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Saturday, January 28, 2023

A Child’s Security in a Father’s Unchangeableness


When my attachment light broke as a child, it was in the “on” position. It got stuck that way. For decades, it never shut off. For others, their attachment light was off when it broke and they not only do not know how to attach but have no felt-need to do so. 

Over the decades I have learned these two things (among others, of course): first, that trying to meet my deepest attachment needs with people is hopeless. Not that it doesn’t happen for fleeting moments, or even in very sweet experiences of togetherness, but we simply do not know when someone will change their minds. 

The greatest attachment-pain is not when people are unwilling to attach to us, but that people who have attached to us, and have let our hearts warm up to the experience that they want to be in our lives, can change their minds at any time and for any reason. To lose an attachment is far more painful than not having one to begin with. 

Second, it has become very clear to me that God’s attachment light is always “on”, but not the way it was with mine. My attachment-light was on like a metal detector always looking for the treasure of attachment with someone. God’s attachment light is on like life being lived, like a beacon of love always wanting to bless any recipient with the fullness of life. 

This morning, as I was processing some broken attachments, telling Father all my messed-up and childish thoughts about how I was doing, I suddenly rounded a bend on this trail of grief and came to a viewpoint looking out over the beauty of the heart of God. And what I saw in God was PERMANENCE! 

The word that popped into my head was, “IMMUTABILITY”! Immutable means unable to be changed. God, in every facet of his character, personality, and beingness, cannot change, and cannot be changed. If he says he is something, he is permanently something. Who he is is always who he is! 

If Father-God says he is love, he is always love and cannot be changed from being love to any sliver or degree of change anyone could imagine or accuse. If he says he is good, there is never a time where he changes into someone who is not so. When he says he is holy, he never relates to us in unholiness. And, when God says he is truth, and his word is truth, and the Word is THE truth, and his Spirit is the Spirit of truth, he is telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me… Well, it kind of would be silly to finish the thought, wouldn’t it? 

My point is that in each attribute, characteristic, or personality trait of God’s being, he doesn’t change. If we attach to him by faith, and faith alone, not relying one smidgeon on anything good in us, we are his and his forever because he doesn’t change. 

So, what happens when an attachment-light-always-on brokenhearted child comes to the attachment-light-always-on beloved Father complaining to him of the cruel ways people afflict attachment-pain on our broken hearts? 

Answer: the Father who never changes minsters the best and most comforting changes to us so that, on any given day, we can be a bit more like him than we were the day before. We can welcome change in us because there is no change in him. We can enjoy getting to know him better knowing that he is not getting better by the way we know him. With God as our Father in heaven, we’ve got it as good as it can get, albeit with our experience of knowing God getting better every day! 

God himself appeals to our broken and insecure hearts from his word. He calls to us: 

God is not man, that he should lie,

    or a son of man, that he should change his mind.

Has he said, and will he not do it?

    Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?[1] 

This is the kind of assurance God has always given his children, that he cannot change. He does not make promises only to tease us. He doesn’t give us his best intention at one time only to find he didn’t really want to do that for us when another time comes. He doesn’t think up good plans for us and then come up with something better at a later time, or decide to do that good thing for someone else instead of us. God in his beingness and his personhood and his promises simply cannot change! He is IMMUTABLE! 

We are all familiar with people giving us their word. In fact, so much of our attachment-pain happens when people break their word. Their promise to be there for us is broken because they changed their minds and are convinced that changing the status of our relationship is justified. 

But what about when God gives his word? Everything is different then. What he says, that is what he does. Consider this beautiful expression of assurance: 

So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us.[2] 

This is another viewpoint that could take pages of worship and praise to speak of it all, but the big-picture wonder of it is that God not only cannot change (and he himself knows his own unchangeableness), but he knows we are weak-minded children. He knows we are beat-up by the changeableness of man and the deceptions of the world, the flesh, and the devil. He knows that we are lied to left, right, and center by the father of lies and his servants (and victims). He knows we are rejected, disowned, and forsaken. Jesus himself was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, not only for what he went through while here in his ministry, but for what he feels us going through in this sin-cursed world. 

The fact is that God’s character is unchangeable, but God knows we do not know that. God felt a desire to show his children “more convincingly… the unchangeable character of his purpose,” and so, even though he knew he would never change or break his promise, he still did something that was all for us, he “guaranteed” his promise “with an oath”. 

