I awoke the other morning and my muscles were aching. Unsurprising really because the previous three days I had been busy in the garden with a few manual activities which left me feeling the pain of over-worked muscles. I simply wanted to rest!
WHY, LORD?
But the bigger and more important story is that my resting gave me the opportunity to think and consider the longing deep within His heart for His called out people. I considered His welcoming invitation to all people. “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” [1] What a calling, what an opportunity, a lifeline of rescue for each of us.
“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him.” [2]
I sensed that He felt deeply for those who have been stuck for years in the same place with no signs of growth in knowing our wonderful Lord Jesus in full measure. I felt my own inadequacy as He revealed His aching heart for those believers who have devoted themselves to religious activity by neglecting and even rejecting the sovereign grace of Jesus Christ to bring about change which would glorify and honour Him as Lord of all. These moments move me within and cause me to ask “Why, Lord?”
STUCK IN…
The vast dimensions of His grace and love in contrast seemed to highlight other precious brothers and sisters who have become stuck in their self centred ways and are unwilling to change and move on into the freshness of a new day for themselves and His Church.
A painful realisation and deep sadness overwhelmed me for those believers who profess to be free but are stuck and still held by the residual grip of religion. Excuse after excuse leaves them powerless to break free from mediocrity. Choosing to lean upon their own understanding and remain in a place well known to them, adding comfort and security just like the Israelites who wanted to go back to Egypt and slavery.
FOLLOW ME.
The depth of His concern seemed to intensify as I saw many who have settled for less than God’s best and under pressure have developed a compromising mentality, dividing Church and daily life into separate compartments, and therefore neglecting the simplicity of what it means to hear and respond to the voice of Jesus.
” My sheep recognise my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” [3]
SIMPLICITY
I was left with the thought that many of us need to return to the place of childlike simplicity, of enjoying Church as family, being undivided in heart, alert to His power and deeply in love with Jesus. He longs for us to walk with Him and He has made every provision for this to be possible. He desires to spend time with us. He has called us with sacrificial reminders, I have done for you what you could never do for yourself.
For those, like me who are lamenting within for His Church, His people, His Beloved. Let us turn our heart-felt concerns into faith-filled prayers of longing for a new day, a fresh awakening, and a hearing in our hearts to once again experience the “Wind Words calling us to worship the living God.”
CONSIDER THIS
“Because of the sacrifice of the Messiah, his blood poured out on the altar of the Cross, we’re a free people – free of penalties and punishments, chalked up by all our misdeeds. And not just barely free, either. Abundantly free! He thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans He took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, a long range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in Him, everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth.” [4]
[1] Matthew 11:28 NIV
[2] 2 Peter 1:3 NIV
[3] John 10:27 MSG
[4] Ephesians 1:7-10 MSG