August 8, 2024

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another.” (Zechariah 7.9)

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6.8)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

After reading these two passages of scripture, I ask you to reflect back to Zechariah 4.14 and remember “So he said, ‘These are the two witnesses who are anointed to serve the Lord of all the earth.’” Then let me press forward in time from that point to a teaching from Jesus regarded at John 8.17, “In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true.” Then we can go forward again to the witness which John the Elder received and recorded for the Church (Revelation 11.4) “These witnesses are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.” Mighty ones of God, it seems certain to me that God’s Word is true, righteous and perfect. On this point alone, we ought to be in agreement. When this word was given to Zechariah it was going to echo up through history, our history. I hope you were listening as you read the previous sentence. How it was presented for you stands contrary to what the world normally declares. I proposed that the word given to Zechariah echoed “UP” through history and not “down” through history. When someone speaks of “down through history” they are focusing on self as the pinnacle and history is trickling down to them. But to say “up through history” puts us on a timeline of revelation as a determined move toward a goal that exceeds us.

For those who are familiar with Jewish imagery, regardless of one’s compass direction from Jerusalem, everyone goes “up to Jerusalem.” This is especially true for those who lived “north” of Jerusalem. The orientation would seem to be expressed as going “down” because a person is headed south. Yet, they will say “I am going up to Jerusalem.” It is because of where Jerusalem physically and geologically exists that they say this. Whether they come from north, east, south or west or any point in between, they still have to go “up” to Jerusalem once they arrive. Jerusalem is set on Mount Zion and is surrounded by valleys. One of David’s great psalms is Psalm 48. In it we hear “Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the City of our God on the mountain of His holiness; beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion on the sides of the north the city of the great king. For this God is our God for ever and ever and He will be our guide even to the end.” I pray you can hear the call “up through history.” We are fixed in place but our place is not in the past but in the future. We are being led in faith to a conclusion that is still “in front of us.” We are living out the prophetic direction which God saw and has blazed a trail for us as a good shepherd does for his flock. Consider this upward movement in history as it was revealed in the life of Jesus. On the day of His crucifixion, He was led to a hill called Golgotha. The elevation of that hill is 2963 feet above sea level. It exists to the north and east of Jerusalem which sits on Mount Zion. The elevation of Jerusalem is 2474 feet above sea level. by simple math we can see Jesus went “up” to die and came “down” to be resurrected. One of the powerful visions given to Ezekiel was when God’s judgment was pronounced against Jerusalem as it had become under the corrupt leadership of the Temple and the Court. The execution of that judgment was shown to Ezekiel in the Spirit of God which was dwelling in the Temple moving out of the Temple, off of the mountain, down into the valley and up on the opposite hill. God moved “up” to a higher perspective. For Ezekiel, there would not be a movement back in restoration until all righteousness had been reconciled. In that moment the shekinah, the glory of God, retraced its steps back down the mountain where it was, through the valley and up Mount Zion to take residence again in the purified and adjudicated Temple. The move always concludes with “going up.” It points us to a higher reality. Isaiah 55 reflects upon such a truth as this as God declared “Your thoughts are not My thoughts and your ways are not My ways; for as the heavens are higher than the earth so are My ways higher than yours and My thoughts higher than yours.” It is not an accident. It is an intentional statement to illustrate that we are called to be “above” the world even when we are in it.

And in the testimony presented with the verses from Zechariah and Micah, that higher thinking and action sounds like this: justice, mercy and compassion. Where these three elements exist humanity is lifted above the morass of the sin-fected world. Jesus Himself is, was and will always be the culmination of those three elements. When He took Peter, James and John up Mount Tabor, we know it as the Mount of Transfiguration, they experienced three elements: Jesus, Moses and Elijah. They were the embodiment of justice, mercy and compassion. When they came down from that “mountaintop experience,” they were confronted with the opportunity to exact those elements in the healing of the man’s son who threw himself continually in the fire under the influence of demons who were unjust, merciless and without compassion. Even the disciples who were at the foot of the mountain could not effect the healing of the boy. Their lives in that moment reflected more of the demonic spirit than of the godly spirit which had just been theirs. It wasn’t because they were evil. It was because “their thoughts were not His thoughts and their ways were not His ways.” When they became aligned things began to happen in the positive and the negative was effectively challenged. Reconciliation was experienced and hope was restored. It would be to that same mountain that Jesus would take the disciples following His resurrection and commission them for the history of ministry which was ahead of them. They were moved up and He was lifted up. As the commissioning concluded, Jesus ascended into Heaven above with the promise that He would return at the end of the Age. Mighty ones of God, we must continue to move up, look up and be upward bound. We will certainly have our down times and travel through valleys filled with the shadows of death. Yet we will fear no evil for the promise of God’s presence is given to us. Jesus said, “I will be with you always.” Even in these most difficult days, let us keep our spirits high, our hopes up and our intentions lifted above that which the world desires. We must be diligent in our obedience to God as we have committed ourselves to the Christ, the Messiah and the promise which He has made and fulfilled with His life, death and resurrection. He is coming back to build back and make all things new.

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.