So now we have “two unchangeable things”. What are they (I mean, aside from the fact that “it is impossible for God to lie”)? The “two unchangeable things” are that God made an unchangeable promise and confirmed it by an unchangeable oath. At the time, God had already promised Abraham that he would have an heir. But then he swore an oath as well, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.”[3] 

Although we may need to take a tour through history to see how God’s promise to Abraham relates to everyone who believes in Jesus Christ, the promises to us who trust in Jesus for salvation are just as much promised and sworn by God so that we have no reason to doubt they are true for everyone who truly believes. 

How would we summarize God’s promise to those who believe in his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord? Well, let me present it in God’s own words: 

Jesus said, “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”[4] 

The messengers of the good news about Jesus said things like this, “To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”[5] 

One of the most well-known promises of God regarding salvation is expressed in this way, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”[6] 

The reason I began with honesty about my experiences of the painful changeableness of people is to testify that God is not only wonderfully unchangeable, but he faithfully ministers to people like me who have been shaken by many debilitating experiences of attachment-pain. He invites us to himself in utter honesty about how we are doing because HE is the one who does not change, making him the ONLY ONE who can change us for good. 

Last night I was adding photos to a memory book (likely the reason my morning began as it did). I was overwhelmed with feelings of grief and bewilderment at the way relationships can change for the worse, and by loved ones quite willing to change them. I had no idea that my Father in heaven was letting me feel that Deeper to prepare me for the Higher he had waiting for me this morning. The brokenness of attachment-pain in me is met by the blessing of attachment-love from God my Father through attachment-love with Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior through the attachment-love ministry of the Holy Spirit of God. They are my three witnesses that in the constantly changing roller coasterness of my heart, I am theirs forever. And because of that, and even more because of them, my heart feels peace and rest that is their real gift of unchanging grace no matter what is waiting for me in the changes of today.

 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 



[1] Numbers 23:19

[2] Hebrews 6:17-18

[3] Hebrews 6:14 (the immediate context is Hebrews 6:13-20 in the greater context of Hebrews 6:1-20)

[4] John 6:40

[5] Acts 10:43

[6] John 3:16

Monday, January 23, 2023

The Upward Focus That Keeps us from Getting Down

One thing I have got in trouble for over the years is not setting up support groups for peoples’ pet sins. I have been accused of denying my own problems because I don’t put them on a pedestal and worship my efforts to topple them. 

Ah, yes, I do have feelings about such things! 

However, here is why I don’t make pet sins the focus, and here is how to get free of pet and besetting sins: 

“One thing have I asked of Yahweh, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of Yahweh all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of Yahweh and to inquire in his temple.” 

We have likely heard the saying that you don’t stop thinking of a black horse by focusing on not thinking of a black horse since a black horse will be all you are thinking about! 

So too, we don’t stop our pet-sins by focusing on getting rid of our pet sins. We aren’t told to stop living in the flesh by trying to stop living in the flesh! 

What we are told is that, if we set our minds on the Spirit instead of the flesh, we will experience the Spirit’s righteousness, peace, and joy. As David would concur, when we “gaze upon the beauty of Yahweh,” and we “inquire in his temple,” and we “seek first the kingdom and the righteousness of God,” and we fix our minds on things above where the heavenly Zion magnifies our Savior, always walking by the Spirit, we simply will “not gratify the desires of the flesh.” 

I believe that we can experience daily freedom from sin as we focus on our Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord, and so many scriptures attest to this. Here’s just one more: 

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” 

Lay aside the weights and sins (instead of setting up a support group to focus on them), keep “looking to Jesus”, and run the race with perseverance. It works as long as we maintain our focus and keep our eyes on the prize.

 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

Saturday, January 21, 2023

Summoned by Creator God

 

THERE ARE so many times when I meditate on God’s word that he shows me something that changes my mind for the rest of my life. Sometimes it is an abrupt about-face that leaves me letting go of a wrong belief to receive what is true. But most often it is an addition to the journey that gives me an awareness of something that will always be with me, a facet of wisdom and knowledge that will now influence everything I see and experience. 

THIS MORNING, it was the description of God as, “The Mighty One, God Yahweh,” who “speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting.”[1] 

I GET that beginning this song with “The Mighty One” sets the stage, so to speak, for all that follows. Every prop, every scene, and every act, is what it is because Yahweh God is the Mighty One, the One and Only. Whatever we are told about him is supreme because of who he is. Period. No exceptions. No challengers. Utterly unstoppable in being himself and doing his will. 

