" I Have Finished the Work"

 "I have finished the work."

 

What words!

    Thirty three years of life lay behind,

        three years of ministry,

            adulation and rejection,

                rest and weariness,

                    callings of mercy,

                        works of healing,

                            declarations of judgement. 

 

And now we have the summing up,

    now the final declaration.

He knew the Father's will and He did it -

    "I have finished the work." 

For us, time yet stretches before us.

"The evening bringeth all things home,"

-but not yet.

 For us who read these words there is yet time,

     there are yet more days.

        And over all there is still a Responsibility.

 

There are days to end with, "I have finished the work."

    There are weeks that await for us to fulfill God's call to us.

 

    Someday, we know not when, will be our last day on earth

        and what may it be to reach heaven and proclaim,

            "I have finished the work."

 

Our ONE Need in 2022

 As we enter into this New Year,

    and as all that can be shaken is being shaken,

        as the light goes out over the nations, 

            as the darkness deepens all around,

                we need an answer.

As the earthly shows its true nature of impermanence,

    there is One Thing alone that remains.

We have heard much, and spoken much about the KINGDOM OF GOD.

    But as a people, as a church, we have never seen it.

 

Let me say it again;

I am certain that this generation has never seen the real Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom is not about the outward:

    the observances, the laws, the forms.

        It is something infinitely beyond these things.

An eagle, if it is to fly must take to the air.

    Imagine for a moment an eagle unwilling to commit itself,

        unwilling to step off the crag where it is perched,

            unwilling to abandon the visible 

                and give itself to the invisible winds.

What would be the end of that bird?

    It would die trusting the "safety" of its rock.

So it is with us unless we find the sphere of the Holy Spirit, 

    unless we find the dimension of the Kingdom of God.

        All the outward things that we call the church, the Kingdom,

            are NOTHING if the Spirit of God does not quicken.

As I look at the Scripture, verse after verse marks this difference:

We are DELIVERED from the power of darkness,

and TRANSLATED into the Kingdom. (Col 1.13)

 

It is a place where the past has vanished away.

    It is another plane where all is infinite, because it is the realm of God.

 

How much do we really know of this Deliverance?

How much do we know of this Translation?

    Simply... where do we live?

        What world surrounds us?

            What things matter to us?

 

Would that we could feel "the intolerable craving."

    Would that, like Francis Xavier, we would be moved

        "to shout as a madman" to the blind who 

            indifferent to reality think themselves to see.

 

Friends, this year can be, must be, if we are not to drink of death,

    a year of coming into an understanding of what Jesus came to bring.

        It must be a year of stepping out of mere human construction

            into the freedom of that Kingdom which is a Spiritual Realm.

 

God calls us,

    and as we dare to spread our wings, He will not allow us to fall,

        rather we shall know the joy of the Limitless -

            the Infinite reaches of God's land of "far horizons."

 

         "I will never leave thee" - His Spirit is there sufficient,

          in every need, for every day, for every circumstance.

 

THE CLOCK IS TICKING ...

The clock is ticking on our new year...

    one percent of its span has receded behind us already

        the remaining percentage advances,

            and we cannot delay its march.

Everything goes back to the spiritual...

    The spiritual forces are the real forces which rule.

In the midst of the tumult the question is,
    can we read the writing on the wall for our generation?

If God allowed Jerusalem to be destroyed,
    and not one stone of the temple was left upon another,
        can we escape the same fate?
Are our sins less than theirs?
    Is our self delusion less than theirs?
        Is our spiritual blindness and pride too great for us to see what awaits?

World peace came to an end with the first worldwide war

 - and turmoil has roiled the world in the century since.

    Now in the the ocean of time another wave rolls in upon us all,

    and we need the God given gift of sight for the days which await us.

 

Three things we need:     

    To read the writing on the wall regarding the world. 

        To read the writing regarding our own selves.
            To know the Word and will of God for ourselves.

 

    Now is the time to make the Lord's prayer our own

        and to seize hold of the words "Thy kingdom come" 

            until they resound within us,  and rise to heaven 

                as the cry of creation for its God.

Today...Tomorrow...2022?

A New Year!

A God Who makes all things New!

And where are we?

"Thy Kingdom come."

    When God comes His Kingdom comes. 

 

God came to Wales in 1904.

 

After a time of intense seeking of God a pastor, Joseph Jenkins,

    was conscious of a a quickening visitation of the Holy Spirit

        which changed his awareness of God and changed his ministry.

Later, at the beginning the year 1904, a teen-age girl was converted

    and when in a youth meeting the pastor asked 

"What does Jesus mean to you?"

    she rose to her feet and with trembling emotion said,

"I love Jesus  with all my heart" 

    and with those words earth felt the impact of heaven.

 

In that chapel the presence of God became real,

    tears began to fall,

        and from that chapel revival streams began to flow -

            until Wales was shaken by the power of God,

                until meetings were alive with the convicting power of the Holy Spirit,

                    until lives were changed 

                        and the glory of God was revealed in hearts.

 

I am afraid that in our time 

most of those who speak of revival

have little or no idea of what they are talking about

- neither in the pew nor the pulpit.

 

Beyond the subject of revival,

    even among those who give it lip recognition,

        it seems that 99% of us

            have barely the slightest idea of the place 

                which the enduement of the holy Spirit should have in ministry

                    and in life.

 

Let's forget our words and terminology,

    and let us in this new year seek the Lord

        until He meets us - in fresh revelation and fresh enduement. 

