A Divine Appointment!

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Dear Fellow Travelers,
The following is one of the responses I received from yesterday’s perspective. I received permission to share it with you, so read it and “shout for joy”:

Mac, About the scriptures below, this will take some meditation to answer your question, because when I first read them, I took each one separately. However, after reading several times, there is a flow here...like a scriptural Map-Quest taking me where I want to go....

For example, separately, I have agreed with #4 many times, seeing it as condemning our present condition—yet, maybe that is not what it meant—maybe it was not us it was condemning...maybe the dirty dress that represents sin in my mind, is no longer MY dress...Also, previously, I have been confused by #6 and #7. I will try to explain. (yep, pour yourself some tea and pull up a chair)

Please know that no matter how I come off, Jesus and His precious blood have saved me, and I know He alone has done it, and yes, He gave me the faith to believe in Him, so absolutely nothing is of me. It is only because of the blood of the Lamb that I will go to heaven, and this was true before I read these verses today. The hymn is true, I love Jesus, because He first loved me—and I have been grateful for that for a long time.

However, as I sat in church yesterday, at one point (and only one point - don't remember which point), I was wondering, "is this simply semantics"? Yet, after church, as we talked with Kitty and Josh, and I shared the old analogy about the chicken who had its feet tied together, so that when they were untied, he did not attempt to fly, even though it could... (or some type of bird - can chickens even fly? sorry, not a country girl - oh well, you get what I am trying to say.) Kitty added the one about the fish in a tank, where they put a piece of glass in the middle of the tank, cutting the tank in half, for so long, and then they take it out. However, the fish does not attempt to swim to the other end of the tank, although there is no longer a barrier, because it just doesn't know it can...

So, does salvation mean more than I knew? Do I have a position, an identity....that I did not know I had? Can I fly or swim further than I knew? Did I think my Father left me a $1000, when He actually left me a BA-ZILLION DOLLARS??? Something is brewing here....

Anyway, today, there was something different as I read the verses, so I must think and pray about this further. Something happened in my spirit while reading, meaning, while I was reading #7, I realized I was smiling. That was the verse - the one that had caused such confusion before, and all of a sudden, it was like a, "Yes, that's it. This IS the truth," was resounding in me!

So, for now, things I have not been able to explain are starting to focus. I feel like the man who was blind, who Jesus touched, and then this man saw "men as trees". Consequently, Jesus touched the man again, so that He could see clearly. I am in the "seeing men as trees" stage,...but PTL, I now know the men look like trees, and I know there is more to see. And, I WANT to see clearly! - So, I am no longer blind, and I am convinced He will touch me again, so that I will see clearly before this journey is over...

So, Mac, I think you're on to something...coming to your church was and is a divine appointment....Some type of anticipation is brewing, like Christmas Eve for a child...
I think He has given us a much greater gift than I ever realized...just not sure what it is...
(You remember the old trick of starting out with a big gift box, and burying a smaller one in it, so the recipient does not know what you are giving them....Well, the Lord has refined this one, and put the big box inside a small one...not possible? He already did...when the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords and the Savior of all mankind was placed in a baby in Bethlehem....but somehow, this gift is also meant to get inside our package...I think it's tied in with the "new wine in old wineskin" thing...

You know what this feels like? Helen Keller discovering that words were symbols that identified actual objects and weren't just words...that w-a-t-e-r represented water that you could feel...the light bulb is coming on...

As you might imagine, THIS is why I love teaching the gospel!!