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” [The penalty of pain is ours. And it is ours without thinking. How many times have we said to ourselves, and maybe to others, “I wasn’t thinking” or “If I had only stopped to think”? I dare say, probably more times than we care to think about. But, it is the awful reality that is our legacy. “If only,” right? If only Adam had been thinking. What was Adam thinking about in the first place as he stood passively by watching within arm’s reach Eve ignore wise counsel and be seduced into considering “life without the Word of God.” Was Adam so engaged with the vision of this “most beautiful and crafty of all the wild animals God had made”? Granted, it would have been a Dr. Doolittle moment when the serpent spoke with a forked tongue. The wisdom, which was folly, proceeded from mouth of the serpent as he licked his lips dripping with desire to defeat God’s creation if he couldn’t defeat the Creator Himself. Imagine Balaam’s surprise when the “and the donkey you rode in on” finally spoke up after being beaten unmercifully. And the donkey said “Why are you beating me? Can’t you see death standing right before you? It was plain enough for me to see. I was just trying to save your life…(and probably his own.)” But, the serpent wasn’t trying to save lives. He was trying to promote his own life which had been committed to the anarchy of sin. I don’t know what came over Adam so that he would forget who he was and what God had entrusted to him. God believed in Adam so much that He brought Eve to stand alongside of him in all his endeavors. God knew and declared before all creation “It is not good (purposeful, useful and a glory to God) for man to be alone.” God knew it the moment man was conceived in the build room of life- the kingdom of God. Creating “man in His image” was not a singular event. It was a creation of wholeness which eminated holiness. It was an act of santification to which God added the blessing of “This is good and very good.” What was good and very good, you ask? It was nothing less than the building up of a community where God could be known and served out of the joy of creation itself. It was the manifestation of the love of God which was in its essence the very nature of God. God brought forth life and experienced the pain of doing so with the sacrifice of Himself. How prophetic it would be as the penalty for choosing life without God was to “do it the hard way.” The problem of doing it the hard way was that it was not the way of God nor of God’s choosing. Doing life without God only results in the return to the chaotic cosmic dust which merely swirled in the nothingness. It existed without the possibility of life. What was needed to make sense of it all was, is and will always be God. But, if man (and humanity) wants to believe that this is life, life without the Word of God, then “we get what we ask for” either by commission or ommission or by apathy.]

But, none of that is a part of the New Heaven, the New Earth and the New Jerusalem where God has made all things new. To “serve” God in the new world was not going to be a task but a form of praise and worship. It would speak only of life and not covered over by what I have heard called “the back to Egypt” syndrome. The reality is that “there is no going back.” While hindsight may be 20/20, what must be clear to the eyes of our heart, soul, mind and strength is the foresight of what must be in order to avoid “dust to dust” and “death to death.” Jesus is the evidence of God’s great mercy and grace. It is the blood of the Lamb and the covering of His hand which not only saves us but makes us new in an eternal and abundant way. He who was “made of dust to become a man” was also “made of spirit to be Immanuel, God with and in us.” There is no toil, no deception, no failure, no sorrow, no sadness, no tears, no death, no hardship and no sin in the place where we are invited to go with the Good Shepherd, the Bridegroom who is coming to claim His Bride, the Church which is the community of faith shared by those who rebuke the devil knowing he will flee and declare that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God who is our chosen Lord, Savior and Friend. And this is what Jesus said to His disciples in the Upper Room. Too bad Judas did not hear it because he committed himself to the “act of dust.” Jesus said, “I no longer can call you servants because you now know the will of My Heavenly Father. Because You know this for yourselves, I call you friends. We shall do His work together and Him only shall we serve all the days of our lives.” Oh what a day of rejoicing that will be. It is a day we can invoke even now in part knowing that in whole it will be and is coming to pass but not to pass away. Jesus said, “Behold I AM making all things new and the former things will pass away but My word shall never pass.” We may say, those who know their scripture, that those are instead the words of the Apostle Paul. But, they are merely the quoting of what Paul heard the resurrected Lord say to him. He says it to us as well. Let us hear Him, obey Him, follow Him and serve together with Him in the joy of our salvation. Selah.

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.