Gold, Clothes and Ointment

UV 570/10,000 Gold, Clothes and Ointment Revelation 3 v 18 “ I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.” Jesus is the Wonderful Counsellor. We need to lean or depend on His counsel and guidance. He counsels us to obtain from Him the faith that is needed for every day life. Faith is a gift. It is a precious gift of God that is purged and tested in the fire of experience and sometimes of suffering. Once we express our belief in Jesus, we should ask Him to give us the faith of Jesus. The faith of Jesus enabled Him to trust the Father and obey His will even unto death upon the Cross. It is a gift that we “buy” not in the sense that it will cost us something but we need to give a little faith in order to get even more back. The more of this tried “ gold” that we obtain, the more rich we will be towards God. It implies that we exercise our faith more and more in all areas of life be it in the areas of our physical well being, our family, our ministry, our relationships, our finances or our work. Faith is compared to gold for three reasons: one, that it needs to be tested to discover if it is truly gold, second, it needs to be purified in fire or experience to remove the dross or impurities that are mixed in it and third, it is compared to gold as faith like gold should be the most precious aspect or dimension of our lives. We will store and increase our treasure in Heaven thereby. He will also meet all our earthly need as we ask Him in faith. One effective way of buying more pure gold is to read, remember, reflect,obey, claim and proclaim more and more uni-verses or “rhema verses” or the Word that the Lord has spoken into our lives at diverse times. The “ white raiment” is a metaphor for a life of righteousness that we must be clothed with or covered with all the time. The shame of our past lives of sin must no longer make an appearance. We do not need to hide from God when Jesus appears at the second coming as Adam and Eve did to hide their nakedness, after the fall, from the Creator. Being clothed is to live a life imitating Christ in our priorities, attitudes, compassion,thoughts, words and actions. We do not take pride in wearing the Emperor’s new but imaginary clothes but the clothes lent to us by the King of Kings. Faith being compared to gold and righteous lifestyle to clothes in keeping with the truth that faith is the root of salvation while good deeds are the fruit of salvation. The “ eyesalve” symbolizes the anointing of the Holy Spirit who will guide us into all truth. A couple of years ago a tiny accidental scratch on my left eye cornea caused much pain, discomfort and blurred vision. My eye had to be bandaged and treated to restore full vision. Before we began to believe, our eyes were infected. Our vision was blurred. Now, we are given a divine ointment to heal our vision. We must no longer be short sighted or blind but truly have and utilize full spiritual vision or 20-20 vision. We should not wear the spectacles of the world or the law to be either worldly at the one extreme and “ holier than thou” or self-righteous, prejudiced, judgemental or legalistic at the other extreme. Jesus said that our eyes are the windows of light of our bodies. If our spiritual eyes are full of darkness, our lives will be bleak and dark. We must learn to look at people with the eyes of compassion of Jesus. Three things are needed, therefore: A fuller, richer and purer faith, a life of righteousness and complete vision to see and understand the things that are happening nearby in time and space and the things that are happening faraway beyond time and space and in the realms of heaven and eternity. Our spiritual vision will give us a connectivity between the immediate, the intermediate and the ultimate or eternal. Prateep V Philip