You (Matthew 4:6)

           Someday I will have too much time on my hands or I will have a research assistant and I will have a total list of how many times God is simply called “You”.  Until that day, suffice it to say that it is quite a few.  And though it seem like an insignificant title, one that is merely necessary for relating to another entity, there are again great implications in calling the Creator simply “You.”

            This Title implies a separation between the Title giver and the Title Receiver.  They are not the same person; there is a clear distinction between me and you.  There are many clouded by the illusion that they are God, or some other pantheistic malarkey of that sort.  One of the first and primary understandings we must come to before we can have a friendship with someone, whether God or anyone else, is that they are not us.  Friendships take multiple individuals.

            Having established that God is not me and I am not God, we can then use “You” to encompass who He is in a pronoun, rather than explaining God all the time.  Though this makes for great sounding prayers that impress people, and though this can be a way to magnify who He is by continually declaring the glorious deeds He has done on behalf of His people, it does de-personalize God to both the speaker and the hearers.  He is a personal God and that is why He told us His Name, though Jews will never tell you how to pronounce it in fear of using it in vain.  He prefers to be personal, that is why He came off the mountain and wanted to live with Israel in a Tent – though He reinforced His holiness by making Himself not completely accessible, but it has always been in His plan to dwell with man on earth and one day He will have that.

            Not only does speaking to Him as “You” shorten the conversation – which serves to keep it a relationship and not a religion – but the use of informal names also implies intimacy.  When I address someone as “you”, I have a distinct understanding of who they are.  Have you ever considered that until you have met someone you do not call them “you” but you call them ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘they’ or their proper name?  Calling someone ‘you’ only happens after you have met.  The first time is the exchange of “it is nice to have met you.”  This Title implies belief that the other exists and that you are face to face with them or communicating in some way.  Just as I am calling the readers of this meditation ‘you’ because we have been introduced in a very cursory way; I know you exist and acknowledge you as a literate human being – though I may not know your name or your preference of milk for your cereal.

            When speaking to someone, the use of this Title implies that they are listening.  If I were talking about someone to you, I would use other pronouns, even if they were in the room.  It is not unless you are under the assumption that the other person is listening that you use ‘you’, even if they can’t hear you.  So is the implied assumption when we address God as “You”, we are assuming He is listening and hears us.  The great reality is that this is true.  He is not only able to hear us, He listens to us.  We read in the Song of Songs, a love poem that reflects the relationship of God to His people, that He says of His bride that her voice is sweet.  God enjoys just hearing us.  We don’t really know what it means to Him when we just talk with Him, not just about Him.

*You, we turn our hearts to You, however You have revealed Yourself to us; we trust You, Jesus, we honor You, Jehovah Father, and we enjoy You, Holiest of Spirits.  Amen*

The Son of God (Matthew 4:3)

            The King of Heaven has a Son.  There are two reactions to princes, whether in a medieval kingdom or in a modern setting with wealthy and powerful men, either the son is loved or hated.  Largely this is connected to the relationship between the king and the kingdom.  If the king is a tyrant, the prince will be hate because he will be expected to be just like his father.  If the sons and daughters of the kingdom love their king, the prince’s birth is a joyous occasion.  The prince will likely live up to expectations, a good king’s son will likely be free to be a blessing to his future kingdom, but a bad king’s son will find it difficult to break out of the stereotype that his father has brought upon the family.

            We have a Great King and for those who see this and know it to be true, the Prince of Heaven is a refreshing presence in their lives, but for those who have been wounded by poor representation of the King and accepted the bitterness of the counter kingdom, the presence of the Prince of Heaven is loathsome.   For those who are truly in the Kingdom, who are not pulled by the kingdom of this world, the Great King and the Prince of the Kingdom are blessed rulers.

            Jesus, the Son of God, the Prince of Heaven is highly esteemed in His Kingdom.  Just the hearing of His Name gives strength to His people, all the Angels adore Him and revere Him with trembling at His Word.  His glories illuminate His City.  The scent of His garments wafts through the Heavens and the earth, alluring men into His gracious embrace.  He is not a Prince who does not walk amongst His people, He is humble and serves His Kingdom.

