Apples and Trees part 3
Sometimes, in order to know where you're going, it's important to know where you've been. A big part of this abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life is enjoying the journey. But, as the song says, "How can I be lost, if I've got nowhere to go?" If you feel like you're stuck, like you're not moving forward... that's a miserable place to be. In the same manner, in order to know who you are, it's important to know WHO you came from. I think it's so interesting that when you look at the chronicles of the kings of Isreal and Judah, it always came back to one of two things; either the current king DID or DIDN'T follow in the foot steps of, "David his father." Which is NOT to say that David was the physical father of each and every king. But which IS to say that he was, in a sense, the spiritual father of all the kings. Solomon was the people's choice, but David was GOD'S choice. David was where the DNA of the king came from. And your DNA goes a big way in defining who you are. I'm not arguing nature vs nurture--I think both are important--I'm simply saying the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And if you know where you came from, you can have a reasonable idea of where you're going. If you know who your Daddy is, then you can identify yourself as His Son. Let me say it this way: since you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God... if you want to find your life you need to know where to look for it. Instead of looking for love in all the wrong places we can go straight to the source. Not just a God who loves you, but a God who IS love. Not an angry taskmaster who is always waiting for you to mess up so He can get you, but a loving heavenly Father who, on the cross, GOT you! On the cross God conformed us to the image of His Son. He showed us who He is. And by doing so He showed us who we are! No longer do we have to try to follow in our Father's foot steps (like all of those kings of old--some followed in David's foot steps, most didnt, and even those who DID still failed a lot of the time). Now we can rest in our Father's loving arms. We don't have to earn His love. We know that He loves us and is well pleased with us. Check out Deuteronomy 32:9-10, "For the LORD'S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye." When we were wandering in the wilderness, God was in Christ reconciling us back to Himself. He was gathering us under His wings. When the heaven and the earth (the mind and the body... YOU!) was dark and void and without form, He said, "Let there be light!" And when that light of the world began to shine--on us, and in us, and through us--we began to see things clearly. We began to stop running FROM Him and started running TO Him. We began to understand who we really are, and where (WHO) we really came from. And that revelation literally brings the power of life. A life of purpose. A life... of love!