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Monthly Archives: November 2012

“Where Two or More Are Gathered in My Name, I Am There Also” (Matthew 18:20)

The question of the day is:  Do we value what Jesus said as utter truth?”  Value it such that our days are unusual because we see His hand everywhere involved?

He told His own that he was leaving earth to return to His Father and that He would prepare a place where they could be forever with the Son and the Father. (John 14:3)

He also said, “I will never leave or forsake you . . . for Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the earth.” (Hebrews 16:5 – Matthew 28:20)

Popular today in worship services is the singing, “I want to see Him: to see Him high and lifted up; shining in the light of His glory – singing holy, holy, holy.”

Is it the case that when we gather in churches all over our land, and are gathered in the Christian name, that we see Him there?

What are we saying? Is this our prayer to Him? Have there been those leaving these services exclaiming, “I see Him?”

Jesus said, “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto myself” (John 12:32).

A recent sermon was heard that we need to “Seek first the kingdom of God” . . . and trust that all we need for fulfilled lives  ‘will be added to us.’ (Matthew 6:33)

The words of Jesus were, “Seek first the kingdom of god and His righteousness.” We are to seek; but never as a result of our quest will we earn His righteousness.

The distinguishing mark of Christian truth is here found: the LORD gives to us His Son and imparts into us His righteousness.   He never leaves us alone on earth.  He never forsakes us.

We must receive Him, “see” Him through eyes of the faith He gives every person, and believe in our hearts that He hears us, that He abides faithful, speaks the truth, and that He cares with omnipotent caring.  Do we see Him?

We need not to incessantly say, “I want to see you.” This can become vain repetition. If we meet in His name, He is among us. He is not among us with the seeing of the eye, the hearing of the ear; but truly, we are told in scripture we should seek the Lord, reach out to him and perhaps feel him. (Acts 17:27) He is not far of any of us.

Jesus said, “I am the way” – “I am with you always.” Let us acknowledge Him, believe Him, invite Him into our moments, hear Him, feel Him – and then, worship Him because we do see Him the only way He can be seen today.

Today is my day of Jesus Christ, and tomorrow, and the next. But, one day He will manifest in such a way that not only eyes which fixed upon Him through faith and fellowship see Him, but all will see Him with their own eyes  every knee will bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth. (Philippians 2:10)

Often I awake singing in my inner being to myself: “Come to the Fountain.”  Oh, the Love of God that passes knowledge, that forms my new and daily understanding, that gives me my wings for each day!

Come to the Fountain and then – your worship will take on an irresistible invitation to others. The church of Jesus Christ will never fail on earth because Jesus satisfies our longings – and we only have to share what the LORD has done – for us – each day.

Father, I pray now for the reader – let them see you. You are high and lifted up; and you are here – as always. “Open” now, the eyes of hearts. It is well with our souls for you have never left us to the vultures of lives; and you never will.

Buddy

 

This Is the Hand of God

“We can dig our way out of this,” says the romantic, and this is a good attitude.   Maybe we can; but maybe we can’t.

To “look on the good side” only , without considering our days and utter need of God’s message of hope for today and tomorrow leaves us in the pathway of dismay or worse––that of indifference and passivity.

We should have great concern, enormous gratefulness and amazement at the perils of history, life today and our own vulnerability. The end of our capacities and opportunities are real.

The luxury offered us in the Gospel of God, is that in everything we can, give thanks; for this is His will concerning us. (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

Joseph was the favorite son of his father, Jacob. This favor aroused jealousy among his brothers enough that they deceived Jacob into believing that Joseph had been killed.  Instead, Joseph’s brothers sold him to a caravan of Egyptians.  There in Egypt Joseph faced a host of extreme difficulties and further betrayal.

Before Joseph saw God’s purpose in his life, he developed an attitude of “You meant if for evil; but God meant it for good.” He later shared this to his brothers. (Genesis 50:20)

God is not to be ignored. Fear of the Lord is, after all is the beginning of wisdom. But He is such that for those who know Him, He is loved and revered. (Proverbs 9:10)

“This day,” and every moment too, “is a day the LORD has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).

Even if the season of our plight is as Joseph, mired in a prison of someone else’s making, God will deliver us and He will turn darkness to light.  Sometimes we turn to Him best in circumstances which are the worst.   He then becomes to us the Potter who remakes lives.

Joseph is a legacy to us of how to face anything in our path. He was moral. He was faithful. He walked in the assurance of God’s goodness. He hadn’t witnessed the life of Christ on earth. He had not seen the resurrection as a fact of history. He had not heard the completed story. We don’t know everything either.

The devastation our fellow Americans face in the North East, the brutal deaths of our fellow Americans in Libya.  The sorrow that millions of children not lucky enough to have been born in America and whose poverty is real and not their own fault, every death, every crippling disease––do these catch our eye? They should.  We are fool-hearty if we just “Thank our lucky stars.”

Our hearts should ache. Christ’s does. He gave Himself a sacrifice as the only cure. Those without Him face an eternity of sorrow: that is His message; not mine.

We see fiction films showing the walking dead. Do we see the stark reality of it? The devil means if for evil. The LORD means it to awaken us; to stir us from complacency.

Jesus came to take our sin away, to heal broken hearts and fill them with hope, to bless and not to curse.

Be awed friends by all that is happening. In that awe, be Christ’s ambassador. Don’t think you can change much in people.  He does the changing.  Share Him with them, don’t keep Him to yourself.  “The blind see, the maimed are healed, prisoners are freed, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them.”  Jesus said this.  (Matthew 11:5)

Were it not for the Gospel preached, barbarism world not have been overcome in history. Without the Gospel preached, it is returning.

Suffering is inevitably the result of sin. Salvation from a suffering eternity changes a person. They see the suffering as what brought them to the Lord.

Oh, what joy believers experience. The “Outstretched arms” of God in Christ and the “Mighty hand” stretched forth for all mankind on Calvary was God’s answer to sin-caused suffering.

He came to take away our sin, to take away the sting of death, to implant certain hope and to grant complete assurance, to satisfy our longings.

So, friends, look around, someone is crying.  They don’t know they weep because they are not at home with Christ. Please tell them.

 

Buddy