by RobertCummins | Oct 17, 2016 | 42. Gathering
What was Jesus motivation in feeding this multitude that followed him into the country? What did the multitude want from Jesus?
That’s easy. Isn’t it? Jesus performed this miracle, and all miracles, so the multitudes would believe and their souls would be saved, right? I wonder. Let’s set pat answer aside and look at Jesus’ audience. Many of these Jews had likely come from Jerusalem where Jesus had just told them they were incapable of believing because they sought approval from one another. He even told these sons of Abraham they didn’t really believe Moses and that they weren’t going believe in him either. Their motive for following Jesus was clearly not because they believed in him as God’s son. Even after the 5 loaves-2 fish miracle, their wildest projection was that Jesus might be Elijah. No, this crowd had gathered to see the show. They came “because they were seeing the signs he was performing on those who were sick.”
Jesus was also a part of their national agenda. The idea circulating among them was to “take him by force, to make him king.” Also, let’s not overlook their appetites. This crowd liked eating for free, preferably, forevermore. Jesus knew their hearts. He knew this extraordinary miracle was not going to convert them. What was Jesus hoping to achieve? We find our answer in realizing Jesus’ primary audience was a smaller group of people—His disciples.
Jesus was testing them. He asked them what their ideas were. This is disciple making at its best. After listening, He instructs them to have the crowd sit down. He then takes a meal for 5 and serves 5,000, with an abundance of food leftover. He then instructs his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments that nothing may be lost.”
A rigid gospel soul might accuse Jesus of caring more about saving food than people: “Why didn’t you leverage your miracle and save this multitude?” That is the point isn’t it? Jesus seems indifferent to the flames licking at the feet of these lost souls. Apparently unshaken by this notion, Jesus says:
All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me; and the one who comes to me I will surely not cast out… No one comes to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day“. (from John 6:37-40)
God had come to earth to reestablish communion with his people and sadly, in this sacred moment, all they wanted was a new leader and a free lunch. They didn’t believe in him as God’s Son. Scripture tells us, not even all the disciples truly believed in him: “But there are some of you who do not believe.” Still, Jesus remains unshaken even by unbelief in His inner circle. He explains his peace: “No one can come to Me, unless it has been granted Him by the Father.” Are we looking at election here—the doctrine that says God saves and damns whom He pleases?
Here, we find ourselves deep in the middle of a mystery because Peter tells us that God is “not wishing any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”
As scripture poses this apparent contradiction, I try to not sidestep it by choosing an Armenian or a Calvinist position. I simply call it a mystery—something that makes sense in heaven but not on earth. As high as heaven is above the earth and God’s ways are above mine, it seems reasonable to conclude: “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.” (Psalm 139:6)
There is room for mystery in our beliefs. Being uncertain does not sentence us to spiritual poverty; rather it can position us for abundance. My conclusion, in the middle of mystery, is that God has proclaimed great news! He has given us His life in Christ and invited all men to partake. Those who do, have Jesus’ pledge that He will gather us. And in regard to us, we hear him say, “and nothing will be lost.”
At this meal, which natural law tells us should not have been, the miracle includes a surprise—an abundance of leftovers. Jesus is showing us God’s ways, which eclipse our understanding. I predict there will be a surprise on that Last Day as well, when we see what Jesus has gathered up. I believe we will see a surprising abundance of souls he has drawn to himself in his great patience and mercy.
The questions Jesus asks us are the same ones he asked his original disciples. “What do you want?” “Why are you following Me?” How do you answer these questions?
Father, thank you that you are always inviting people to yourself. Thank you for being the Bread of Heaven who has become our very life. Help us to grasp what it means to have your life in us. Show us how to love those you are drawing to yourself as they cross our paths. To your glory Father—that nothing may be lost. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Oct 25, 2015 | 42. Gathering
Gathering – Ezekiel 34:11-16
In Ezekiel 34 the Lord’s crosshairs are trained on the shepherds of Israel who have selfishly consumed resources intended for the flock at large, scattering them, causing them to forage for their survival. The shepherds Ezekiel was aiming at were both civil and ecclesiastical leaders. These rascals were skimming and they were in huge divine-trouble.
