The KIngdom

 
"Thy Kingdom come."

It is a Displacing of the Earthly with the Heavenly.
    "It is a coming "out of" and a coming "into."

It is a looking at everything with the eyes of the spirit alone.
    It is a freedom from earth's fetters,
        from man's mental programming and society's norms.

It is the life of the eagle in the pathless realms of open, unbounded space.

    It is to "go up to the mountain of the Lord." (Is. 2.3)
        It is to view all things from the top of that mountain.
            
            It is to find Freedom - to be "Free Indeed."

Another World

 There is a World of God -
     and a World of Mankind.

In between stands:
    The Distance
        The Separation:
            Irreconcilable
                Unbridgeable,
                    Unalterable.

How much man can confuse the things he sees,
    experiences, and perceives,
        with the Reality of the Kingdom
            which man's abilities can never approach.
And we add to that the fact that we,
    "like sheep have gone astray ... turned every one to his own way."
    
There is a Hurt in the separation between God's Life
    and man's comprehension of that Life.
    
Even in the best of cases - as Job says,
    "how little a portion is heard of Him." (Job 26.14)
Those who have heard "a little portion" feel that hurt,
    and a stirring of pain in the depths within
        as their eyes are open to see what IS and what COULD BE.
        
        We start to have a picture of the world around us,
            and to see that without God
                all is twisted and destroyed without hope of remedy.

And through it all there comes a call,
a desire to know God as He is.
    God asks nothing else of us.
        There is nothing else necessary.
        
To be with God is to leave the world behind,
    to soar above all that pollutes and destroys.
It is to know the meaning of Freedom from the Fear which walks the world of men.

It is Freedom to Live and move in a sphere "beyond" -
    beyond the restrictions of man's society, and all man's dreams.
    
We tend to see ourselves as unaffected by the world around.
But as an old spiritual declared "It's me Oh Lord."
    and it is me who needs day by day the Presence of God
        to deliver from the power of the darkness which works throughout this world.
            and to make me truly live.
            
                      Jer 33:3 says:
                      "Call unto me, and I will answer thee,
                           and shew thee great and mighty things,
                               which thou knowest not."

Finding

Busy days...just a couple of thoughts to share:

Repentance...takes me beyond the reach of sin,
    and brings me before God.

Maybe there at last, I see.
    Maybe there at last, I am humbled.

Maybe in the place of my emptiness
 I find that God is the Answer to all my need.

The Two

In the story of the Prodigal there are two sons,
    different and yet alike in that neither saw the real picture.
The prodigal saw himself as entitled to share his father's wealth,
    and yet did not know what wealth he was leaving behind.
The elder brother caused no problems,
    but was unaware of his true riches.

The Prodigal took the riches and lost the home.
    The elder brother had the home and couldn't see the riches.

Suffering and loss taught the prodigal what was important.
    Embitterment and inner conflict brought the other son to his moment of revelation.
 
"Thou art ever with me" (Lk. 15.)

They were the words of the father to his older son.
    Have I heard those words?
        Have I seen this truth?
            Does this sustain the whole of life, my every day?

What a world is there - all is included.
    There is the father,
        the love, the care, the riches.

This is the broad place of Job 36.11 "where there is no straitness.".
    It is a sphere beyond time and space - it fills eternity.
It is the place of the psalmist,
    "all Thy  waves and Thy billows are gone over me." (Ps. 42.7)

Maybe we need to take the time,
    and break up the phrase, and look at it word by word:
"Thou...art ever...with Me"
Maybe we need to capitalize it:
    THOU...ART EVER...WITH ME.
        Can we hear it?
        Can we know it?
        God is infinite and the giving of God has no end.

William Booth wrote a hymn:
    "Oh, boundless salvation,
    deep ocean of love."
This is our dwelling place -infinite measures,
which will overwhelm for all eternity.

        "All Thy waves...and Thy billows...are gone over me."
            ...roll on mighty ocean.

The Gold

 

"How is the gold become dim." (Lam. 4.1)
It sounds within me today, not as a statement but as a question..."what happened?"

Our world today is worse than yesterday.

All around the world what we thought we had firmly built crumbles before our eyes. 

When the pilgrim settlers arrived in North America they were seeking "freedom."
    Freedom to them meant unimpeded possibility to worship and obey God -
        even if, in the lapse of the first winter, it were paid for in the deaths of forty five of one hundred and two settlers who stepped on their land of promise.
           
Those who inhabit the same land almost four hundred years later
    give centrality to the word Freedom,
        but the meaning has changed.
Freedom now means an unimpeded road to the fulfillment of all my desires.

This is true throughout the world.
    The sense of there being One who demands obedience has been replaced
        with the notion that all things exist only for my satisfaction.
We seem to be repeating the history of Eden, when Adam chose freedom from obedience to God
    and sought for his own independent realm of determination.
        But God is the Creator of all things, there can be no freedom outside of Him.
        We are free only with the freedom God bestows.

The unfettered thrust for personal freedom finally finds itself
    confronted with men whose government promises Everything.
But this all-inclusive promise trails behind it Total Control,
    and so ultimately, paradoxically, in seeking freedom all freedom is lost.
Instead of freedom to obey God
    we have the inescapable obligation to obey man's strictures.

