Reflections

While I was reigning on the throne and passing judgement on that which needed to be expelled from my kingdom (IOW on the toilet) I contemplated something about the great tension of the Christian. We serve our Father in heaven and we want His will done on earth as it is in heaven. Never really hit me like that before, but that’s the reality – we want God’s reality to be evident in our reality. We want His rule to be manifest in our spheres of existence.

We want that because we don’t have it. We want it because the Light that was shed in our hearts illuminates the dark world we live in and the path to a better one that is readily accessible through relationship with God through the Son. We want it because we know our struggles and pitfalls are examples of our fallen nature. We want it because the news continues to pump out 24 hours a day the depravity of humanity in all its guises. We want it because we’re sick of divorce. We want it because we’re sick of politicians being greedy and thinking of themselves first. We want it because we’re sick of people dying in Africa due to starvation while the European Union wastes billions of pounds worth of food that could feed the continent of Africa many times over. We want it because we’re sick of the prejudice and the selfishness in this world, in our communities and in our lives. We want it because we’re sick of being sick.

We want it because such is the brilliance of His glory, such is the majesty of His rule, such is the awesomeness of His rule, such is His lovingkindness, such is His grace, such is His compassion, such is His righteousness, such is His holiness, such is His wholeness, such is the brilliance of His glory that all else including our world pales into insignificance. Yet daily we live in our world longing for His and tasting His with every moment of communion with Him and His people. We want it … we need it because we feel in our hearts by the quickening power of the Spirit that this is where we belong. This is where we always belonged – with Him, in His presence, forever praising Him – in peace, in joy, in love. When we talk about being real it’s not about paying bills, dealing with children, coping with rising costs of living or the declining moral standards of life – it’s about God’s kingdom coming – God’s will being done to see those mundane matters of our dreary lives through a new eternal perspective and actually seeing where they fit in God’s scheme of things.

Yet the tension is always evident. We can feel as Paul did that to live is Christ and to die is gain. We only live by God’s grace but we earnestly long for the day when the glorification process is complete at the coming of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

4 His Name’s Sake
Shalom
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