He is a Prince that would buy the produce for the royal kitchen in the market and would overpay every merchant with a wink.  If a cart overturned while He was enjoying the smells of the streets of His Kingdom, He would not be the one barking out orders to get strong men to pick it back up, He would be the One who takes off His Regal cloak and get under the cart to push it up on its wheels again.  He would be applauded and smile at His friends while He walked over to a young boy to tickle him and while tickling him, He would drop a gold coin in his pocket.  This Prince would just as likely be seen listening to an old woman’s stories that He had heard dozens of times before as He would be seen conversing with the leaders about important Kingdom matters.  Prince Jesus would equally enjoy a conversation with a seven year old about the temperament and nature of local bullfrogs and a meeting concerning advancing His Kingdom’s borders.

            The Heavens love the Son of God.  We really do want His Kingdom to come.  When His Kingdom comes to the earth, Heaven and earth will be united and His will actually will be done.  He will walk among us, we will enjoy Him and He will requite our affections more fully than we have yet been able to experience.  Joy will overtake us at the speaking of His Name.  We will hear that He is planning a trip to our area and we will clear our schedules to see Him.  We will seek to be heads of committees not because we will be viewed by others as great, but because we will have a greater chance of being in the same room as Him.  There will be times when He will surprise us by just showing up in a room of His people who have been talking about the awesomeness of His leadership and the glory of His majesty.  As we come to know Him more we will understand more fully that all His works could not be recorded in all the libraries of the earth (John 21:25).

*Son of God, we want to know what You are really like, romance us again. Amen*

My Beloved Son (Matthew 3:17)

            Yesterday we looked at the Voice, today the message. When the Father felt it necessary to break into His Son’s life audibly, He seems to be fairly obsessed with one thing. Someone is obsessed when all they talk about is their obsession. No matter what the topic of discussion is an obsessed person finds obtuse ways to bring the conversation around to their obsession. They don’t do this to be obnoxious, some do, but they do it because that is what they have filled themselves with and what they constantly think of.

            So we see an obsessed Father talking about the Son of His affection. He has been filled with love for His Son. To the Father, Jesus is not just a son, for He has many sons, but Jesus is His Beloved Son. He is the son that He has set His eyes on and rested His heart on. You can almost hear the Father say, “That’s My Boy, I’m so proud of Him!” We only have a short sentence of what He said, but it is packed full emotions and history that we have no understanding of apart from asking Them what was going on there.

            After saying who this Man is that John is baptizing, He makes a statement that seems good at first glance, but has massive implications if we understand who we are before the Father. He says “This is My Beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.” The Father says that His pleasure is stirred when He sees His Beloved Son. The Father, the Ancient of Days, raw Deity for whom the earth must undergo a great reconstruction project that lasts a millennium so that He can dwell here with men, He is the One whose emotions are stirred at the sight, sound and scent of His Son.

            The Apostle Paul wrote that we are the fragrance of Christ Jesus. We smell like Him. And as we are conformed into His image we become more and more like Him and we take on His attributes, even beginning to look like Him and sound like Him to those around us. But there is something far greater taking place, we begin to remind the Father of His Beloved Son. We then begin to stir the emotions of the Father with increasing depth. To the degree that we remind the Father of His Beloved Son, that is the degree to which we do what no angel can, what no pagan desires, we are able to give God pleasure.

            There is a river whose streams make glad the whole City of God, this river is the river of pleasures evermore that gushes from the Throne of Heaven. In His hand are pleasures, He is the God of pleasure and joy, but who gives Him pleasure? We do. As we become increasingly like the Beloved Son we give pleasure to Him who created pleasure. The Source of pleasure receives pleasure from those who simply sanctify themselves and become conformed to His image. It is not as though He becomes more pleased with us, we have His affections already. It has nothing to do with us, He deserves to be pleased, blessed, honored and enjoyed.

            Righteousness no longer looks religious when you realize that Jesus is the Righteous One (1 John 2:1) and that our seeking after righteousness out of love for the Father does not exalt us but gives God pleasure. Meekness ceases to be something we are supposed to possess, because God apposes the proud, and becomes an avenue by which we can affect the Maker in a unique way. Healing the sick is not just an act of compassion or even a means to the end of glorifying the Lord, but healing the sick becomes a reflection of the Beloved Son. Reading the gospels regains importance when we see that we can bless God powerfully by being like this Man.

*Beloved Son, transform us into Your image that Your Father would be pleased. Amen*

A Voice out of Heaven (Matthew 3:17)

            Apparently the Voice out of Heaven was public knowledge, the other gospels attest to the fact that there was indeed a Voice.  Who heard it?  What did it sound like?  Was it coming out of the Heavens to the north, south east or west?  None of these were answered.  Why?  Probably because those details are irrelevant and would likely be misconstrued to mean more than was intended.  The point is that there was a Voice that came out of Heaven.

