"I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore"
Revelation 1:18
(Part 2 of 'Does God have a plan for the world?' is going to be delayed a little longer as this post was distracting my thoughts and wanting to be written!).
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This verse in Revelations was part of a recent Sunday morning sermon text. As the minister preached to us I kept thinking about the reality of Jesus.
His realness and 'aliveness'.
I feel like we often lose the sense of Jesus' real living presence.
When we talk about Him it can be what we know is true about Him, what we read about Him or what we have experienced of Him in the past. But how often is it of what we are experiencing now - this morning, this afternoon, last night or yesterday?
This was brought home to me recently when hearing some unwanted information about somebody.
The way this came about gave rise to deep feelings that I didn't contain well. In fact I am ashamed to say that my husband had to quickly shut our kitchen door so that the neighbour's children (who were playing outside our back gate) did not hear me.
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It was an hour or so later when listening to the singing of a hymn that I felt soothed.
I felt a sense of Jesus' peace in my heart as it went out to Him - Jesus, our pure and sinless Redeemer, our Refuge from the sins that seem all around us and in us.
My disturbed soul was quietened and comforted, my thoughts turned away from the information to experiencing the sanctuary found in Him.
As I sat thinking about this on that Sunday morning, thinking about how Jesus is alive today as much as ever He was, I thought back to the time when I first knew this, and then another time when I had heard sad, shocking news, but how different Jesus' realness had been to me then.
After first hearing the Lord breathe His words into my heart on 7th September 2009 I was filled with the joy that comes when you first believe and know that Jesus is real, that He is alive today.
I remember sitting at our piano that Sunday with my young nephew on my lap. Normally he would place his little hands on mine as I played, or make his own contributions to the notes he could reach from under my arms.
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This day he just sat in perfect stillness as I sang the words of 'The Saviour lives, no more to die' with complete conviction, my heart bursting to think and know that Jesus lives today to 'still my fears' and 'wipe away my tears'.
(Dear friend, have you ever known this realness? Do you long for it for yourself? Keep praying to Him to reveal Himself to you too, give Him no rest until you too can say with all your heart 'I know...' .)
But then some few weeks later I heard some tragic news. On that occasion my heart immediately flew to the Lord for refuge. A silent cry of bewilderment and sadness.
His comfort was immediate. It was as if He was standing near me telling me that He knew all about it and it was well with the one suddenly taken by death. I couldn't understand it, but I trusted Him and I was comforted despite the sadness I felt for those affected.
I remembered all this as I sat listening to our minister.
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I reflected on the contrast of the recent news I had received and this time - and others - back in those early days of first knowing the Lord.
I thought how then, my heart immediately went to the Lord in prayer. The immediate comfort.
I thought of now - how my thoughts were occupied with deep anger and grief not having the words to express them. I didn't go straight to the Lord to tell Him.
I was acting as if Jesus was at a distance. As if His Spirit wasn't present and alive in my heart.
And then I thought as I said at the beginning of how we seem to get into a way of talking about Jesus, of God, of what we know about Him, but not what we are experiencing of Him.
My sister and niece recently saw Princess Catherine at an event in London. They hadn't been expecting to see her and were surprised and delighted. Quickly the family WhatsApp group received a photo of what they were seeing and we wanted to know if they had talked to her.
What was she really like close-up? What did she say?
Photo by S.M.P.
We are interested in famous people to know what they are really like when we interact with them.
What about Jesus?
As followers of Jesus don't we want to know more of what He is like?
Yes we are so blessed with His Words, the Bible, but it made me think - what if I were to say to other fellow believers, has Jesus spoken to you recently?
What did He say? How did you feel?
Or, how has Jesus helped you and shown His love to you recently? What have you learnt about Him in this past week?
I wouldn't do this because I wouldn't want somebody to ask me such questions. I wouldn't want to so often ashamedly say I had been too distracted that day to hardly think of the Lord. I wouldn't want somebody else to feel I was judging and measuring how 'good' a Christian they are - I wouldn't want somebody to do that to me.