Can we as sons of God lift our eyes beyond all that surrounds us?
    Can we shut out the earthly voices?
When the verse  says, "Let God be true and every man a liar," (Rom. 3.4)
    can we rid ourselves of every other source of knowledge,
        and look to Him alone for our enlightenment?

Now, now, now is the time:
    to lift our eyes from earthly things to Heavenly things,
        to change the world of earthly existence for a spiritual realm,
            to walk in the Light of Life.

            What a world opens when we leave our love of earthly existence
                and see with clearer vision The World of God.
 

Men God Chooses

It is instructive to look at the origen of men God called in the Bible.
In so many of them there was a total lack of things which would seem basic for the fulfillment of their appointed task.

Moses, for example, outstanding among the Old Testament prophets,
    was born in Egypt, raised in the pagan household of Pharoah
        and then found himself cast away in the desert for forty years herding  sheep.

After entering Pharoah's household we read of none of the influences of God's people in his upbringing,
    and yet this was the man God chose to lead all the rest of His people,
        the man trusted to lead them through the wilderness to a land of promise.

Paul, in the New Testament, a leader among the apostles, and yet:
    he was born outside of Israel, in Asia Minor, in the city of Tarsus,
        he was born a Roman citizen, familiar with Roman ways.
            His spiritual birth was not in the church at Jerusalem,
                but was the result of God's sovereign intervention
                    outside of Israel, on  the road to Damascus.
After his conversion and early witness he was forced to flee,
    and then spent three years in the Arabia
        before he even met the saints in Jerusalem.

What does all this mean?
    It means that God is not limited to the ones who men would have chosen.
In a day when there is so much emphasis on "correct" interpretation,
    and correct forms in our worship,
        we need to consider hard the fact that spiritual truth comes
            not through the mind but through the heart.
Like Lydia by the riverside,
    it is those whose heart God opens  (Acts 16.14)
        that form the human foundation of His church.

It is so easy to get it all wrong.
    It is so easy to rely on human qualifications,
        but God is Spirit and only that which is imparted by Him has any value in life.
His church is a Spirit born church,
    and His true ministers minister by the Spirit of God.

How is it for all God's children?
    "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God."  (Rom. 8.14)

    There is a way for man to rise
    To That sublime Abode;
    An Offering and a Sacrifice,
    A Holy Spirit’s energies,
    An Advocate with God:
    
                  Again, for all of us, in all our life:
                  "As many as are led by the Spirit of God,
                  they are the sons of God." 

Searching for Life

 

The apostle Paul, when he was Overcome by Light,
    heard a Voice - and the infinite distance between
    God's eternity and man's passing earthly world was bridged.
With the Voice came Paul's response  - Paul questioned,
    with a question wrenched from the depths of his being.
It was Paul's first question,
    and he spent the rest of his life learning the answer.

Paul's first word in response to God's divine intervention was "Who art Thou Lord?"
The recognition of the One Who came in Light was instantaneous -
    here is One greater than all that Paul ever experienced,
        here is One Whose title must be Lord.
Paul saw that all his learning and tradition must be laid down,
    and he saw that he must learn everything anew at the feet of  the Lord of all.
    
Now all Paul's aim is to discover who is this Lord?

Paul's life depended on his finding the answer to this question.
The "Who" that fell from Paul's lips that day on the road to Damascus
    was a cry of longing that was to be with him everyday for the rest of his life.
The "Who" was the substance and the meaning behind the encounter.
    the greatness of the dimension behind it all.
        the meaning which would make sense of it all.
Upon hearing the answer, "I am Jesus"
    Paul was overcome and trembled, "astounded."

The One speaking to Paul is the "Who" who overshadows all our days,
    and all our ways.
If anything at all in life is to have real meaning,
    we must find the One who is behind all of life.
Man has a tendency to gather the fragments of earthly existence and try to make sense of it all,
    to try to interpret existence as life.
Life is beyond all our knowledge and beyond all our experience.
    Life is a gift, and we need to know the Giver if we are to know life.

Paul's life was an ever unfolding vision of the One who met him on the road to Damascus.
    Down through the years, and the endless miles of his journeys,
        Paul pursued, and found, an ever greater and clearer vision of the One who gave him life.
At times Paul seems at a loss for words as he tries to express what he has found.
    He piles adjective upon adjective to try to encompass the infinite greatness,
        the infinite richness of the life which has been given to him,
            and the measureless nature of the One who gave that life.
           
    Paul counted all things but loss for the excellency of the One Who met him on the road.
        May we see the same vision and make the same commitment.

Finding the Pathway

Paul expressed his heart's longing in the words,
    "that I may know Him." (Phil. 3.10)

Job, in the record of his pilgrimage toward God, declares,
    "I know that ...I shall see God," (19.26)
        and at the end of his journey he declares,
            "now mine eye seeth Thee." (42.5)

This is always the aim and longing of the true child of God.
It is easy to find things to believe,
    things to experience,
        things to do -
             and then find that at the end of it all we have a "Christianity"
                 without possessing the Life of God.

We can get excited about transmitting the correct doctrine.
    We can emphasize the correct experiences.
And somehow miss the fact that God Himself desires to
    fill all our vision,
        and be all our Life.

The Holy Spirit has been the agent of God's work ever since the first man was conscious of life.
Throughout the history of the generations of the Bible, and since, God has never left Himself without a witness.

Daniel says, "the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits."  (11.32)

Real, intimate, spiritual knowledge of God is Life and Light and Strength for all our pathway - there is need for nothing else.

