But what is this writing getting at afterall? Though they may be helpful, it is not about personal testimonies mine and others. We might begin to focus on the means rather than the objective if that is all that it was. It seems we are always getting bogged down as Christians in the wrong thing. I am rather trying to get to the desperate need of the hour. I am trying to get to the message.
Psalms 9:15-16 Is a picture of the world we live in today. The Nations have sunk down in the pit which they made; In the net which they hid, their own foot is caught. The Lord is known by the judgment He executes; The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands.
The Lord is quickly handing man over to the things of man to show us it is not in man. The world is unraveling as we speak and we as Christians are on the bus headed rapidly for the edge of the cliff arguing about everything and focused on everything but what the hour really needs. Martha, Martha you are worried and troubled about many things. But there is but one thing needed (Luke 10:41-42)
I once pressed a Christian pastor if he thought the church was so divided, so worldly, so distracted, because the cross had not been applied to our hearts as Christ said it should be. He had no trouble though with the state of today's Christianity, he likened it to an ice cream store where the Lord had in it many flavors.
Needless to say I don't think we are the Lord's ice cream store. The real purpose of the church is explained in Colossians 1:15-18 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
This holds in it the vision of why he suffered so, why it cost Him so. We were to be the firstborn to rise up from the dead of the fall. We are the first part of His work in creation to gather back all He lost in the fall, that He may once again be all in all, that He may have the preeminence beginning with the church. It may explain then why all of hell fights against it so. Anytime the principalities and powers see the least hint of any authentic manifestation of Jesus Christ being raised up on this earth it signals their end. It reminds them that He will once again establish His preeminence. He will once again be all in all. The church should be a sign to them of the things to come.
We cannot be that sign, however, if we make God become whom we desire Him to be to shield us from that which He desires us to become. We are admonished not to make God into our own image. But when we become an ice cream store believing we can become any flavor we choose to be, that is exactly what we do.
What the Lord is really after on this earth, however, in us is authenticity. A true expression of His Son manifested on this earth. A people after His own heart.
Something like that doesn't come cheaply though. It is no small thing to come into the reality of the Lord. He truly does leads us by a way unknown.
For Moses everything was found out in Midian. No stone was left unturned. He knows what He is looking for. He knows How to bring it out. It is all exposed then. Nothing is hidden. It is there we find all the things that must go, in order for the Son to come in.
In some ways the Moses of Egypt before Midian is a picture of the church today. Moses was a man in Egypt, with all the ways and wisdom of Egypt, who was arrayed with all the power of Egypt, living in all the pleasures of Egypt, who was totally inept to deliver His people from Egypt. Does that sound familiar? The one must go in order for the other to come in. Moses was a man trying to find a worldly solution to a spiritual problem.
It is not easy to be led by the Spirit into the desert and men do everything to avoid it. It is much easier to go the ends of the earth in His name, than come to the end of ourselves at the cross. If you remember nothing else about the cross remember this. If we stop at the blood we miss the journey. Salvation is not a thing we come into in a day. Salvation is something that is worked out over a lifetime.
We can make Him be whomever we desire Him to be to shield us from How He truly desires to be known. But authenticity only comes when we have that burning desire in us for reality. When we are able to say to Him. "Lord I cry out for authenticity. I cry out for the reality of you manifested on this earth. Whatever must go take it. Lead me precious Lord to the backside of Midian. Leave no stone unturned. For your Sake precious Lord. For Your sake have your way with me that you may have something real, something true, something that truly springs forth from you on this earth, that spills out into the world around me and touches everything it encounters with the living springs of life."
This is what will really matter in these dark and treacherous days. That which is really out from Him. It will not be easy. It is a way unknown, that test everything we believe to be true, all of our ideas of how to serve Him, even perhaps what we thought Christianity to always be. He will lead us to places we never imagined we would be, through ways and by means we would never imagined He would have used. But He knows how to get what He is after. It is a strangely beautiful place, but poignantly painful. It is a series of enigmas, often intermixed with the darkest of nights, yet often followed by the most glorious of days. It is in these places though that He forges us into the image of Christ, into the reality and authenticity of His Son. And when we think we have lost our way altogether, suddenly a great light will shine in the darkness, and it will all become clear. And this place so painful where everything seems to come to end, is suddenly Holy Ground. We find like Jacob that Surely the Lord is in this place and we knew it not.
