The Important Thing

Mark 12:29-31 (ESV Strong's)

29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

 1 Corinthians 13:13 (ESV Strong's)

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

John 13:35 (ESV Strong's)

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

1 John 4:16 (ESV Strong's)

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

Love poses a question we must all answer. The right answer is love. We receive God’s love by becoming His love. 

On My Holy Mountain

Joel 2:1-2 (ESV Strong's)

The Day of the Lord

1 Blow a trumpet in Zion;

sound an alarm on my holy mountain!

Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,

for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near,

2 a day of darkness and gloom,

a day of clouds and thick darkness!

Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains

a great and powerful people;

their like has never been before,

nor will be again after them

through the years of all generations.

The day of the Lord is centered in Zion and its people. This is the great and final tribulation of a nation that rejected God. The curses they entered due to rebellion against the commandments of God will be spent and that cup emptied out. 

A Pause

Revelation 8:1-5

The Seventh Seal and the Golden Censer

When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

We are in the pause in Revelation before the Lord’s judgement is poured out on the earth. The story of the chosen people of God is put on hold while the body of Christ takes shape and the Bride of Christ is fashioned. 

This is the time for invitations to the wedding banquet to be extended to all who would come. Israel declined when they received the first invitation. The door was opened to those beyond the house of Israel. They won’t make that same mistake again. 

Romans 11:11-12 (ESV Strong's)

Gentiles Grafted In

11 So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. 12 Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!

Matthew 22:8-10 (ESV Strong's)

8 Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’ 10 And those servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, both bad and good. So the wedding hall was filled with guests.

Revelation Letters- Greetings To The Seven Churches

Revelation 1:4-8 (ESV Strong's)

4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood 6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. 7 Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

In this passage we receive a greeting from the Three Persons of the one God, the Almighty who is the beginning and the end of man, and His Spirit who brings us this message. We’ve seen Him in the form of a man whose blood was spilled on our behalf, cleansing us from sin and making the Church a kingdom of priests. This is the kingdom of heaven which is manifest by His presence with and in us. 

Revelation Letters- Prologue

Revelation 1:1-3 (ESV Strong's)

1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

Jesus sends the Holy Spirit, His Angel, to John to show what will take place in the future. The Spirit bears witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ because He was the Spirit of Jesus. In the Church letters that follow we are told to listen to what the Spirit says. It is the Lord who speaks. 

Blessed are those who hear and keep what is written in these letters that will follow. 

What The Lord Wants

Micah 6:8 (ESV Strong's)

He has told you, O man, what is good;

and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?

The Hebrew word translated as “require” is more often translated as “seek.” The Lord is seeking the righteousness that comes from obedience to Him. He is looking for more than mental assent in belief. He is looking for the action that flows from one who lives in obedience to Him. 

The Hebrew word translated as “justice” is often translated as “manner.” His word has brings us into salvation and prescribes how we are to live in response to His gift of life. We are to live in a manner that reflects this new life. 

“To love kindness” implies in the Hebrew that we return the love we have received from the Lord. He has extended His mercy and favor to a people who deserve neither. We do so by loving Him with all that we are. 

“To walk humbly with your God” essentially means letting Him lead all the way in the journey before us. He knows the way and is our destination. 

The Lord seeks those who love Him by obeying His commandments and following where He leads. In New Testament terminology we would call this discipleship. He is our Teacher and destination. He is our beginning and the end. 

Our Confession

Psalms 31:5 (ESV Strong's)

Into your hand I commit my spirit;

you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.

This is the confession and reality of everyone in the body of Christ. He has freed us from our servitude to death and will deliver us into the fullness of His life. 

We can say this at our rebirth into His life. 

We can say this when we pass through the death from this life on earth. 

It is a continuation of the same experience and promise. 

Those in Christ are in the hand of the Lord. He has reached down from heaven with His strong and mighty arm and placed us in His palm. Let us take joy in His refuge of peace.