Saturday, August 30, 2008

The prophetic word of God...

Truly one of the most amazing things to me about the word of God is that it is absolute truth. This especially hit me as I was reading through the first three chapters of the gospel of Luke. The things that happened in the those chapters are so profound. Angels speaking and then man speaking, writing down things that could not have known, apart from the directing of the Holy Spirit. Things as it says in Peter, To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us. 1 Peter 1:12. It is so profound to me...that when we read the Word of God, that we are reading things that were revealed to people who didn’t even fully understand what they were writing and that they were written for our advantage. Wow! I love thinking about it.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

“It was unbelievable...at least the part I remember!”

Some dear friends of mine, a married couple, recently fulfilled one of their dreams by going ‘skydiving’. I was a little nervous for them, though not excessively, figuring people do it all the time, and live to tell the story. However, I will admit that I was relieved once I knew that they were safe and sound and back on the ground.

I spoke with the husband first, who proceeded to tell me what an amazing experience it was. He described how the ‘skydiving company’ was running so far behind schedule that they ended up having to jump in the dark of the night. I must say, that it did sound awesome as He was describing the peacefulness of it all, once the parachute opened...the full moon, the flash of the lightning bolts that they could see off in the distance, and the thin red line of the horizon as the last hint of sunlight was fading away. Then I talked to his wife!

She explained that the instructor, whom she was harnessed to, had to wrap his arms and legs around her arms and legs to keep them from flailing about and hitting him in the face. She then began to describe how she didn’t remember the first several seconds of the jump. She said that they explained to her that the body reacts to the ‘shock’ of jumping out of the plane in much the same way as it does to being in a ‘car accident’...in that you don’t remember what happened.

After she enthusiastically explained the thrill of her skydiving experience...the part she could remember...I couldn’t get the image out of my mind. Two people, harnessed together, plunging to earth at a very high rate of speed, with one of them being in a semi-conscious state, needing to have their arms and legs held...so as not to knock the instructor unconscious. Now, call me crazy, but I am thinking that if God designed your body in such as way that you do not remember the initial shock of such things as car accidents or jumping out of planes, you probably shouldn’t be doing it!

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

I so want to be like Jesus!

"I shall be satisfied when I awake in your likeness." David, Psalm 17:15. I think that this is one of the most beautiful sentences in Scripture. What a picture of a heart for God. I want to have this kind of heart. I don't want to be satisfied with anything less than being like Jesus. I know that this won't fully happen until I pass from this life and awake in His presence. The apostle John said, "Beloved, we are now children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him as He is." 1 John 3:2. However, I also know, in the depth of my being, that as I seek to know Jesus...I will find Him, and as I draw near to Him...He will draw near to me and in so doing, I will become more like Him. The apostle Paul said, "...when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away...we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord." 1 Corinthians 3:16, 18. And so, I will seek, I will draw near and each day...I will awake looking more like Jesus than the day before.