"I wake up with that feeling every day," was the sound of someone relating to Jesus' first sermon. It came from at the end of a short drive home from church with a guy that I have begun meeting with on a weekly basis (that is, when he remembers). The exchanged happened after short stop by his house to pick-up some of his gear for the football game later in the day. As he jumped into the car to leave I noticed he had grabbed his Bible and a copy of Bruce Wilkinson's Prayer of Jabez: Teen Edition. He asked me my opinion on the book and I gave him a brief overview of what I thought about the story of Jabez in Chronicles and how he had called to God in desperation and dejection and how God had answered him; purely an exegetical response since I had not read the book. Me, being my usual verbose self, thought I had killed the conversation. Just as we had settled into the 1.5-seconds of silence the guy in the back seat began confessing, "that is exactly what I needed to hear. My parents didn't want me, my foster parents didn't want me, but I think God still has big plans for me." Before I could respond the guy in the passenger seat leaned back and said, "Dude! That is why I brought the book. I thought that maybe it could help you." Praise God for doing things bigger than me! This brought us into talking about the Beatitudes in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. Mind you that it is only a 3 mile car ride. I told them how God came for the sick and rejected. The Jabez's and thems. I told them how we come to God only when we finally wake up and realize we are dirty and desperate, bankrupt and (I cannot remember the exact word I used). That is when he said it: "I wake up with that feeling every day!" So we sat outside. Talking as the guy in the back grew more restless. Pray for this young man. He is beginning to see the difference between freedom in/through Christ and personal efforts.
Today I thought of these grand lyrics to the under-appreciated hymn Hark the Herald Angels Sing: Christ by highest heav'n adored / Christ the everlasting Lord! / Late in time behold Him come / Offspring of a Virgin's womb / Veiled in flesh the Godhead see / Hail the incarnate Deity / Pleased as man with man to dwell / Jesus, our Emmanuel / Hark! The herald angels sing / "Glory to the newborn King!"
With it I considered (know how unfulfilled my heart is to have no better word to express what it is like to ponder such Divine matters) what it meant for Christ to come here. Here. Psalm 29 reads with force, "Ascribe to the Lord, O sons of the mighty; Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength; Ascribe to the Lord the glory due to His name." May none of our actions belittle the fact that HE IS GOD and that HE WILL REIGN FOREVER. What will it be like to need no Sun because the radiant presence of the Lord lights the skies wherever it stretches? How can we understand when He came and walked and ate and lived among us as "the true light that gives light to every man," but "though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him?" "His own did not receive Him" (John 1) I read with great emotion again, "Christ by highest heav'n adored / Christ the everlasting Lord! / Late in time behold Him come / Offspring of a Virgin's womb / Veiled in flesh the Godhead see / Hail the incarnate Deity / Pleased as man with man to dwell / Jesus, our Emmanuel / Hark! The herald angels sing / "Glory to the newborn King!"
John weeps, literally cries, in the book of Revelation that there was none found worthy in Heaven and Earth to open the scroll, which is a warrant of life and hope to the devastated soul. I will claim with serious certainty that a person is not saved and has no personal relationship with God if they are not despairing at the thought of life without Him. How many churches could do without Him? Before John is lost to wild emotional pain the Lamb enters. He recounts, "Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders...He came and took the scroll...and the four and twenty elders fell down...and many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand...in a loud voice sang: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise" (Revelation 5). Praise Him! Feel emotion for Him. Know Him intimately and personally. Praise Him!
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