Have you sung long, loud, and skilled enough?
Have you prayed long, loud, and skilled enough? Have you worked long, loud, skilled, and hard enough? Have you lived long, loud, skilled, and holy enough? Have you been kind enough, and selfless enough? Have you been giving enough, moral enough, and godly enough? If so, I want to meet you. Oh! I already have. Your name is Jesus Christ. You are within me still ready to be just as obedient to Father as you were in your first body. HALLELUJAH! "Thanks be to God which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Corinthians 15:57).
When God is pleased to reveal His Son to us, we will learn that Victory is not a thing, but a Person; that Victory is not an experience, but a Man; that God does not give me a thing called victory, but has given me His Son in the place of victory in order to be my Victory. Then Victory will never be future-tense and far-away, but Ever Present and Now. For Victory is Christ. And Victory lives within you. How can the nations say our god, OUR GOD he is ONE.
God, our GOD's name is Yahooah, the victor over every other god. He interrupts the plans of those who hate His Name. He confuses the hands of those who build idols to salve their fearful hearts. He gathers all the sinners to His judgment even as they breathe. He proclaims His recompense. He calls to the weak and the strong alike, "Trust in My lovingkindness which is everlasting!" He sends Satan to bite their heals reminding them of their sin. He sends His Son and raises Him on a stick for all they see. He draws us one by one and heals our wounds. We are drawn to His heart. There we lean in close and in a space called 'time out of time' He wipes away every fear, doubt, false hope, and impotent effort. Those with eyes to see and ears to hear, His passion is spent. There is no more wrath. His love is shed abroad into each human heart. He declares His name. Yahooah! We live in a soft-shelled world. In fact, we spend our time protecting ourselves from nature. This truth is pronounced today by Covid-19. Prior to this, our fragility was defined by the safety of our roofs, kitchens, and controlled heating and cooling systems.
Every moment of the day speaks to the incredulity of Jesus’s teaching concerning REST. Though we are weary and heavy-laden, we are to come, and in coming find REST. Committing my frailty into a form of trust defines REST. We are called to a magic show in which nothing changes but our insides, which are out of sight, and without measurable evidence of change, excepting from those who say it works. The ‘transformed ones’ then declare they have REST in the midst of their frailty, anxiety, weariness, and downright hard work. 10 For the one who has entered His REST has himself also RESTed from his works, as God did from His. 11 Therefore let us be diligent to enter that REST, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience. (Hebrews 4:10-11 NASB95 emphasis mine) Holy Spirit through the scribe of the book of Hebrews commands us to enter God’s REST. From promise to precept, we are faced with an existential dilemma. Right here in our heavy ladened and weary state, we are to enter into God’s REST. How? Act like God and REST from your own works. Jesus - two words wrapped into one reads as a declaration - Jehovah saves. What's the import of Jesus as a name? You cannot save yourself. Jesus in the flesh declares by all He taught and did that Father saves you, you cannot save yourself.
Be encouraged...Father both sent His Son to declare He saves you and He has saved you. Well, He has, it's His name. "These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God." (1 John 5:13NAS77) |