Swallowed Up

"He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces;
and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth." Isa 25:8     

There is coming a day … when all will be changed,
    when God alone will be glorified,
        and our tears will be dried.
Would that God might give us a vision of that which He desires to do;
    of that which He will do in future days.

We are in danger of interpreting the future by the things of the past,
    in danger of depending on our minds when we should rely on our spirits,
        in building on our thinking instead of on God's revelation.

God has promised  a new thing, and He doesn’t mean a new work built out of the old materials.
We have heard many times that God will do a new work and that no man will get glory out of it.
    But do we really realize what this means?
It means we will get no glory because we will have nothing to do with it.
    We may seek but it is God Who comes in answer to our seeking,
        rather than our efforts finding Him.

There is a rebuke, a reproach, over the people of God
    and the reason is that they are so unlike what God would have them be.
Human reasoning, human arguments, human techniques,
    have taken the place of Spirit breathed inspiration.
Can we be the people of God when God is not in the midst?
Can we call ourselves the people of God when it is we who plan and act and not He
    - when He is not seen or exalted in the work?
The reproach will be taken away when God is victorious over the death in the church.

We think of the phrase “He will swallow up death in victory,”
It is easy to apply it to physical death, and the glory of eternal life,
but I think we can find a wider application .
 
God would give us to live a life free from the works of death,
    free from the darkness that shadows all in this world. -
God wills for us a life where the death-portion of
    things which refuse to let us go, things of
        Guilt, and Condemnation, Fear, and Confusion of Darkness,
            have been “swallowed up” in the glory of His work in our lives.
When this takes place the church will no longer be "Irrelevant,
    and thought to be disconnected with present needs.
        But it will be the creative expression of God, the Creator.


God fills when He is all in the lives of His own.
    then death is swallowed up in victory
        and the reproach is forever taken away.

Revival

 
Words change their meaning as the years pass.
    The word "Freedom" to the early settlers in North America meant
        liberty to worship and obey God without restriction.
Today "Freedom" is taken to mean liberty to do whatever I want without restriction.

The word "Revival" seems also to mean less today than in past years.
    We think of conversions, enlarged churches and more people like ourselves.
Perhaps a simple definition of revival would be "a Visitation of God which manifests the Glory of God."

When Acts 4.31 says "the place was shaken" maybe it represents something more than the building.
    Maybe it represents a coming of the Spirit of God which also shook every life which was in the building.
        Maybe within lives things were displaced and rearranged in that shaking,
            and through the shaking lives were prepared and the Holy Spirit was outpoured.

Our tendency is to make everything simpler and less costly than God intends,
with the result that we will be satisfied with a poor imitation of the real thing.
Do we have a true idea of what is meant by "Salvation"?
    or Surrender, Dedication, or Prayer?
        or Praise, or Worship?
            or Testimony, Service, or Ministry?

Our minds are conditioned by the definitions we attach to words,
    and in order to truly understand the words we read, hear and speak,
        we need an illumination which only God can bestow.
        
Would God we could forget our supposed knowledge of all that surrounds us,
    and seek with all the intensity of our being
            the Light which alone illuminates the soul of man.
Would we could find the intensity to pray
    until the darkness would lift and all be filled with Light.
        in order to see and know the things of God as He would have us see.

Set my Spirit Free

Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise Thy name. (Ps. 142,

I cannot praise if my soul is in prison,
    because praise, in its simplest definition,
        is the expression of what I recognize in God,
            and I cannot recognize Who He is until I am loosed from what binds me.

God is only to be known by those who have been freed from things which cover the soul.
What we usually call Praise is a poor imitation of the real thing.
 
There are many things around us which would imprison us.
    Apart from God every soul in this earth is in a prison.
        The world exerts its pressures in many ways in order to enslave us,
            and the view from prison is always twisted and always speaks despair.
 
The way of "easy believism" is not enough.
    Freedom always comes at a price.
        The past is always present until the birth of the New.
            And the birth many times comes through much seeking and much pain.

Some of those who were enslaved in the Soviet gulag said that
    it was there that they, for the first time, found freedom -
        a freedom of spirit,
            a freedom which had nothing to do with outward circumstances,
                a freedom which was inextinguishable by any earthly power.

"Set my spirit free" says an old chorus.
    How wonderful it would be if every child of God could pray this prayer,
        and pray it until freedom should flood the soul like the dawning light.

Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise Thy name. (Ps. 142,

I cannot praise if my soul is in prison,
    because to praise, in its simplest definition,
        is to express what I recognize in God,
            and I cannot recognize Who He is until I am loosed from what binds me.

God is only to be known by those who have been freed from things which cover the soul.
Praise is a poor imitation of the real thing until the soul is free.

Some of those who were enslaved in the Soviet gulag said that
    it was there that they, for the first time, found freedom -
        a freedom of spirit,
            a freedom which had nothing to do with outward circumstances,
                a freedom which was inextinguishable by any earthly power.

We are not where they were but still may be imprisoned.
There are may things around us which would imprison us.
    Apart from God every soul in this earth is in a prison.
        The world exerts its pressures in many ways in order to enslave us,
            and the view from prison is always twisted and always speaks despair.

Perhaps more important than the freedom from earthly prison
    is the freedom from the prisons within -
        the prisons which we have built with our own beliefs, our own fears,
            our own concepts and interpretations of the things of God.

