“This Moment”

    

    As opposed to mere ritual, Biblical Christianity involves the reality of the present and living God.

    "God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him" (I John 4:9).

    The New Testament teaches that the rituals of the Old Testament served as shadows pointing to the advent, life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Such outward forms passed away in His light and life as the Object that cast the shadow provides anywhere, all the time, 24/7 presence and availability of God (Colossians 2:17; Hebrews 10:1-22).  Indeed, the glory of authentic, Christ-infused spiritual reality involves seeing the possibility for worship at all times.

    "He giveth to all life and breath and all things… Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God" (Acts 17:25; I Corinthians 10:31).

    Note the Apostle's suggestion of Divine involvement (provision) "in all things", leading to the opportunity of an ongoing response to God.  Indeed, if our Heavenly Father grants to us every breath, we could if we so desired find 12-16 opportunities per minute to give thanks.  The Lord's gifts of "life" and "all things" provide altars of gratitude for gifts received everywhere, at all times.  "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights" (James 1:17).  Moreover, the born again believer possesses the potential to "do all to the glory of God" (emphasis added)  All.  We need not consider places, postures, or overtly spiritual practices as our only opportunities for active devotion to God.  The first mention of worship in the Bible involved a man escorting his son into a mountain of bloody sacrifice, and then binding his beloved to an altar before raising a knife to pierce the precious heart (Genesis 22).  The Lord stayed Abraham's hand, whose actions constituted worship for the man declared by Paul to be "the father of all them that believe" (Romans 4:11).  Thus, anywhere and anything wherein we trust and obey God transforms into an altar for the sons and daughters of God in Christ.  Indeed, in real spiritual terms, believers don't merely"go to church."   We live in church!  And we take the church wherever we go in the determination to trust and obey God.

    This is reality, the only reality.  Any other notion of life, whether of rejecting the fact of God, or of seeking Him by ritual rather than the reality known by faith, leaves us in either abject darkness or the gloom of shadowed spiritual twilight.  The Lord Jesus suffered and died to deliver us from both options that fail to glorify our Heavenly Father and do not fulfill our hearts.  Indeed, worship that cannot be known and experienced anywhere and everywhere, in any and all circumstances, cannot be considered "the faith once delivered unto the saints" (Jude 1:3).  Where you are and where I am affords such opportunity, so allow me to make a quick exit so that we may avail ourselves of the great gift of salvation in the Lord Jesus, namely, the gift of God Himself as known in the reality of this moment…

"The Lord is at hand."

(Philippians 4:5)

"Then will I go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy."

(Psalm 43:4)

Weekly Memory Verse

    I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Romans 8:38-39)