October 29, 2024

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“’[On that Day] a day of the Lord is coming, Jerusalem, when your possessions will be plundered and divided up within your very walls. I [the Lord] will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city…. It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—with no distinction between day and night. When evening comes, there will be light.’” (Zechariah 14.1-2, 7)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

Why would God allow or cause such disaster to happen to His people? Why would God comfort Samuel by calling him to anoint David as Israel’s future king while allowing the people to appoint Saul to be their king? Why would God so love the world that He would send His only begotten Son into the world to live His normal sinless life but still suffer the excruciating death of an insurrectionist sinner? We most certainly live in a world of comparison/contrast with elements that are so diametrically opposed their differences are indisputable. Recently, I read as I am sure many of you have seen “God does not send people to Hell. People chose Hell for themselves.” They are certainly times when disaster, trial, tribulation and festering sorrow passes across our lives. We can choose to live in it and become a part of it. We can choose a better way to endure it and pass through it. This has been said in another way, “Be in the world but not of it.” (John 17.15f) The reality of life is, in this world, that we are not able to survive it on our own merit or effort. Regardless of how smart we may think we are or try to become, the measure of our true intelligence comes in choosing whom we shall worship beyond ourselves instead of ourselves and achieve the greater good for everyone. [This would be the problem of Artificial Intelligence, in my estimation, because it will only serve the one who engages it for themselves. It is artificial in that it has no soul and thus no connection to the highest power which created all of life and that is God. Even now, if it found a way to do such a thing it is because it already existed. It would not be original. How “smart is it” to think we can outdo the original?] So, what are the consequences of the choices we make? If we are allowed to steward them into a state of reality how well will they serve us and to what end? We are able to understand their identities by their comparison and contrast with each other…as long as we are in this world. Yet, as is told to us in Zechariah, there will come a unique day when such comparison/contrast will cease to exist for us. What will exist will be two distinct realities which stand diametrically opposed to each other. Those realities are: with God and without God.

Verse 14.7 speaks to that reality which is opposed the reality of the world left to its own design. What was purposed for life ends up in death. Not any death is described but a torturous and consuming process of dying that speaks of no God but the gods we choose to follow or become. This is not what Satan presents but it is the agenda behind the facade of his words “Surely you will not die!” The reality is that left to our own design, no matter how “good” we attempt to be, we will die. I am not speaking of physical death alone, as that is a given in this world except for those who will be alive “on that Day.” I am speaking of that spiritual death which endures forever in the opposition of God. It is where all those who believe they are gods or who claim allegiance to other gods will exist in perpetuity. They will not be able to escape their condition of choice. They may even be able to reason the “why and how, the when and where and what,” but they will not be able to turn back the decision. There is no “Ground Hog Day” on “that Day.” Mighty ones of God, we are given the insight as to what “that Day” is and how through following Christ alone we are able to experience it. We will even face the trials of this world but we will not be condemned to live them over and over again until we lose sight of them ever happening before. Jesus taught “I AM the way, the truth and the life; no one can come to the Father except according to this: [I AM the way, the truth and the life].” By Him are we able to pass through these valleys where the shadows of death exist. By Him are we able to survive the pestilence of sin. By Him are the enemies of God and God’s people kept at bay to dwell in the shadows and fear the light. What is that boundary? I would submit it is the boundary of “fear God only.” We have heard many say “NO FEAR!” Instead, we ought to deal with the truth that we are called to “fear God alone.” Jesus said, “Do not be afraid of those who can kill the body; rather fear the One who holds sway over the flesh and the spirit.” The reality is that the enemy can kill the body. But, we control the destination of where we desire our spirit to go. Surrendering it, as Jesus did on the cross, into the hands of God, preserves it. It will be returned and restored. It will pass through the fire of challenge and temptation. The body they may kill but they cannot diminish the full effect of faith which acknowledges the goodness and greatness of God. What will you choose to be and to do?

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.