Even with all the hecticness of the last week, there is a peace about sitting down with You tonight, Father. Use me as You will. May the words flowing through my fingertips be the words that someone needs – myself included – as we walk this journey of life. Amen.
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When I sat down to write last Tuesday, I had every intention to pick up where I had left off the night before, but life happened and that didn’t!
So a little further down in the prayer GOD THE SPIRIT from The Valley of Vision there is this:
When I feel my lack of him, light up life and faith,
….for when I lose thee I am either in the dark and cannot see thee,
….or Satan and my natural abilities content me with a little light,
….so that I seek no further for the Spirit of life.
Teach me then what to do.
It never ceases to amaze me how God can bring seemingly random melodies in life into perfect harmony! I am continuing to read The Valley of Vision and I have also taken up, The Way of Love: Re-Discovering the Only Path to Peace in This Life (by Ted Dekker) a devotional that Karen and Massey gave me for Christmas 2021. (I’ve also been reading The Life of Christ by Umphrey Lee, loaned to me by a dear friend. It linked very well to today’s sermon!)
The Valley of Vision and The Way of Love intersected in the paragraph quoted above. In Dekker’s devotional, he speaks, as the Bible clearly states, that we are born into a world shrouded entirely in darkness. Only as we are in Yeshua (Jesus’ original name in Hebrew) is light brought into the darkness. Even as believers, we are blinded while living here unless we fully embrace the path that Yeshua has set before us. And it may sound far too simple, but it is what Yeshua calls us to, and that is love.
Dekker quotes 1 John 2:10-11,
The one who loves his brother and sister remains in the Light, and there is nothing in him to cause stumbling. But the one who hates his brother or sister is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes. NASB
One of our overwhelming issues in life is the lack of truly genuine, agape love. From a Biblical viewpoint, agape love is unconditional love. That is the kind of love God shows and extends to us, but it is certainly difficult to come by in this world. Even amongst those of us who would lay down our lives for those we love, to love them unconditionally is virtually unattainable. But that must be our goal.
Lord Jesus, as our Puritan friend prayed, when we feel a lack of Your Holy Spirit, when we are in the dark and cannot see thee…light up life and faith. And when we ask then that He teach us what to do, may we be filled to overflowing with Your love – not the shammy here-today-gone-tomorrow love of the world but Your agape – unconditional love. So be it…Amen.
Jan 8th, 2023, Sun, 7:15 pm
