This week, many of us have dealt with common issues—car problems, family relationships, work, school, etc. There is no end to these kinds of small troubles. We also face much deeper challenges: shortcomings in our own character, maturity, and understanding. What makes us believers, though, is how we face these challenges. Oftentimes, we just want to escape from these problems. We want to find the easiest way out or find something to help us pretend that everything is okay. Routine and mundane living become a comfort we cannot afford to give up. Even if we recognize these mindsets as issues, we often struggle to solve them by our own strength and understanding.
Eventually, we either wake up and realize that our years have slipped by us and we have grown old, or we find ourselves exhausted, worn out from our own trying. But praise the Lord this is not the fate that we have been called unto! We are believers. We can turn to the Lord anytime in our spirit and touch something much higher than our problems! Because we have Him, there is no need for us to escape or waste our lives in needless toil.
And, we can go further still to a deeper understanding of what our living is for. As believers, we are not just facing our personal, daily challenges; we are also convicted and confronted by the truth in the Bible. In a way, the New Testament language is very simple. And in its simplicity it echoes in me with a yearning. Those in Christ have such a high calling! What a glorious vision of the church is presented in Acts and Ephesians! Yet, for many years, my conscience was bothered that this truth, this vision, did not match my own reality. But my experience is that when we run away from what the Lord presents so powerfully in His word, we become numb to His own speaking to us. The power of His word is lost and becomes nothing more than mere “doctrines,” statements of faith, and creeds—manmade words that carry no weight in our daily living. Yet this “impossible” reality of the New Testament church cannot be impossible to me. Even when we doubt (“What can man do to build such a church? How can we possibly live out such a reality?”), as believers, we have one option only—go to our Lord and face this truth in His shining. Our salvation is indeed great!
Upon your walls, O Jerusalem, / I have appointed watchmen; / All day and all night / They will never keep silent. / You who remind Jehovah, / Do not be dumb; / And do not give Him quiet / Until He establishes / And until He makes Jerusalem / A praise in the earth. (Isaiah 62:6-7)
What a privilege to have found such brothers and sisters who also have this same calling! For years I wandered, escaped, and tried on my own. By the Lord’s mercy, He led me to such watchmen—to those who persevere in praying and petitioning and watching for this reality. And now we pursue this daily, real, tangible salvation together—a salvation that is so much more than going to heaven someday or having a blessed life in the world. We are being saved into this vision of the New Testament church! The dawn has not yet come; the night still lingers on. Yet we cannot forget what we have seen. We cannot stop watching until we see the dawn. We cannot remain silent or rest until His church is built.
Today, we in the church call out to all those seekers who recognize that in the Lord’s word and deep within them, the Lord has a desire and plan that goes far beyond their own limited experiences and concepts. We call out to those who cannot sleep, who cannot be satisfied, who cannot keep quiet until the Lord establishes His heart’s desire on the earth.
– JR