However, shepherds in a kingdom of God sense, are those who have been charged with caring for the inner – eternal lives of men. True shepherds see their mission in Proverbs 4:23 …
Watch over the heart (inner life) with all diligence, for from it flow the issues of life.
Having been birthed in a church split, nurtured by a para church, and planted in a community, I have always been the square peg that did not fit neatly into the round hole of organized Christianity. (The two decades between 1992 and 2012 were the rubbing experience which proved this out.) Even today, my heart strains in its attempts to maintain connection in the Body of Christ. It is not much fun to be square when one’s greatest felt needs is to fit in.
The experience causes me to think of Jerry Fletcher. He is the paranoid taxi driver in the movie, Conspiracy Theory who is convinced that everything is manipulated by “them.” Them happens to be a covert government program gone rogue. Courtesy of them, Jerry is crazy but not completely, as the story ultimately reveals. Perhaps Jerry comes to mind because his Conspiracy Theory news letter has 6 prescribers – about the same as In the Middle with Mystery. I too feel the strain of trying to remain connected and not-completely-crazy.
My sanity & connection-mission has taken me to the scriptures. At face value, they only compound the problem. It is not easy to reconcile the New Testament with the practices and outcomes of our current traditions. However, I have discovered that asking questions about current practices and traditions will draw fire. And, it will not be conspiratorial paranoia you are experiencing. The crosshairs will be trained on you if you questions sanctified ideas, like “Pastor”.
Since MwM is a subscriber-based newsletter (with a modest readership), it is safer here than say, in an elder’s meeting, to ask, where in the holy Bible did this idea come from?! The word “pastor” is not used even once in the New Testament and the plural form is used just once. Yet, “pastor” (or Pastor, in our case) wields the bulk of religious authority within Christendom.
And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ. Ephesians 4:11-12
“Pastor” has become the undisputed head of all things Christian. These well meaning men and women, do it all! They preach. They lead in prayer. Like CEO’s, they launch construction projects and programs. They collect the tithe to fund their operations. Want to know how many times the tithe is mentioned in the New Testament? Four, and each of them were references to the Old Covenant. I think I just saw a red dot on the wall.
I learned the hard way to not challenge, at least not at close range, the idea of pastor as CEO and the tithe. No, if you want to fit in, it is best to set aside the New Testament example and continue following hybrid OT/NT theology and customs which, through practice, have become sacred.
If our traditions were producing NT outcomes, perhaps questions would not be in order. Even if we recognized this as a problem, how would one correct it? The remedy would be the equivalent of handing Pastor the saw and asking him to cut off the limb on which he and his staff are perched. The truth is I love pastors. They are typically bright and well intentioned people. The sad thing is, as they accept the traditional yoke which the institution has prepared for them, they must expend massive energy caring for organizations, outsourcing soul care to staff or outside professionals. The corruption can then become…
Watch over the organization with all your heart, for from it flow all the issues of life.
Beyond administration, Pastor’s other major contribution is the sermon. Pastor is often a gifted orator, so by default, “the sermon” (also a rare NT idea) becomes the main course of most meetings. Sermons are how most pastors believe they are to feed their flock. Think how many sermons are preached each week; multiply that by how many weeks have passed in your life, or better yet, since Christ’s life. Unless we are in a dispensation of decline, one would anticipate some kind of tipping point toward righteousness if sermons were, in themselves, our sufficient bread. Perhaps true pastors need to teach sheep how to feed themselves.
Questions about pastor, tithes and sermons are absurd and innapropriate only if we measure ourselves by ourselves and by our traditions. I warned you we were wading into complex and controversial waters.
Here is a true and humbling confession. In raising these questions, I had an outside hope that a true shepherd, from some flock, would come and gather me in. I had dreamed they might see the biblical merit to my questions. I imagined we might provide each other some mutual cover, knowing that changing a culture is nothing short of jihad to traditionalists. This has not panned out. My face is still red with embarrassment at my naiveté.
