August 7, 2024

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“The word of the Lord came to me…This will happen if you diligently obey the Lord your God.” (Zechariah 6.9, 15b)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

As mighty ones of God in Jesus Christ our Lord there is such truth to the following statement: Our best days are ahead of us and not behind us. The evidence of that is in the only truly significant and transformative day in our past: the cross. The proof of that is in the reality of the most consequential day in our past: resurrection Sunday. What both of these elements have in common is threefold, they are: only Jesus; they were soon vacated and God’s promise was validated. Because of Jesus’ faith in and love of God and humanity the cross and the grave were emptied of their hold over God’s people who had been promised life eternal and abundant. Because of God’s faith in and love of us and His only begotten Son resurrection is established as our good future and the best day of our lives as He promised. There is nothing more powerful and significant then than the gospel of Jesus Christ which bears witness for us to all the world. Listening to a “new to me” Christian artist, I was inspired to consider “If such praise and worship music moves me to greater feeling and awareness of the move of the spirit this side of heaven, what must the music be like on that side of resurrection?” To know that one day I will not have to imagine what the angel chorus sounds like because I will be a part of the symphony of heaven is humbling and exciting. To not only see Jesus face to face and all fears will dissipate but watch as He leads us in worship and praise of the God of all creation who is our Heavenly Father gives me chills of anticipation and a longing for realization. We can experience it in part in the here and now. We pray for God’s will to be done “on earth as it is in Heaven.” We can allow our human imagination to be inspired by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and stretch out to the heights and depth and breadth of creation with the vision of seeing the One who is behind it all. In the midst of all of that the undeniable truth for us is: Immanuel, God with us, is still in front of us. All the doubts, fears, heartaches, sorrows, troubles, challenges and anxieties are the evidences of living in a world that is sin-fected. But, by the testimony of the gospel we can say as Jesus did to His detractors, “This world is not My forever home.” He told His disciples who remained with Him in the Upper Room after Judas of Kerioth went to claim a Messiah whose forever home was this world, “Do not be afraid, let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God so believe then what I AM [is] telling you. In My Father’s House are many rooms. If it were not true why would I tell you I AM going there to prepare a place for you. If I AM going there to do this for you know that I AM coming back to take you to be where I AM now going. And this is the truth: you know where I AM going.” (John 14.1-4) Jesus is preparing our “forever home” this very moment. Until then, we are preparing a place that will reflect our understanding of it here on earth to be our dwelling place until He returns for us.

Of course, this is virtually the last thing the enemy of God wants the people of God to do. Satan the Deceiver and the Father of Lies would want nothing more than to desecrate such a place. He will do everything in his power to destroy such strongholds of faith, hope and love. He attacks the very building blocks of such a place so that those “living stones,” as Peter called believers, could not be built upon one another as a spiritual house for the priesthood of all believers to make acceptable sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2.5) That “spiritual house” is a temple constructed to God to dwell in on earth as He does in Heaven. It is a testimony for all the world to know that “God is in this place.” And by “this place,” I do not mean in the temple alone but in the world. As Jesus taught in His Sermon on the Mount [or “the Plain” as Luke calls it], “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden any more than you can hide a burning candle under a bushel basket.” (Matthew 5.14) Of course, as was the custom of Jesus in teaching the people with parables and metaphors derived from real-time experiences, He was speaking of Jerusalem, the Temple and Mount Zion. Regardless of where the people of God were, they were representatives and ambassadors of the “glory of God.” Their faith in God and for God fueled the fire of expectation for the goodness and greatness of God to give life, give life abundance and give life permanence. So, Satan did and does all within his power to bring that “temple” down. In doing so, he removes the messenger with the hope and belief that it will remove the message. In other words, his attempt at destruction is to put out “the light of the world” so that the people will live in “darkness.” It doesn’t have to be a literal darkness! You understand that, right? As mighty ones of God, darkness is the absence of “the light of the world” which is “the light of all creation.” Without the means of seeing God how could one know God? Yes, God is every present but as human beings we are still so given to “seeing is believing.” That is why we are blessed by God with the gift of faith. Remember, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen [with human eyes.]” (Hebrews 11.1) By faith, God created the heavens and the earth. He did so by bringing a focus on the light of His presence. It was amid the chaos that God’s presence was always present. He did not exist apart from it but was always in the midst of it. It was by His love that faith moved the chaos into order and life began to take shape and form. When John the Beloved begins his gospel concerning Jesus the Christ, he affirmed this truth as the beginning point of new life. Without a doubt, the primacy of John’s gospel was the spiritual aspect of “dwelling with God.” He said, “In the beginning was the Word, and Word was with God and the Word was God. Nothing that has been made was made apart from that Word.” Do we hear that? Nothing exists apart from that Word. All created life has its substance, nature and being because of that Word. He would go on to say, “In Him, that Word, there was life and that life was the light of the world which the darkness could not fathom [overcome.]” (John 4.4) It doesn’t mean the “darkness” did not try to overcome it but that its attempt to do so failed. Where there is light there is hope. Where there is hope there is faith. Where there is faith there is love. Where there is love there is life. Where there is life, death cannot succeed.

Mighty ones, I present this perspective to you in this moment for two reasons. First, it is important to understand the depth of affection which the exiles felt in their anticipated homecoming. It also allows us to understand the depth of despair they must have felt when they saw that “city set on a hill” as a dim reflection of its former self. It would have been easy for them to say “Oh, how I wish for the good old days.” But, as I started off today’s reflection, “Our best days are not behind us but ahead!” Time was to reconcile, renew, rebuild, regenerate and re-engage the mission of God which had been given to them. If they followed the “Master’s plan,” it would have gone well. Life is always a choice. Life is not, however, one and done. In order for the plan to work they had to always “reconcile, renew, rebuild, regenerate and re-engage” the mission of God which had been given to them. This is where Jesus comes in. “What is impossible for us is not impossible with God.” We can do this!

Second, we are at a pivotal time in history. As we look at our own seat of governance locally, nationally and globally and socially, politically and spiritually we are seeing a dim reflection of what has been and who we are supposed to be. We, too, have the Master’s Plan which can assist us in being again the people of God, the building blocks of truth set upon one another as a “spiritual house for the priesthood of all believers” to accomplish God’s good will on earth as it is in Heaven. Not everyone will believe in that house. Many will stand against that house. But as Jesus taught “A man who builds his house on the rock does so confident in the knowledge that no storm can overtake it!” Right now, whatever stone foundation WAS present has crumbled into shifting sand. It did so because too many put their faith in themselves standing apart from God as if to douse the light of the world. But, as in Isaiah’s prophecy, “The people who dwelt in darkness have seen a great light. The people who have dwelt in the land of the shadow of death has the light of truth shining down upon them.” It is the affirmation of the Messianic hope. It is our hope, too, for this place in which we live. It is not our “forever home.” It is, however, the home we are building by being built up in Christ to bear witness to the truth which can liberate all people from sin and bring them into the land of righteousness, the righteousness of God.

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, before we were conceived in the womb, You had already formed us in Your love and by Your Spirit brought us into being. Each one of us is blessed with the opportunity of doing right, being good and producing the fruit of the Spirit in order that others be fed the truth of that same love so that the two will become one. It is our soul’s sincere desire to embrace the oneness You have in mind so we would know we are Your people and You are our God. Lead us in that discovery of the truth and the manifestation of that love for us all. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.