Joel 1:1-3:21; Revelation 1:1-20; Psalm 128:1-6; Proverbs 29:18
“Then, after doing all those things, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on servants—men and women alike. And I will cause wonders in the heavens and on the earth—blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun will become dark, and the moon will turn blood red before that great and terrible day of the Lord arrives. But everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
“Grace and peace to you from the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come; from the sevenfold Spirit before his throne; and from Jesus Christ. He is the faithful witness to these things, the first to rise from the dead, and the ruler of all the kings of the world. All glory to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by shedding his blood for us. He has made us a Kingdom of priests for God his Father. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen. Look! He comes with the clouds of heaven. And everyone will see him—even those who pierced him. And all the nations of the world will mourn for him. Yes! Amen! ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end,’ says the Lord God. ‘I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come—the Almighty One.’”
How joyful are those who fear the Lord—all who follow his ways! You will enjoy the fruit of your labor. How joyful and prosperous you will be! Your wife will be like a fruitful grapevine, flourishing within your home. Your children will be like vigorous young olive trees as they sit around your table. That is the Lord’s blessing for those who fear him.”
“When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is joyful.”
As a father whose children are raised and have reached adulthood, I have new hope born of a new, limited detachment. Learning to “lighten up,” I no longer observe the kids with such a critical eye. The compulsion to protect and correct is less because the need is neither a parental imperative nor a parental prerogative at this point. The birds are flying. They’ve been trained in how to journey through life. It’s up to them to choose their destinies. All children, in time, have to be freed to make their own mistakes, and to learn how to recover from them. All parents have to let go and remember their children are not their property. Kids are simply on loan to us from their Creator. Consequently, we have no right to determine their lives for them. Our primary mission is to point them to their Creator; help assure their safe journey to their true Home; and give them hope. In turn, parents ideally get to hope in their kids. Hope is one of the greatest gifts any person can bestow on another. In a very real way, though, hope of any sort is pretty difficult to come by until and unless we are able to look past the sins and shortcomings of others.
I sometimes find myself wondering if the God who knows all can ever really see us the same way, rejoicing at our potential and, if only for a brief moment, just overlooking the sin. Then, finally, it hits me: this is the very reason Christ came to earth and died for us. Jesus is the reason God can and does look past our sin. Christ’s Death and Resurrection is liberating both for us and for our Heavenly Father. Holy, righteous wrath is no longer an issue between us. Jesus’ Blood has put paid to sin’s penalties, freeing our Father to take a step back and let us grow into a greater appreciation of Him as we choose our individual destinies. Christ is Hope, not just for us, but for our Father, too.
For this is the work of Christ: freeing the Father from the harsher compulsions of Holiness; freeing us from the fear of His deserved wrath; and so reuniting us in love. This explains the differences between the Old Testament pictures of God and the portraits of Him sketched in the New Testament. God no longer has to nursemaid His Children (though He is always concerned). They don’t require a lot of rules and regulations, assuming they are truly His, because they have the Spirit doing His Work inside their renovated hearts. Finally, in Christ, we should be mature enough to see and accept our Father’s wisdom, love and sufficiency without feeling threatened by His Judgment. This is what it means to be truly reconciled to God in Christ Jesus.
No doubt, some will be troubled by the notion that God Himself ever needed liberation from anything. However, our sin imprisoned Him, too, in a way. It limited the reach of His Holiness. In Texas vernacular, He was “fenced out” rather than “fenced in,” but the fence was no less limiting and no less real for all that. No longer could the Creator directly fellowship with His Creation. Our sin erected a barrier to which even God had to submit. It was the price He paid immediately for our free will. After thinking about it a few seconds, at least every parent should begin to understand. We all have experienced how merely impressing the demands of “right living” and ethical morality on our kids can create barriers of separation. Imagine what the imposition of absolute Righteousness would do to our relationships. Like the Israelites, our kids soon would give up in frustration.
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