Maybe we have seen other lives expressing this freedom
    and felt the pressure of the prison around us -
        be assured God wants us all to be free,
            and there is a path to freedom for us all.

"Set my spirit free" says an old chorus.
    How wonderful it would be if every child of God could pray this prayer,
        and pray it until limitless freedom should flood the soul like the dawning light.

 

God in the Valley of Death - and Life

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." (Ps. 23.4)

Behind every shadow there is a substance,
     and in the Valley of the Shadow there is death.

Somehow, as with the healing power in Peter's shadow,
     the shadow itself has power.
The Shadow of Death also transmits a portion of death and destruction.
     All shadow blocks out the light of the sun,
          and transmits a colder measure of darkness.

Where there is life there are shadows -
     and valleys are an experience common to all men.
Today we live in a shadowed world
     and the shadow is the same - death.
     It is a shadow which threatens all kinds of disorder and chaos.
          a shadow which threatens unknown calamity.
                The shadow would shut down life as we know it,
                      and fasten a portion of death on our days.

We like the comfort of Psalm 23
     but we need to see that the highest point of the Psalm
          is in the Valley of Death -
               In the Valley of Death there is Life.
          It is here that the psalmist finds the Presence of God
               and declares "Thou art with me." (vs.4)

The Shepherd leads and provides in the first three verses,
     but He is closer in the valley,
          and it is here His sheep find something more than food.
               It is here we find God closer than the shadow. 

It is in the valley alone the palmist speaks of Comfort.
 
I can't explain Comfort - it goes beyond words.
    It is rest and renewal and security and Life.
        It is the absence of hurt, and pain, and all that may destroy.
            It is the flow of a New Life, fresh from the hand of God.

    Here in the midst of death God comes to and abides with His Own.
              
                        Here is Heaven begun on earth.

Life amidst the Death

"Thou wilt show me the path of life." (Ps. 21.4)

The sun is setting on a time of purpose - and anarchy is loosed.
Those who observe society see the end of an age and a setting sun.

We live at a turning point in our civilization.
     No one has the answer for the avalanche of change.

The common purpose and common values which unite a people, a nation, has been lost.
     In its place we have a mistaken affirmation on the individual's "rights" 
     and "freedom."
          Instead of us owing something to the world of mankind around us
               we feel that the world owes us happiness and fulfillment.

It would seem that the ones who should discern the situation and guide,
     the pastors and the politicians,
     are the only ones who are mistaking the sunset for the sunrise -
     proclaiming that greater and better things are just around the corner.
These are the ones unable or unwilling to free their minds from yesterday's world and accept the fact that we will never go back to the world of yesterday.

There cannot be a simplistic, triumphal mindset which would lead us to believe
that we will be untouched by that which surrounds us.
     There will be difficult days of uncertainty and shadow around -
          days unlike what we have experienced in time past.

We can't take lightly a scripture like Psalm 91 and use it as a talisman,
as though the mere repetition of Scripture has spiritual value to save.
     There will be times in which faith will be tested
     and only a real faith and communion with God will see us through in victory.

In the midst of all the darkness and confusion, the last word is God's.
     Fear and destruction are not the portion of those born of God.

In the lives of those who lay hold of God and His Word the enemy cannot prevail
      -There is "another King, one Jesus." (Acts 17.7)

This is the bedrock on which God builds.
     This is what God would show us.
          God Himself is the Way.
               God Himself is the Path of Life.

God always bears His own through the storm.

                 "Ye have seen ... how I bare you on eagles' wings, 
                  and brought you unto Myself." (Exo. 19.4)

Asking for Life

Psalm 21.4 "He asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest it him."
    What a  statement -
     so concise,
          so worth looking at with attention.

We place things in our lives in the order of their importance to us,
    and yet somehow we do not give much attention to discovering what life itself is.
     What is it that God sets before us as we travel through the years?
     How do the Earthly and the Heavenly realms meet and interact?

When we leave this earth and the things of this earth behind us,
    then what will we take with us?
The easy answer is to say that we take nothing with us,
    but in reality we take much with us.

All the days and hours of our lives are slots of time. 
These we fill one way or another, with things which we will carry with us when we leave.
There are things we have done,
    there are longings of our heart,

          there are things "which we have heard, 

               which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, 

                    and our hands have handled, of the Word of life." (1 Jn.1.1)

These are the measures of revelation, to which our response will be rewarded or judged, in that Sphere beyond the one we now inhabit.

David "asked life" - only God can give it, because only God is the Author.
    Only God can give it, because that Life is beyond the reach of man.
The wisest man who ever lived expressed his frustration in searching through all of human experience.
    Finally finding that ultimate satisfaction was to be found nowhere he
declared "all is vanity." (Ecc. 12.8)

Life is given to those who seek,
    those who are not held by the things which hold most men,
        the fears, and  the formulas which surround us all.

Life is found when we realize that leaving our own world is essential 
if we are to find the world of God. 

That which is not Life is Death,
and the question is, 'how much Life do we carry with us'?

Yes, Life is given freely to all who value and seek it.
     Paul says in Philippians 3.7: "What things were gain to me, those I   
counted loss for Christ."
          Jesus said, "Seek and ye shall find." (Mat.7.7)

Taken Away

In Matthew 25.29 we have a man losing all that was given him -
     losing, due to the simple fact that he had not used it,
          losing because fear had tied his hands,
              losing for lack of faith in the possibility of increase.

