Hosanna

Saved.  Rescued.
I have to acknowledge it. It is the actual willful assent to the fact of having been rescued and redeemed that crosses over the threshold.

Thinking about Neil S. and family in Jacksonville.  Great resolve demonstrated daily.  A wonderful example for me.  Not sure I agree with every perspective, but delighted to watch him burn.

So that is the question tonight.  Am I burning with Christ-light.  Is my life in the Kingdom of God drawing anyone to watch me burn, and wonder at the wonder of it?

What is the point?  To light the way.

It is all about the oil.  I can only get it by intimacy.  You provide the spark.  You provide the lifting up.  You can not deny me access.  Thank you for that.  Burn me for your illumination.  Burn me to reveal your Kingdom.

Celebration

Celebration has been misappropriated.  Like nearly everything else.

Celebration is a holy thing that is by and for God.  It is just so easy to celebrate, that it quickly becomes by and for others.

I can not take celebration back.  Like the pastor's wife who wanted to take back the rainbow.

I can celebrate the Kingdom Now.  I can celebrate the majesty of God in me and around me.  I can celebrate the brideishness to be seen.  I can celebrate the victories won out of love, in the midst of the battlefield.

I can celebrate my Father who persists in loving me.  I can celebrate the family in which I have been set.  I can celebrate the oil of joy saturating me and making me functional in the Kingdom.

I celebrate You, Daddy.

Walk On Through

Walk on through.  I will walk with you.  I will show you where to step.  I will illuminate what might trip you. I will hold your hand and catch you if you stumble.  Just walk and let me do the worrying.  Which of course is unnecessary.  But if you leave it to me you need not know that I am not doing it.  You see, everything that needs to be being done is being done.  Just walk next to me.  If you walk over there I will be with you, and you will not utterly fall, but you will fall.  If you walk next to me you will not fall.  When you walk over there you still have to lean, but you choose over there to lean on reeds that will not support you when you stumble.  They will break under your weight and the ends will pierce your flesh.  The reeds over there are a false comfort.  They lie about their ability to be there when you need them.  I don't because I can't.

Oil serves many good purposes.  Illumination is a key role.  There are lamps all around to light your way as you walk on through.  I am the oil in every one of those lamps.  These lamps have to consent to carry the oil, have wicks placed and prepared, and lit.  They have to consent to be exalted for the purpose of providing illumination for the benefit of others.  More intimately, wicks have to consent to be rested in the oil and to have the oil displace the emptiness.  Then they might be impatient to be lit, content to sit and soak until the right time.  Burning is good.  Shining is good.  Showing the way is good.  Sitting and soaking and being ready is good, too.  A burning wick makes them bright.  A resting wick they can touch and they get oily.  It might be their first touch of oil.

Walk on through.  The way is lit and more lamps are ready along the way.  Carry your fire and light ready wicks.  The way will be brighter and more will come out into the light and onto the highway raised up in the wilderness.  Walk on through and stay oily.

Love Manifested in Effectiveness

Wow.  Love manifested in effectiveness.  The very Kingdom of God invading the world of darkness, the world of less than excellent.  All less than excellence is a reflection of the presence of Death and the presence of Pride.  Love manifested as excellence, manifested as effectiveness is the Kingdom, now, pushing back the death and darkness.

So, Father, help me, help us all be good at our jobs.  You put us here right now in this place under this authority for many sub reasons, but above all for your glory.  Help us be effective at our work as an outworking of your love in our lives.  Work love in and through us, for the benefit of our company, our division, our facility, our coworkers.  Break down the blinders on our eyes, our habitual ways of thinking and seeing that are no longer effective.  Clear our ears of old filters that stop us from hearing what is being said today because of what we heard in earlier days.  Pour the oil of your spirit into the bruised and broken places in the very center of each of us, where we have built self defenses, scar tissue that keeps us from moving freely in thought, will and emotion.  Remind us of what joy is like.  Remind us of what it smells like.  Remind us of what it looks like, what it sounds like.  Remind us of when we touched joy.  I want the joy of the Lord to be my strength, our strength.

Thank you.  You are the great God, the high and holy one, who bends low to love us.  Thank you for the oil of joy, your holy spirit.