The Great Falling Away and Our Great Hope (4)

 

 

“Behold, a king will reign righteously and princes will rule justly. Each will be like a refuge from the wind and a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry country, like the shade of a huge rock in a parched land” (Isaiah 32:1 – 2).

 

This passage reminds us that our calling in Christ is to be a place of refuge for others, a shelter from the storms of life. The Living Water of Christ is to flow from the depths of our being out to those around us (John 7:27 – 39) and we are to bear fruit for the healing of the peoples (Rev. 22:1 – 2). Rather than being overcome by evil, in Christ we overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21). We are to “bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse” (Rom. 12:14).

 

We are to love our enemies and pray for those who oppose us, “so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:43 – 48). Remembering that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood,” nor are the “weapons of our warfare of the flesh” (2 Cor. 10:4).

 

If we become entangled as participants in the conflicts of the world, if the source of our life is rooted in the agendas of the world, the powers of the world, the values of the world, then we will have little in Christ to share with the people of the world; the water that flows from us will be polluted.

 

We must see ourselves as strangers and pilgrims, as citizens of heaven, resisting the pressure from without and within the professing church to identify with the world system (Hebrews 11:8 – 16; 1 Pt. 2:11). We are called to bring others with us on our journey to the City of Christ, the City of Light, the City where the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are the only Light and where we are the Temple of God.

 

Are we standing with the Jesus who says, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36)?

 

Or have we abandoned Jesus Christ and do we now identify with earthly powers who have deceived us and many of our leaders into prostituting the Bible for their own ends? Have we given ourselves to earthly powers who use Scriptural language (but not the Biblical teaching of Jesus Christ) to utter prayers of hatred and destruction?

 

This does not mean that we ignore the people of the world, on the contrary, it means that we love them and share Jesus with them, it means that we seek to show them the Way of the Lamb, it means that we give our lives for the people of the world just as Jesus gave His life for us…even when we were His enemies (Romans 5:1 – 11). It also means that we are willing to be “considered as sheep to be slaughtered” (Rom. 8:36).

 

Wherever we are, we are to be the Presence of Jesus Christ, shelters from the storm, places of refuge, Living Water in a parched land. In Christ, we are to offer peace, hope, love, grace, mercy, and healing. To do this we must abide in the Vine and allow the Vine to live His Life in us and through us (John 15:1 – 5). To do this, we offer ourselves to God as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1 – 2; John 17:17 – 19).

 

What color is the water which people drink from us? Is it red or blue or purple? Is it green, the color of American money? Is it red, white, and blue?

 

Or is it “clear and bright as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Rev. 22:1)?