Rev 21:10 And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,
Ponder this for a moment. John is told to come, and he will be shown the bride, the Lamb's wife.
1. We should all know who the Lamb is: Jesus
2. We are married to Him.
3. The fact that we are a city, the New Jerusalem, does not bother me, but it seems like something that I need to wrap my mind around.
Somehow we, the bride of Christ, people that were formerly unworthy and incapable of knowing what LOVE is and was, have been married to the son of God, and made to be the most beautiful thing that the Father's heart could conceive of. How or why Jerusalem takes such prominence in his thinking I do not know, but it does.
We, the bride, are no longer separate entities, struggling for His attention, but are somehow integrated into the city itself. This city is spectacular, in every way, therefore so are we.
One of the issues with us humans is that we, in our broken condition, are selfish. Even as I write this I am having to battle through this brokenness. Why would that be important? Because, I have rarely ever been able to see myself any greater than the bottom brick in the wall; you know the one that has the little opening beside it so all the dirty run off water can pass through, and in my selfishness I do not want this for myself at all. I want to be something beautiful and adorning that people might look at and find some value in. Aside from being broken there are many other reasons for that kind of thinking, and the honest people will admit that they completely understand that.
People, who may mean well (I can think of one who has a Doctorate in Theology and is one of the rudest people I have ever known) seem to try and keep some of us in our place. All I know, from scripture, is that the first will be last. Perhaps that applies to bricks as well, but the bottom line is that I honestly hope that heaven is nothing like the earth that I live on. My earth is filled with pain, and a daily dose of depression, most of which I battle successfully through.
Yes, I know that there are many who might read this and:
1. Not understand, thinking that I am just a whiner and loser.
2. Berate me for not having enough faith.
3. Probably want to push me out of the way anyway, because the world wants to teach us that the strong should eat the weak.
Truthfully what I see, when I read God's word, is hope, and I embed myself in in it because I know that I will find it there; I always do. Beside that I am constantly reminding myself of the reasons that I have to believe that He is real, and that there is a hope.
I now find that as I read, primarily Paul's writings, that this is exactly what he, Paul, spends so much time doing. Do you suppose that is because he understands the human condition far to well, having been an angry zealot himself.
(Think about that when comtemplating Paul's "thorn in the flesh". Paul was a student of the Torah and would, like any other rabbinical student, have memorized it. He knew exactly what he was saying when he used the terminology "thorn in the flesh". God had told Israel to destroy the surrounding nations or they would become "thorns in their flesh and pricks in their eyes". Literally? are you kidding? It is symbollic at best. So this thing that was bothering Paul was symbollic also. Being a zealot that killed believers in this Jesus character, because Saul, his zealot alter ego, was trying to defend what he thought was a pure faith in God.)
Ponder this for a moment. John is told to come, and he will be shown the bride, the Lamb's wife.
1. We should all know who the Lamb is: Jesus
2. We are married to Him.
3. The fact that we are a city, the New Jerusalem, does not bother me, but it seems like something that I need to wrap my mind around.
Somehow we, the bride of Christ, people that were formerly unworthy and incapable of knowing what LOVE is and was, have been married to the son of God, and made to be the most beautiful thing that the Father's heart could conceive of. How or why Jerusalem takes such prominence in his thinking I do not know, but it does.
We, the bride, are no longer separate entities, struggling for His attention, but are somehow integrated into the city itself. This city is spectacular, in every way, therefore so are we.
One of the issues with us humans is that we, in our broken condition, are selfish. Even as I write this I am having to battle through this brokenness. Why would that be important? Because, I have rarely ever been able to see myself any greater than the bottom brick in the wall; you know the one that has the little opening beside it so all the dirty run off water can pass through, and in my selfishness I do not want this for myself at all. I want to be something beautiful and adorning that people might look at and find some value in. Aside from being broken there are many other reasons for that kind of thinking, and the honest people will admit that they completely understand that.
People, who may mean well (I can think of one who has a Doctorate in Theology and is one of the rudest people I have ever known) seem to try and keep some of us in our place. All I know, from scripture, is that the first will be last. Perhaps that applies to bricks as well, but the bottom line is that I honestly hope that heaven is nothing like the earth that I live on. My earth is filled with pain, and a daily dose of depression, most of which I battle successfully through.
Yes, I know that there are many who might read this and:
1. Not understand, thinking that I am just a whiner and loser.
2. Berate me for not having enough faith.
3. Probably want to push me out of the way anyway, because the world wants to teach us that the strong should eat the weak.
Truthfully what I see, when I read God's word, is hope, and I embed myself in in it because I know that I will find it there; I always do. Beside that I am constantly reminding myself of the reasons that I have to believe that He is real, and that there is a hope.
I now find that as I read, primarily Paul's writings, that this is exactly what he, Paul, spends so much time doing. Do you suppose that is because he understands the human condition far to well, having been an angry zealot himself.
(Think about that when comtemplating Paul's "thorn in the flesh". Paul was a student of the Torah and would, like any other rabbinical student, have memorized it. He knew exactly what he was saying when he used the terminology "thorn in the flesh". God had told Israel to destroy the surrounding nations or they would become "thorns in their flesh and pricks in their eyes". Literally? are you kidding? It is symbollic at best. So this thing that was bothering Paul was symbollic also. Being a zealot that killed believers in this Jesus character, because Saul, his zealot alter ego, was trying to defend what he thought was a pure faith in God.)
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