This passage comes near the end of Jesus' ministry,
    a time of leaving last words of guidance to His followers.
It is the answer to the question:
    "what is wisdom and what is foolishness?"

This whole chapter speaks of the kingdom of heaven.
    Its application is for our lives.
        What is at stake is the kingdom of God within us.

Today, the kingdom of God can be, and is, taken from many.
And we can so easily lose what we have - what has been given us,
not merely by sin but:
    
by trying to hold on to the past -
    holding to a belief that God has withdrawn Himself from active working in our midst ...
    "The Bible is complete and God no longer works in His people as of old".

or by holding on to something future -
        "There is coming a great, earthshaking manifestation of God ... tomorrow".

Faith does not seem to extend to the working of the Spirit of God in His power in our midst today.
    Rather, today seems to be a stagnant period,
        of either looking back and waiting for the end of life here below,
             or waiting for a future which is a fruit of our imagination.

So much of today's "teaching" is only a defence of what needs no defending.

So much of today's prophetic message excuses the reality that God is not in the midst right now.

In our childish reasoning, and ramblings, we lose out on Infinite Life;
     on infinite promises of infinite possibility.
But the weight of spiritual things in our time is more real than all our deliriums.

Can we awake, and cry for a Light that will illuminate all our existence?
     Can we cry until the darkness surrenders, 
          and God shows us that kingdom which is BEYOND it all?

There is all to gain - and there is all to lose.

The Author of our faith will be the Finisher of our faith, if we cease to depend on any other thing and trust the One Who will guide into All Truth. (Jn. 16.13)

               This is God's promise - this is our Certainty.

"GO ... OUT"

In Mathew 25...... we have the story of the ten virgins.
    It is a story of preparedness and unpreparedness
        a story of oil and light,
            a story of a coming bridegroom.

Today there is one little phrase which jumps out in the passage:
    "Go ye out to meet Him."

And in the phrase one word which calls:
    the word "out."

It seems a word sadly forsaken in our times,
    a truth so central to the gospel,
        a truth so uncompromising.

If we would meet God we must go out.
    Out from all the things with which we are surrounded ...
        Out from things external and from things internal.

We must leave behind all our earthly knowledge to find a way in the realm of the Spirit.
    When we go to Him we cannot carry with us the bondage of any human   understanding -
    none of the things which man's ingenuity has "interpreted" of how the things of God,
    and the Word of God, really are.

We can carry no weight of earth's traditions, nor doctrines.
    God is far beyond all of this.
        We can carry none of the besetting sins,
            nor of "besetting ambitions" for ourselves.

It is a going out beyond our doubts and fears and ambitions.

Everything must be laid down if we are to go "out."
    Our eyes must be on God ALONE.
        Our hearts must be set on God ALONE.
            All the hopes and yearnings of our lives must be only for Him.

For those who seek Him thus,
    there is a Meeting,
        there is an Encounter,
            there is a wedding and rejoicing.
           
            If we catch the merest glimpse of the overwhelming glory of God,
            If we would see for an instant His Presence,
            then all other things would seem so tawdry,
            and utterly unworthy of our attention.
            And we would walk all our days in the glory of that revelation.
           
            As Jesus "steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem" (Lk. 9.51)
                    Let us turn from all else,
                         let us set our faces, 
                              to go out to meet Him.

QUARANTINED IN DARKNESS - WITHOUT REVELATION

The Bible starts with two opposites:
     God and Nothingness .

We find there a God greater than Emptiness,
     a God Who creates Substance and Light.

There is a parallel here to the work of God in the lives of His own.
     The New Creation has its reflection in the Old Creation.
But while the Old physical creation was gloriously completed, 
     with the sole utterance of God's command.
          the spiritual creation is a joint work, 
               where man's will collaborates with God.
 
Sadly, so many times the New creation does not reach completion.

So where are lives stagnated ...quarantined?
I think I know where...
     it is in the second verse of the Bible.
It is in that period of waiting before God moved again -
     that time when the earth was "without form and void, and darkness was..."
          that time of waiting -
               that place where nothing changes.
                    that place where God's New Creation is not complete.

It is a place where all is 'without form.'
The "shape" of purpose is absent,
The blueprint for the future is as yet unseen.

There is a 'void'.
There are no elements to build upon.

There is 'darkness' which man alone cannot penetrate.
There is no creation to be had - because there is no vision of a creation..

Here we find the Pain of lives stranded in that emptiness, unformed.
     Lives without substance or meaning.          
          lives which add nothing to the kingdom of God.

But God spoke ...and there was Light.
Is there any way of showing the impact of light in darkness?
     God's Light - "like the light of a million mornings."

It is the heart longing of the Children of Light -
     the sons of the God Who is the True Light.
It is the revelation of a realm unknown -
     a place where nothing is covered and hidden.
A freedom which bursts with Life.
     A place which is limitless because Light is limitless.

This is the Purpose of God's creation for His creatures -
formed of the dust but bearing His likeness;
     a world without limits,
          a Life beyond all our measures.

                  It is the place where we are Satisfied,
        because we begin to find the completeness of God's creation,
                  in every tiniest part of our existence.

Quarantine - a Waiting in Mercy, a Time to Repent?

