-The purpose of the ages... Now we along with the angels in Heaven behold that this was God’s purpose of the ages, His idea and plan from the very beginning, from eternity, His doing, and in these last days He is finally and fully bringing it to pass, gathering in the nations from every corner of planet earth, in His many-colored wisdom creating a many-colored congregation of Christ-centered worshippers. He had this in mind all along, before He even created the first Adam, and this is what He had in mind in sending the ‘Last Adam’ (1Corinthians 15.45), His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to live and to die on behalf of Adam’s race. And now, being gathered from every tribe and tongue and from every corner of the globe, the Church, this assembly of redeemed and rescued souls, Jew and Gentile together, THIS is the why behind it all, the why of why's, the very reason why God has done all that He has done - assembling a multitude of eager worshippers who celebrate and spread the knowledge of His breathtaking goodness throughout the world and on into eternity.
-And to be sure, all that has been accomplished in gathering this new people, God did in Jesus Christ, through His work on the Cross and His work in human hearts, the hearts of those who are completely His (2Chronicles 16.9). And He is the Lord of us, Jesus is Lord. Not some distant monarch who we can reject whenever his demands seem unreasonable or out of sync with what I want. Not some lackey president we can vote out of office every few years. In fact, I don’t think that word at all means what we think it means. ‘Lord’ is more than a name to use while praying or a mere title of respect, it is a designation of AUTHORITY, for which we descendants of rebels have quite a dim(inished) view. “Why do you call me Lord and not do what I say?” (Luke 6.46, cf Matthew 7.21, Malachi 1.6) He comes first in everything. I do what my Lord says, whatever He asks, whatever He wants. But when I bring it in weak, when I follow with only half a heart, when I hold back and struggle and stray and deviate in my devotion, I betray the bitter reality that Jesus is in fact NOT Lord of all, He is not Lord at all, at least not in my life, not in my heart. 'Lord' does indeed tend to be a four-letter word to my fallen flesh. Yes, this is authority and feality which THE Lord certainly deserves, and which He could easily force (and will someday - Philippians 2.10-11), but instead what I get for my wavering submission to the King of kings and Lord of lords... is grace. Patience. Rich, long-suffering mercy. He began with grace as He poured out that precious crimson flow on Calvary, He continued with grace when He formed me in my mother’s womb fearful and wonderful and yet fully bent towards self, and He continues with grace to this day, each and every day as I fall short of full-on white-hot devotion to the One Who is truly worthy of nothing less, nothing less than my all, my whole life, my whole heart, whole-hearted love (Matthew 22.37), whole-hearted service (Matthew 4.10). He is the great I AM (with a capital 'I'). He is Lord, and He must increase. i must decrease, must learn to live in the lowercase 'i'...
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