In celebration of Holy Week, Easter morning, and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, I want to share something with you that I wrote a few years ago. Instead of our typical devotional message I want to share a poem that I hope you will enjoy and contemplate throughout the day and year to come.
We have completed Holy Week, and during this week we lived and were spiritually crucified with Christ during His final days. We followed Him through the joy of His arrival in Jerusalem, to the last supper, His anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane, the capture, trial, and scourging of our Lord, and then we join Him in spirit on the cross for His crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension.
Have you seen Jesus? I am not talking about the spiritual feeling that comes over us when we first believe, but in a physical one-on-one encounter with the risen Lord. When this occurs it will change our lives forever; much different than the moment we first believed in faith. Oswald Chambers wrote of seeing Jesus sometime after being saved. He understood what even a glimpse of Him in this way can do to one's spiritual and physical life.
I am lost in thought this morning regarding the gift that was given us from the cross. As believers we all know that Jesus suffered, died, was resurrected, and ascended into heaven, to release us from sin and death, but there is more. Through our faith and relationship with Him we will be resurrected and receive a glorified body just as He did. Are you ready to glow, just as the scripture we discussed yesterday revealed that Jesus did while talking with Elijah and Moses?
This morning I was reading about Jesus before He experienced the passion, and how He allowed Peter, James, and John to see Him speak with Elijah and Moses on the mountain. In this scene He was transfigured right before their eyes. Even His clothing glowed... yet He commanded them not to tell anyone of this until He had risen from the dead... why the silence, and is this an unusual request?
I am resting in the shadow of the cross this morning. My thoughts are on Jesus, the cross, and what that moment in human history, when Jesus Christ hung from it, means to you, me, and the world. Jesus was not a victim, the cross was not imposed upon Him. Jesus, the lamb of God, did not come to this world to perform some deed that was cut short by a Roman cross, He came as a sacrifice for our sins, and we were graced with three years of His life so that we would know beyond any doubt that this man was indeed the Son of God, and learn lessons regarding the new covenant that we could not know otherwise.
As we are now in the midst of Holy Week, and Easter Sunday is imminent, my mind dwells ever more completely on the activities that were about to transpire in the life of Jesus as He faced the Cross. This morning I am concentrating on the Garden of Gethsemane and the sorrow and agony that Jesus encountered there as He prayed.
This morning I am contemplating that time when our faith moves into its maturity and we leave the close care of our Lord and the nursery which is our church, to test our spiritual wings within the world. Are we ready for what lies ahead? Is our faith ready to become real and not just theory? Jesus told His disciples that they would be scattered. Just as with our own children, there comes a time when all of our teaching and parenting must come to its fulfillment, where it is put to the test and the child that has been raised employs his lessons. This is the moment when the theory, that has been our faith, becomes the practice of faith. This was about to occur in the spiritual lives of the disciples.
This morning I am contemplating the things of faith to which we are tempted to become blinded. I recall the words of Jesus regarding Jerusalem and ask myself if this could happen to the Church, and to me specifically. Could my religion become my hindrance and remove God’s pleasure from my life?
What is the focus of our life? Is there something or someone that fascinates us beyond anyone, or anything we have ever known? Is it something of this world, or God and Jesus? Are we spiritually directed in our journey through life, or do worldly things fascinate us in our walk? Sometimes we are fascinated by the world but change our direction upon hearing the gospel, yet then again there are times when we are bullheaded and so misguided that we look towards the world without turning. Sometimes we are allowed to go our own stubborn way while at other times God or Jesus will physically take our faces in Their hands and turn us towards Them as They speak powerfully to us like Jesus did to Saul (Paul),
We live in a time of reconciliation, a time when we are being called almost hourly to make intercession through prayer for those who are different from us. Whether it be a difference in righteousness, finances, race, color, nationality, or faith... interceding is of God and through it we are taught to love one another.
Is Jesus pleased with us as intercessors? We might pray for many who suffer, but do we find it within ourselves to pray for sinners? Do we judge when we should be praying for them? Do we only want to intercede for the righteous at the expense of the sinner? Some of us find it hard to show mercy or pray that God show His grace to a sinner, but is that what we are told to do?
Are we making intercession for others? Do we even know how to pray in such a manner? I worry about this often as I watch us attempt to pray for one another. Are our hearts in worship as we lift up prayers for those in need? Is there anyone even attempting such prayer? There have been times throughout biblical history when there has been no true intercession. One of them is recorded in Isaiah, and we can read it in these words...
On the 24th of this month I wrote of my having encountered Jesus in front of a jewelry store. It was an unexpected encounter that taught me a great deal about myself and my faith. Today I would like to explore those sudden and unexpected appearances of Jesus further.
Today we are exploring our obedience to God and Jesus without questioning their instructions. We are looking at obeying them without the need for us to weigh their guidance against our own worldly beliefs and desires. We are looking at obedience based upon absolute trust.