A Shelter and A Shepherd

Posted on December 2, 2020 by Pete

John saw a great multitude, more than could be numbered. They were from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. While I’m sure that what they beheld must have taken their breath away, they could not be restrained from crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” They were those who had come out of “the great tribulation.” Those who, during earth’s darkest time, had “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev. 7:9-14).

I connect. Not because I think this season is the great tribulation, but because it has been a great tribulation. Not that all have had to endure hardship to the same extent, or have suffered equally, but regardless of how things started in 2020 and how they’ve played out, for all it has been a great tribulation. And, I also connect because they are those who are clothed in white, waving palm branches of victory, and that because of the finished work of the cross of Christ and the forever cleansing of the blood of the Lamb.

And, having connected, I pause and chew on what it will be like to be with that great multitude before the throne and before the Lamb. I can only imagine (thank you, MercyMe).

But I read on and realize that it won’t just be a “spectators sport.” That the throne and the Lamb will be so much more than something we behold from afar.

“Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

(Revelation 7:15-17 ESV)

God who sits on the throne will shelter them. The Lamb in the midst of the throne will shepherd them. Hmmm . . .

If I’m picking up what’s being laid down, heaven won’t be like some grand, outdoor concert venue where the people out there will gaze at the glory of the One seated on the stage. The spatial thing is somehow erased as the One on the throne shelters them. Literally, spreads His tent over them. Takes up residence over them. Before the throne yet enveloped by the One who sits on the throne. I can only imagine.

What’s more, the Lamb, while transfixing our gaze and evoking our worship, doesn’t set Himself apart on some pedestal for eternal adoration (though He is worthy of such). Instead, He shepherds us. Guiding us to whatever heavenly, eternal springs of living water look like, feel like, and taste like. The Lamb is in the midst of the throne of God, and yet continues to be the Shepherd in the midst of those He has bought with His blood. What will that even be like? I can only imagine!

A Shelter and a Shepherd. It’s what awaits those who come out of tribulation, regardless of how great (or not so great) that tribulation might be. It is our firm hope. It is our sure future.

“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

(Revelation 7:12 ESV)

By His grace. For His glory.

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Return to Me

Posted on December 1, 2020 by Pete

What if we have more control over this pandemic season than we think? Not just by keeping our distance, covering our faces, and washing our hands (though I think we should). Not necessarily by sheltering in place and shutting down businesses (though perhaps, in some form of moderation, it could flatten the curve without crushing the economy). Not necessarily by being the first in line for the vaccine (or hoping enough go before you and create sufficient herd immunity that you really don’t have to). What if the control we have, the influence we hold, when it comes to how long this season will last isn’t found in controversial remedies but in a contrite return.

Reading in Amos this morning. And it’s a rhetorical question, asked by the LORD through the prophet, that causes me to pause and whisper in response, “Nope!”

Does disaster come to a city, unless the LORD has done it?

(Amos 3:6b ESV)

And I think to myself, Does a pandemic come to a planet, unless the LORD has done it? Again, Nope!

Our God is Sovereign. It’s one of the truths we cling to in order to find comfort and endurance during what continues to be an uncomfortable and wearying time. Whether the pandemic has infected us personally or not, we’ve all been impacted by it to some degree. Whether the media you follow is preoccupied with warning of rising daily body counts or with lamenting increasing daily bankruptcies (or both), knowing that a good God has permitted it all for His purposes helps in dealing with it all.

But if only we knew the purposes. If only we knew what God wanted to accomplish. Then maybe we could get ‘er done and move on with life.

In Amos’s day the people had the prophets to connect the dots between “natural disasters” and supernatural purposes (Amos 3:7). A voice of one, crying in the wilderness as it were, calling God’s people to repent and return to the Lord for what was happening in the land. But while we don’t have a prophet among us who “thus says the LORD”, we do have the Spirit within us “who is from God, that we might understand . . . for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God” (1Cor. 2:12, 10).

Not saying that I have any special revelation from God through the Spirit, but if God in us has reminded us that God above us is in perfect control of all things, then might He not also show us how we are to respond? And the sooner we respond might it not also speed the season along? And what if that response is found in the echoing repetition of Amos 4?

“. . . yet you did not return to Me.”

