Friday, September 13, 2013

PSALM 102 - Are You Listening?

Of old You laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You will remain. They will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away. But You are the same and Your years never end. The children of Your servants shall dwell secure. Their offspring shall be established before You.
(Verses 25-28)

I am He. The first and the Last. My hand laid the foundation of the earth and my right hand spread out the heavens. When I call to them, they stand forth together. Isaiah 48

In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him. Without Him nothing was made that was made.  John 1

Logos. The Greek word for word. Divine self-expression or speech. Jesus is how God speaks. Jesus is the One Who said: "Let there be light." And there was light. Nothing that we see, touch, taste or feel came into being without Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together (Colossians 1:17). Jesus made it all and keeps it from falling apart. In the vastness that is forever, Jesus is I AM (Exodus 3). The First and the Last. The Alpha and the Omega. In everything and before everything from A to Z. Jesus is God. The part of the Triune Godhead Who speaks life into being. It is He Who chose to come to earth, touch our dust, eat our food and die our death. It is He Who now drives history toward its final hours. Jesus is the One worthy to open the scroll of the end times and speak the world's events into being. Jesus is the One Who speaks with a still small voice to our hearts. We, His sheep, can hear the Logos in our ears. Are we listening?

It is amazing to me how powerful the Word of God is. When Bill and I were first married, we found ourselves discipling several students who came to the Lord while I was teaching. We spent Bible study and worship time with them each week on Saturday, but many of them were in and out of our home during the week, also. One of the young men stopped coming for a while. Though we were concerned about him, we didn't pressure him to attend the coffee house Bible studies. But a few weeks down the line, we were all at a potluck supper together. Bill always waits until the last to go through the line. (Which, by the way, always made me antsy, as all the best pieces of fried chicken were always gone by the time we made it through.) This young man noticed. "You and Kay are way back there," he said with a smile. "And the first shall be last," Bill quipped, not thinking of ministry but of being funny. But the high schooler was back at Bible Study the next week. "When you quoted that scripture, Bill, it changed my heart." Hmmm.

I have a friend who was not a Christian when I first met her. At least, if she was it wasn't the driving motivation of her life. But I really loved my friend. She was always and is always there for me. In a God-breathed quest to understand the Bible better, she began attending an in depth study once a week. There was lots of homework between sessions that she was willing to do. Though the teacher began with Genesis, my friend was blown away by the God revealed in His Word. After a year of this, everything about her is different. That's what she says. The Bible changed her heart. She simply didn't know God until she read His mind. And in so doing discovered His heart.

If the One Who spoke the world into being and continues to hold it together has something to say, shouldn't we find out what that is? Wouldn't it be important to memorize and meditate upon the thoughts of such a One? For the Logos of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of the soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and discerning the intentions and thoughts of the heart (Hebrews 4). For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct Him. But we have the mind of Christ (I Corinthians 2). The miracle is that Jesus, the Logos, the verbal expression of God, speaks a never-changing, heart melting, mind bending, life altering message to the world. Some sit with their hands over their ears. But those of us who have ears to hear, must listen. For the Lord Himself will shake the foundations of this earth as one shakes out a robe, and it will be gone. But He will remain forever. And He wants us with Him.

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