7/16/2023

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE READING:

“Worship God! Then he told me, ‘Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this scroll,  because the time is near. Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong. Let the vile person continue to be vile. Let the one who does right continue to do right. Let the holy person continue to be holy.’”

(Revelation 22.9c-11)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

I begin today where I left off previously with this dominant command and theme: Worship God! For me, and I pray for all mighty ones of God, this would be the encapsulation of the entire Book of Revelation, if not the whole of The Bible. The focus of our lives ought to be God. In all we say, think and do, the purpose should be measured by our desire to, in the words of Jesus Himself, “Worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve.” (Matthew 4.10 and/or Luke 4.8) It is a reflection of Old Testament verses such as Deuteronomy 6.14, “Fear the Lord your God, serve Him only and take your oaths [only] in His name.” and in Exodus 23.25-26, “Worship the Lord your God, and His blessing will be on your food and water, [saying] I will take away sickness from among you and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span.” It is by our consent to worship God only that we find our true fulfillment in this life. We must remember that God is not in need of our worship. Rather, God desires for us to understand our need to be engaged in the mindset of authentic worship and true service. Our purpose, that which God first gave humanity was to “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1.28) It was after this commissioning, God created the Sabbath day and commanded that humanity keep it holy. The Sabbath day itself is a reflection of the wholeness and completeness of God and God’s purpose in love. It stands to reason then that as the Revelation comes to a close that we are brought to that “eternal Sabbath day.” It is the ultimate conclusion of righteous living where no “work shall be done and rest is the order of the day.”

Before moving on, I would ask us to consider then that those who are committed to the “Lake of Fire,” eternal Hell, will never experience such “rest.” They are without the hope of God’s Sabbath. They are consumed with the worship of self which is actually a worship of Satan, the Lost Cause. Satan made himself the object and subject of self-worship. There is such an angst in that practice because it cannot be fulfilled nor fulfilling. It would do well to consider “self-worship” as self-loathing simply because there is no opportunity to truly be satisified. The constant state of lack drives one to blame others for the deficit and to claim their own presence for any temporary prosperity. This “yo-yoing” of self-image will eventually stretch the string until its lacks any elasticity so the lack becomes slack and never comes back. Worship of God maintains the healthy tension and balance between God and humanity, indeed of all creation if humanity is in balance. What we are seeing now, in today’s world, is the consequence of the lack of such balance. Issues such as global warming and mass murders, the rising opioid crisis and colonialistic wars are the result of the scales being tipped away from any sense of the “fear of the Lord” and toward “the exclusivity of accommodating the broken human spirit.” And that term “fear of the Lord” is not intended to be cast under the shadow of being frightened or threatened into compliance which would breed complacency, rather it is the glory which is cast in awe and wonder of God’s revelation of authentic love. What we, as mighty ones of God, should experience is “the fear” of being without God, God’s blessing and the joy of the Lord which is our only true strength. In our experience of authentic love, we are able to offer true service to one another, to our neighbors (those in the company of believers), to the stranger (those outside of the company of believers) and to the enemy. In fact, Jesus reminded His disciples (and throught the gospel reminding us) that we are called to “love our enemies and do good [serve as meeting the measure of God’s desire to redeem the lost] to those who persecute us.” This is not the measure nor the stature of life in Hell, that eternal Lake of Fire.

We might even say, there is no love lost in Hell because there is no love to lose in Hell. Love’s authentic intention expressed in true service is to not lose anyone to Hell’s grasp. It is for that reason, I believe, that Jesus preached to the captives during His three day sojourn under the cover of the grave. Because of His commitment to authentic love He was able to offer true service to others as one leading the right worship of God. [Dare I say that must have been a helluva worship service which Jesus led as “The Chief High Priest of Heaven and Earth”!] It was that worship that Satan experienced the foreshadowing of the justice of God as captives were given the opportunity to repent and be saved. Sadly, it also bolstered Satan’s resolve because many who were there remained faithful to his cause and were willing to suffer the effect of “false worship, empty praise and the commitment to serve anyone and anything but God.” This is the direct opposite of what is happening in Heaven as it should be on earth in the Church, the community of faith in Jesus as the Christ. There the total focus is, and should be, on God alone. Such worship celebrates the goodness of God, His covenant to redeem His people (those who call upon His name in spirit and in truth) which is made known in Jesus the Christ and the gathered community of believers who bring praise for their salvation knowing it will be fulfilled on that “Last Day.” There love will not be lost. There, faith and hope and love will be known fully as they are fully known with love reigning supreme. No one will see themselves as apart or superior to another for all have sinned and fallen short but all will be redeemed and lifted up as in Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God who was slain. And in our own communities of faith as “The Church,” this ought to be the focus of our hour of worship. We should not be, as were the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, slumbering in wandering minds waiting for another to do for them what they were called to do for others. The “rest” of the work on the Day of the Lord is the training ground of discipleship to build up the saints for the work of the Body of Christ on earth. Such work is the commissioned duty and responsibility of the Church. It should not be minimized but maximized because those who are lost hang in the balance between eternal life and eternal death.

It is there that we see the telling tale of the angel of the Lord shared with John. That tale was of the established reality of the “end time.” The angel declared, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this scroll, because the time is near. Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let the one who does right continue to do right; and let the holy person continue to be holy.” (Revelation 22.10-11) Note this, that “letting the wrong continue to do wrong and the vile continue to be vile” is not a surrendering to letting this happen without a call of accountability. The gospel must still be preached and the pursuit of righteousness must still be taught. The service to the lost and the hope of reclaiming the outcast must continue. But, the intentionality of such efforts is not to be wasted energy. It is balanced by “let those who do right continue to do right and those who are holy continue in holiness.” Their eyes should remain on the prize which is Jesus Christ. They should see the empty cross and remember the price paid for our salvation because of sin. They should see the empty tomb as the evidence of the power of life over death. They should see the empty upper room as the launching point for the mission of the Church to go out into the world and not simply create a “museum” space to remember the way it was. For those who are in Jesus Christ remember that He is “the same yesterday, today and forever.” In other words, He is “the way it was, the way it is and the way it shall always be.” And what is that? It is without question the right reason for the authentic worship and true service of God on earth as it is and will be in Heaven. All our efforts are expended in fulfilling the Word of God before all the world but they must not linger there. We are, as a priesthood of all believers, called to be harvesters in the field on earth. In Heaven, we will be the harvesters who then receive the bounty of the harvest hearing the Lord of the Harvest declare, “Well done, My good and faithful servants.”

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.