I took away your food, says the LORD, yet you didn’t return to Me (4:6). I withheld the rain, you were so thirsty you had wander to another city to find water, yet you wouldn’t turn back (4:7-8). I took out your crops with disease and damaging insects, still you ignored Me (4:9). When you saw a rerun of the Egyptian plagues in your land, you still took no notice of Me, it was as if I didn’t exist (4:10). Even when I permitted earthquake and fire, you never looked My way, you still did not return to Me (4:11). (Thanx to Peterson’s The Message for some of the word pictures).

Five times the charge echoes before God’s people, “Yet you did not return to Me.”

I wonder if at least part of what God wants to accomplish in permitting this difficult time is for His people to return to Him. Not that mass repentance and revival in the church necessarily ends the pandemic, but if calling me back to Himself might possibly be one of things God wants to accomplish through this dry, difficult season, perhaps returning to Him helps move this thing along in running its course.

Don’t really know. Just thinking. And returning.

Because of His grace. Only for His glory.

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A Common Denominator

Posted on November 30, 2020 by Pete

The impact of the contrast never fades. The wonder at reading the two put side by side and beheld in but one Person is jaw-dropping, again. No wonder everything in heaven goes facedown as they behold the Lion and the Lamb.

And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that He can open the scroll and its seven seals.” And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, . . .

(Revelation 5:5-6a ESV)

Look at the Lion, they said. I saw a Lamb.

Look, they said, at the Root of David. Not just the One who is heir to the promised throne, but the One who existed before the throne and is Himself the throne’s origin. And I beheld a Lamb as though it had been slain.

Pause. Be still. Chew on that. Jaw-dropping.

Oh, how easy it is for us to “tame” Jesus. To put Him in a predictable box of own dimensions. But what is it that He is both the Lion and the Lamb? The Ruler and the Ransomer.

And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are You to take the scroll and to open its seals, for You were slain, and by Your blood You ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation . . . ”

(Revelation 5:9 ESV)

The Ruler over all the earth worthy to take the scroll that will serve to judge the earth. But also He who was slain, His blood the ransom for all people so that no one should come under condemnation.

The Lion and the Lamb. How do you reconcile two portrayals of the same Person which seem so mutually exclusive? How do you bring the two of them together?

Okay, I’m probably stepping off an interpretive cliff here, but as I chew on these things a verse comes to mind that also speaks of a lion and a lamb. So I go there, perhaps for a clue. And in it I find a common denominator.

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together and a little child shall lead them.

(Isaiah 11:6 ESV)

Here is another picture of the coexistence between a lion and a lamb. An edenic reality of predator and prey together. A peace-laden picture of might and meekness in complete harmony and alignment. And at the center of it all? A little child.

A child. That’s what brings the lion and the lamb together.

Let the advent countdown begin in anticipation of the celebration of the birth of a Child. The Ruler of all heaven and earth, “who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Php. 2:6). And found in the likeness of men, was revealed by the Spirit to be “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (Jn. 1:29).

Behold the Lion. Behold the Lamb. Behold a Child, the common denominator.

O come let us adore Him!

By His grace. For His glory.

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He Will Restore

Posted on November 27, 2020 by Pete

The thing about a global pandemic is that everyone in some way has been impacted. Everyone, to greater or lesser extents, has suffered some level of loss. Maybe that’s why this promise so easily transcends the context of Joel’s specific prophecy and seems to be a promise to claim today.

I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten . . .

(Joel 2:25a ESV)

Some have been devastated by 2020. Not totally unlike the unprecedented devastation of Joel’s day that had been experienced in Judah under the mighty hand of God’s judgment.

What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.

(Joel 1:4 ESV)

I’m no bug expert. Couldn’t pick out one locust from another in a line up. But I am getting the imagery here — Judah got hammered with wave after wave of compounding disaster. Playing the image out, you can almost hear them looking out over their ravaged land and asking, “What more could go wrong?” And then, bam! Another visitation of lunching locusts.

Hasn’t 2020 felt that way at times? Though not everyone has been ravaged — to be sure, the “loss” I’ve suffered is so minor compared to others — everyone has suffered some loss and experienced some sense of things just piling on. Everyone has been visited by at least some wave of locusts taking away what once was taken for granted. At the very least, who even knew that “shelter in place” was a thing a year ago? For many, personal isolation has been compounded by celebrations that didn’t get celebrated, deaths that didn’t get memorialized, and family gatherings where no one gathered. For others still, the next wave of locusts has been experienced through jobs lost, saving accounts drained, and businesses bankrupted. And for those who have known the worst of the waves, as if everything else weren’t enough, they’ve had to deal with the loss of life within their closest circles.