TO THEN picture Yahweh God as the Mighty One who “SUMMONS” the whole world of humanity, and discover that the meaning of “summons” is, “to authoritatively communicate a demand for the presence or participation of”[2], tells me that every day of our lives, everything we see from God’s glorious creation, every time we notice the sun, or the moon, or the stars, or the mountains, or the oceans, or the trees, or the creatures of land, sea, and air, we are seeing and hearing a summons that has the authority of Yahweh God behind it. 

SINCE, THEN, Almighty God is summoning us with authority, and he is doing this all day long, around the whole planet, following the journey of the sun from every minute degree of rising to setting, what is the summons? Is it the encouraging summons of Yahweh Father God calling his beloved children to delight in him for our good and his glory, or is it the terrifying summons of the Judge of the whole earth who sees the sinful things man is doing and is calling us to account? After all, the Almighty God, Yahweh, is both Father and Judge. 

AT THIS POINT, answering that question would cheat us out of a viewpoint in the trail that has something to offer if we will stop and consider this view before seeing what is next. And this viewpoint makes us look directly into the eyes, and heart, and mind, of Almighty God Yahweh and let it sink in that he is the reason we stand at attention to his summons. 

YES, THAT IS IT! Almighty God, Yahweh, Jesus Christ, the Holy One, is all the reason we need to acknowledge the summons of the Triune and stand quietly before the Father and the Son in anticipation of what they have chosen to say every day of our lives. 

AND THE ONLY thing that matters here is whether we are summoned to them as their beloved children or their despised enemies. 

AFTER ALL, if we come before the Almighty Triune God as his enemy, with a stubborn, stiff-necked, and rebellious heart to remain so, all the glory and goodness he has revealed through his word and his creation is an indictment on us that we are without excuse.[3] However they judge us will be terrifyingly just. 

AT THE SAME TIME, if we come before the Triune God as his beloved children, and the awareness of his summons through his word and creation causes us to feel the fear and trembling they are due,[4] and fills us with the reverence and awe that belong to them alone,[5] whatever they must say to us will be agapè-hesed-love telling us the truth. Whether affirmations of our growth in righteousness, or condemnations of our sins and transgressions, God’s summons will be love and kindness bringing us home to the heart of our Savior. 

I ANTICIPATE that this journey through Psalm 50 will speak in so many ways of the glory of the God who summons us that I can rest today in the viewpoint Yahweh God has drawn me into, and I can enjoy the blessing and satisfaction of knowing that I know him better today than I have ever known him before. And that, while knowing I will be further along the trail tomorrow!

 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

 



[1] Psalm 50:1

[2] Bible Sense Lexicon from Logos Bible Systems

[3] Romans 1:20 (in context of Romans 1:18-32, which appears to be an amazing commentary on Psalm 50!)

[4] Philippians 2:12-13, Psalm 2:11

[5] Hebrews 12:28

Friday, January 20, 2023

My Morning Tapestry


I love the imagery of God constantly weaving a tapestry before my eyes so that whatever I am going through is incorporated into whatever he is speaking to me about so I can clearly know his will, at least for the moment of my present experience. 

Here are some snippets of the threads God wove together this morning: 

We have thought on your steadfast love, O God,
    in the midst of your temple.
[1] 

Steadfast love is the Hebrews word “hesed”. It is synonymous with the Greek “agapè” love of the New Testament. God brings us into his temple (both our own bodies and the body of Christ) to continuously think about his love. 

In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.[2] 

That is just one of the many thoughts of God’s agapè-hesed-love, that it originates in God and was settled in his will before creation. But that reminded me of what Paul said to introduce this paragraph: 

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,”[3] 

I smiled as I realized that what Paul was doing in Ephesians 1, things I have read so many times, was calling us to: 

Walk about Zion, go around her,
    number her towers,
consider well her ramparts,
    go through her citadels,
that you may tell the next generation
  that this is God,
our God forever and ever.
    He will guide us forever.
[4] 

What Psalm 48 was picturing for me of Mount Zion on earth helped me to see what Paul and the other apostles and prophets were doing to help me picture the Mount Zion of heaven.

