A Significant Celestial Event

I look forward to seeing pictures of the eclipse. People do such a good job with celestial events these days because of the widespread availability of good camera equipment.

At the same time because I am tuned into 'a Biblical mindset' I know I am also going to have to contend with a bunch of strange prophetic correlations. People are going to look back upon this significant celestial event and make political, economic and spiritual connections to it. It is sure to appear in charts and graphs and as the years go by events will be linked to it that will make some folks scratch their heads.

There is a reason that the brass serpent used in the wilderness is lost and that the ark of the covenant is gone from our sight. People tend to worship the wrong things. They bring events and things into their life and hold unto them in strange ways.

"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." - Deuteronomy 6:5-9 ESV

The Bible is something I keep close. God's words are things that I hold onto. I incorporate them into my life and living. I don't change them to suit me. I bring them just as they are into my life and they change me.

There is an event I return to and find significance in above any other. It happened on a day of celestial significance. It is the cross. I can't bring that into my life like I bring the Bible in. I must leave my life to get there.

Jesus left His life to go to the Cross. I find that I must do that also. The cross isn't going to be in my backyard or around my neck. It isn't just an event that appears on a theological chart. It is always outside the walls of the city. It can't be domesticated.

I find that I can't live the Christian life but I can go to Christ's cross and find life on the other side of it.

"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.' When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, 'Who then can be saved?' But Jesus looked at them and said, 'With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.' " - Matthew 19:24-26 ESV

The cross is what makes it possible for us to pass through the narrow gate. My goods and currency can't fit through that gate. My life and deeds only disqualify me from righteousness. But at the same time they qualify me for the cross.

God did something unchangeable there. Ultimate betrayal and ultimate forgiveness are manifested in the same place. The cross also gives us the right to certain assurances.

We are sure of forgiveness because of the cross. Eternal salvation is possible because of that cross. I find that I am washed in an experiential way because I have been there.

I am going to enjoy the pictures and take all of the tabloid style theology with a grain or two of salt. No matter what people say happened this weekend my focus isn't going to change. I will carry the same seed to sow.

God's grace is what changes lives.

God's word is what we can take home with us.

Christ's cross is my daily destination.

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When The Soul Eclipses The Human Spirit

"Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, 'My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God'? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." - Isaiah 40:27-31 ESV

Israel is Jacob's new name. Jacob was a crooked damaged man who was loved by God not because He was lovable. God loved Jacob's father and his father's father and He loved crooked old Jacob and gave him a new name.

Isaiah is given a message to God's people of the time who also had two identities. They had an old one and a new one. They had a name given by observant people and one given by a gracious God.

Believers now have that also.

Jacob says, 'My way is hidden from the Lord.'

Israel says, 'My right is disregarded by my God.' Israel takes ownership and calls God 'my' God.

But, God says, 'The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.'

Jacobs way is not hidden and when Israel's spirit is eclipsed by his soul he has it wrong also. Grace does not regard the new man's right. That part is true. But, There is quickening. There is strength given that leans totally on God's knowledge and a quickening for those who wait on the Lord.

A young man's strength will fail but a new identity with doctrinal wisdom will wait and have a soul like a weaned child. They will know the the food is coming. They don't have to scream their heads off and talk about 'rights' they are hip to the schedule and know the food will come at the correct time.

"But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you." - Romans 8:10-11 ESV

Listen up Jacob and have ears to hear Israel. The Lord knows and has power to impart.

God quicken our spirit and remind our inner man so that we don't have a darkened perspective. Let the grace of God arrange us so that your Spirit that entwines our human spirit and gives us light would illuminate our soul with truth.

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