            Though we do find out what the Voice said by the end of the verse, and we find out in other accounts of when this same Voice spoke from Heaven what it sounded like, it is very important to stop and realize that there was an origin to this Voice and there was intent and purpose behind it.  In all the gospel accounts, there are surprisingly few events at which a Voice comes out of Heaven.  If something only happens once or a few times, it is noteworthy.  Also, first occurrences are significant.  This fits both categories and is thus “significantly noteworthy”. 

            This Voice, we see, is the Father declaring His affection for His Son.  The Father breeched the audibility gap between the Third and First Heavens just to say how He felt about His Son.  I am not promoting a Greek concept of Heaven being way far away, and His Voice had to travel so far and whatever, I am rather suggesting that there was a barrier between what is heard where the Voice came from and where it was heard.  The Father, seated on His Throne in the Throne Room (aptly named), has angels yelling praises and once-living saints interceding around the Glassy Sea, and He speaks.  I don’t think that they all stopped, though if you heard a Voice that sounded like rushing waters and thunder mixed together I tend to think you would do what I would do – fall down and shut my mouth.

            We know that Heaven goes silent for 30 minutes during the judgments of the final 7 years of human history before the Son takes His Throne to earth again.  But this is the only time that this happens, Heaven seems to be a cornucopia of audible glory – a situational hapax legomenon.  So what was it that kept the sound of the angels, saints and whatever else is in the Room from also breaking into the hearing of everyone at Jesus’ baptism?  I’m not content to just say that God is sovereign and He figured it out, or it was “spiritual sound that manifested physically”.  If you have 8 different sounds going on in one sound-proof room and you open the door to another sound-proof room that has a microphone recording the silence in room B, the microphone will not just pick up the closest sound, it will record all eight sounds.  The sounds volume and quality will vary depending on the position and original volume of the sounds, but they will all get in there.  Anyone who has tried recording a CD knows how true this is.

            In each gospel account of the Baptism it says or implies that the Heavens are opened.  I believe that the other sounds did get through, but the Voice that stood out to everyone there was this One Voice.  There may have been others, but the Father either quieted them a little or spoke up or something.  His message was important, the overflow of His heart was great.  Obviously I cannot prove any of this, but it helps me to understand the situation when I take a step back, read the Scripture slowly and imagine the dynamics of what is going on.  Take it or leave it, the He spoke and I want to get it.

*Voice from Heaven, silence the clamor around us and grant us ears to hear.  Amen*

The Spirit of God (Matthew 3:16)

            We get so familiar with terms, whether Biblical or “churchy”, that we rarely stop and realize what we are saying.  What does “righteousness” mean?  Only those that have hungered and thirsted and been satisfied in righteousness could really tell you.  There are those who can tell you what the Hebrew of Greek word means, how it was used in the Old and New Testaments or give a quip that boils down the essence of the concept of righteousness, but when someone looks me in the eyes and declares to me “you are the righteousness of Christ”, what do they mean?  Sure they are quoting Scripture to me, but I don’t have living understanding about righteousness.  Some times it just takes saying things in other ways to get a feel for what it means.

            So let’s walk through this Name word by word.  This will help to show us new facets of the diamond that this Name is.  Catching the Light at a different angle will assist us in allowing this Name to grip us and show us Who we worship.

            As small a word as “the” is, it is essential to understanding the uniqueness and nature of Who we are talking about.  This is not ‘a’ spirit of God, though there truly are many spirits of God.  This is “The Ultimate” Spirit of God.  Just as Jesus is “Lord of lords”, this is “The Spirit of spirits”.  If all the Spirits lined up next to each other, this One Spirit would out shine all of them as The Spirit of God, easily.  There would be no discussion or disagreement, this One would hands down win the “Unique Spirit of God Award” every year, every decade, every century and every millennia.

            If someone played a scary movie and there was a hazy entity that floated around, what would you call it?  A spirit.  If we are honest with ourselves, it is relatively creepy that God has a Spirit.  We know what the Spirit does, illuminates the Scriptures, exalts Jesus, heals, delivers the gifts, but we neglect to acknowledge how these things happen.  The Spirit blows through a room during our services and touches people.  When you read the Scriptures the Spirit is resting upon you teaching you all things.  When you need the Comforter, who is it that comes to you?  Take the next step, how does the Spirit comfort you?  Because even if you think of it as an internal process of negating one emotion with another, that means that there is a spirit inside of you.  Stop and consider what you believe, that is terrifying.  And if the comforting is also an external dealing, how does that work and what does it look like?  It is a fearful thing to realize that there is actually a Phantom floating around touching us, coming inside of us, coming out of us and doing any number of other crazy things.