 

Which then wove into my starting place from a number of weeks ago: 

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.[5] 

All these threads tell me to remember who and whose I am, and to let my mind walk around Mount Zion marveling at the citadels and fortresses and strongholds that all express that God himself is our refuge and strength, our very present help in trouble.[6] 

Even in grief and sorrow, and even in the horrible mess of this evil world, I am to set my mind on things above while knowing that God is fully attached to what I am going through as he leads me into what he has planned for my good.

 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)



[1] Psalm 48:9

[2] Ephesians 1:5-6

[3] Ephesians 1:3

[4] Psalm 48:12-14

[5] Hebrews 12:22-24

[6] Psalm 46:1

On This Day: "The Delights of Considering God"

 


© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)


Thursday, January 19, 2023

On This Day: "Forever"


 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

To Hear, to See, and to Hope


After a rough night, I came to Psalm 48 again planning to continue in this verse: 

“We have thought on your steadfast love (hesed), O God,
    in the midst of your temple.” 

I believe this is to be the way of the church, to constantly think about, and talk about, and praise God for, his agapè-hesed-love. I have so often seen church-folk argue against God’s love for them when it is so clearly revealed in the gospel. But I am so mindful of both the Enemy Mode experiences of the past, along with the Relational Mode opportunities before us.

 

However, as I read through Psalm 48 again, wondering what new things God had in mind for me, he stopped me on this verse: 

“As we have heard, so have we seen
    in the city of Yahweh of hosts,
in the city of our God,
    which God will establish forever.” 

First, I gravitated to the expression, “as we have heard, so we have seen”. It pictures people who had not only heard of God’s glorious works on behalf of his people in the past, but in their lifetime had also seen these works for themselves. That is what I want for us. I want to see the freedom in Christ I have heard about, and the Experiencing God stories I have heard about, and the promises of God, and the kind of revivals others have experienced. This verse is telling me to seek this reality. 

Second, I was drawn into the past, present, future, aspects of this while considering that the Hebrew mind thought in terms of things being complete or incomplete. For us westerners, the past is what they heard, the present is what they had personally witnessed in their time, and the future was the eternal establishment of Mount Zion. For the Jews, the writers had experienced a sense of completeness in that the things they had heard of Yahweh’s blessings on his people had been fulfilled/completed in their lifetime, and there was a sense that it was not yet complete that Mount Zion would be established forever. 

I think today is about marveling. We are to marvel at the testimonies of Mount Zion in the Scriptures, especially the psalms, as they show our Gentile minds what is now our heritage in Christ. We combine this with our awe and wonder at the imagery of Hebrews 12 where we presently come to Mount Zion in the kingdom of God as we let our hearts embrace what is ours in Christ even while we cannot fully fathom it at all. And we give deep and rich and meaningful thought and pondering of the hope-filled pictures of Revelation showing us the New Jerusalem in its perfection, giving us a symbolic representation of the glories of the new heavens and the new earth as our eternal Jerusalem, the Mount Zion that is established forever. 

And this morning I simply know in a fresh way (Higher-and-Deeper) that I can come to Mount Zion as I am, no pretending, dealing with whatever is in my heart, and I can think about the agapè-hesed-love of God that is mine as our God reigns from the throne of Mount Zion.

 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: "To Hear, to See, and to Hope"

 



© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)


Tuesday, January 17, 2023

On This Day: "God's Thoughts About My Thoughts of Him"

 



© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)


Monday, January 16, 2023

On This Day: "The God Who is With Me"

 


© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)


Friday, January 13, 2023

The Now and Then of the Children of God

One of the things I have really appreciated about meeting with my heavenly Father in the mornings is his determination to show me that his side of the relationship is constant and unwavering no matter how much my feelings are like a rollercoaster of never-ending ups-and-downs. In fact, it often seems that the more honest I am about the Deeper of how poorly I am doing when I awake, the more glorious the Higher is when God makes his word known to me in the most real and personal of ways. 

This morning was no exception to this. I was thoroughly honest with God (without belaboring how I was feeling) and came to him with the boldness that honors him even when I am struggling. I approached him with an expression of dependence that it is up to him how my time with him turned out, and he opened the eyes of my heart to come to know him by experience in a wonderfully new facet of what it means to come to Mount Zion.[1] 

It began here: 

Within her citadels God

    has made himself known as a fortress.[2] 

This is the way I have known God for the past three decades, that my coming to him every day is coming into the fortress of God himself, the one place and the one person who is always happy to see me, always forgiving of my sins, always wanting the absolute best for me. 