1 Chronicles 12.32  speaks of men who knew, who discerned.

There are things we can only truly know by the Spirit -
truth known in a realm beyond emotion, instinct or thought.

If we are not illuminated by the Spirit of God, 
we are inevitably mistaken in our judgement of the world around us. 

We live amidst a profusion of voices.
     We cannot know the times in which we live, 
          if we only depend on others who profess to hear.
We cannot trust any voice except that which comes to us from God.

I hear so many affirmations of the great work which God is about to do in the not too distant future, and I am disturbed.
     What is the measure of our searching, 
          our surrender and our obedience to God?
Is what we hear about us "revelation" or is it not much more than fanciful thinking?

We always think that there is a tomorrow when things will be again as they are today - or perhaps better.
     Maybe we need to ask the basic question, will there even be a tomorrow as 
          we imagine?

Voices from the past are stilled:
     for years God has had His messengers preaching words of warning -
          I think of David Wilkerson and my father pouring out their heart's     
          in a burning cry.
But that time is past.

After Noah had preached righteousness and built the ark for one hundred and twenty years.,
God brought judgement to the earth.
The ark was finished ... but God waited seven more days before the door was closed.

Heb 3:15 says: "To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts."
There had been one hundred and twenty years of Noah's preaching righteousness,
and yet after all these years God gave yet seven more days for mercy, for repentance.

I wonder if we are not in the time of the "seven days";
I wonder if this time of quarantine is not a time in which God still waits
- waits for our response before pouring out destruction.
I wonder if time is more advanced than we think.
I wonder if our way of life is at an end, except for the short days of mercy.

The verse of Hebrews 3.15 comes to mind:
"To day if ye will hear his voice,
harden not your hearts, as in the provocation."
Mercy calls us, and God awaits our reaction.

"The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." (Ps. 25.14)
     Do we fear Him?
          Do we know His secret?

God's ear is ever open to the cries of His own and they will not be forsaken.
     Let us fear God alone,
          and let us seek God alone.

Rest

If there is one thing which characterizes our human world it is the absence of rest.
 
There is a painting which shows a seashore in the midst of a storm.
     There, among the crashing waves, is a great rock
          and in the cranny of the rock a little bird sitting upon its nest...
               at rest, unafraid and unaffected by the crash of the elements.

How easily the world impinges upon the lives of mankind.
     How easily the problems of the world outside become our own.
          How easily we lose our peace in the storm.

A song says:
     "There is no life - no life without its hunger;
     Each restless heart beats so imperfectly."
It is true in the imperfection of our lives,
and in an imperfect world there is no security - no rest.

Revelation 6.4 speaks of peace being taken from the earth .
     Does that seem to be what is unleashed in a measure even now?
          Where do we go when there is nowhere to go?

Jesus in John 16,22 speaks of joy which no man may take away.
It is a part of the world which God opens to His own -
     where peace, assurance and rest are ever-flowing.

Hebrews 4.11 says, "Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest."
There is a rest which is beyond anything which this earth can touch,
but it is not a superficial, automatic thing.
     It is reached at the end of a pathway of searching.
          It is found beyond the limits of our own strength and understanding.

              As we, with all our strength, 
              take hold of God alone,
              we will find in Him 
              a perfect peace - a perfect rest which is not of this earth.

Following to a Destiny

Abraham, spent his life searching.

We hear much about his travels and trials,
    and the years of his pilgrimage.
We hear about his encounters with God,
    and we draw our lessons from them.

What we don't seem to hear much about is the final end of Abraham's search -
    the thing that motivated him to leave the wealth and comfort of Ur.

What was it that caused Abraham,
    like a migrating bird leaving its nest,
        to uproot his home and step out into the unknown?

In Hebrews 11.8 we read that:
    he had a Call,
        he had Promise ... a land to inherit.
Above all He had a Vision of a City not of earth,
    a city built and fashioned by God.

Abraham's journey was not so much from Ur to Canaan,
    as it was from Earth to Heaven,
        from the seen to the Unseen,
            from the temporal to the Eternal,
                from the dwellings of man to the dwelling of God.

This, says Hebrews, was what he sought.
    He sought through the days, months and years in which he was a pilgrim.
        Even when he reached the promised land he dwelt there as a stranger.
For him there was no settled place of rest.
    For him all of earth was but another step in the journey to a better land.

It is easy to lose sight of the preeminence of the spiritual element in the lives of the men of the Bible -
    easy to see the revelations and events of their lives,
        their meetings with God and their faith
            to see things brought to pass.
But it is hard to see beyond all the earthly realm of their existence,
    and to somehow capture in our spirits what they felt burning as a vision within.

Enoch "walked with God." (Gen. 5.22)
    Abraham was called "the Friend of God" (Jas. 2.23)
        And on through the Old Testament God's servants saw Him above all earthly things.
        Their earthly journey only had value in as much as it related to the Heavenly.

As time passes and darkness descends upon our generation
    the need is ever more imperative for the children of God to look
        beyond the cloudy realms of earth to the Ever-Shining Light.

Darkness and Light.

Job cries:
"Where is the way where light dwelleth?
and as for darkness, where is the place thereof?" (Job 38.19)

When God created the world the first thing He put in place was light.
When man sinned he lost his inner spiritual light, and entered into a world of darkness.
    And ever since that fatal day man walks with uncertain steps,
        surrounded by the depths of darkness.

