Coffee With The Lord

Let me be clear; I embrace the redemptive love of God for all humanity expressed through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus!  Every word of John 3:16 is true!  “For God so loved the world, that he gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life!”  And in another place, “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.  Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good.  But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”  (Romans 5:6–8 NLT)  And one more: “The Lord is … not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” (1 Peter 3:9)  And there are many more…

What that all means is that God’s desire for humankind is for their salvation!  His love for all was expressed in sending His Son to provide for their complete salvation from sin through His death, burial and resurrection!

However, having said that, what are the consequences of rejecting His love, pushing away His provision, rebelling against His will, and asserting your independent selfwill from His authority?  Not pretty, I can tell you!  My dad used to put it this way… He’d say, “Son, you can’t win that one!  It’s like having a fistfight with a brick wall!”  And that is precisely the kind of outcome Psalm 2 describes!  I read it this morning in my Bible…

“Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?  The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,  ‘Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.’  He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.  Then He will speak to them in His wrath, and terrify them in His fury, saying,  ‘As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.’  I will tell of the decree: The Lord said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you… Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.  Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.  Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him.“  (From Psalm 2 ESV)

So, one more time:  In the words of my Dad… “Son you can’t win that one!”  And in the inspired words of Scripture… “He is not willing that ANY should perish but that ALL should come to repentance!”

“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall – Humpty Dumpty had a great fall!  All the kings horses and all the kings men could not put Humpty Dumpty together again!”  I believe it can be successfully argued there is a developing leadership vacuum in our nation and world.  One group argues passionately that the Dems have the person with the answers to our dilemma… The Republicans argue for their candidates… And the independents run the entire gambit of solutions and prospects.  Progressives and liberals curse and castigate the conservatives – conservatives sound almost apocalyptic about progressives and liberals.  Who can bring the solutions we need to the mess we are in… both nationally and internationally?

And the tragedy of it all?  The Bible predicts the situation will only get worse until at the end of time there will be someone who steps into the leadership vacuum and gets almost universal acclaim, acceptance and approval… The Bible calls him “the man of sin” or the “antichrist” (lower case letters are deliberate – a personal comment of mine upon that persons character!).

But today during my Bible reading during “Coffee with the Lord” I read of another person – A Divine Person – who will step into history at the end of time…

God speaks and says, “Behold my Servant, whom I uphold, my Chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon Him!  He will bring forth justice to the nations!  He will not cry aloud or lift up His voice, or make it heard in the street!  A bruised reed He will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench!  He will faithfully bring forth justice.  He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth!”  (From Isaiah 42:1-4)

That’s the Supreme leader I’m waiting for!  That’s the One Who has the solutions our world ultimately needs!  Every other leader until then needs our prayers!  Every other human leader will stand before Him one day in accountability and judgment!  Then, as the book of Revelation in the Bible predicts, “The kingdoms of the world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!” (Revelation 11:15)  That’s the leader I’ve set my hope upon – He’s the One I’m looking to for the future of our planet… And He’s the One in Whose Kingdom I’m living right now, and the Kingdom whose values I embrace in the present leadership crisis that our world is experiencing right now!

I was a farm kid… So much of what the Bible talks about within an agrarian context, I understand.  I’ve plowed fields, prepared the soil, planted seed, watched the young plants sprout and come up, waited for the rain, the sunshine, the development of the grain and rejoiced (or groaned with my dad) over the harvest!

So this morning when once again I read the great parable [or short scent ‘snippet’ with a spiritual lesson] of the sower, the seed, and the soils it was vivid to me… and I believe I got it!  The cultures are different, the farming methods a bit different (they sowed the seed and then tilled it in) and the fields tended to be smaller (food first for the family and then some for sale) – no tractors or other mechanized equipment like we used on our farm.  But I believe I still got the truth that Jesus was trying to communicate!

The passage?  Matthew 13:1-23 (especially 1-9 and 18-23)

After reading it again this morning during “Coffee with the Lord” here was my response and prayer…

Oh Lord, when the seed – the “word of the kingdom” – is sown, may more of it fall upon good soil – not hard hearts!  And may that precious seed, with life-transforming potential, be protected from being snatched away quickly by the devices of the “evil one!”

And, Oh Lord, I pray for those who hear the “word of the kingdom” and immediately receive it and embrace it with joy but haven’t counted the cost!  May it take root in them sufficient to withstand temptation, tribulation and persecution when it comes!  (And it will come!)

Then there are those… I’ve watched them – I know who some of them are – who received the “word of the kingdom”… It sprouted in their lives, it began to grow, the future looked good in their Spiritual, “Kingdom journey,” it seemed they would be fruitful… Then things pressed in, distractions came, the cares of life developed – even prosperity and materialism crowded in and they became more “sons and daughters of this world” than “children of the Kingdom!”  And the result?  In “kingdom of heaven” terms, they were “unfruitful!”

Oh, and finally, “what was sown on good soil” … That’s where I want to be!  One who “hears the ‘word of the kingdom’ and understands it, bears fruit and yields a hundredfold, sixty-fold, and even thirty-fold!”  In fact, in response to the words of Jesus in the parable, “He who has ears, let him hear!” I jotted this in the margin of my Bible today… “Oh Lord, I want eyes to see, ears that hear, a mind and heart that grasps ‘the word of the kingdom’ and responds wholeheartedly!  I want to be a life that produces the fruit you’re looking for… in abundance!”