2006-05-05
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Last we the Holy Spirit led me to begin writing about the second index sentence of the Lord's Prayer [MT 6: 9-13], "Thy Kingdom come..." This is all about allegiance, our acknowledgement that we believe He is the one and only true God, Who will bring about a permanent Kingdom to replace all the human ones. This notion is not new. The Psalmist wrote about it in PS 145: 13, which I repeat from last week's devotion. "Your Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and Your dominion endures throughout all generations." We must remember that Christ was raised in the Jewish faith and thus knew the Psalms well. I don't think it's any accident that God knew He would be asking me to write about this subject today and thus, had me singing "This Kingdom" by Geoff Bullock in church on Easter Sunday. Note its words:
"Jesus God's righteousness revealed, the Son of God, the Son of Man, His Kingdom comes; Jesus, redemption's sacrifice, now glorified, now justified, His Kingdom comes.
Chorus: | And this Kingdom will know no end, |
Jesus, expression of God's love, the grace of God, the Word of God revealed to us.
Jesus, God's holiness displayed, now glorified, now justified, His Kingdom comes."
The abovementioned Psalm is not the only place we are reminded of why we should pledge allegiance to our Lord, acknowledging the coming of His Kingdom. PS 93: 1-2 helps to flesh out this belief. "The Lord is King, He is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed, He is girded with strength. He has established the world; it shall never be moved; Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting." What a rich picture of God's power, majesty, eternal nature, and other qualifications for what He will do this is! LAM 3: 22-24, 40 express why we should be motivated to pledge allegiance to the Lord as soon as possible. "The Lord's unfailing love and mercy still continue, fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise. The Lord is all I have, and so in Him I put my hope...Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord."
Traditional Jews don't know anything about the grace of God. That is only extended when one comes to true faith in Jesus Christ. Nor do they have the constant indwelling of the Holy Spirit. However, some of them really do believe in heaven. I was raised in a group that didn't believe in an afterlife, so you can imagine what a shock it was to me when the Holy Spirit first gave me faith in that. In my day and in my synagogue, we believed the body went back to the carbon cycle, and that was the end of our existence. How sad that is, now that I think back on it! How sad that I and those around me had no idea of God's Kingdom or the blissful eternity of close fellowship with Him to which Messianic Jews and Christians look forward! It wasn't until I began to really study the NT that I learned of the story of the lost sheep [MT 18: 10-14 & LK 15: 3-7]. Note the picture of Christ's heart in this: "See that you do not despise any of these little ones. Their angels in heaven, I tell you, are always in the presence of My Father in heaven. What do you think a man does who has one hundred sheep and one of them gets lost? He will leave the other ninety-nine grazing on the hillside and go and look for the lost sheep. When he finds it, I tell you, he feels far happier over the ninety-nine that did not get lost. In just the same why your Father in heaven does not want any of these little ones to be lost." If my own experience with God is instructive, there are indeed some of us who present God with bigger challenges to bring to faith than others. I, for one, surely need the lessons of the Lord's Prayer! How about you?
All of this need to recognize God's awesome power, compassion, and ability to bring faith through the Holy Spirit motivates a true believer to willingly pledge His allegiance to God, thus acknowledging "His Kingdom come..." I mentioned that traditional Jews don't have the constant indwelling of the Holy Spirit. However, if my own experience is any teacher, they can certainly feel the intervention of the Holy Spirit intermittently. It had to be the Holy Spirit, Who caused me (much to my own surprise) to comment, "What about the fact that Christ is the Son of God?" in that eighth grade Jewish Sunday school class at Temple Emanuel El in San Francisco all those years ago. What a spiritual firestorm that brought about! That would not be the only time He made His presence known in my life before I came to faith and pledged my allegiance to God, even though I had no idea at the time Who was responsible. We can believe that God is very deliberate about bringing the people He calls to faith. Note Christ's words to Paul in AC 26: 17-18, words of instruction to Paul, at the time of his commission. "I will rescue you from the people of Israel and from the Gentiles to whom I will send you. You are to open their eyes and turn them from the darkness to the light and from the power of Satan to God, so that through their faith in Me they will have their sins forgiven and receive their place among God's chosen people." We should each look back on how God brought us to faith we have.
PRAYER: O Lord, as we stand before Your throne today, we are called to look back on our own individual walk to the faith we have now. As we do this, we will see You and the efforts You have made to bring us where we are. We will also see five truths, ones which I learned from Beth Moore in her course "Believing in God." 1) You are Who You say You are. PS 96: 10,12b-13, "Say to all the nations, 'The Lord is King! The earth is set firmly in place and cannot be moved; He will judge the peoples with justice...The trees of the woods will shout for joy when the Lord comes to rule the earth. He will rule the peoples of the world with justice and fairness.'" 2) You can do what You say You can do. PS 24: 4-5, "Those who are pure in act and in thought, who do not worship idols or make false promises. The Lord will bless them and save them; God will declare them innocent." 3) We are who You say we are. EZK 36: 23b, 26, "I will use you to show the nations that I am holy...I will give you a new heart and a new mind. I will take away your stubborn heart of stone and give you an obedient heart." 4) It is through Christ that we can do all things. PHIL 4: 13, "I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me." 5) Your word is active and alive within us. JN 1: 4, "The Word was the Source of life." JN 14: 16-18, "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor, Who will stay with you forever. He is the Sprit, Who reveals the truth about God. The world cannot receive Him, because it cannot see Him or know Him. But you know Him, because He remains with you and is in you." God's work began before we were born, His work to bring us to where we can pledge allegiance to Him and to have faith without question that He will eventually replace all human kingdoms with His permanent Kingdom. Dearest Abba, it is the deepest urging of our hearts that each of us will be citizens in full standing of that Kingdom. We are told that we will rule as joint-heirs with Christ of that Kingdom [RO 8: 17]. We ask You to guide us and help us to be worthy of that promise and of being Your adopted children [RO 8: 16]. We love You and pledge to You our eternal worship, thanks, and praise. We will do our best to listen for Your direction and obey Your commands. And yes, Dear Father, we pledge to continue to remain in Your word, so that we can fully understand the supremacy, power, justice, compassion, patience, love, wisdom, and glory You have. These things we pray in Christ's mighty name. Amen.
I am led to write about the third index sentence of the Lord's Prayer, "Thy will be done..." next week. This one is a pledge of submission to God, one that requires spiritual strength and some maturity. It's one that often gives us a hard time, but is very necessary. In the meanwhile, if we are beginning to feel very comforted by cognition of God's constant presence and our opportunity given by Him to pray any time we want, then the Holy Spirit is pleased. In my heart, I know that He wants us to have those assurances and to honor them. PS 107: 1, "O thank God-He is so good! His love never runs out." PS 91: 1-2, "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, 'He is my Refuge and my Fortress, my God in Whom I trust.'" We don't have to feel that we are alone in our efforts to live more righteous and holy lives. The Lord is always there to advise, comfort, and lead us to fulfill His goal of bringing us back to Him [JN 6: 39-40]. We should never make Him our last resort, but should turn to Him as our first Defense. That's learned behavior, because of the sin with which we were born. But we can and should learn it. Once we do, we will see God's faithfulness. PS 107: 43, "Those who are wise will take all this to heart; they will see in our history the faithful love of the Lord."
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn