In the Heavenlies

COMMUNION LOST-REGAINED

2008-12-27T23:55:00.000-08:00

Walking in the garden in the cool of the day
Unimaginable bliss beyond what words can say
Sweet communion with the blessed Trinity
Created for Him, our innate capacity

Enter the tempter, fallen morning star of old
“You can know more,” our first parents were told
Knowledge like God, the promise is made
By eating the fruit of the tree He forbade

Eager, they eat, of the fruit of the garden
Deceived, by the serpent, sweet communion forgotten
Eager to experience what they already enjoy
A ravaged relationship, the devil’s sly ploy

Oh what a bitter travesty
Separated from God Most High’s Majesty
In the cool of the day, God seeking their presence
Them hiding in shame with sin laden conscience

Expelled from the garden
Sweet fellowship forgotten
Lost communion with their Lord
Blocked by an angel with flaming sword

What hope again of true intimacy
With the blessed Godhead Trinity
Humanity in its extremity
Desperately needs again divine mercy

Enoch, Noah and Abraham found approval in God’s plan
Restored communion between God and man
Friends of God
With Him they trod
Men of old, who walked by faith
Communed with God, face to face

Then out of Egypt God chose a nation
Bringing men hope in their sinful condition
In fire and smoke God descends upon Sinai
Once again offering for men to draw nigh

But in stark terror and great fear
The people tremble as God draws near
“You speak for us Moses”, they plead
Gravely aware of the mediator they need

Prophets and seers He sends to them
Those with whom He shares sweet communion
Anointed ones who speak for Him
As representatives to the rest of men

God’s design for entire humanity
Now for a few with inspired ecstasy
God’s plan for one and all
Limited to a few with special call

And even then the news is grim
That these specially chosen men
So tainted and stained by sin
Soon are unable to hear from Him

Humanity’s hope of communion again
With God…shattered by insidious guilt and sin
Impossible to commune with His holiness
Creatures so contaminated by sin’s filthiness

Oh the need of One to stand between
God’s pure holiness and man’s dire sin
Of One to restore the sweet communion
Humanity once enjoyed with its truest Friend

Behold Him come
Heaven’s glorious Son
Exact representation of God’s nature
God to man come near

Early in the morning out in the wilderness
Communing with God in intimate sweetness
Late at night in earnest intercession
Father and Son, what sweet communion

My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me, He cries
Into Your hands I commit My spirit and He dies
Intimate of God become His enemy
Paid the price to cover our iniquity

Opened the way into the presence of holiness
Gave us His righteousness for our filthiness
Restored communion between God and man
Returned humanity to God’s original plan

Walking in the garden in the cool of the day
Unimaginable bliss beyond what words can say
Sweet communion with the blessed Trinity
Created for Him, our innate capacity

2008-12-19T22:04:00.000-08:00

Zechariah’s Christmas

(I’d like to tell you a story that took place over 2000 years ago. Please just sit back and enjoy.)

Zechariah was sooooo excited. It was his 8th birthday and he finally got to spend the night with his dad and the sheep out in the fields ALL night. His dad had promised and he had reminded his dad everyday since he turned 7 that he HAD promised that on his 8th birthday he could go with his dad and the other shepherds to watch the sheep at night. His dad had told him over and over that it could be very dangerous…lions, bears, even robbers were not uncommon visitors in the middle of the night, but not even Zechariah in his wildest imagination could have imagined the night that was in store for him!!

It was a quiet, very cold and peaceful night. And without any lions, bears and robbers to keep Zechariah awake he was getting very sleepy wrapped in his father’s big sheep wool blanket.

Father, won’t you tell me a story, pleaded Zechariah, in his attempt to stay awake. One of the old stories told long ago by grandpa when you were out here in the fields with him at night? Please, please, please… Zechariah knew just how long to beg! Okay, said his father, but you must be very quiet so that we can hear if a lion or bear or robber is trying to sneak up on the sheep.

I am going to tell you a story about a promise made to us by one of our prophets long ago…in fact it is the prophet who I am named after, Isaiah. It was during a horrible time in our country’s history. Our people, Judah, had wandered a long ways from God. And as a result two other countries were attacking and threatening to destroy us. Our king and all of us were very afraid because they were much stronger than us and it seemed that God had forsaken us because of our sin. In fact the old writings say that “the king’s heart and the hearts of all of our people shook as the trees of the forest shake with the wind”. Our people were very afraid. They didn’t know what to do or where to look for help.

