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This particular question (of Curtis’) has brought me back to a particular verse that I meditated on for quite some time last year, and I think about pretty often (as in, once a week, at least). Isaiah 26v.8 says this:
“In the path of your judgments O Lord, we wait for You; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul.”
There are several different points to this one particular verse, each one incredibly rich and deep.
For starters, notice how many paths there are - ONE. I know that the Oprah’s, pluralists, new-agers, post-Moderns, Joelly-O’s, “New Kind(s) of Christian(s),” and other “religious” folk probably aren’t too keen on this notion, but it’s there. There is only one path when it comes to God’s judgments, and it leads only through Christ, to the Father. We are called to be in this path, not as fans who sit in the stands or on the sidelines of life. We’re called to be right in the middle of that path, walking, running and tripping onwards with the Holy Spirit as our Guide.
Next, we see whose judgmental path we’re in… God’s. In the world that we live in, so hateful when it comes to the idea of being under someone else’s authority, we like to pretend that we’re the rulers of our own little lives. “Who are you to judge me?!!” is exclaimed all the time by a lost world trying to make people who know what’s right feel bad about trying to pull people from the carnage of broken lives. We like to be our own little judges and not pay mind to the Judge who has given His Law.
Third, we proclaim Christ as not only Judge, but as Lord over our lives. In both Timothy Keller’s book “The Reason for God,” and in Mark Driscoll’s new one “Vintage Jesus,” there is considerable time spent talking about the fact that so many of us proclaim, “Lord! Lord!” and yet think that we run the show. If we’re going to call Christ “Lord,” then we need to understand the implication of that title. Things are not done on our own time or by our own power, but rather on the time-frame and by the power of the One who honestly rules over our lives.
Last, the desire of our soul is to advance the Lord’s Name and pass that on to generations until He returns. There are many things that our souls can long after, from acceptance to love to adventure; the penultimate is advancing the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour. Anything else that consumes us more than this sole passion is, simply, sin.
The men whose lives focused on these things… who were so bent on advancing the Kingdom at all costs, glorifying Christ in every aspect of their lives, and (in the words of Lewis’ “Reepicheep”) were continually pressing “…further up! further in!” are the ones who the old masters painted with bright halos around their heads. I doubt that anyone will ever paint a portrait of me, but when people do look back at the life that this stocky goofus lived, may they see that Christ’s glory shined from everything he did.
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