May you be blessed in these days and I pray this be a cup of water to you for your journey.
Final Chapter
Psalms 9:15-16 Is a picture of the world we live in today. The Nations have sunk down in the pit which they made; In the net which they hid, their own foot is caught. The Lord is known by the judgment He executes; The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands.
The Lord is quickly handing man over to the things of man to show us it is not in man. The world is unraveling as we speak and we as Christians are on the bus headed rapidly for the edge of the cliff arguing about everything and focused on everything but what the hour really needs. Martha, Martha you are worried and troubled about many things. But there is but one thing needed (Luke 10:41-42)
I once pressed a Christian pastor if he thought the church was so divided, so worldly, so distracted, because the cross had not been applied to our hearts as Christ said it should be. He had no trouble though with the state of today's Christianity, he likened it to an ice cream store where the Lord had in it many flavors.
Needless to say I don't think we are the Lord's ice cream store. The real purpose of the church is explained in Colossians 1:15-18 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.
This holds in it the vision of why he suffered so, why it cost Him so. We were to be the firstborn to rise up from the dead of the fall. We are the first part of His work in creation to gather back all He lost in the fall, that He may once again be all in all, that He may have the preeminence beginning with the church. It may explain then why all of hell fights against it so. Anytime the principalities and powers see the least hint of any authentic manifestation of Jesus Christ being raised up on this earth it signals their end. It reminds them that He will once again establish His preeminence. He will once again be all in all. The church should be a sign to them of the things to come.
We cannot be that sign, however, if we make God become whom we desire Him to be to shield us from that which He desires us to become. We are admonished not to make God into our own image. But when we become an ice cream store believing we can become any flavor we choose to be, that is exactly what we do.
What the Lord is really after on this earth, however, in us is authenticity. A true expression of His Son manifested on this earth. A people after His own heart.
Something like that doesn't come cheaply though. It is no small thing to come into the reality of the Lord. He truly does leads us by a way unknown.
For Moses everything was found out in Midian. No stone was left unturned. He knows what He is looking for. He knows How to bring it out. It is all exposed then. Nothing is hidden. It is there we find all the things that must go, in order for the Son to come in.
In some ways the Moses of Egypt before Midian is a picture of the church today. Moses was a man in Egypt, with all the ways and wisdom of Egypt, who was arrayed with all the power of Egypt, living in all the pleasures of Egypt, who was totally inept to deliver His people from Egypt. Does that sound familiar? The one must go in order for the other to come in. Moses was a man trying to find a worldly solution to a spiritual problem.
It is not easy to be led by the Spirit into the desert and men do everything to avoid it. It is much easier to go the ends of the earth in His name, than come to the end of ourselves at the cross. If you remember nothing else about the cross remember this. If we stop at the blood we miss the journey. Salvation is not a thing we come into in a day. Salvation is something that is worked out over a lifetime.
We can make Him be whomever we desire Him to be to shield us from How He truly desires to be known. But authenticity only comes when we have that burning desire in us for reality. When we are able to say to Him. "Lord I cry out for authenticity. I cry out for the reality of you manifested on this earth. Whatever must go take it. Lead me precious Lord to the backside of Midian. Leave no stone unturned. For your Sake precious Lord. For Your sake have your way with me that you may have something real, something true, something that truly springs forth from you on this earth, that spills out into the world around me and touches everything it encounters with the living springs of life."
This is what will really matter in these dark and treacherous days. That which is really out from Him. It will not be easy. It is a way unknown, that test everything we believe to be true, all of our ideas of how to serve Him, even perhaps what we thought Christianity to always be. He will lead us to places we never imagined we would be, through ways and by means we would never imagined He would have used. But He knows how to get what He is after. It is a strangely beautiful place, but poignantly painful. It is a series of enigmas, often intermixed with the darkest of nights, yet often followed by the most glorious of days. It is in these places though that He forges us into the image of Christ, into the reality and authenticity of His Son. And when we think we have lost our way altogether, suddenly a great light will shine in the darkness, and it will all become clear. And this place so painful where everything seems to come to end, is suddenly Holy Ground. We find like Jacob that Surely the Lord is in this place and we knew it not.
May you be blessed in these days and I pray this be a cup of water to you for your journey.
Final Chapter