Then I continued on with the next verse: 

For behold, the kings assembled;

    they came on together.[3] 

I spent some time considering how things look under the new covenant when there are really no physical protections in place as there were under the old covenant, and there are no promised earthly blessings as there were under God’s covenant with Israel.[4] 

This led to a deep appreciation for how Jesus’ first coming contrasts with his second coming, and the parallel between what the church looks like now in the world with what it will look like at and after Jesus’ return. 

In summary, Jesus’ first coming was quiet, humble, and unnoticed, leaving only 120 disciples with whom he would build his church.[5] The second coming will be so brilliant, glorious, and visible, that the whole world know it is him and will mourn what they did to him. As it is written, “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.”[6] 

In a parallel way, the church during the church-age (between Jesus’ two comings) is unnoticed. It is persecuted because the world is blind to who we are. The media does not speak of the wonderful things Jesus does in his church. The nations do not speak of how Jesus transforms people out of their earthly religions into genuine relationship with God. But Jesus is quietly building his church without any fanfare. For now. 

But at his return, the trumpet will blast, the dead in Christ will be raised first, and Jesus’ angels will gather those believers who are alive at his return so that all God’s children will be taken up to be with Jesus as he comes down to judge the earth.[7] 

Which brought me to this expression that sums up what it is like to presently come to the Mount Zion of God’s throne-room while the world does not know we are doing so: 

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.[8] 

In the present time, believers coming to Mount Zion is invisible to the world. We suffer in this world because the world has no concept that they are defying the living God. Even those who do so blatantly do not really know with whom they have to do, and what a horror it will be to them when Jesus appears.[9] 

But what is coming is an experience of “the glory that is to be revealed to us,” and that glory includes “the revealing of the sons of God.” And we will be revealed to the enemies of God as every eye is on Jesus and his return, and the world in its terror and anguish and mourning sees who is gathered to join Jesus’ angels and come to be with him in judging the nations. And when all believers are standing there with Jesus, everyone will know who are the sons of God. 

I hope that gives a glimpse into what it felt like to come to Yahweh as my fortress this morning and be thoroughly and delightfully surprised to receive such treasures of wisdom and knowledge that cannot be found anywhere else or in anyone else. And all this was such a wonderful (and wonder-filled) gift to a child whose heart came to God unable to imagine how he would help me. But help me he did, and for that I give him praise!

 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

 



[1] My ongoing theme as of late based on Hebrews 12:18-25.

[2] Psalm 48:3

[3] Psalm 48:4

[4] Yes, there are promises to believers that apply to our earthly life, but the new covenant is not based on the same material blessings and curses that were clearly stipulated in the old covenant for the nation of Israel.

[5] Acts 1:15

[6] Revelation 1:7

[7] This is a mixture of the glorious thoughts revealed in Matthew 24:29-31, along with Paul’s teachings about the return of Christ in I Thessalonians 4:13-18. Together, they picture Jesus appearing in the clouds, the dead in Christ being raised, the angels gathering all the believers to be with the Lord as he continues to descend to the earth, believers being with our Savior as he judges all people, and then watching Jesus invoke the horrible and wonderful realities of the purging of the present heavens and earth and the making of the new heavens and earth  (Isaiah 65:17; 66:22; II Peter 3:11-13; Revelation 21:1).

[8] Romans 8:18-19

[9] Revelation 6:12-17 describes this horrible reality.

Monday, January 9, 2023

The Glorious Tapestry of the Pleasures of God

Yes, I know that people mock the very idea that the Bible is the word of God. And, yes, I know that people claim that king Darwin has dethroned the Creator with his fanciful fairy tales of the evolutionary religion. 

HOWEVER!!!!!!! 

While the blind lead the blind away from the glories of God’s word, the poor in spirit open the treasures of God’s wisdom and knowledge and are moved with awe and wonder at the splendors of their Father’s mind. 

One of the treasures of God’s Book that constantly delights me is the way he weaves his words together like the threads of a tapestry so that the combination exalts the big picture of history as God’s glorious work of making a people of his very own, his treasured possession, his beloved and cherished children, and, at the same time, the big picture of the tapestry draws attention to one thread after another so that the very intricacies of the connections glorifies God for so masterfully revealing himself through words, and by his Spirit, that we can feel the joy of knowing God as our God. 

Here is a glimpse into the way God masterfully wove together so many threads of wisdom and knowledge this morning that my praise to him had to be directed into praise about him. 