And then, Isaiah, the prophet, was sent by God to talk with the king. Many thought that he was just sent to tell the king that God was now judging us and we would be conquered. We certainly deserved it. But instead, the prophet told the king, Ahaz, that God was going to once more deliver our people and he was going to give him a promise to guarantee it. And this is what the promise was…”a virgin will be with child and bear a son and she will call His name Immanuel”. “And that before the child would be old enough to know the difference between right and wrong, deliverance would come to our nation”.

Our people were so excited!! Because they realized that it was really two promises in one!! An immediate promise of deliverance and a greater future promise of deliverance. An immediate promise of deliverance from the two countries attacking us, and a future promise of deliverance through the Great Deliverer that our people have always hoped in and looked forward to…the Messiah, the King, Immanuel, God Himself come down to deliver us. But, oh will that ever really happen, we wonder.

The wonderful thing is that the first promise came true! The prophet’s own wife gave birth to a son who was nicknamed “Immanuel” and before he came to the age of accountability, knowing the difference between right and wrong, the nations attacking us were themselves attacked and destroyed and we were delivered. It gave our people such hope again that the most important promise of all might really someday come true also…the Messiah would come and deliver us, that God Himself would have mercy on us and deliver us from our sin and ourselves and bring us true hope and happiness.

Zechariah’s father, Isaiah, paused and sighed…it has been such a long time Zechariah. The promise is so wonderful. We have hoped for it to come true for so long but…but…
And at that moment the quiet, very cold and peaceful night was forever changed in Zechariah’s memory…

An angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to the shepherds and they were all very awake and very scared!! And the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for tonight in the city of David, Bethlehem, there has been born for you a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord, Immanuel, God Himself! This will be a sign for you; you will find a baby wrapped in strips of cloth and lying in an animal trough.”

And suddenly there appeared with the angel a huge group of angels praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men and women with whom He is peace.”

And Zechariah was now very wide awake!! And Zechariah’s father forgot where he was in the story…

Dad, dad, can we go to Bethlehem... Please, please, please…Zechariah knew just how long to beg… Except this time he didn’t really need to beg. Zechariah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Isaac, Jacob, come on let’s go!! Can it really be…could it really be true…in their very own lifetime…in their very own city? The Messiah? The Deliverer? Immanuel?
The Promise that they had been waiting for soooooooo long?

So the Bible tells us in Luke 2 that they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph and the baby as He lay in the animal trough. It really was true. God had kept His promise. The Savior was born!

Zechariah tiptoed up to the baby. He didn’t really look like a king. He was just a little baby. A baby with the same birthday as him, Zechariah! And yet Zechariah knew that He wasn’t just any other baby. He could still vividly remember the angels and what they said, “there has been born for you a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord, Immanuel, God Himself!” Wow!!

Zechariah was only 8 and there was a lot that he still did not know and understand, but he was old enough to know that he had seen a miracle and that God had kept His promise!! Just like He had kept His promise to His people hundreds of years before. Wow!! Zechariah never doubted again that God really cared about him and that God was the only Deliverer that He would ever need. He could hardly wait to tell his friends….

Do you all know that today? God promised thousands of years ago over 300 times in the Old Testament that He would come and be our Deliverer, our Savior. And He did. His name is Jesus. In the book of Acts in the Bible it says, “There is no other name under heaven given to men besides Jesus by which we must be saved, delivered”. Jesus is the only true Deliverer, Savior.

And that is what Christmas is all about. Remembering His birthday just like Zechariah experienced it 2000 years ago on his birthday! Remembering why He came and the deliverance, salvation, that it can mean to you.

Do you know Him? Is He your deliverer? Savior? If you would like to find out more about Jesus, I would love to talk more with you.