But how would we answer if somebody asked us when we last heard from Jesus or what we really know about him?
As I heard a Scottish minister once ask, how long would it take you to tell me all you know about Jesus? 5 minutes? One hour? Two hours?...
When we love somebody are we satisfied to only have them speak to us every few months or longer?
Don't we rather long for them to be in contact, miss them acutely when absent and spend much time thinking about them? We might write them messages, emails, notes, call them, visit them, and share how special they are with other people.
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When we have a problem don't we let them know as soon as we can so that they can help us and give us advice? Don't we want to let them know when we have a particular joy that we want to share with them?
The knowledge of having such a loved one can keep our spirits up when disaster strikes knowing we have them to go to. We may tell our friends, "It'll be okay, XX will help me". And then later we might tell them how good that loved one was in all they did for us.
What a contrast to how we so often treat our Lord Jesus. It is almost as if we sometimes forget or don't truly believe that He is really alive today. That He is God Almighty.
It reminds me of Asaph's Psalm when God laments that His ancient people would not listen to Him, and says how He would have helped them,
'Oh that my people had hearkened unto me...I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries...He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee' (Psalm 81:11-16)..
Think of it - 'honey out of the rock'!
Life sustaining sweetness and reviving from our Heavenly Rock, the Lord Jesus.
Or if you think of a rock literally, the last thing you would expect to get from such a hard, inanimate object would be life giving honey. But God can bring life and sweetness in the most impossible of situations.
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But thankfully, the life of our souls isn't left to us. Our relationship with Jesus isn't orchestrated and kept alive by us.
The Bible tells us, '...none can keep alive his own soul' (Psalm 22:29). If it weren't for God's eternal grace and love to His children we would never come to Him and soon forget Him.
But Jesus says through the prophet Isaiah that, 'I will not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me' (Isaiah 49:15,16).
We are so precious to Him and so eternally safe that the Apostle Paul confidently tells the Philippian church, 'he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ' (Philippians 1:6) - a confidence which is also expressed in the Psalms, 'The LORD will perfect (or complete) that which concerneth me' (Psalm 138:8).
For as Jesus says in this chapter in Revelations, 'I am alpha and omega, the beginning and the end'.
May we be encouraged today as we think how, despite our so often neglecting the Lord, He will never let His children go.
But may we exhort each other and remind ourselves, that Jesus tell us to abide (live/rest/stay close) in him (John 15:4) and we are told that when we draw near to Him He draws near to us (James 4:8). How wonderful and loving! He is never 'out of reach' however far off we may feel or however tempted we are that He doesn't hear us.
But how can we abide more?
Let us pray that the Lord will 'quicken' or stir up our spirits in more hunger and thirst for Him.
May He increase our desire to 'find Him' and know Him.
May He increase our desire to see Him in His Word which He has given us and all round us in His creation and in other believers who are blessed with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
May these desires be seen working in us so that we more often pick up our Bibles and meditate on what we read there, more often lift our hearts to Him in prayer, and more often talk of Him to each other.
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I recently had the following quote shared with me and I think it summarises so nicely:
Be much alone with God, and take time to get thoroughly acquainted. Converse over everything with Him. Unburden yourself wholly - every thought, feeling, wish, plan, doubt - to Him...He wants not merely to be on good terms with you, but to be intimate. (Horatius Bonar)
If we are in such frequent contact with our Lord, what a witness it will be to those around us that Jesus is alive. Our complete satisfaction from our relationship with Him and our knowledge and experience of Him will be as was said of the disciples, 'they took note that they had been with Jesus' (Acts 4:13).
May the Lord bless us in our seeking and finding Him this day and onwards.
May we be helped to tell those around us how precious He is to us, and may our lives silently witness that we believe Jesus is alive today and evermore.
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