Wholeness – Psalm 23:1-6

What kind of God would say “Peace be with you?”‘ and then say, “Do not think I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” My conclusion?

Ours is a God who has left us with some mysteries – places we must explore and make our own discoveries. However our compasses must be calibrated with humility and trust in order to navigate the unfathomable dimensions of God’s heart. (Certainty is not the best orientation for those exploring mysteries.) My humility is strengthened by recalling I am a son of God by sole virtue of God’s initiative. I have been bought with a price and I am no longer my own. I now belong to him.

Hebrews 4:12 comes to mind.

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

While navigating within a mystery, it is also helpful to know where we have come from. My initial salvation was a watershed affair with several tangible miracles. One had to do with the Bible. It started to make sense! One of the first ideas it spawned in me was to honor God’s right to use this Hebrews 4:12 sword – the Spirit of Truth, in my heart. This process, where its razor edge touches the untrue and darkened places of my heart, is what I have come to think of as “the circumcision that is of the heart, by the Spirit of Truth, which Paul mentions in Romans 2:29.

I see the Spirit and the Word as the rod and staff in Psalm 23, which the Shepherd uses to lead me from the valleys of the shadow of death into green pastures with quiet waters. What unnerves me is when he reverses this order! When this happens and the long shadows approach, if I am still, I hear him still saying, “Peace be with you.” A heart at peace is free of one of the great plagues of our flesh – Wanting.

                                                                    I shall not want.

That is a large statement! If we were to write our “personal history of wanting” it would tell us much about our spiritual journey. As I have been led from dark valley to green pasture and back, I have taken note of the sword’s role. It has had its effect on my wantings. I was born again into the sweetest place. It could not have been any greener of better watered. Consequently, I toddled into the kingdom with no wants (that I knew of). I was totally happy just knowing I belonged to God. However, over time, I got busier serving the Lord and I noticed wantings surfacing in my prayers – “Oh Lord, I want to please You. Oh Lord, I want a clean heart.” For many years wanting more of God (and a different me) characterized my spirituality.

It was just a few years ago, the Lord reminded me of my beginnings which were so free of want. Even now, I look across the page in my bible and see one of the first prayers that ever formed in my heart. I’m sure I prayed this as an insurance clause in case what I was doing naturally somehow faded. The thought of loosing what I had gained was unbearable.

One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to meditate in His temple. Psalm 27:4

Ironically, at the peak of my zealous wantings, I felt close to giving up. I was privately in despair, doubtful if I would ever enjoy intimacy with Christ again. Fortunately, he remembered my prayer. He is faithful when I am not. As the scalpel was withdrawn, I noticed my wantings had abated. In my heart, he had led me back to the nursery days I had known as young believer. The blade had cut the zealous wantings away from my heart. My wantings were not pure longing for God. They were deeply tainted with dissapointment with both God and myself. Something totally dead had been posing as life.

Unbalanced truths have a radical impact on our hearts. As an infant follower of Christ, I heard Father proclaim his love for me. Yet, I was simultaneously hearing from the establishment. By way of sermon, song and testimony I was being told that that my heart was impossibly wretched and destined to stray (something I expected to be true). As I experienced temptation, it was obvious my handlers knew what they were talking about. I participated in somber ceremonies of remembrance and I was taught to deeply introspect about my fallen and depraved nature. I arose from communion, redoubling my commitment to resist my flesh and live for God. I had created a perfect formula for spiritual despair and religion.

While it is true, in Adam, I am a fallen man; it is equally true that in Christ, I am a resurrected one. Today, when I’m tempted to think of my heart as primarily wretched, I hear the Lord say he is still delighted in me and that my heart is clean before him. To many, entertaining the notion that a heart can be clean before God is preposterously arrogant. The dark heart – advocates will tremble for my soul because they believe our sin, like David’s, must be ever before us. If its not, they know, God will take his Holy Spirit away. This orientation to Father assumes a descent into unrighteousness for all who loose sight of their depravity. This type of spirituality is zealous but it produces Pharisees and anxious saints who have not yet learned (or have forgotten) how to rest in the finished work of the cross.

Many saints are rediscovering their God given identities. They know, as well as any, the flesh can be aroused and is capable of sin. But they have also learned that focusing on their depravity and doubling down on commitment is a trap. Instead of succumbing to their fear-of-fallenness they are learning that a deeper Truth resides within them. They are discovering that Christ, the resurrected One is in them. They are discovering that, within them, his kingdom has come and that Christ alone is the sole hope of their glory. They are celebrating the fact they are brand new creatures in Christ, a superior reality to personal depravity.

Father, as our hearts are awakened to the fulness of our salvation may we cast off our sackcloth and ashes. May we fill our lamps with oil and dress ourselves for the celebration feast that is being set before us even now. As we make our way to the Marriage Supper may our lamps be continually full of oil and grow brightly with the joyful radiance of new life.  May it never escape our heart’s notice that we are not just guests at the feast – rather, we are your Bride. Consummate your love in our hearts that we may glow with a holy fire. May this dying world see our heads resting upon your breast. Amen.

 

 

 

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