We find it is the journey itself, from Darkness to Light, is our calling in the Kingdom. Every king has a kingdom, and a kingdom means nothing without people. In Our Lord's Domain, people are the Kingdom. We are the land occupied by the Spirit, slowly domesticated, cultivated and turned to Kingdom use. The process of cultivation is our journey.
In a book about Biblical Literacy, you might ask why we have come this far without much digging into the Book itself. I have tried to make it as obvious as possible we are too far away from the Book. We have a long way to go to bring ourselves into the Land of the Spirit where the Book was published. The world has carried us far, far away from that Land, so very far away we cannot touch the Book. Yes, you can put a leather bound tome in your hand, read the words printed in ink on the fine paper, and pretend you understand what it says. You will even find in there sufficient clarity of truth to embrace Jesus Christ as your Savior. But you will hardly understand the full demands of the Cross until you see the world through His eyes. We have to come a long, long way away from our previous life, nailing the whole thing to the Cross, or we cannot see.
Let's travel away, back to that distant land and distant time. Just as the primary image God draws of Himself is that of desert nomad sheik, so we, His people, are drawn in this case as sheep and shepherds. What is the life of a sheep? Up at first light, filing out the holding pen, and into the pastures. Sheep generally do two things: eat and make more sheep. They produce wool for the growth of the Kingdom treasury, and some will sacrifice their lives for food.
Don't pretend you can nail all this down as some simple allegory, but absorb the whole picture. Is anyone in a hurry? Only to escape a threat. Most of the day is passed with quiet grazing and wandering about slowly. Now move up the picture a level, and consider the daily life of those earliest humans depicted in Genesis just after the Fall. These people were shepherds and farmers, and after such is the Kingdom modeled.
That image of a quiet, pastoral life is far removed from our world today. There is nothing in the Bible demanding you literally exchange your existence for that of a rural shepherd. What the Bible requires is you enter that world in your mind and heart. Move your mental habits to the Land of the Spirit, for which that pastoral scene is the very closest earthly manifestation.
Having a foot in both worlds, we would remain aware of the land where we have lived all our lives so far. We would also know that land is not our homeland. As the Spirit draws us back into our true Homeland of the Spirit, we increasingly reshape the habits of our hands and feet, of our very minds and patterns of thought. The healing peace of the Spirit means literally not caring much if we miss some tight schedule, so very important to those of this world. That world cannot distinguish between someone who is irresponsible and hedonistic, and those who are philosophical about things they don't control.
Service in the Kingdom cannot avoid putting you at odds with the world in which you live. Not merely the external habits of hands and feet, but the underlying valuation of what really matters, the orientation of mind which controls the hands and feet. This world chases and clings to things; we merely use them as borrowed tools. This world devotes huge budgets to organization, explanation, delineation, and precision. We devote all our resources to unfettered serendipity, incomprehensible, indefinable, and very broad commitments with little regard to precision as this world considers it. It's not that we don't understand the things of this world, but we do not value them so highly.
Until we are prepared to experience this world from the Spirit, rather like the huge difference between an advertising executive in a major corporation versus a shepherd or small farmer using strictly natural means and hand tools, we cannot fully grasp what it is we must nail to the Cross. Everything you have worked for, hoped and dreamed, is out the window. Jesus said He comes before careers, cars, homes, kids and even spouses. If you don't place them in His hands, prepared to let Him remove them from your life, you can't really face the Cross. From the very first calling in Scripture, the Call of Abraham, we see a radical demand. Moving Abram from the ancient urban wealth of Ur to the highlands of Canaan was rather like demanding you or I drop it all in the dumpster and become a hobo -- he became all the things his world despised.
While prepared to understand, and even use, the analytical logic of men around us, we realize it has severe limits. They know this world only as an experience and experiment. They sample reality and organize it thoroughly according to concepts of what it does and what it is -- being an doing are paramount to understanding the universe. We see how this falls far short of the Kingdom, where what matters most is loyalty to a Person. Nothing in Heaven is literal, precise, static and concrete. It is all symbolic, contextual, variable and alive. We own nothing, not even ourselves, and fully expect we understand nothing so well as it seems. We serve in the constant expectation of failure and doubt about ourselves, because only Our God is good, right and true. Human logic cannot grasp the whims of God, making the precise same thing evil in one context, and righteous in another. We trust wholly in Him, knowing He will correct our wrongs, even as we struggle to see and grasp His holiness and serve more faithfully. It matters not what we are or do, but to Whom we are committed, to Truth as a Person.
Behold your calling, Servant of the Most High God.
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By Ed Hurst
27 February 2009
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: People of honor need no copyright laws; they are only too happy to give credit where credit is due. Others will ignore copyright laws whenever they please. If you are of the latter, please note what Moses said about dishonorable behavior -- "be sure your sin will find you out" (Numbers 32:23)