            Taking the last two words as one concept, for the Greek text is only one word not two.  “Of God”, meaning ‘from God’, the Spirit which is sent from the Father.  The Spirit is the spiritual expression of God, with which we can interact through our spirits.  This Spirit is just like God, there is nothing that is true of God that is not true of the Spirit.  Their character is identical, what One hates, so does the Other.  Likewise, what you say to One you can say to the Other.  Their emotions are inseparable, their thoughts are in union and their purposes are incomprehensibly linked.

            The Spirit of God is not one to be trifled with.  This Spirit raises the dead.  This Spirit removes life from those the Spirit chooses (Acts 5).  This Spirit has presents.  This Spirit affects character, behavior and understanding.  This Spirit is fun and yet sober.

*Spirit of God, we want You and all that comes with Your Presence, come.  Amen*

A pre-apology for another missed day in the series

I am again on the road, driving from Dallas to Charlotte over the next day or so.  Thus I will not be blogging until Tuesday.  But Tuesday night I will put two blogs up to make up for my missed day.  And then there is REALLY GOOD NEWS: I will then begin to blog in the mornings rather than at random times in the day.  I know that it has been frustrating for some that they check for a blog and it isn’t there sometimes until later at night.

So here is the plan.  I will be writing early enough that the meditation will be published by noon (unless there are adverse circumstances) starting on Wednesday.  The first exception to this promise is from the 27th to the 31st I will be at a school function where I will not be bringing my laptop and will have no access to internet ( I think).  So I will not be blogging during that time, but I will start right back up on the 1st of September.

Thank you to all of you regular subscribers and readers.  This has been a fun journey and I am glad to share it with you.

vince

He who is coming (Matthew 3:11)

            John, son of Zecharias, cousin of the Messiah, called “the Baptizer”, knew something.  He had knowledge of the Scriptures to know that there was Someone coming that was so vital to the history of the planet that an essential part of His existence in relationship to the rest of humanity was simply He is coming.  John was called “the Baptizer” because that is what He did all the time.  In a time when the nation had little else to do, all 1.2 million of them came out to see what was up with this Baptizer fellow.  If you do the math, 1.2 million people divided into a three year ministry, John baptized 400,000 people a year.  Remove the Sabbaths and other holidays from the year, and he now has less than 300 days to baptize them in, making an average of 133,000 people per day.  If he were baptizing 12 hours per day, that ends up being roughly 10,000 people an hour, which is 160 per minute.  Those are rough numbers (actually the real numbers would probably be much more extraordinary) and John had disciples to help him.  But the point is that he was called the Baptizer not because he was a little into baptism, but because that is all he did.  Just like a baker bakes and a writer writes, a baptizer baptizes.

            In Matthew chapter three we get a basic outline of John’s message.  His messages consisted of a call to repentance and a prophetic declaration of one who is to come who would not simply baptize in water, but in the Holy Spirit and fire.  His message was that there is someone coming who will immerse men in the Holy Spirit and fire.  His own baptism was a sign of what was to come through the One who was to come.  As John was baptizing with his disciples he preached repentance, but he did this to prepare for the One who is to come.  After years in the wilderness God had spoken many things to him about this One, and John knew that his purpose was to prepare for His coming; this preparation was to return the Lord in repentance so that when He came the transition would be much smoother.  But his obsession was with this One, it was all for Him.

            Living in what many have called “the Church Age”, the time between the Messiah’s first coming and His final Coming, we are in a similar situation to John and we are to have a similar message and the same motivation.  We are to prepare the earth for the Return of the Messiah, who will baptize His people with the Spirit and fire.  He is the One for whom we wait, for whom we watch and for whom our hearts are discontent until He is again on the earth.  The way of preparation is repentance through the uniting of the generations, but the motivation is that we long for the Man Christ Jesus to come back to the earth and rule us with righteousness and justice.

            Friend, He truly is coming.  And for one to live with this as the obsession of their life, that their days of strength are spent reminding the earth of His return, is greater wisdom than we have yet considered.  He will drown His people with His Spirit and fire, they will drip with the power and character of the Spirit of the Living God.  The greater power that the church experiences, the closer we can know He is.  The Spirit loves the Son, and as the Son draws nearer the Spirit will excitedly aid His Bride in the manifestations necessary to prepare the earth for the Coming Son.