Job's cry is the cry of every seeking soul of man,
    a cry for sight, for clarity,
        for the sureness of the knowledge ,which only sight can give.
God's work in the lives of His own parallels His work in the physical creation.
    He is Light, and His promise to His own is that they
        "shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." (Jn. 8.12)

Just as we advance from faith to faith
    so also is there an advancing from light to light.
It is a sad fact that throughout the church of God there are so many,
    in whose lives, in whose experience, there is so little light.

If we are to find God in the dimension which He desires to show us, Job's cry must find an echo in our hearts...
    "Where is the way?"
        "Where is the Light?'
When man sinned he lost his inner spiritual light, and entered into a world of darkness.
    Since that fatal day man walks with uncertain steps,
        surrounded by the depths of darkness.

It is a wondrous thing when Light fills the being within,
    and a wondrous thing when that Light finds an open door
        allowing it to flow out to this world around.

God does not want for us to be
"A garden inclosed ... a spring shut up, a fountain sealed." (Sngs 4.12)

When He does His work of enlightening within,
and opens the life's doors, then all is changed.

Here is Life in abundance within and without.
    Here is our ministry, to Him and to others.
        There is no other way.

Awake ... Take Hold

Can we see what is going on around us? 
     There are so many voices.
          There are so many explanations,
          so many dreams, "revelations" and "prophecies."

There is so much talk that is superficial,
     so much that is trivial.
The unchangeable purposes and workings of God
     seem somehow to have been lost in the search for "relevance"
     and immediacy
So much seems to be about "communication" -
     only seeking a response from the hearers,
          the "method" has usurped the "message" 
          and the Voice has been lost.

The blind are unaware when their leader is also blind. 
The Voice in the desert proclaiming the Unchangeable is hardly heard among us.
The Word  has been replaced by the media as we look for meaning.

Some may be satisfied in hearing and talking about the superficial or the trivial.
Some may be like the Athenians ever searching for some new thing,
     but others, in sincerity, are searching for answers,
          and unsatisfied, search on to find a meaning for this hour.
 

Jeremiah laments, (2.13) "my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

Isaiah declares (64.7) "There is none that calleth upon Thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of Thee: for Thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities."
     This the failing today -
     a forsaking of that which is living,
     and a digging that which is flawed. 

Lay hold on Life - it is not an easy thing, nor passive...(we are accustomed to think it is...)
     It is about waking up from our sleep.

     It is about Faith.

     It is about taking hold the One we Know.

     It is about looking unto Him.

"O Lord God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto Thee?" (Ps.89.8)

In these uncertain times, "God is our Refuge,"

     our Strength, our Hiding Place, our Life, our Peace,

          and looking unto Him we are changed.
Then, with clear vision, the earthly is transcended

     and the sure abode of the heavenly is known -

          earth's uncertainties are replaced by heaven's certainties.

              The shaking and fears of earth are swallowed up 
                   in the Unchangeable Kingdom of God.

Today - an Ending and a Beginning

Our minds play tricks with us -
we see something and isolate the parts we like,
and ignore the rest of the context.

When we apply this approach to scripture we easily lose meaning and purpose. 

Isaiah's picture of the desert transformed (Is. 35) is beautiful, 
But it is easy to ignore the preceding chapter which tells us when the desert will be transformed.
It is easy to forget that the transformation will be after the "day of the Lord's vengeance." (34.8)

It is easy to forget that "all her princes shall be nothing." (34.12)
     The rulers and  the leaders will be incapable of leadership.
It is easy to forget that the palaces and fortresses shall be forsaken. (34.13)
     The places of the government will be void of meaning, of resource.

It is easy to forget that all man built society is collapsed when God comes.
It is easy to refuse to look around ourselves and ask if at this present time 
this is not the state of the world in which we live?

How bad do things have to get before we realize the events around us 
are not  merely a speed bump on the highway of life?
     We hear that "All these things will soon be over and life will resume?" ...   
     Really?
          God told you that? ...Really?
               Really ... when governments, churches and individuals are bent on
               leaving God behind, or trying to "contemporise" Him?
How much more has to collapse before we realize that we are incapable,
     and only God has the answers?
          How much longer until we come to the end of our striving to make it 
          all work?

In Chapter 35.1 Starts with the desert,
     the empty places where only the beasts are found -
          the earth as it was before man was ever created.

It is to this place God comes -
this place to which man's own governance has finally brought him.
     "The wilderness...the solitary place...and the desert,"
     three similar terms express the death and the emptiness.
          Gladness, rejoicing and blossom in the same verse -
          three expressions of response toward God.

Verse 2 is an amplification of verse 1 -abundant blossom ... joy and singing
... glory.
     Man has no more place, God Himself is taking over.
          Transformation is now the rule of the desert.
               "Old things are passed away;
                    ... all things are become new." (2Cor 5.17)

The rest of the chapter enlarges this theme -
the things that take place when God comes and controls.

And the chapter ends with a highway through the desert.
The desert gloriously transformed is the mere scenery, 
through which God has built a road,
to the city of God - the place where God Himself dwells with His own.

Here, with overflowing joy, His own return to restoration, -
"joy and happiness in their grasp now."
     They return to the place where the Presence of God is in the midst,
     and the joy is everlasting.




 

"I Believe God"

"I believe God." (Acts 27.25)

Faith is the first thing we bring in our recognition of God.
We could say that faith is the only essential thing in our recognition.

If we have faith all else will come under its shadow.
     When we truly Believe we will surrender,
          we will see the pathway of obedience,
               we will find the way of love,
                    indeed we will find opened to us all the paths of Life.

Paul's experience in the storm is such a picture of life.
He was on a journey, with a God ordained purpose.
     A ship was found, and wind to carry it.
And yet the unforeseen took over and battered all plans
     until all was lost and even life was seen to be at an end.
"All hope"... how absolute ... 
     "all hope that we should be saved was taken away."

How it shows life's processes:
man alone cannot prevail,
our hopes and resources are shredded by reality.
The spiritual lies beyond the natural,
and nothing changes until all hope is gone.

God's message came to Paul, and he said to the sailors,
"wherefore" - because of this, "be of good cheer."

And Paul furthered his explanation saying
"I believe God, that it shall be."

This is always the secret.
     We are always safe in the Word of God.
Faith in that which God has spoken always makes a way,
     through all the storms,
          through all the darkness,
               through all the need, 
                    and through all the fears.

God had spoken before the journey ever began,
"Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome." (Acts 23.11)
     Now Paul repeated the words to those around him, "be of good cheer."

What a picture - "Paul stood forth in the midst of them" -
     stood to proclaim in the midst of the winds and the waves,
          stood to proclaim when all others had abandoned hope.
How the words must have filled the space, "I BELIEVE GOD."
     The waves had no more power to destroy for God had ordained otherwise.
     All ship and cargo may be lost but not one life. 

God is the giver of life, and the enemy cannot take it from God's children.
     "My times are in Thy hand" ...says Psalm 31.13.
          All our times...all the things which make up our lives,
               are secure in His keeping.

               And God will bring us also, safe through the storm.

"I Will Restore"

Darkness is descending around us like a hurricane 
     and all stability is shaken.
Societies around the world seek to move forward,
     while the past rises up to remind of all that has been lost.
Lost not only all around us, but also in our own lives -
     there are things now forever beyond our reach. 
Day dreams and self-generated optimism never stand up in the light of reality.
     We need to hear the  voice of God.

The voice of God created the worlds,
and everything which exists owes its origin to the same Source.

In our lives, not only in our spiritual birth, but in our daily existence, 
we depend upon the Word of God for our quickening.

In Joel 2.25 God says, "I will restore to you the years."
There is something here which brings a speechless amazement.
The declaration jumps beyond the workings of our mind,
and impacts in the deeper realms where life itself is found.

Restoration is impossible in the sphere of time.
That which has been swallowed up by the passing years can return no more.
     But when God speaks creation takes place -
     blind eyes are made to see,
     the deaf hear, and the weak are made strong.
When God speaks there is not just an influx of life, 
but there is a true bringing again of what time has consumed.

How far does this promise reach?
Can God restore us to the highest point in our past? 
Can He restore us to the heaven ordained possibilities of our lives?

God renews and recreates that which has been lost. 
He sets before us every passing day a new world of possibilities as infinite as Himself. 

Restoration has been the need of all mankind ever since man's loss in the garden of Eden.
Decadence has been the journey of men and nations.
"All decays and nothing is forever," -
and yet ... God is forever,
and His plan and His power are forever.

He can reach into the past and bring again,
just as surely as He brought Lazarus from the tomb -
so with each human life,
so with each of His children.  

At the end of time there will be a new creation -
New Heavens and a New Earth.
But for us, "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature: 
old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (2Cor. 5.17)
The God of Time and Eternity is able to bring us to a new world even now.

     At this time, this juncture of history: 
                           May God's Life be restored as our life,
                           May God's Light be restored as our light.

          May we walk in a sure Path through the surrounding darkness.

Nothing?

"Is it Nothing to you?"

Just one little phrase in the almost forgotten little book of Lamentations -
the lamentations of the prophet Jeremiah
living in the time of God's rejection 
of those who were called to be His people.

It is a book of pain and pathos,
a book written in the presence of unutterable and immeasurable  loss.

"Is it Nothing?"
     This is the cry of Jerusalem, 
          the cry of Jeremiah, 
               the cry of God.

From the depths of hurt, and pain, the cry is to those who are passing by -
     those who are oblivious to the desolation -
          going somewhere, doing something, important to them.

Maybe the state of the world, and perhaps of the church,
     could be summed up in one word: Unawareness.

It is easy to say, "we see" as the Jews did in Jesus' day.
Yet it is possible to be as unaware of blindness as was the church at Laodicea.

It is possible to be as unaware as the Jews, and their priests, 
when they mocked the One Who was separated from God on the cross,
bearing the depths of the pain of their separation from God.

Both the Old and the New Testaments speak much of sight and of light,
but also both Testaments speak of blindness and darkness.

There is nothing so tragic as a person who is unaware -
     the blind man traveling through a world which is hidden to him,
          or the deaf man surrounded by sounds whose significance he cannot perceive.

Jesus came to open the eyes of the blind, "to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death." (Luk. 1.79)
    This is the gift of Awareness.
          Here is to be found the answer the question, "is it nothing?"  

This is where with open eyes we can see what God shows, 
     and feel the pulse of His heart.

Here that which was "nothing" to us,  
     becomes "everything" to us.
          And we Live because we See.