I don’t relish my squareness and I would prefer not being shot at it. It is simply not good for man to be alone or full of holes. However, if the cost of achieving these luxuries is abandoning the New Testament or switching off my brain, I must remain here in the mystery with my fellow expatriates, asking question, exploring the kingdom of God. I have continued to dream however about the Body of Christ in the earth. The following is a supplement for other dreamers with stamina to spare.
Finally we discover who the mysterious organization was portrayed in today’s lead-in.
The al Qaeda network is adaptive, complex, and resilient. Today, it has a formal organizational structure, with the core group at its head providing overall direction. Informal relationships and human networks create an underlying latticed structure that bridges the formal structure of the network. The decentralization of the al Qaeda network has not made it weaker. On the contrary, affiliate-to-affiliate relationships may have increased the overall network’s resiliency. These relationships may also ensure al Qaeda’s survival even if the core group is defeated completely.
I suspect someone’s finger is now on the trigger, “How dare you even remotely try and compare the Church of Jesus Christ to al Qaeda!” Please! Do not shoot, at least not yet. Please endure a bit longer. Think about the early church. As al Qaeda cells independently wage hate-driven jihad against non-believers, imagine cells of saints who are waging a love-driven war against darkness by taking ownership of the relational and geographic space God has entrusted them. Unless they are large or systemic, they do not refer needs to Pastor and committee. Instead, they have been equipped by a core of leaders, to activate their our own networks of care and giving.
Instead of the annihilation of unbelievers, which is Al Quada’s mission, Christian-cell members will intentionally love those who do not believe like them. Instead of the salt being dumped out by Pastor alone, why not re-envision Church where the salt can be distributed more broadly into the world by mere lay persons within their existing, informal networks? Perhaps the army is already arrayed within its relational networks and all we need and all thats left be break from the idea that attending church, tithing and listening to sermons is the fulfillment of our obligations of worship. This routine, which has become perfectly normal to us would have been utterly foreign to first century Christians. Wouldn’t this get us closer to what Paul was trying to say to the Ephesians?
And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ. Ephesians 4:11-12
Just as Al Quada lives on (and even thrives), after its core leaders are taken out, so too will the Church, whose resiliency is guaranteed by the affiliate-to-affiliate relationships native within the Body of Christ. Informal networks of believers will create an underlying latticed structure that will bridge the formal structure of the network. When the original apostles died, they had accomplished this by way of practicing 2 Timothy 2:2:
The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
The underlying, informal, relational-lattice structure will be essential when our value become illegal, our gatherings are outlawed and our tax deductions disallowed. If you think this is paranoid thinking, please reread church history and the daily headlines.
I’m not discounting the value of pastors in the life of the church. I’m advocating a multiplication of the pastoral gift. These men and women are essential catalysts of these love-driven, informal cells. Let’s just call the sum of them community. This communal relational Church will not decline in membership. It will never have budget shortfalls or a shortage of resources. It will never be constrained by physical space. Like al Quada it will inspire its members to lay their lives down for their cause. This community will produce infinitely more leaders than organized Christianity because it rediscovered the reproductive DNA of New Testament Christianity where Pastor was not an office – it was a gift.
To get a new (and clearer biblical) view of Pastor and the local church read The Pastor Has No Clothes by John Zens. Note: The Pastor of my city’s largest church recommend this author. If your traditions are working just fine, don’t even go near this book (unless you are just adding it to your personal library of heretical writings).
Father, raise up shepherds with hearts like your own who will gather us up into safe places, redeeming the dark and gloomy days. May this world see that we are those whom you have gathered, healed and called. Succeed wildly Lord in this hour with a transformation whereby both you and your bride will be honored in all places and at all times. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Oct 24, 2015 | 42. Gathering
Gathering – Isaiah 40:6-11
Isaiah is laboring to get a point across. In our six verses he uses two metaphors. In the balance of the chapter he uses at least five more. Why the prophetic multi-metephor campaign? What is he trying so hard to get across? It is that God is supremely great. And us? Well…
All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.
Get yourself up on a high mountain, O bearer of good news, lift up your voice mightily.
What would motivate us to announce good news from high places when our transience has just been likened to a withering plant? If Isaiah had not also proclaimed God’s compassion, the goodness of this so-called good news would certainly come into question.
