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| Ayles Creek that runs through Celo Mountain Lands, near Mt. Celo Church |
God's Call - My Lessons, Applications and Contemplations From Today's Readings
Worshipping in Spirit and in Truth - (2 Sam 1 and 2 and John 4) - In John 4, Jesus is prophesying to the Samaritan woman at the well. When she says that the Samaritan fathers worshipped on the mountain and the Jews in Jerusalem, Jesus says, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." This was the strength of David. He knew God intimately and worshipped Him - sang, praised, thanked, prayed, lived moment by moment making inquiry of the Lord, living according to the truth of the Law and Word he had been given. In moments of triumph, in tragedy, in exile, in war, in peace, in the baseness of sin...David continually sought the Lord's advice, listened to it, followed it, and praised Him for it. On the rare occasion David sinned, he humbled himself before God, confessed his sin, repented and changed the course of his life, loving God even more for the grace and mercy he was shown. Luke 7:47 speaks of this grateful soul who is forgiven many sins, because of the spirit within that person that loved much.
My Lessons and Applications: This is, I believe, what Samuel meant in 1 Sam 13:14 (and Paul in Acts 13:22) when Samuel told Saul that the kingdom was torn away from him, for the LORD has sought out (David), a man after His own heart." In essence, a man of unwavering, persevering faith in God - who believed in (and whose life exemplified) the Sovereignty and Providence of God, whose heart was humanly fallible to the point of murder covering the sin of adultery, but whose spirit soared above that groveling earthly level to paeans of praise, adoration, thanksgiving of the truth of God's mercy, grace, and love of this creature man...of Holy God deigning to intervene time after time to call us back to Himself in a heart-to-Heart relationship for all eternity. There have been many times in my life when I felt God calling to me to pray all 150 Psalms aloud to Him, giving voice to what my own soul was aching to make known to Him. This was not only worship of Him but was laying my life, soul, and spirit open to God - in all its beauty and ugliness - exposing to his searching Spirit all that He needed to reveal to me. It is what deep meditation of the Word of God does for me as well - puts me on another plane - communing with God through my spirit and His Spirit about His revealed truth.
Contemplation: Do you remember Jack London's book, The Call of the Wild? Buck, the dog, was answering to the base call of the uncivilized instinct within him - shades of Darwin, Nietzsche - for survival and mastery. God calls us upward - to the heights of His Spirit within us, placed there, chosen, before the foundation of the world. Jesus said in John 10:27-30, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me."
"There comes the baffling call of God in our lives also. The call of God can never be stated explicitly; it is implicit. The call of God is like the call of the sea, no one hears it but the one who has the nature of the sea in him. It cannot be stated definitely what the call of God is to, because His call is to be in comradeship with Himself for His own purposes, and the test is to believe that God knows what He is after. The things that happen do not happen by chance, they happen entirely in the decree of God. God is working out His purposes." My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers
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