Wearing Righteousness

Prayed a lot last night; just waiting to hear back. I woke up to the number 62, and thought to first look up Isaiah 62. What a good, faithful, merciful God we have. He is good to me, all of the time, no matter what I do or how I even willfully violate His ways. He really does see Jesus' righteousness when looks at those who believe in Him. Amazing.

Isaiah 62

Jerusalem’s Salvation Is Coming

      For Zion’s sake I will not remain silent.
   For Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,
      until its righteousness shines like the dawn
         and its salvation burns brightly like a torch.
 ²The nations will see your righteousness.
   All kings will see your glory.
   You will be given a new name
      that the Lord will announce.
 ³Then you will be a beautiful crown in the hand of the Lord,
      a royal crown in the hand of your God.
 ⁴You will no longer be called Deserted,
      and your land will no longer be called Destroyed.
   But you will be named My Delight,
      and your land will be named Married.
   The Lord is delighted with you,
      and your land will be married.
 ⁵As a young man marries a woman,
      so your sons will marry you.
   As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
      so your God will rejoice over you.   
 ⁶I have posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem.
      They will never be silent day or night.
   Whoever calls on the Lord, do not give yourselves any rest,
    ⁷and do not give him any rest until he establishes Jerusalem
         and makes it an object of praise throughout the earth.
 ⁸The Lord has sworn with his right hand and with his mighty arm,
      “I will never again let your enemies eat your grain,
         nor will foreigners drink the new wine which you made.”
          ⁹Those who harvest grain
               will eat it and praise the Lord.
            Those who gather grapes
               will drink wine in my holy courtyards.
  
 ¹⁰Go through! Go through the gates!
   Prepare a way for the people!
   Build up! Build up the highway!
   Clear away the stones!
   Raise a flag for the people!
  
 ¹¹The Lord has announced to the ends of the earth:
      “Tell my people Zion,
         ‘Your Savior is coming.
         His reward is with him,
            and the people he has won arrive ahead of him.’ ”
  
 ¹²They will be called Holy People, Those Reclaimed by the Lord,
      and you will be called Sought After, a City Not Deserted.

Is the Word really alive?

Recently, I have had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of a trained protestant theologian. He is a man who loves God, and has chosen a lifestyle of service to Him. I respect his dedication to the Lord, and I honor his chosen profession. As we've shared our views on God and His Word, I've noticed that there seems to be two different ways of considering the Bible - even among believers. I used to be someone who considered a great deal of the written Word to be historical, and not relevant to today's world. Of course I would never have admitted this, even to myself - but nevertheless...

Here's an example of my double-mindedness. It's very easy for someone like me who grew up in a pew to deduce that the Holy Spirit has largely fled the planet, being that evidence of Him has been limited for the last several hundred years. When Jesus was here, He did 3 things in His ministry - He healed the sick, delivered those in bondage, and taught about the Kingdom of God. The disciples did these things with Him present - and then when He went to be with the Father and sent us His Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the disciples and apostles continued to operate in Jesus power and authority by His Holy Spirit. Eventually, these miracles/signs/wonders stopped, at least on the scale they'd been occurring. But.. is this because God changed His course, or because we did?

I used to credit God with having withdrawn His Holy Spirit and the power that the Holy Spirit has to heal, deliver, and work miracles. I guess like many others, I needed an excuse to justify why we weren't doing them. But He didn't change His purpose with us -- we did. We got into religion, and building churches, and dickering over doctrinal disputes, and we forgot what the early Church knew and lived by. I don't credit this to God anymore, because it's not his doing. It was ours.

Many of us are ferocious when it comes to defending the present-day relevancy of our US Constitution. We call it a 'Living Document" and stand fiercely on our rights to bear arms, for instance. We are sold-out to the belief that what was true then is true now, and anybody who wants to lessen the importance of this is unpatriotic, a liberal, and we can see that if we stop viewing the Constitution as a relevant, 'living' document - it loses all of it's power and authority. We do not allow for a "Yeah, but..." attitude with the US Constitution. Why do we allow it with the only truly Living document - the Word of God? Brothers and sisters - where is our loyalty?