For some the locusts have eaten a lot in 2020. For others of us, if we’re real about it, they’ve just nibbled at the edges. But that doesn’t change the fact that we’ve all suffered hardship and loss in some manner. And so, I’m thinking, we need the promise.

I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.

Not gonna lie, I kind of cringe as I read of “years” of swarming locusts. I’m done after nine months of being nibbled on. But as a believer I’m comforted and encouraged because I know that my God is in the restoration business. And while I’d like some of that business here and now, I am guaranteed it, in all its unimaginable fullness, there and then. And the promise of restoration goes a long way towards enduring whatever our degree of desolation.

You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame.

(Joel 2:26 ESV)

Press on weary saint. Whether your loss is little or much, your God is great, and your hope is sure.

He will restore what the locust have eaten.

By His grace. For His glory.

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Simple. Not Easy.

Posted on November 26, 2020 by Pete

At first I think it’s a gimme. A tap in. An easy shot. A no-brainer. But as I chew on it, while I may think it’s simple, if I’m honest with myself I know that far too often it isn’t easy.

Reading in John 15. The importance of abiding in Christ. Apart from Him I can do nothing. In Him I can bear much fruit. But the key is to be abiding.

So, how do you abide? For sure it has to do with being in His word and His word in you. Equally for sure it’s hard to imagine abiding with anyone without at some point talking to them, and them to you. So, prayer’s gotta be a part of it too.

But as I read further in John 15 this morning Jesus makes pretty clear another dynamic of abiding. He does so through the use of transitive truth, where if A=B, and B=C, then A=C. Here’s what I read, you do “the math.”

“If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love . . . This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

(John 15:10, 12 ESV)

See the math? Keeping His commandments is abiding (add obedience to reading my bible and prayer). And His commandment is to love others as He has loved me. Thus, abiding in Jesus happens as I love others as He has loved me. If I want to experience abiding in Jesus’ love then all I need to do is love others like Jesus loved me. Simple, right? Yeah, I think so. But a gimme? Easy? Hmmm, not so fast.

What about the brother who’s kind of bothersome? Or, the sister who can be kind of sinister at times? What about the saint with whom you don’t quite sync? And don’t even talk to me about the family member who’s constantly frustrating? Not so easy to love sometimes.

But isn’t that why purposing to love others is so helpful in abiding in Christ? Just as reading reveals Christ through His word, and praying engages the presence of Christ through conversation, so loving others, especially those we have a hard time liking, drives us to Christ for divine power — the power to love others as He loved us.

And how exactly did He love us?

God showed His love for us when, while we were still weak, and while we were still sinners, and while we were still determined enemies, Christ died for us (Rom. 5:6, 8, 10). That’s how Jesus loved us. That’s how we should love others.

But God is love, and Jesus is the Son of God, the fullness of God dwelling perfectly in and through Him. And me? Well, not so much. So, if I’m gonna love those who are hard to love as Jesus loved me, I’m gonna need Jesus living through me, and that’s gonna happen as I abide in Him.

If I am willing to obey Jesus and love others, then it will drive me to abide in Jesus in order to have the capacity and resources to love as He loved.

Really easy to love the lovable and to like the likeable and to get along with those who are on my same wavelength. But I don’t think that’s who Jesus has in mind here. He loved His own when they were yet sinners, and even loved them afterward as sinners saved by grace but not yet perfected through sanctification. Loving Peter, even as He denied Him, even when he stood up to Him and said, “Not so, Lord.” Loving Thomas when He doubted. Loving John and James as they jockeyed for top spot in the kingdom. He loved them with the steadfast love of the Father, and He loved them to the end.

How am I going to do that with the Peters and Thomas’s and Johns and James’s in my life? By leaning into the source of love. By confessing, repenting, and asking Him to love in and through me. By abiding in Him, and He in me.

Simple. Not easy. But doable.

By His grace. For His glory.

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Don’t Let It Go

Posted on November 25, 2020 by Pete

Hovering over the last church in Revelation 2, Thyatira. What a complex church.

On the one hand, within their gathering there’s all the stuff that you’d want to see in a church, all the stuff that the Lord who is in the midst of the church wants to see. Works characterized by “love and faith and service and patient endurance.” What’s more, far from being static or being satisfied with a certain status quo of righteous, kingdom pursuit, their “latter works exceed the first” (2:19). Yeah! That’s what you want to see. Three cheers for the church at Thyatira!

But then this from “the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire” (2:18b):

But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

(Revelation 2:20 ESV)

Think about it . . . under the same roof — love, faith, service, and patient endurance along with false, seductive teaching, sexual immorality, and idol worship. Like I said, what a complex church. How does that happen?

When people came to church in Thyatira on Sunday morning did the ushers seat Jesus people on the left and Jezebel people on the right? The faithful at the front and fornicators at the back? Those who were planning on partaking of the Lord’s table here and those who were going to dine with demons there? Probably not. For what was so clearly identified by the One “who searches mind and heart” (2:23) had become indistinguishable among the congregation. And that because they had come to “tolerate the woman Jezebel.”

Thinking it’s the word tolerate which put this on my radar. I’ve been thinking a lot lately that as a culture we need to recapture the practice of true tolerance. Not the popular view that tolerance is agreement, acceptance, and therefore advancement of a concept or practice. But the idea that tolerance is actually respectful, civil, “hear me out even as I listen to you” disagreement. We need more true tolerance in our culture, I think.

But, as I’m reminded this morning, that shouldn’t necessarily be the case for some things within the church. Particularly when it’s allowing the coexistence of teaching aimed at leading people into sin and away from faithfulness to the Lord. In that case, you can’t just let it go.

That’s literally what the word tolerance means, to let it go. To leave alone. To not address. To not discuss. Thus to permit, allow, and not hinder. And that’s what the Lord of the church had against the church at Thyatira, they tolerated that woman Jezebel and her wayward-leading teaching which seduced others into grave sins of the flesh and sacrifices to idols. And this, amidst those who at the same time were increasing in love, faith, service, and patient endurance.

So, what am I picking up from what I think the Spirit’s laying down this morning? Don’t let it go. Don’t leave seductive, false teaching alone. It needs to be addressed.

Not talking about everyone becoming heresy hunters ready to split hairs with those who don’t dot their interpretive i’s, or cross their theological t’s in the same manner. Not talking about majoring on minors. Rather, it’s being willing to speak up when worldly wisdom, “the deep things of Satan” (2:24b), is being sold as new and improved freedom for the church. Seductive, insidious teaching which leads others into personal impurity and toward divine infidelity.

Can’t just let it go. We can’t tolerate such teaching in our churches.

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” ~ Jesus

(Revelation 2:29 ESV)

Don’t let it go.

By His grace. For His glory.

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I Know

Posted on November 24, 2020 by Pete

Hovering over the first seventeen verses of Revelation chapter two this morning. Chewing on the first three of seven letters written to the churches in Asia. Casting an eye on the pages I’ve just marked up which reflect the well-known pattern of each letter: truths about Christ; truths about the church He is addressing; an exhortation to have ears to hear; and, a promise for those who would be conquerors through Him. And within the cacophony of color on the page, two words evoking peace stand out. I know.

The One John saw on that Lord’s day on the Isle of Patmos is the One who is “in the midst of the lampstands” (Rev. 1:12-13a). And the lampstands are the churches (1:20). Thus, a reminder that among the body of Christ is the Head. Ever before the Bride of Christ is the Groom. Always in the middle of whatever is happening within the Family, is the One who calls them brother and sister.

And regardless of the character of Christ highlighted in each letter, apart from the conduct of each church addressed, are these two words spoken by Jesus to each church, “I know.”

“I know your works . . . “
“I know your tribulation . . . “
“I know where you dwell . . . ”

(Revelation 2:2a, 9a, 13a ESV)

He knows all that we do — the good, the bad, the ugly. The stuff done in the Spirit, the stuff done in the flesh. The stuff worthy of the manner of our calling, and the stuff not so worthy. He knows.

He knows the full extent of the burdens we bear — the pressure, the affliction, the stress. The stuff we’ve brought on ourselves, the stuff we had no hand in. The stuff we can control, the stuff we can’t. He knows.

He knows exactly where we are situated — our physical address, our cultural moment, the external influences, the pervasive spirit of the age. The pandemic, the polarization, and all the popular practices bent on preventing us from thriving. He knows.

He knows. Not just with a cognitive understanding that comes simply from Him being an All-Knowing One. But through up-close and personal experience. Knowing because He is also the Ever-Present and All-Seeing One. He sees with His eyes. He feels within His being. Intimately aware, able to sympathize with our weakness (Heb. 4:15).

The One who founded the church walks among the church, interacting and inspecting the church. He who has redeemed for Himself lost sheep, abides among the flock, knowing each of His sheep by name. Aware of their walk. Empathetic towards their experience. Ready to provide grace to help in time of need (Heb. 4:16).