God's Likeness Lost - Regained

2008-11-30T20:17:00.000-08:00

Who can begin to understand
From eternity God’s mysterious plan
To form a being in His likeness
To share with Him eternal kindness
All the riches of His glory
What an amazing redemption story

How from His likeness we all fell
We know the tempter all to well
You can be like God!
Reduced in similitude to a dog
Formed to dwell in the heavenlies
Reduced to mere sensuality

Who can comprehend the gravity
Of our descent into such depravity
Who can imagine what might have been
If our first parents had not sinned
Created like Him to be holy
Living lives of such wasted folly
Creatures formed for immortality
Dominated by such temporality
Intended to live with such purpose
Our sin condemns and curses us

Unbearable hopelessness
Apart from His immeasurable kindness
What it Him cost
To restore our likeness lost
What He in humility became
To end our sin and shame
That we might again become
Restored in the image of the Son
What glorious grace
Poured out on Adam’s helpless race

He humbled Himself, became like us
Holiness took upon Himself our filthiness
Immortality became mortal
Eternity became temporal
He who is like no one
Became like everyone
Became sin
So unlike Him
That we might again
Become like Him

How impossible to comprehend
How can my praises ever end
To Him who became like me
That I might again be
Like Him
Our created end!

2008-10-08T21:55:00.000-07:00

"Ascribe to the Lord the glory of His name; Worship the Lord in the majesty of holiness"

These words from Psalm 29 capture so well the demand that God's glory places on true followers of His...holiness. Living in the heavenlies is holy living. Life consummed with God's glory is wholly caught up with pleasing and obeying and honoring God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book "The Cost of Discipleship", which I am being deeply challenged by at the moment resoundingly seconds this. Consider some of his thoughts...

"The only man who has the right to say that he is justfied by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ"

"Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows Him"

2008-10-07T23:34:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful glimpse of the heavenlies...from Isaiah 6.

"In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord seated on a throne lofty and exalted with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above him, each with six wings, with two he covered his face and with two he covered his feet and with two he flew. And one called out to another saying, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!"

I want to know that glory. To live in the daily awareness of such a God. I settle for so much less.
No wonder life can get boring and old and meaningless. We were created for so much more! We were created for a God such as this!

2008-10-06T21:33:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, a brother shared a dream he had about a coworker being deceived by the devil that tremendously burdened him for his coworker. In it he saw his coworker excitedly giving in to the deception. The dream all took place in a room at their workplace.

Today, this brother called several of us in to pray with him for this coworker. The coworker had come to him at work all excited about books that he was reading denying the truth of the Bible and the person of Jesus. As our brother listened to him with a remembrance of his previous dream, he suddenly realized that they were standing in the very room that his dream had taken place in.

Overwhelmed, he shared his dream with his coworker and pleaded with him regarding the deception he was giving in to. His coworker, sobered by the sharing of the dream, agreed to consider a response to what he was reading.

This coworker struggles with anger towards religion and God and seems bent on proving His nonexistence and irrelevance. What an amazing way for God to reach out to him supernaturally and personally expressing His concern for him.

Our struggle isn't just over facts and arguments and information to be believed or rejected. The Bible makes it clear that our real struggle is spiritual. The Bible calls them "principalities, powers, spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenlies".

Unless we realize the real scope of what we are up against we will constantly face a losing struggle in our pursuit of life and happiness.

Are we living "in the heavenlies"? It is reality. Are we living in reality?

2008-10-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

I love the concluding verses in Revelation 5... "To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and and honor and glory and dominion for ever and ever. And the four living creatures kept saying, Amen, and the elders fell down and worshipped".

My passion is to see and help others see God and know and worship God in such a manner.

I preached on Cain and Abel today at our service. What a great contrast in individuals. One, Cain, the "gotten one" expected by Adam and Eve to be the deliverer that they were looking for, the one who had everything going for him and so didn't think that he really needed God and so offered him a sacrifice merely out of obligation and not really from his heart's longing for relationship with this God. Such is mere religion. It destroys people. Then there was Abel, named "meaninglessness" maybe because he really didn't matter because the one who did was Cain, the deliverer and consequently his self-recognized desperate neediness in the sight of a holy God which compelled him to offer to God an offering that would bring him in right relationship with that God. He recognized his neediness and his hope in God alone. He longed for God. To know God. This is real LIFE!! This is what God made us for.

This is my passion and purpose...to know HIM! GLORY!!