The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Invasively. Invisibly."
Thirty years of obscurity. Three years of open ministry, but in a very limited region upon the earth. Seen after his resurrection by enough eyes to confirm the glory, but by relatively few in relation to the population of His day. Two thousand years of being physically unseen, unheard, and untouched by even those who well know Him during their earthly sojourn. One could easily get the impression that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplishes the vast majority of His redeeming work in "ways past finding out" (Romans 11:33).
Presently, God's presence and involvement are most often in direct proportion to the appearance of His absence and stillness. We could not presently "walk by faith, not by sight" otherwise (II Corinthians 5:7). His ways so contrast with the ways of our human understanding that even the most godly among us often wonder with the Psalmist, "Where… When… Why… What?" (Psalm 89:49; 101:2; 10:1; 30:9) Sometimes answers come. Sometimes they do not. The one truth we know for absolute certain is that we presently perceive only the merest modicum of all our Lord is doing in any given moment in our lives and in the world. "God… worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Ephesians 1:3; 11). His involvement is invasive, a truth that regardless of how well we know in principle, often escapes us in practice. "Awake to righteousness and sin not" commanded the Apostle Paul, calling believers to open the eyes of our hearts to our faithful God and overcome the temptation to forget the promise of His presence and working (I Corinthians 15:34).
The hearts and lives of believers teem with the activity of the Lord who sees the past, present, and future of our lives clearly and perfectly. We have no frame of reference for such reality - the great fact of our existence - nor of the truth of a God nearer than the next breath He gives to us. "In Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). What is He doing in your life, my life, the lives of our loved ones, and the world right now? More than He could explain to us in a thousand lifetimes. One lifetime, however, best confirms the truth. "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written" (John 21:25). It is enough for us that we know this, difficult as it may be to not always have accounting or explanation of our Lord's doings. Indeed, the One to whom we have entrusted our hearts abides with us invasively, invisibly. So long as this truth abides, and as we rest our hearts upon it, we will walk in the security promised by the prophet…
"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee."
(Isaiah 26:3)
Memory Verse
What hast thou that thou didst not receive?
(I Corinthians 4:7)
7283
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