 

            May we be able to say at the end of the year,

                       "I have found something New -

                               I have found God"

We Meet Him in a Stable

I don't know what day of the year Jesus was born,

    but symbolically it must have been Christmas -

        the time of the year with least light,

            least life,

                and most cold.

 

Was thinking this morning,

"all God's children must be born in a stable."

The stable was not a dwelling for man - it was a place "beyond."

    Man always seeks Him in the familiar, safe, places of his own living -

        but this word "beyond" rings within me now. 

Jesus life was a life "beyond" -

    until at the last He left this earth in a place beyond the city,

         beyond the dwellings and pathways of men.

 

When His earthly life had ended, 

    the angel had to say to Mary "He is not here." 

He had gone beyond death. 

 

We celebrate Jesus coming -

but do we realize His birth was the beginning of Him "emptying Himself?"

    And as we come to Him we can only come 

    empty of all that this world has given us.

If we are to really find Him we will find Him in the place beyond all

   that we have surrounded ourselves with in this transitory world.

 

We will meet Him if we come to the stable.

Found

 

The bride in Song of Solomon faced a dilemma (chapter 3):
When the day ended and the day's activity ceased,
     when she had eaten her last meal, and laid off the day's apparel,
          she sought her beloved - and said "I found him not"

She made her decision, and rose again from her rest to seek him.

She sought him among the habitations of men,
     through the streets, the paths and walks laid out by men, through the city.
She asked those who watch over man's world for her beloved,
     and they had no reply.
He was not to be found among anything man made.
Here also she  declares,
     "I found him not."

The next verse tells us that just a little beyond she found Him.
     What a picture - just a little beyond!
          What a lesson - it was when her seeking was free from man's ways and man's things she found in "God's beyond"

God's realm is a spiritual realm - should we be afraid of that?
     Should we be afraid to take the hand of God and go beyond...
          beyond the accepted knowledge of man which fails to satisfy,
               which fails to meet our souls needs?

Think, the blueprints are not the building,
     and the scaffolding is not the building.
The doctrines, the teachings and the forms, are not Life, and unless we find the way of the Spirit we are in death.

Unless the Spirit quicken we seek in vain.

A rabbit may look up at an eagle and wonder why it can't settle down,
and just move at ground level where there are safe pathways regardless of the winds.                                                                                                                           The earthbound rabbit can never understand the sphere of the eagle
which may travel over 200 miles in a day secure in the strength of the winds,
or know the realm of the condor can travel 100 miles without flapping its wings.
     Would they trade their vision, their perspective,
     for the safety of walking on the earth?
     Would they trade their infinite freedom for the safety of a pathway?

The earth of man will always bring forth "thorns and thistles."
We see these not just in the physical earth but in government,
in education and the conduct of society.
Men's efforts to eradicate the curse of his fall must forever fail,
     and only God can restore what has been lost.

Man's present system will crumble and fall,
     until not one stone is  left upon another of our vaunted civilization.
We need to find the Unseen which lies beyond the seen,
     we need to find the Kingdom which will endure.

Yes, the  bride in Song of Solomon faced a dilemma:
she sought her beloved and "found Him not."

She made her decision and sought ...
until beyond the world of men she found Him.
     We may seek with a soul wrenching intensity in the wrong place
     only to say also, "I found Him not."

And yet He awaits us - in His own place and not ours.

Let us go out from our world -
the world of all our experience and all our knowledge.

If we carry but our nakedness, He will be found of us.

Another World

Years ago I heard a woman telling of her experience when she suffered a stroke     ... She realized somehow that her mind was disconnected from her body -
        nothing made sense, words had no meaning and all was reduced to a senseless gibberish.
She was unable to lay hold on the world which surrounded her.
    She found the terror of a disconnect between herself and the world she had known.
    
Disconnect

As I look around the world today this seems to be a good description for what is happening.
    The logic of the functioning world of yesterday is no more.
        Words are mere sounds in the air.
In place of connection we have a disconnect with all that makes sense.

Isaiah says (45.18)
    "God himself ... formed the earth ... He created it not in vain,
        He formed it to be inhabited."
       
It is a terrible thing when man seeks to create his own world.
    It is a terrible thing when God comes to judge.
        It is a terrible thing when all that makes sense is taken away.
            It is a terrible thing to lose everything which makes for a habitable world.
                It is a terrible thing when building has given place to destruction.

The things swallowed by the past years are now seen as a desirable
    replacement for that which has been built by the generations since.
The "Blood, sweat and tears" offered by Garibaldi to his followers in their fight,
    and offered again by Churchill in the hour of resistance, are no more.
And we are offered in their stead imaginary things.
    We are offered things which have no foundation because they are mirages.

A world falling apart is a world destroyed.
    God, and man's, enemy sees his purpose of destruction being fulfilled.
This generation has built until the underlying clay has given way.
        Our lusts have led us to a place where there is no future.

But,there is another Truth,
    and over against this picture, there sounds forth a Word -
        Eternal, Immutable.
            There is yet, in the midst of chaos, One Who says, "I will build..."
    
Oh, if we could only catch a glimpse of that infinite promise.

If we could only see a realm Beyond.
    Beyond all that belongs to time,
        and beyond the frustration of trying to build with perishing things.
       
        Would we could know in reality what it is to be free from all entanglements.
            Would that we could know the Eternal Purpose,
                and the Eternal Power to see it accomplished.
                    Would we could leave all else behind,
                        and find ourselves in finding God.