            The prophecies are true.  He will come as He said He would and as He told His friends He would.  The world will simultaneously have revival and great darkness.  We live in the days of Noah and Elijah.

*Jesus, Coming One, give us the Spirit that we may prepare a Highway of Holiness for you to return on, a fitting landing strip for a King, come Lord Jesus.  Amen*

A Nazarene (Matthew 2:23)

            They were wrong, not the prophets but the people who called Him a “Nazarene”.  He may have grown up in Nazareth, but that is not where He was born, nor was that really where He was from.  He only grew up in Nazareth, He was born in Bethlehem, and His true home will come to the earth at least a thousand years from now.  In John 9 a once blind man seems to mock the religious men that were interrogating him about who healed him.  They didn’t know where he was from, but as the formerly blind man said “yet he healed me”.  Didn’t matter to him where his Healer was from, he was healed.

            The label didn’t bother Jesus any.  He knew where He was from, He knew who sent Him and He knew where He was going.  There is a place of internal indifference to external labels that comes with finding one’s identity in something greater than their circumstances.  “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”  Again, the Lord finds a way to prove our stereotypes wrong.  He is generally a big fan of using what we hate to accomplish the purposes of our hearts.

            The negative view of Nazarenes came from the frequent invasions of that area by foreign lands.  There was a lot of intermarriage and thus not many pure Hebrews in the area.  As Jesus grew up He was undoubtedly labeled by people “a Nazarene”, in a derogatory tone.  If you throw into the mix the uncertainty of His birth Father, and the public knowledge of this rumor, it makes for a great set up for being gossiped about and treated unfairly.  We see this in action when He was back in His hometown and they discount His words and say, “Isn’t this the carpenter’s ‘son’?”

            How is it that He could live His whole life un-offended by the accusations and whispering behind His back?  He had to have been completely free from the desire for the praise of man.  This kind of freedom only comes from having one’s identity firmly planted not in word of men but the Word of God.  He knew who His Father was.  He knew how His Father felt about Him.  He knew the authority that He walked around with.  He could feel royal blood coursing through His divine veins.  And the great news for us is that we can walk in that same freedom because we are adopted into that same family.

            I know a man who was born into a fairly poor family.  For a few years of his life he was homeless with his parents, they would live with friends and make it, but had no established address.  Then he lived in a trailer park for over a decade.  Here are his options: let that dictate who he sees himself as or realize that the Messiah is building him a royal palace in a royal City where he will live and rule for hundreds of years.  Knowing this man fairly well, he has chosen to view himself as royalty.  He sees himself for who he will be and not for whom he was, or even who he currently is.

            Before Jesus’ first coming, no one would go to Nazareth to visit unless there was a death in the family, and maybe not even then.  But now, two millennia later, people go just to be in the place where He was.  Other Nazarenes would not have counted it an honor to live there at the time, but retrospectively they are probably beaming that they grew up with the Messiah – unless they were the ones that would not accept Him because He was just the Kid down the street.  We really never recognize or appreciate who we live with and interact with daily until years down the road.  Love matters.

*Nazarene, help us not to get so familiar with You and Your people that we regret our lack of love for either, give us Your eyes to see destiny in each other.  Amen*

God (Matthew 2:12)

            Raise your hand if you have a God that you worship daily.

            If you didn’t just raise your hand, you either didn’t think I was serious or you are a liar.  Everyone has a God, even those that have many gods have one that is primary or more superior to the others.  Zeus was the god of the gods.  Other pantheistic religions may call all their gods equal, but there is one that individual believers identify more with and they worship that god more.  “Non-Jehovic gods” are demons, with no exceptions.  Idols, whether ancient or modern, are demonic.  I want to be unapologetically bold about that.  You either worship Jehovah or you are an idolater.

            So how do we know what we are worshipping?  Worship is not just bowing down and chanting.  Worship is far more fundamental to life.  Worship is what you spend your time doing, what you spend your money on, what consumes your thoughts and what you trust in when no one is looking.  There is the tricky dynamic of not just the ‘what’ of resources management but the ‘why’.  For example, my father has always been one that worked a lot, so his time was consumed by work.  This was not because he worships money and the acquisition of wealth, though his time management would suggest that.  The ‘why’ for him has always been to support his family as a reflection of the Father, and when his boys were in school it was to send us to Christian school.  This was because he loves his God and wanted to raise worthy men of God that would advance his Father’s Kingdom across the globe.  Motivation is very important to our God, Jehovah.  Again, our hearts are more important to Him than our hands because He knows that if our hearts are His, our hands will follow.