We have listened to theologians tell us that things like signs and wonders are not relevant or intended for us today. Since we do not operate in the power of the Holy Spirit, we conclude that this has been God's design, His will, or His doing. But this is not the truth. Jesus said that miracles, signs and wonders will follow those who believe. ("Yeah, but...") Jesus was the One who told us what to do and what to expect - look at Mark 16:17-18 for example. Surely, "The Church" has not been operating as Jesus told us to, as He showed us to, and as He has always intended for us to. He is not angry with us - but we must not deny that it is our lack and failing, and not His, that we are not operating the way He demonstrated to us, and the way we should have all along. I repeat - He is not angry with us. But how can we continue to deny the present-day relevancy of the Living Word, especially when we get so livid about a simple Earthly government document being called into question? We get more upset about guns being taken out of our hands than having been denied the real power of the Holy Spirit for the last several hundred years. It is not God who has denied us. It is "the Church", and the doctrine of man. I do not mean to incite anyone - but how can we who claim to believe the Bible is the inspired, Living Word of God honestly stand on a doctrine that indicates that it has changed, or is historical, or irrelavant? Jesus is the Word made flesh. He hasn't changed. Has He?

Are we more concerned with being true-blue US citizens, loyal to the government of the United States, as outlined in the US Constitution than with our loyalty to the Kingdom of God, as outlined in the Bible?

Just my thoughts for the morning.

Breadcrumbs

Okay, there's something else about bread if you don't mind me sharing this with you. It's about prayer too. And what the Lord meant when He said "keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking". Do you know what He DIDN'T mean? He didn't mean that we pound away on the door, begging, demanding, pleading for the same thing. Even if it's a promise He gives to us, like "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart". It's good to step into faith with Him and pray that scripture. He will keep His word. But then... He will lead you on a trail of breadcrumbs to get you to that place.His Word is the bread! Which is cool, because Jesus is the bread of life. The "ask, seek, knock" will come when you dive into Him, spend time with Him, open yourself up to Him and His Word. Get the Word into you, and He will connect so many dots, lead you on such a beautiful trail to come deeper into His presence in order that -viola, the desires of your heart!

Often, the Lord has something to teach us or grow in us or clean out of us in order to make us ready to receive the desires of our hearts. And He loves to give us our desires! He loves us, and when He can do something marvelous for a person, in a person - He gets glory! It shows others how much better His ways are than our ways...

So when you pray,keep on praying. Keep on seeking, keep on asking. But don't beat pound on the same door - because He already opened it for you. And it took you to another door, deeper inside His House. So knock on that one. And keep on doing it. Just spend time with Him, keep the Word inside of you so that He can apply it to what He's showing you. And keep going! The desires of our heart are at the end of this trail of breadcrumbs, and it's a great journey into Him.

Baking Bread

Early this morning as I woke up and picked up my conversation with the Father where I'd left off, I had an image of Him making bread. As I was reflecting on it, He impressed me with a truth He wanted me to understand. The truth being that the reason we are made is NOT to muddle through this world and try for dear life just to hang on so we can die and maybe get to heaven one day. No. The reason we are made is so that God may have relationship with us... I got this picture of bread rising. I'm not much of a baker , as you may have discovered if you’ve come to my house and been offered dessert. But I do remember my mom making bread sometimes. After she measured the right amount of yeast with the right temperature of water, she added it to the dough, covered it with a cloth and let it rise for an hour or so. For me, it was already too long to wait! Finally, the dough rose. Yay! But then instead of putting it in the pan and into the oven, she'd take this perfectly smooth, puffy, beautiful mound of dough and punch it down so hard with her fist with one big "pow!" that it would shrink back to almost nothing again, cover it again with that cloth, and just wait. I always detested that part. I mean, we waited for an hour and a half of rising, and for what? All she did was punch it right back down. Every time, I tried to get her to skip that part. I don't know why bread has to rise that way, but I suppose that if it didn't get to go through all those stages of development, that when it was finally baked and pulled out of the oven and a corner torn off and popped into my mouth - it wouldn't have been so succulent and delicious. It would probably have been chewy, and tough, and hard as a rock.


But if the Lord is our Baker, I do not want him to pull a tough, chewy, hard as a rock Deborah out of the oven when the timer goes off! So, I guess all that rising, and waiting, and even the punching-down part is necessary. And since I know He doesn't put the timer on and leave the kitchen while I'm rising, but He loves me, and encourages me, and keeps me in just the right temperature and environment necessary for me to rise well - I guess I can wait it out.


I believe this is also what it’s like to have patience. Patience is evidence of the Holy Spirit in us, but in practice, it is derived from faith. When we stay in faith, and do not give up over a stretch of time and circumstances – we have demonstrated patience. No matter the pounding, the kneeding, or the heat – when we keep believing Him and His Word, eventually the broken pieces of ourselves that we give to Him come out of the oven. And with this beautiful, hand-crafted creation, He can feed others.