“Comfort, O comfort My people,” says your God. “Speak kindly to Jerusalem; and call out to her, that her warfare has ended, that her iniquity has been removed.”
Like a shepherd He will tend His flock, in His arm He will gather the lambs And carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes.
In God’s compassion, he makes provision of his own strength to those who are weary and stumbling …
The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.
Isaiah has clearly established that, like the grass, we will wither and, like the flower, we shall fade. Even collectively we are nothing more than a drop in a bucket or a speck of dust on the scales. As this earth’s inhabitants, we are like grasshoppers. It is true that when he blows on us we are carried away like stubble. God has made his point and asks;
To whom then will you liken Me? Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, not one of them is missing.
Just as God can account for every star, how much more will he account for every son and daughter. It is true in one sense, that compared to God we are as nothing, and yet in another, we are the object of his compassion. When Jesus, our Shepherd, reveals the Father, it get even better … we discover we are also the objects of his affection.
God’s greatness is not meant to crush. Within his glory and majesty, we find ourselves elevated to dizzying heights, as his beloved. This news does not cause us to cower, it cause us to look up into his kind face. That image will anchor our souls and fuel our awe and thanksgiving. Truly the sons and daughters of the kingdom shall be …..
those who wait for the Lord and gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.
Father, thank you that you have not come to us in anger but as a gentle Shepherd escorting each of us to safety, in Christ. Thank you that, wrapped in your strong arms, not one of us will be lost. Thank you that we can live our lives out of your strength. As the one who has become our life, express your life through us. For your name’s sake. Amen
by RobertCummins | Oct 23, 2015 | 42. Gathering
Gathering – Deuteronomy 30:1-10
Much has changed since these ancient words were written and yet nothing has changed; heart disease is still our leading cause of death. I’m not speaking of the heart that pumps blood through our bodies, rather the heart which is the well spring of spiritual life within us.
In our passage Moses is speaking of Israel’s heart condition as a qualifier to inherit their promised land and the blessings contained in it. When they get their hearts right, the Lord will then gather them and set them up in a place of abundance and prosperity. This sounds good until we see the word “all” – the most dominant word in this passage.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.
“All” is an impossibly high bar to clear, isn’t it? It would require a miraculously true heart to obey all the commands. The good news embedded in Moses sermon is the promise of new hearts. He calls it a circumcised heart and from it shall flow Life.
Then the Lord your God will prosper you abundantly in all the work of your hand, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your cattle and in the produce of your ground.
God’s conditional pledge through Moses clearly includes material blessing. Oh how appealing this feature is to us western Christians living inside the American Dream! With this Old Testament promise and the American economic engine, truly all things are possible with God. However, if we will see what God has promised in the New Covenant, American dreams of material prosperity will go strangely dim in the light of God’s glory and grace, in Christ.
Christ is now our life because the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in our spirits. Christians are a new specie of being because the Holy Spirit lives in them. We are the offspring of God. This is a bit larger idea than just getting our souls saved and going to heaven. It means living life now as God’s children and processing everything through that new reality. This is the abundant life Jesus promised. Living out of this reality is the only way to have an all-in life.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.
For a variety of reasons, we still have heart problems. Blinded by the want of material prosperity, we can fail to see the abundance of what we already have, independent of a single dollar, in Christ. If the Old Testament promise of material blessing is mingled with our dreams, we will not only fail to experience abundance in Christ, we will struggle to even know the adequacy of Jesus Christ. Our problem? We not only want God, we want his stuff.
Even a new heart is not immune from deception and Western culture has it own particular version. With our can-do, American spirit, which has produced more material wealth than any previous nation, we are set up to miss the central point of life – which is Jesus Christ. This Man, this second Adam is our elder brother and the first born of the new race of men. This Man is our life, independent of any of our doing or having. This makes being an all-in follower of Jesus tough when the cultural air you breathe is pregnant with doing and being. However, once our eyes are liberated, we will see these lies embedded everywhere, driving nearly everything … except the kingdom of God.
When doing precedes being, and getting precedes giving, all dreams, both American and Kingdom are dying. Unless the true prophets and apostles rise up and define the Kingdom of God, clearly delineating it from America and any political party, air is rapidly escaping our balloon. The heights to which America has risen as a nation has been courtesy of the Kingdom of God and its eternal values, a reality our nation is systematically denying.
Is there any hope we might remain aloft? I believe so but its not in a revival of Reagan Republicans or Roosevelt Democrats. If it comes, it will once again be courtesy of God’s grace in Christ, expressed by God’s children who have been revived to live out of their new hearts. Their lives will reveal Brook’s “without attachment” piece of the American Dream. They will be those whose surrender to Christ’s rule was validated by their self denial, their open handed generosity and their creativity in sharing the abundance entrusted to them. Listen to the second half of verse two, from America …
America! America! / God mend thine ev’ry flaw, / Confirm thy soul in self-control, / Thy liberty in law.
We have much to pray and think about.
Father, only you know how to raise up children in the Truth. Help us to abandon ourselves to your fatherhood. Thank you for our new hearts. Teach us to live from them. Jesus is the only one who might save us. He is our only hope of life. May your children be set free, revealing your fullest transformational intentions. Let the world see Jesus reigning in individual hearts, transforming us into his image. Expose our entanglement and detach us from this world. Draw us back to simplicity of devotion to Christ – our only true abundance. For your name’s sake. Amen.
by RobertCummins | Oct 22, 2015 | 42. Gathering
Gathering – Jeremiah 31:1-14
He who scattered …will gather.
Oh, the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgements and unfathomable His ways! (Romans 11:33)
It is beyond our natural understanding, and perhaps even our willingness to understand, that he who gathers also scatters and he who tears also mends. My personalized restatement of this verse would be …
Oh God, how many times have you befuddled me, where all I can say is, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high I cannot attain to it?”
I confess that I have come to this place in both bitterness and peace. I can trace the bitterness to one of the least constructive things I have done in my life; demanding an understanding of the unfathomable. What does this trail of human reasoning look like? Example: God is ever-present, all-powerful and all-knowing. This places him at the scene of every incident. If God knew about it and could have prevented it, is he not either the agent of cause or an accessory with unsearchable motives?
My stumbling heart asked, “Why was this permitted?” There may have even been a little, “Why was I not consulted” going on as well. Did this happen because God – the Judge was exacting payment for someones’s sin? Is God incompetent? Indifferent? Did the devil just overpower him and steal something right out from his, or the angel’s noses? Perhaps there are so many lives, personal involvement is impossible. This is the type of reasoning, I’m talking about. Even though I was stumbling beneath the burden of the imponderable, in Christ, I was fortunatelty stumbling forward. In God’s economy, even futile speculation do not go to waste.
I’m not proud of this but there was something demanding in me – “Why do bad things happen to undeserving, unwitting, good people?!” If you have shopped in the theological marketplace you have discovered there are many vendors, hawking their dogma as to why-God-this and why-God-that. Dogma stays in great demand because it contributes to the myth that we can manage our lives with knowledge – control things with what we now understand. Not knowing on the other hand, forces us to have faith – which feels out of control.
When you encounter these vendors, without a tear or a question, marketing their confident assertions regarding the unsearchable, may I suggest that you politely, yet quickly, say, “No thank you.” Knowledge and understanding are not without value but they will never replace simple childlike faith. Faith connects us to eternity. Knowledge is helpful but faith is essential.
A question. Could God gather us if we were not scattered? Could he mend us if we were not torn? Could we appreciate his drawing if we had not been driven? Would we appreciate his presence if we had not tasted of his absence?
Our hearts can become paralyzed in their capacity to believe by the mountain of apparent evidence we collect and file away which raise questions about God’s motivations. We are left, in our inquiries to the bad that happens, with the notion there is something incompatible here with God’s love, care and power. Even though we rarely make a formal indictment against him, our hearts can nurse questions about his love and/or his competence. I suspect many a busy, noisy life has been crafted, both consciously and sub-consciously, to squelch this line of thinking. This is why slowing down, retreating and opening up to God is so essential to our spiritual formation. Warning: weeping and supplication may follow. Do not fear – they are better allies than certainty.
With weeping they shall come, and by supplication I will lead them; I will make them walk by streams of water, on a straight path in which they shall not stumble; for I am a Father
As to the why we have been scattered, torn or driven, we are frequently uncertain. For our sake, he spares us from explanations. When I ultimately stand before God, I don’t want an angelic file-search to reveal I have open files, where God is still a person of interest. If open files are to be found, I want one of them to be my Mystery file – where I store my unanswered questions. The other file can be my large and getting-larger file called God’s Goodness – where I have been recording my observations of his goodness.
While God’s ways and judgements may be unsearchable, his nature and personality are discoverable and knowable. We come to know him experientially, situation-by-situation, face-to-face. We can gain experiential heart-assuarnce that all his dealings with us are motivated by an incomprehensibly strong love. He desires that learn to rest progressively in his love. Here is a hard thing though – it may require some tearing. It may involve a sense of separation. But, if we acknowledge his nearness, we will discover we have somehow been drawn into God’s heart and even mended in the midst of our pain and disorientation. We will discover a Father-filter has been installed which will aid us in our filing. We will stumble far less when we are resting in his love. This is where we will discover the songs, the shouts and the praises that are so becoming and native to his sons and daughters.
Father, we do not understand pain. It is disorienting and incomprehensible. Grant us hearts that hold you harmless. Grant that we would not stumble over Jesus as a rock of offense. May we not be offended at your eternally focused, love-driven dealings with our hearts. Amen.
Suggestion for those who are extra hungry: Read the passage again. Acknowledging God’s presence, ask yourself about your files and filing system. Pray along with David and the others who have become satisfied with God’s goodness …
Search me Oh God and know my heart, try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.
by RobertCummins | Oct 21, 2015 | 42. Gathering
Gathering – Zephaniah 3:14-20
Zephaniah is announcing imminent destruction and ultimate glory. He is declaring judgement on the masses and mercy on a remnant. Our portion of his message is focused more on the future glory. The Lord says …
At that time I will bring you in, even at the time when I gather you together; Indeed, I will give you renown and praise among all the people of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes.
As the gatherer, I envision the Lord as a master weaver drawing many threads together, creating a grand and majestic tapestry. To us there seems to be so many dissimilar threads, we struggle to imagine an end product ever coming from God’s loom. And even if we could, what would we do with it? What does that tapestry have to do with us?
So many threads. They are nations and individuals. They are evil and good, rich and poor, weeping and rejoicing. There are threads of divine and human sovereignty. There are threads of judgement, restoration, attacks and testings, time and eternity, flesh and spirit, religion and philosophy. This is overwhelming! Yet, Zephaniah declares God is weaving all of these and more into something that will ultimately cause unprecedented celebration.
Shout for joy, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Two major threads of the tapestry are the nation of Israel and the Church. God began by claiming a people out of the desert and introducing himself to them through the Law of Moses. The weaving of these people of the Law into the tapestry, though not forgotten, has been delayed until he gathers all his choice Gentile thread into the fabric. By faith, the gentiles have also become sons of Abraham and will be a part of the rejoicing Zephaniah foretells.
“Those who grieve” (vs 18) currently, are major threads in the tapestry. These people aren’t grieving that ancient ritualistic feasts are being ignored. They grieve because the church is not partaking of the feast which has already been prepared (Ps 23:5). This group knows a tapestry is supposedly being woven. They grieve because it seems someone is pulling on the threads, instead of gathering them. The presence of evil and the delay of righteousness is a burden to them.
The petitions and prayers of this caring remnant are focused beyond the immediate affairs of man to the ultimate intentions of God. Their willingness to carry some of God’s longings, qualifies them as leading threads. God will use their story to attract the original tribes. Those who have realized that God has taken away His judgements against them and cleared away their enemies, are going to stir things up. I believe God will use the advance celebration and joy among Gentiles to provoke jealousy and ultimately produce faith among Jews.
Father, even if it appears crude to us, permit us to see your intention and artistry. May we be living thread in the work of your hands. May your original chosen see your work and ask to be included. Amen.
