Saturday, January 5, 2013

When I am out of synch (part 17)


 

When I sin, not only do I make Him cry, but I anger Him. When I lie through my sacrifice, and make it false, I upset Him. (Is 43:20-28), because all things respect and obey God – ox, beasts of the fields, owls, flowers, they all know their creator, which is probably why I have to tame them, because why should they follow me who couldn’t even make the chemical compounds in the proper proportion to make these things the way they are. And when and only when I see I have hurt Him and that He is truly angry at me, then I have to beg for mercy, come into His throne room embarrassed by the tatters I have made of my clothes I call my life and then ask with my heart and humbly bow before Him, not trying to appease Him, but truly understanding that His way was best from the time I decided it wasn’t until forever. I fall on my knees in front of Him and remember His son hanging up on the tree knowing I would sin and sin again and I read in Ps 80:1-19: “Give ear, O Shepherd of Isreal, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock; thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth. Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh stir up thy strength, and come and save us. Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved. O LORD, God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people? Thou feedest them with the bread of tears, and givest them tears to drink in great measure. Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbors: and our enemies laugh among themselves. Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved. Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt; thou hast cast out the heathen. And planted it. Thou hast preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root and it filled the land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like godly cedars, She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river. Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her? The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it. Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold and visit this vine; and the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that though madest strong for thyself. It is burned with fire, it is cut down; they perish at the rebuke of thy countenance; Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself. So will not we go back from thee; quicken us, and we will call upon thy name. Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts, cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved.” David cries for Jesus to come, cries that he needs strength and example, discipline from which the word disciple comes. He needs not just laws, he knows he cannot keep the laws entirely, but he needs to see the Word made flesh. O God, how do you want me to walk, he cries. And that is my cry too. Only when I am studying and taking to heart God’s word and applying it using the power of God’s spirit that is within me am I following Christ’s example. Is this right or wrong? Well, not that right and wrong disappear when Christ is here, but it becomes more of a concern with doing God’s will. In His perfect will, there is only right. As the people of Israel did in Jeremiah 2:5-37, I have chosen to hurt God, unknowingly perhaps but I’ve done it. Because I turned against Him and then I filled what He created with my own substances, and with what pleases me. I have to fill the holes in my life with something, you see, something other than the living spring spoken of in John 4 by Jesus with the Samaritan woman. I cannot see that living spring, cannot touch or feel him, but I can with the indiscriminate pleasures that are in the world waiting for me to take advantage. After a while, I am desolate, that too is God’s design because He is giving me what I have chosen to have and I will mark my character, my wants, my desires, by my actions which only lead me to wear fig leaves, as Adam and Eve did, in my vain attempt to hide from Him. I do not understand Him and so I fall even deeper into desires to fill empty spaces and holes in my life with things I think make me feel that much better. In doing this God has allowed me to see that whatever I do has consequences and a place in the future, and I will reap what I sow. (Gal 6; Jer 3:1-25; Jer 8:5-21) I am a whore because I don’t want to be married to only God. I want to be an infidel because it is more fun on the surface, and carries more gratification. But He will call me and others and He wants the best part of me. He will, there is no doubt or question, collect up the remnant of what is in me after that which sins is cut away as He tells me I must do, as He will with everyone and our place will be a new Jerusalem, better than that which is on earth, with streets of gold and all in harmony with one another and all in peace.

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