When I was a child, there were times that my parents would go on a trip, leave me with my older sisters, and return with some sort of gift. On occasion, it might be just a part of a larger gift and I would have to find the other part. I remember being so excited, not only about the gift, but about the game of finding the missing item.
Once I got a new saddle, but where was the horse? Was I to have to wait until the next birthday or Christmas for a horse? My emotions were mixed. I was certainly satisfied with the saddle; I would shine it and keep it clean and shiny, but would I have to put my new saddle on one of my friends horses? I was content with the saddle, but the horse along with the saddle would have been frosting on the cake.
I remember my dad saying, “We have a gift to take to Mr. Lonnie. Come with me and bring your new saddle to show him. When we arrived, I saw something that was just too good to be true. Surely this was for me, or was I being presumptuous? I looked at Dad and looked at Mr. Lonnie. Both were smiling and it hit me that my dream had come true. The saddle was a teaser and the horse was beyond all my dreams. What an amazing dad I had.
Jesus said in Matthew 11:28 - “Come unto me all ye who labour and are heavy ladened and I will GIVE you REST; Take my yoke upon you and learn of me and you shall FIND REST unto your souls.” What an amazing God I have.
Since I was alienated from the life of God in Christ and since I was totally selfish by nature, coming to Christ, being born-again, saved, gave me rest with God. We might call it being at peace WITH God.
BUT that is just a teaser so to speak, as was the saddle and no horse. There had to be more.
But, Jesus said, “yoke up with me and learn of me” - put the saddle and the horse together and WOW! That is when you can ride with the wind. THEN is when we FIND rest for our MIND, WILL, and EMOTIONS.
Fare too many of us want to hang the saddle on the wall, look at it, talk about, and say “one day”...but that is as far as we get. We are as the children of Israel who spied out the land God promised them, but did not believe it was theirs THEN.
We have an inheritance reserved in heaven for us BUT HERE ON THIS EARTH AND IN THIS LIFE, we can not only have the saddle, but the horse. We can have the assurance that we will forever be with Jesus, but we can also enter our Canaan, a type of the believers rest that gives us the PEACE that passes all understanding, the POWER to affirm our faith in the RESURRECTED LORD JESUS, and the PURPOSE of a life guided and guarded by the Holy Spirit...NOW, until we get THERE to heaven.
It is not a matter of getting you into heaven, but it is God's way of getting heaven INTO you. Selah.
BLESSINGS!
Saturday, September 19, 2009
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