For a while, God has drawn my attention to a scene in the tapestry that is described as, But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem.”[1] This is written to Jesus’ church, the people of the new covenant. It is telling us that, while we face persecution and trouble in this world, we are not to think of God as some scary being that is totally unapproachable.[2] Instead, we are to see what Jesus has done for us in the new covenant and come before God in a way that is illustrated by God’s people coming to Mount Zion while under the old covenant.[3] 

This has taken me on a journey of following the “Mount Zion” thread from its first appearance in the tapestry all the way to the glorious scene I just mentioned, and even further into the final book of God’s word that gives such majestic and glorious revelations of the heavenly Jerusalem that will be the home of God’s children forever. 

Here are some other threads God wove together in my mind and heart so I could see the picture of what it means to come to Mount Zion today in the kingdom of God as illustrated by all the ways God made himself known through the Mount Zion of old. 

In the last couple of days, I have followed the “Mount Zion” thread into Psalm 48. There I read that Mount Zion is God’s “holy mountain, beautiful for elevation”. Both “holy” and “beautiful” indicate that Mount Zion, the place associated with God’s presence with his people, is set apart and exalted above and beyond any of the locations the nations use to worship their gods and idols. 

This thread wove into another that reminded me of the way “God has highly exalted” Jesus[4] so that the holy and beautiful elevation of Mount Zion includes the holy and beautiful exaltation of Jesus Christ our Lord. 

But then I noticed another thread attached to these others as it reminded me that God “raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”[5] This means that even while we are here on earth looking up to the Mount Zion of God’s presence in heaven, there is another side to this in the way we who are “in Christ” are raised up with him and seated with him in the heavenly places. Somehow, already, our spiritual position is at the foot of Mount Zion where Jesus is exalted, and we are seated with him at the right hand of the Father. 

These threads added another that reminded me that, “in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”[6] We do not let ourselves adjust our emotions to the evil of the world, but we attach to the realities of Mount Zion that is filled with joy because of the joyfulness of God, and where Jesus himself is seated at the right hand of God’s eternal pleasures giving real pleasure to his beloved brothers. 

As I pondered and meditated on this, considering how we are both living as “sojourners and exiles” in this world[7] while also seated with Christ in the heavenlies, I saw how this thread was woven all the way back to Abraham who lived in tents while “looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.[8] Abraham, the Father of our faith, lived like a stranger in the land that God has promised him, not looking only so far ahead as to consider the nation that would come from his son, but even further to the heavenly city he already knew was the focus of the story. 

And that led me to Paul talking about our earthly life as living in a tent,[9] just like Abraham, because this earth is not our home. This earthly body is not the one we live in for eternity (falling on the ice at public skating Friday has reminded me in new and painful ways that this body just ain’t what it used to be!). We will one day be clothed with immortality as we are given our resurrected bodies, and in that much superior version we will rejoice in heavenly joy forever.[10] 

The conclusion of all these threads weaving the picture God wants me to see right now is that everything he wants his children to think about in the darkness and evil of this world is that we are not coming to our nations, or our governments and leaders, or other world leaders and evil elites, but we are coming to the God who reigns from the heavenly Mount Zion where we are positionally seated with Christ in the most joyful and pleasurable place that exists. That is where we set our minds while the world’s evils try to wear us down. 

As the writer of Hebrews had already stated, 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses (like Abraham), let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.[11] 

There we have it: Jesus is seated at the right hand of the throne of God on Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the Great King, where we are seated with him, where the fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore pour into our hearts from above while we endure the darkness of this evil world below, and as we “consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself,” we will “not grow weary or fainthearted.”[12] 

And I trust that my considering of the Triune God of Mount Zion helps you in that direction as much as it has helped me.

 

© 2023 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

 

 

 

 



[1] Hebrews 12:22

[2] As described in Hebrews 12:18-21 when God came to Mount Sinai to give Israel the Law through Moses

[3] The rest of the scene is described in Hebrews 12:22-25 but my focus at this time is on the Mount-Zion thread

[4] Philippians 2:9-11

[5] Ephesians 2:6

[6] Psalm 16:11

[7] I Peter 2:11

[8] Hebrews 11:9-10

[9] II Corinthians 5:1-5

[10] Paul gives an extensive description of our resurrected bodies in relation to the resurrection in I Corinthians 15.

[11] Hebrews 12:1-2

[12] Hebrews 12:3