2004-02-27
Good Morning Faithful Ones,
How very blessed I am that the Lord has given me the opportunity week after week to share the faith He has given me with each of you. My faith is by no means perfect, but it burns brightly and has a profound effect on my life. The Lord gives me the desire to see your faith do the same for you. That way we can all realize what a great gift from the Lord our faith is. Another reason for saying this is that each of us stands before the Eternal King’s throne with the need to decide whether we will be grouped with the sheep or the goats, as he mentions in MT 25: 32-33. How do we know that Christ is the eternal King? MT 25: 32-34 reveals the answer. “And the people of al the nations will be gathered before Him. Then He will divided them into two groups, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the righteous people at His right and the others at His left. Then the King will say to the people on His right, ‘Come, you that are blessed by My Father! Come and possess the Kingdom which has been prepared for you ever since the creation of the world.” How can we miss the revelation of a great plan here. This is no coincidental accident! When I posed the question last week whether this Kingdom is spiritual or literal, I proffered my opinion that it’s both. It’s spiritual, because one must repent and come to faith to inherit it. It’s literal, because it will replace all the temporary human kingdoms before it and will be eternal. Yes, Dear Ones, the prophecy in Daniel’s explanation of King Nebuchadnezzar’s giant statue dream is true. DN 2: 34-35, “While you were looking at it a great Stone broke loose from a cliff without anyone touching it, struck the iron and clay feet of the statue, and shattered them. At once the iron, clay, bronze silver, and gold crumbled and became like the dust on a threshing place in summer. The wind carried it all away, leaving not a trace. But the Stone grew to be a mountain that covered the whole earth.”
The negative side of God’s plan is for those who are the unrighteous, the goats in Christ’s metaphor. They are like Judas Iscariot, exposed to the truth and it’s blessings and willing to reject God’s goodness shown. MT 25: 41 reveals their fate. “Then He will say to those on His left, ‘Away from Me, you that are under God’s curse! Away to the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels!’” In each case, the Lord Jesus spoke of the unkind acts the unrighteous commit and the kind acts the righteous perform. Christ speaks from His personal experience in being denied hospitality by the unrighteous and given it by the righteous to illustrate His point and give credence to His decision as the Judge as to who will go to which final end.
One verse in the passage about the righteous which is particularly meaningful to me personally is MT 25: 40, “The King will reply, ‘I tell you, whenever you did this for one of the least important of these brothers of mine, you did it for Me.’” I believe that I was raised to be a particularly selfish person. The Lord made it clear to me from the first time I came to faith that I would have to stop being this way. Since unselfishness was outside my experience, I had no idea how to go about it. The Lord knew this and was patient and compassionate enough with me to surround me with loving, faithful people who show me every day how to step away from my selfishness. It hasn’t been easy, but these fellow believers showed me by preparing meals and giving me rides to church and the doctors when I was so ill, helping us pack when we had to move, and even lending us money when we didn’t know if we would have a roof over our heads. These people made me want to be like them. It was no longer, “let’s keep score,” “what’s in it for me?” and other such selfish thoughts that ruled my behavior.
Each and every definition for who will inherit the Kingdom found in MT 5: 3-12 has impacted my thinking about how I will conduct my life. I am by no means perfectly unselfish, but the difference is that now I know I must work on striving toward that goal for the rest of my life. I’m certain that the Lord has convicted each of you with similar revelations about yourself and challenged you to work on whatever your need to change is. A large part of this is the confidence He gives us to approach His throne and know that He is eager to hear our prayers. EPH 3: 12, “In union with Christ and through our faith in Him, we have the boldness to go into God’s presence with all confidence.” What comfort I found in 2 COR 1: 4! “He helps us in all our troubles, so that we are able to help others who have all kinds of troubles, using the same help we ourselves received from God.” The same is true for 1 JN 5: 14-15, “ We have courage in God’s presence, because we are sure that He hears us if we ask Him for anything according to His will. He hears us whenever we ask Him; and since we know this is true, we know also that He gives us what we ask from Him.” One thing that I pray He will give me is to one day be as kind and unselfish as Peter’s and my friends have been to us. I know that Christ spoke these words in MT 25: 31-41, 45-46, because He wants each of us to prayerfully decide how we should conduct our lives on earth and what matters to us in the coming glory.
PRAYER: O Lord, You have made it clear in MT 25: 45-46 the alternatives from which we still have time to choose. “The King will reply, ‘I tell you, whenever you refused to help of these least important ones, you refused to help Me.’ These then, will be sent off to eternal punishment , but the righteous will go to eternal life.” Our time draws short, Dearest Father, and we know that. We cannot put off deciding and acting on that decision. You are a faithful God, and we acknowledge that as David did in PS 9: 10 so long ago. “All those who know your mercy, Lord, will count on You for help. For You have never yet forsaken those who trust in You.” How comforting it is to know that You have no intention of abandoning us amidst the pain, suffering, and loss we experience at the devil’s hands. You are our Strength, our Refuge, and our Redeemer. PS 18: 1, “I love You, Lord; You are my Strength.” PS 46: 1, “The Lord is our Refuge and Strength, a very present Help in time of trouble.” PS 68: 19, “What a glorious Lord! He Who daily bears our burdens also gives us our salvation.” As we contemplate the coming glory, how can we miss the opportunity to get to know you better through studying the Scriptures, having an active prayer life, and learning the lessons you have for us from the circumstances of our lives? How foolish we are when we ignore these blessings! Some of the lessons are very hard for us, but You have told us that the way to eternal bliss with You is through the narrow gate and down the hard path that leads from it [MT 7: 13-14]. We are not ashamed to repeat our understanding that we have a utter need for Your presence and guidance in our lives, for without them, we cannot find our way down that hard path. You are always there to offer us encouragement and kindness when doing Your will comes hard to us. We give thanks to You for this and so much more. PS 106: 18, “Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His love endures forever.” 1 PET 2: 9, “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him Who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.” We praise and thank You for Your presence in our lives, dedicate ourselves to You, and offer You our desire to do Your will-showing Your love. In Christ’s holy and strong name, we pray. Amen.
I am led to discuss whether or not the Sermon on the Mount expects such a lofty lifestyle that it can’t be lived on today’s earth in next week’s message. In the meanwhile, it is my sincere hope that today’s message will have aroused some examination as to how each of us might alter our own lifestyle to better conform to the Lord’s will. I am confident that we need not have anxiety about this if each of us is doing his best to make the changes necessary. If not, then there is no time like the present, because only the Lord God knows when the day of Christ’s coming will be. And, Dear Ones, that can be any moment. Take comfort in the Psalmist’s words in PS 84: 11, “For the Lord God is a Sun and Shield; He bestows favor and honor: No good thing does the Lord withhold from those who walk uprightly.” And may I add, “not even His Son!”
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn