The earth is the Lord’s
The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.
2 For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.
3 Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place?
4 He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.
5 He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.
6 This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. Selah.
7 Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
8 Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.
9 Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
10 Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah.
Friends,
This is a short blog to encourage you that the earth does not belong to the enemy of our souls nor those who have allowed evil and perverted ideology of domination and hubris to capture their souls.
I am reminded of how after Jesus was baptized in the Jordan by John the Baptist the last of the Hebrew Bible prophets, God said of him, “This is my Beloved Son hear ye him.” Then a new world dawned. Everyone there in attendance would have heard in this declaration, a reiteration of the narrative of creation, wherein out of the waters, chaos, darkness and void God said, “Let there be” and there was in the beginning of creation, at the Genesis of time and space in the earth..
Out of the waters of baptism, the same Holy Spirit that hovered over the face of the deep in the beginning, and the same voice of God that said, “Let there be” joined with the Incarnate Word, who was God was with God and was God, and who came into the world as the light of humanity, was embodied in Jesus at his baptism.
Jesus baptism by John was the beginning of the restoration of all things to “good".” When God in the beginning said of all the God created, “that’s good.”
When Jesus ascended from the waters of baptism and God made his pronouncement a new world order was indeed being established. Jesus was then led into the wilderness to create a new narrative different from that of the first earthlings, driven from the Garden of Eden, because of their knowledge and participation in evil.
The scriptures say (Luke 4: 1-14) that after the dawning of a new world order in Jesus’ baptism, he was then led by the Spirit into the wilderness for the express purpose of demonstrating that he was a new kind of human being, not tempted by power, lust and temptation to stray from ultimate purpose.
The enemy the devil, the one that perverts and twists God’s good with deception, making humanity prey to his own flawed ideology of being God, his “I will ascend and become God” mentality, found that Jesus did not consider it robbery to be God. Jesus knew who his was. The devil was no match for the Incarnate Word, the one who was and is the beginning and the end. Jesus was not corruptible. The devil couldn’t trap Jesus with his age old deception. Jesus knew that he was God and the substance of who God was, yet he would humble himself and take on the form of a humanity become a servant, obedient to God even unto death to crush the serpent head, and free all humanity from the sting of death by his resurrection..
For the first time ever in reading the passage on the temptation of Christ I noticed the ending phrase of this segment of scripture, “The devil left him and waited for another opportune time.” Listen people the age old tactic of deception and temptation is at play in the world today. The enemy is not creative and has no creative power. The enemy can only corrupt the truth and twist good, perverting what is good, lovely and pure. And, we are seeing this age old deception at play in the world today. And, it is frightening to see that there are human beings who, like the enemy want to ascend and be God.
But, be encouraged, friends, as the ol’ folks used to say, God is still on the throne. In Christ we are a new species of humanity. In Christ we demonstrate the power and the glory of God. We have overcome the enemy by the word of our testimony and the blood of the lamb. Hallelujah! Why do the nations rage and set themselves against God and God’s Christ. Why do they imagine a vain thing.—-a thing that will come to naught?
Ultimately the King, the God of all gods and wanna be gods, will vanquished all the wanna be gods. The King of glory has and will come upon the earth to reign. Who is this King of Glory, the Lord strong and mighty, might in battle against sin, evil, injustice and all those who have adopted the counter narrative to the divine narrative. The big lie, the lie of the devil, that instead of being God-like and made in the image of God and given the commission to imitate God and God’s Christ in the world, they will ascend to be God.
Hear me All the other gods and wanna be god are no gods. And, any one who what’s to dominate and rule over all the earth and make slaves of humanity will be uprooted by the creator of heaven and earth God’s Christ, Jesus the new prototype of humanity, the uncorruptible Word of the living God.
So, lift up your heads, beloved people of God. This wars and rumors of war, are birth pangs of the advent of the rule of God in the earth, the birth pangs of the eternal kingdom of of God and good the dawning of a new world order, the restoration of the world to good And, in Christ we are the purveyors of this everlasting kingdom of light, goodwill, justice and mercy in the earth. You are the light of the world. You are salt and light. Order your thoughts around this truth. God is good and good will ultimately prevail. Amen and Amen.
Love,
Pastor jen