Soaring, flying… breaking free

OK, so it’s pure cheese of the reprocessed nacho gloop variety, but I can’t help seeing the analogies in this song to our relationship with God….

Isaiah 61:7 (Amplified)

Instead of your [former] shame you shall have a twofold recompense; instead of dishonor and reproach [your people] shall rejoice in their portion.

Isaiah 55:12

For you shall go out [from the spiritual exile caused by sin and evil into the homeland] with joy and be led forth [by your Leader, the Lord Himself, and His word] with peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

Nahum 1:12-13

12Thus says the Lord: Though they be in full strength and likewise many, even so shall [the Assyrians] be cut down when [their evil counselor] shall pass away. Though I have afflicted you [Jerusalem], I will not cause you to be afflicted [for your past sins] any more.

13For now will I break his yoke from off you and will burst your bonds asunder.

Everlasting Love vs. Wasting time

A song on the bus impresses upon me the love of God:

Open up your eyes
Then you’ll realise
Here I stand with my
Everlasting love

Do we not realise how wide (all-encompassing—for everyone—even you), how long (everlasting), how high (beyond human comprehension), how deep (unfathomable—were we to have all eternity, there would still be more to search) is the Love of God.  As I sat in the bus this morning, I was impressed that God himself is singing this very song to humanity, this unrequited love song and invitation to marriage

Need you by my side
Girl to be my bride
You’ll never be denied
Everlasting Love

You’ll never be denied.  Gods promises are for everyone.  Come all who I thirsty and drink of the waters of life, says Jesus.  Come as you are, surrender your heart and be a part of me.

From the very start
Open up your heart
Be a lasting part of
Everlasting Love

When we surrender our hearts to Jesus, when we give him our lives and experience His everlasting love, which is freely given to all humanity, our lives have meaning and purpose as we allow Him to transform us by renewing our mind.

Contrast this to what life might be without Jesus (or without the daily renewal we need from the Holy Spirit, or what happens when we knowingly disobey God).

Another song on the bus:

Sitting in the morning sun
I’ll be sitting when the evening comes
Watching the ships roll in
And I watch ‘em roll away again

[Refrain]
Sitting on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
I’m just sitting on the dock of the bay
Wasting time

I left my home in Georgia
Headed for the ‘Frisco bay
‘Cause I had nothin to live for
And look like nothing’s gonna come my way

So I’m just…
[Refrain]

Look like nothing’s gonna change
Everything still remains the same
I can’t do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I’ll remain the same

Sittin here resting my bones
And this loneliness won’t leave me alone
It’s two thousand miles I roamed
Just to make this dock my home

“…Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the LORD your God and have no awe of me,” declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty

The Archaic and the Eternal

I have heard it said, many a time, with respect to the truth of the gospel, the reality of sin and redemption, death and the resurrection, the eternal King Jesus and His defeated foe… that such concepts were so completely “archaic” that they “could not possibly” apply today.

The thought that crosses my mind is “Since when does eternal truth ever become outdated?” In this deluded, depressed, demoralized postmodern society that we live in,  we have the audacity to pigeon-hole centuries-old truth as “archaic”.

If the Truth has been outmoded, then with what exactly has it been replaced with? Surely we must have something infinitely better to show in our society now we have suddenly—at last—become released from the shackles of antiquity. What is it that is somehow much better than the Truth which motivated such as the American Revolutionaries, and those who were responsible for shutting down the slave trade, and the Reformers (many of whom paid with their lives simply so we could have access to God’s immutable word, the Bible, that “archaic” diatribe that it is), or in more recent times General Montgomery, whose pronouncement “The Lord mighty in Battle will give us the victory” preceeded the first military victory for the allies in World War II. Shall I go on? Are we to somehow ignore history?

Since when do we presume to have attained the intellectual superiority to dismiss the glorious truth that our forefathers lived and died for, the real platform upon which all of the freedoms which we now take foregranted, were actually built? So that now we discuss whether or not it is “relevant” to deign to pray before parliament sits, or before school or even at school at all, or in public ever? There is a reason why Christian society has been blessed in the past, and it behooves us to understand our past as it truly was, not how revisionist history might try to paint it.

God is not mocked. Let God be true and every man a liar. The god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers.

And let Christians not forget God’s promise: “If my people, who are called by My Name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked [lit. bent] ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land”.

Lord, heal our land!! Come and send revival!! We need you!!!

Oceans will part

The refrain of the song in my head is
“Oceans will part, Nations Come, at the whisper of your call…
“Hope will rise, Glory shown, In my life your will be done”

There is something about the will of God in our life that engenders the miraculous. In order to step into the future God has for us, we are led to a place where the impossible confronts us head on, and we are left with nothing else but to step into his plan. The parting of the oceans and the establishment of Gods purposes for our life are one and the same. One is an outward manifestation of the supernatural, the other an inward but no less incredible impartation of miraculous grace.

But why are we so surprised at the need for the miraculous? (or why I am I so surprised…) Doesn’t Jesus promise us that whosoever believes in Him, rivers of living water shall flow (gush?) from their innermost being. Where else does that overflow of supernatural grace come from but the miraculous presence of God pouring forth into our lives. It is no less incredible than the mighty Red Sea, split asunder as Moses lifts his staff, no less gobsmacking than the river Jordan rolled back as far as the eye could see, the reproach of Israel driven back to Adam.

So it is with the miraculous working of God’s will in our lives.

In my life, Your will be done. Not the comprehensible, categorizable, understandable plans that I can conceive. The incomprehensible, improbable, impossible will of God for my life. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived”. But God has revealed it to us by his spirit. How incredible is that.

The Plans I have for you

Just as God led His people Israel through the wilderness in times of old, God still leads His people into the wilderness. And He led his own Son, Jesus, into the wilderness, before his ministry. Just as he promised Hosea, He is leading us into the wilderness with a purpose, and that purpose is to speak tenderly to us, to teach us how to depend on Him and not ourselves.

To those who don’t know God and His ways, nothing could seem more preposterous. Yet to those who do know God, and are familiar with His ways, nothing provides a greater testimony to the truthfulness of these words than the very experience of Gods tender mercies while in the depths of the wilderness…

And the purpose He has for us today, in learning to depend on Him and learning to lean on Him is wholly pointed in the direction of the future. He declares: “I know the plans I have for you, plans to give you a future, and a hope…. plans to prosper you, and not to harm you.’ Yet our circumstances, in their abject barrenness speak of the complete opposite. We are reminded of God’s faithful servant Abraham: “Against all hope, Abraham, in hope, believed”

And one cannot believe unless there is an object for that belief. That object, is the embodiment of his Son Jesus. He is our portion. When we are fully satisfied in Him, and in Him alone, we find that within the awesomeness of his majesty, his provision, is our very future, and the plans of God mapped out before us somehow within the person of Jesus. Jesus declared “In my fathers house are many rooms”… and we do not know how true that is for us, as Jesus opens His heart to us and we find within the desires of our own heart, the plans and the destiny and the dreams that we had hoped for, within the desire of our heart, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that is the plan for the future. “For I know the plans I have for you”, says God, “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope”. Hope, as they say, has a name.

That name is Jesus.

Do you know him? If not, take the time to seek Him and learn of Him… for He is gentle and humble of heart, His yoke is easy and His burden is light. He knows you by name and He is calling you this very day.

“Choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and My house, we will serve the Lord”