But my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would bring you relief.
Job 16:5 (NIV)
Arrows by Cathy Vinson |
Children can enjoy marking up papers with arrows. Take a blank sheet of paper and add arrows and you'll see your eyes definitely pulled around. Arrows are important, for they signify direction. C S Lewis wrote that some are slowly becoming Christian while others are slowly becoming unChristian. What arrow direction would describe our lives? Philippians 3:16 sets a tall order: "Only let us live up to what we have already attained." What have we attained? Even the mere longing gaze upward can mean something, as King Nebuchadnezzar found. In being disciplined as a cow (Dan 4), he finally looked up. At that very point his sanity returned. What about the descending Christian? Please see Ezekiel 33. God is much more merciful in forgiving the many sins of the one who repents in the end than the one with a life of good works who turns away. To this, God says, "Yet your countrymen say, 'The way of the Lord is not just.' But it is their way that is not just" (Ez 33: 17). It is better to be standing in the LOWEST PIT beginning to look up than to be in an ivory tower someday to turn your back. "Remember the height from which you have fallen" (Rev 2:4). The stakes are very high and spiritually impacted to be losing ground, losing height. "It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and to turn their backs on the sacred commandment that was passed on to them" (2 Pet 2:21). We need to go forward. The static cleaness after deliverance evokes a worst state than the first because of not going forward. God knows the arrow that would describe us. Let's look UP from wherever we are stationed. Let's meet the Lord from wherever our stance is...and continue doing so. "And God permitting, we will do so" (Heb 6:3).. |
|
| "Only let us live up to what we
have already attained" Philippians 3:16
|
||
|
Send a note to Cathy Vinson , the writer of this devotion.
Other Whispers from the Wilderness Devotions are found HERE
Return to the Daily Miscellany