            As a Westerner, I have a hard time getting my mind around the concept of a God.  I need to be “de-Greece’d”, meaning my compartmentalization of my life needs to end.  It is so easy to make my spiritual life be separate from the rest of my activities.  However, I highly value the mentality of deity that we see in shrines, idols and elaborate ceremonies.  The normalization of worship services removes the fear that we desperately need to truly worship Him in spirit and truth.  The prophet Isaiah was told that of the seven Spirits of Jehovah, the specific preference that the Messiah had was the Spirit of the fear of Jehovah.  If we want to tickle His delight, we must have the fear of Jehovah.  We must worship realizing He is in the room, watching, walking among us and listening.  He is not like everyone else’s gods.

            One reason, primary reason if you ask me, that Christians seem to be bored and boring to the world is that we become like what we worship.  The Hebrew Hymn Book, the book of Psalms, has a song that explains this.  Song number 115 talks about how men’s idols are deaf, dumb, immobile, lame, blind, unable to smell and feel, though they have all the faculties to do those things.  And then the song-writer says that those who make the idols, who also end up worshipping them, become just like their idols.  Point being: men take on the attributes of what they worship.  Maybe we look bored and boring because we don’t see Him rightly and worship a false concept of Him.  As we behold Him we look like Him and are sanctified into His image by His glory (Exodus 29:43; Ezekiel 16:14; 2 Corinthians 3:18).  We were made in His image, marred it and must now get plastic surgery from the Maker to get it back.

*God, remove all idolatry from our hearts by encountering us in fearful glory.  Amen*

A Ruler who will shepherd My people (Matthew 2:6)

Not “a ruler who will rule My people”, but shepherd His people. No one really wants a ruler who will rule over them, being saved from an evil dictator by a Righteous Dictator is really not all that appealing. But being transferred out of a kingdom that oppresses you and into a Kingdom where the Ruler loves, cherishes and shepherds His subjects is far more attractive. A compassionate King will win allegiance from even the most embittered former indentured servants, especially if the King lived as a Suffering Servant even though He was born the King.

Paul writes to the church of Galatia and explains that the evidence of Jehovah the Spirit being in one’s life is a nine-fold character change. In my phrasing, the overflow of a life intimately connected to the Spirit is evidence of an increase of love, joy, peace patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Of these, one of the more “shepherdly” of them is gentleness. Gentleness is not displayed in someone who is unable to cause harm; gentleness, like meekness, is having the ability to do something and choosing not to out of wisdom and greater understanding of ultimate purpose and goals in a situation.

Our Ruler is more than able to just show us out huge issues and He would be completely justified in absolutely demanding immediate perfection, but He is gentle. If we are honest with ourselves, and knew the truth, we would admit that there are hundreds and thousands of things that we fall short of the Glory of the Lord in. In His gentleness He only deals with a few at a time. It is because He is like this that the evidence of His Spirit’s Presence within us is that we become like Him, not the other way around. It isn’t as though He demands we do or be something that He Himself does not first do or is not already. Our Ruler is a gentle Man, not a harsh ruler.

That is why David said that it was His gentleness that made him great (2 Samuel 22:36). Because Jehovah ruled over David’s life in lovingkindness David was free to mess up and still feel and be accepted, thus His failures did not disqualify him. If people feel free to try things out, safe to experiment and fail, they will go be bold in their attempts to partner in the bringing of the Kingdom. Wise leaders say “it is easier to get forgiveness than permission”. It is unavoidable that followers will fail a few times but eventually they will strike oil and wisdom will be justified by her children. They will advance and be made great because the leader was shepherding, not ruling.

While working with teens for a couple summers, I was struck that if I try to keep them under me in anointing, character, knowledge and love, the next generation will be weaker than mine. Bad news! If, however, I push them to go beyond me, to make my ceiling their floor, then their generation will see an unprecedented move of God. This is what Jesus did; He gave all His authority to His disciples and said that if they would believe it, they would do even greater things than He did.

He is a Good Shepherd who draws us with chords of lovingkindness and guides us with the Rod of Favor and the Staff of Union (Psalm 23; Zechariah 11). We don’t need to dig around in our souls for issues; He will bring up the issues as He knows we are able to confront them by His side. His leadership in our lives is perfect because He is far more interested in our hearts than our hands.

*Ruling Shepherd, embolden us with grace as we stumble toward the Kingdom. Amen*