Jesus knows.

And, as I let that sink in, from my earlier reading in John this morning I recall other words spoken by Him.

There too He was in the middle of His disciples. There too He knew, from up close and personal knowledge, the anxiety and stress they were feeling as, with confused uncertainty, they tried to come to grips with His soon departure. And while, as with the seven churches, He would also exhort them, and encourage them, and promise them, something else He said to them echoes within.

“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

(John 14:27 ESV)

Jesus knows. Our works. Our tribulation. The exact time and space and circumstance of where we live. And while He might commend us for how we’re hanging in there in this moment, or perhaps lovingly rebuke us, call us to repent, and tell us to obediently rely afresh on His enabling, His heart for those who would be conquerors is that they would know His peace. A peace gifted to us. A divine tranquility, beyond earthly understanding, bestowed upon us. Found not in the things of this world, but in Him alone.

Therefore, says the Savior, let not your heart be troubled. For I know.

According to My limitless grace. All for My everlasting glory.

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The Lion Who Heals

Posted on November 23, 2020 by Pete

When the going got tough they turned to the world to keep going (Hosea 5:13). Not surprising, for long ago they had stopped seeking their God. They had forsaken the Lord of heaven for the fleeting pleasures of spiritual adultery with the things of earth (4:10b). Thus, they no longer even knew what it meant to be faithful to their God, or to love their God. In fact, they had no knowledge of their God (4:1b). So immersed where they in their worldly lovers and their sensual desires, their deeds did not permit them to return to their God –“for the spirit of whoredom” was within them (5:4). So, when they were oppressed, crushed by judgment, they turned to the lovers and filth they knew instead of the Holy One whose desire to love them they had rejected.

Bottom line, says the God who now confronts them through Hosea, they saw no value or advantage to seeking the God who had delivered them from Egypt, established them in the promised land, and for centuries had cared for them as His people.

But I am like a moth to Ephraim, and like dry rot to the house of Judah.

(Hosea 5:12 ESV)

But our God is not a moth. He is a lion. And while a moth can be ignored as inconsequential, that may not be the best approach to take when you’ve provoked a lion.

For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear and go away; I will carry off, and no one shall rescue. I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me.

(Hosea 5:14-15 ESV)

He would tear. He would carry off. He would return to His place. But God the Lion doesn’t tear to destroy forever. He doesn’t carry away to remove all hope of rescue. He doesn’t return to His place determined to never return again. Even in His judgment, He demonstrates His kindness — doing what needs to be done so that His people might confess their sin and seek His face.

And so the prophet pleads:

“Come, let us return to the LORD; for He has torn us, that He may heal us; He has struck us down, and He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live before Him. Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; His going out is sure as the dawn; He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.”

(Hosea 6:1-3 ESV)

Those are the verses I’m chewing this morning. For in them I think I’m seeing a picture of the dynamics of our salvation.

He heals us. Cures our disease. Fully deals with the problem of our sin as He applies the shed blood and saving grace of the cross. Through His finished work at Calvary, the Great Physician cuts out the cancerous, sin-controlled heart and replaces it with a new heart — a heart able to know Him and to embrace righteousness. By His wounds we are healed (Isa. 53:5).

He binds us up. Not only does He rescue, but He restores. Bandages are applied, splints are put in place, so that we can again grow in strength and walk as we should. And all this through the giving and sealing of His Spirit. Jesus dispensing the Spirit to bind up the brokenhearted (Isa. 61:1).

He revives us and raises us up. Rescued not to live out our days regretting the life we should have lived, but to walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4), knowing what real life is, life to the full (Jn. 10:10). Never more jazzed by life. Never more able to enter fully into life. Raised up on the third day (has a familiar ring to it doesn’t it?) in order to fully experience eternal life.

And all this so that we may live before Him.

His people considered Him as relevant as a moth and as useful as dry rot. But in His mercy and grace He revealed Himself to them as a consuming lion so that they would come to their senses and return again to their God.

The God who heals. The God who binds up. The God who revives. The God who raises up. The God before whom, and with whom, we can live.

All praise be to the Lion who heals. And to the Lamb who saves.

Because of His grace. Always for His glory.

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A King and A Kingdom

Posted on November 20, 2020 by Pete

Turned the corner and headed down the homestretch of my reading plan this morning. Started in on the minor prophets and Revelation which, along with the rest of Job and the culmination of John’s gospel with the finished work and resurrection of Christ, marks 25 more sets of readings until “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen” (Rev. 22:21).

