Devotional 190310

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. What a wonderful day that the Lord has created for you and I to enjoy! It is the day of experiencing the grace and mercy of our blessed Lord. There is no other God who has created the heavens and the earth. There is no other God but our Lord Jesus Christ, who speaks out through His Word and His creation, so that you and I may have communication with Him in every moment of the day. Blessed we are to be the target of His love…Amen.

What a wildly wonderful world, GOD! You made it all, with Wisdom at your side, made earth overflow with your wonderful creations (Psalm 104:24). Everything is created. Everything carries within its form and texture the signature of its Creator. No part of this material world is unconnected with God: every cell is in the organism of salvation. Biblical religion cannot be lived apart from matter – the seen, felt, tasted, smelled, and listened to creation.

It is; all, precisely, creation. Nothing merely happened along. Chokecherries and tundra and weasels are not random accidents. Since everything is by design, no part of creation can be bypassed if we intend to live in the fullest possible relation to our Creator in his creation. None of it is an inconvenience that we are forced to put with. Nothing is a stumbling block introduced by the devil to trip the feet of those whose eyes are piously lifted in praise to God. Creation is our place for meeting God and conversing with him. The voice that spoke Behemoth and Leviathan into being is the same voice that says, “your sins are forgiven you,” and invites us to call upon him in the day of trouble. External and internal are the same reality. Heaven and earth are formed by a single will of God.

We take box seats in this creation theater when we pray. We look around. The mountains are huge, heaving their bulk upwards. The creeks spill across the rocks, giving extravagant light shows under the hemlocks. The lakes fill up with sky, on earth as it is in heaven. A lion rips its prey. A sparrow builds its nest. Solomon and the Shulamite embrace. An eagle plummets from a cloud to a meadow and takes a rabbit in its talons; for a few moments the two genesis creatures are in a terrible and tangled harmony. An infant drinks her fill of breakfast from her mother’s breast. Matter is real. Flesh is good.

I like the way Eugene Peterson describes the Nature that our Lord creates for our enjoyment. The Nature is also our calling…calling to take care of the creation in according to His divine will. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, we fall short of the glory of God. We fall short of the glory of being “human being,” the glory of being the anointed one who can respond to the voice of God, the glory of being temporarily a little bit lower than angels, but one day will become the crown prince and princess in heaven. “Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” calls for our response to make it happen – allow God’s kingdom and His will be done on earth in our lives. Submit to Him as our Lord of lords and King of all kings. Amen.

Love you in accordance to His will on earth,
Lawrence