God calls us suddenly, and usually without announcement, are we ready at a moment's notice, or must we make preparations before answering His call? Will we instantly reply "Here I am!" When He calls? I find it interesting that most of the great prophets and leaders of the Bible answered instantly when God called them. There is no hesitation and no consideration as to why they were being called.
When was the last time that you instantly dropped everything you were doing and rushed to see something, or someone? Have you ever abandoned everything you owned to pursue a dream, or the hope in something? How about your faith?
Easter morning has come and gone, and the tomb of Jesus stands empty; the sorrow of Good Friday, and the solemn silence of the sealed tomb is behind us... Jesus Has Risen! We are standing at the pinnacle of our faith. Can we carry it forth with us always; even into the valleys of life?
This morning I am sifting through my life and identifying those things which God has asked of me that remain undone. For the most part I have done the big things, but what about those details that didn't seem too significant or relevant to the big picture... did I gloss over them and leave them undone? I was reading my morning devotional and Oswald Chambers struck me square between the eyes when he recalled the story of King Asa. This king brought Israel back to God in a powerful way, he even took the title of queen mother from his own mother because she was found to have an image of Asherah (that he also took and destroyed). But in all his obedience to God, he left one task undone...
What does it mean to be yoked with Jesus? This is our concentration for the day. Will we find a life of leisure, hardship, joy, or will it be suffering? What will this life we are living mean to us spiritually and physically? When we read the scripture in which Jesus invites us to become yoked with Him, we hear descriptions that sound appealing... restful, gentle, easy, and light... let's read it again:
There are many gifts that are given us by God, but eternal life and power are not among them. You are probably asking how I can say such a thing. Aren't these part of the promise we have been given? In a way, I am dealing with semantics. God doesn't give us eternal life, but we do experience it when the life that is Jesus comes into us. I like the way Oswald Chambers put it when he said "Eternal life is not a gift from God, eternal life is the gift OF GOD." You see, when we accept Jesus, and He enters into us, we have no choice but to live forever because that is His nature.
On April ninth we concluded that we can, and should, find ourselves crucified with Jesus, so this morning we will ask ourselves another question... are we resurrected with Him as well, and what does that mean in our lives.
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.