And, as is most often the case when I open my Bible to its last book, I experience a sense of walking onto holy ground as I read the opening verses of “the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants” (Rev. 1:1a). Given by the Father . . . to the Son . . . to show us, His servants. Oh, to have ears to hear and eyes to see this gift of the Father. For in reading it and hearing it there is a promised blessing (1:3). Not only, I think, because of what we can learn, but perhaps more because of the One we’re able to see.

And what’s struck me in particular this morning (I’m guessing because of some the extended conversations I’ve been involved in this week), are a couple of verses that speak of a king and a kingdom.

. . . from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood and made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father . . .

(Revelation 1:5-6a ESV)

I know Jesus is the King of kings and the Lord of lords (1Tim. 6:15), but I wonder how often I’m inclined to act as if I’m waiting for His return to see His rule. But I’m reminded that my Savior, God’s faithful witness, the evidential hope of resurrection, is — not will be — the ruler of kings on earth.

He reigns right now. Don’t quite understand some of His edicts. Think I might lobby for a little more control and calm and a little less chaos and collateral damage, but Jesus Christ is the ruler of kings on earth and that rule is currently operative and active. It was yesterday. It will be today. And, it will be tomorrow.

How I need to read that. How I need to hear that. How blessed is the one who knows that? Pretty blessed, I’m thinking.

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.”

(Matthew 28:18 ESV)

What’s more, we are a kingdom. Those who have been loved with an everlasting, steadfast love. Those freed from the bondage of sin by His blood shed on the cross for our transgression. He has made us a kingdom.

Us. You and me. A kingdom.

Pause. Chew on it. Let it sink in.

Am I a child of the King? Absolutely, (thank you for the reminder Billy G.) But I’m also a subject of the King.

I’m to operate under laws and constitutions that transcend those of earth. Our beliefs and platforms dictated by things above, not things below. Our primary allegiance to a heavenly kingdom even as we seek to be faithful ambassadors within our earthly lands.

And in that ambassadorship I need to know afresh that, as a subject of the King, I am under His protection — a degree and depth of protection that no other king affords to His subjects. Grace-infused protection. All sufficient protection. Abundantly sourced, always available protection. The true foundation for freedom. The only hope for life and life to the full.

His is the King. We are a kingdom.

. . . to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

(Revelation 1:6b ESV)

And God’s people said? . . .

By His grace. For His glory.

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Strengthened and of Good Courage

Posted on November 19, 2020 by Pete

Many mornings my whispered prayer, as I ready my colored pencils, bring up my reading app, and open my bible, is Psalm 119:18, “Lord, open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Your law.” On some mornings though it can be more of a somewhat desperate, 911 prayer, “Lord, give me something from Your word. I need something from Your word. Word of God speak!”

This morning was a little more reflective of the latter prayer than the former. Been a week of wrestling. With the Word. With others. With myself. So this morning, I needed something. And God, in His grace, and through His living and active word, answered my prayer. And that, through words spoken by who I think just may be Jesus Himself, but if not Him, then one of His faithful, mighty angelic messengers.

Words spoken to Daniel. But I’m receiving them as words spoken for me. Out of context of the specific Scripture? Sure. But not out of character for what the child of God so often needs to hear.

Again one having the appearance of a man touched me and strengthened me. And he said, “O man greatly loved, fear not, peace be with you; be strong and of good courage.” And as he spoke to me, I was strengthened . . .

(Daniel 10:18-19a ESV)

. . . but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.

(Daniel 11:32 ESV)

You are greatly loved. Fear not. Peace be with you. Be strong and of good courage. You know your God, so stand firm, take action. When the going gets tough and you’re not quite sure which way you should be going, there is much benefit in hearing words like these.

Not that it confirms a confidence in your own understanding, but it counsels you to have confidence in the One who has said He would never leave you nor forsake you, the One who promises He will direct your paths. Thus, such exhortations help you plant your feet anew on a solid foundation, reminded again that you really can trust in the Lord with all your heart (Prov. 3:5-6).

Not because you’re something, but because He’s everything. Not because, in the frailty of your flesh, your love of God is so good, but because, with a perfect and steadfast love He has first loved you, and His love is so great.

Sometimes the child of God needs to hear words like these spoken again by his Father.

Word of God speak.

Thankful for His grace. Strengthened and of good courage for His glory.

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