UV 2896/10000 The Universal Gap
For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him.
Job 23 v 14
In this world, we face an universal gap- the gap between our dreams and our achievements, the gap between our words and our deeds, the gap between our thoughts and our actions, the gap between our intentions, feelings and reactions, the gap between goals and realization, the gap between people or in relationships. Whatever man generally aims for, there is a gap or hamartia between aim and achievement or performance but the Lord always fulfils His purpose fully. We need His grace to fill the gaps in our lives, the gaps in our character, the gaps in our relationships, the gaps in our goal-achievement graphs. Jesus is the only One who can stand in the gap between God and man and fill it. His grace is sufficient to fill all the other gaps in our lives.
The Lord has performed, performs and will perform His promises to us. His promises are His appointments that He has held in store for us. Unless we believe in these precious promises, unless we claim these promises, we cannot experience and proclaim either His grace or His glory. He is not like a man who does not fulfil his promises. Scripture says that in respect of His word and promises, God is not a liar and His hand is not too short. He is able to do that which He promised- namely, to save us, to deliver us, to lift us, to use us to prove His own greatness. His ways are too deep and complex for us to discern at one go but He will reveal what He has appointed for us over our lifetime as we hold onto our faith. Nobody can thwart the fulfilment of His promises to us. The Lord has appointed many things in our lives that are beyond our senses, thoughts, imagination, expectation. As we cling to the promises of the Lord, He will reveal these wonderful plans. His plans are not only deeper than we can fathom, they are bigger and higher than we can imagine or perceive. We need to wait on Him to unroll or unpack it in His time, in His inimitable style.
Everyone needs a promised land, a promised Saviour and a promised life. The hope that these three provide for us is like the life-sustaining oxygen that is released to all parts and cells of our being from the haemoglobin that is bonded with oxygen in our blood. Faith is like the heart that keeps pumping love and hope to all parts of our being. Like the blood that is deoxygenated and has to be renewed with a cellular load of oxygen again, our faith needs to be continually renewed. While the Lord is interested in the end results, He is also engaged with the process of our continual renewal and revival. He expects us to be patient, to be responsible and responsive to do our part in whatever promise we have claimed. Once the promise is fulfilled, we are also expected to be thankful and grateful even as we were hopeful while the process was on.
Prateep V Philip
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
The Essence of Jesus-like Leadership
UV 2895/10000 The Essence of Jesus-Like Leadership
Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.
Matthew 21 v 5
If the King of Kings, to whom even one of the last surviving monarchs of the contemporary world, Queen Elizabeth II could bow to, could use an ass to ride triumphally into Jerusalem, the spiritual capital of the world, He can use an ass like you and me. Jesus could have commandeered a white steed to ride into Jerusalem to announce His kingdom on earth but the fact that He deliberately chose to ride a donkey that had never been ridden before points to His extreme humility. From His birth till His death and resurrection, He divested Himself of all trappings of earthly power and pomp.
Instead of us going to the King, the King Himself comes to us. Jesus asks us to only emulate two of His many great qualities- humility and gentleness. He did use His kingly authority to overturn the tables of the money lenders in the temple. Likewise, we too need to use our God-given authority to over turn the love of the world and the love of money in ourselves and others, so that our whole being is dedicated to the worship of the Lord. If we only imitate Jesus in terms of His humility and gentleness, absence of any need for any external trappings of power and authority, we would have understood the essence of godly leadership. We do not need the paraphernalia of power but only the Paraclete- the Holy Spirit to give us the sense of direction and leading we need.
Humility and gentleness or meekness is not a virtue of leadership that comes to us naturally but a supernatural grace of Christ. It comes from the quiet assurance that our identity, security and destiny comes from Christ even as Christ knew that His identity, security and destiny came from the Father. But along with the meekness, we also need the undercurrent of firmness, forcefulness, zeal and the confidence to assert on matters of right relationship with the Lord and the need for holiness or reverence in a place of worship. Meek but assertive is a perfect but paradoxical paradigm of leadership behaviour.
Prateep V Philip
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
Drinking Gladly from the Cup of Suffering
UV 2894/ 10000 Drinking The Cup of Suffering
"
And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father."
- Matthew 20:23
Suffering is endemic in this world due to the phenomenon of sin or rebellion against God’s good order. Once we are redeemed by faith and grace in Christ Jesus, we are also not immune or exempted from suffering. We need to share the baptism or immersion of suffering like Christ. We need to identify ourselves with Christ by sharing in the suffering of Christ. Every believer or follower of Jesus by definition needs to drink from a cup of suffering. Each one ‘s suffering is distinct and different as willed or allowed by the Lord. For some drink the cup lifelong, for some it is a serial of trials , for some it ends after a season. Our response should be to endure it with hope of coming out of it better not bitter even though we may not exactly enjoy it. After the suffering has passed, we can look back and thank the Lord even for the suffering as the psalmist affirmed, “ It is good that I was afflicted that I might learn His holy will.” We should, therefore, not push away with resentment or sadness or self pity when we are offered the cup of suffering to drink from. We should not complain or murmur or doubt the goodness of the Lord. Instead, we should ask the Lord for grace to drink it.
The enemy of our souls brings suffering to destroy us, to rob us of our health, peace and well being. Christ does not willingly want His children to suffer but when He sees it inevitable, He allows it for our greater good, our long term refinement or sanctification. Suffering is allowed by the Lord for a variety of reasons : to test the strength of our faith, to deepen our faith and knowledge of Him,to prune and correct our character, to build patience and endurance in us and to give us opportunities to testify and witness the redeeming glory of God. Suffering is compared to the hardship of training an athlete goes through in order to take his position on the victory stand.
Our suffering for Christ will always have a good ending either in earth or in heaven, here and now or in eternity. It is His sovereign decision or prerogative when and where and how our suffering ends or we are rewarded by the Lord. It is not for us to question His will or to doubt if our suffering was in vain. One thing we can be sure is that when a child of God suffers, He is not alone but Jesus is close and nearest to him, pleading or interceding. He is nearby doing what He is best at - healing, wiping tears, encouraging, comforting by sending the Comforter to us, teaching us the true meaning and significance of His words in the context of suffering. He proves to us that He is not a fair weather friend but one who stays the course with us during our fiercest storms. If the Lord is a Master Weaver, one of the needles and threads and patterns He uses is suffering, the other being well being. Sometimes, suffering and well being co exist, sometimes these alternate, sometimes cut across each other and sometimes run parallel to each other.
Prateep V. Philip
"
And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with: but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give, but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my Father."
- Matthew 20:23
Suffering is endemic in this world due to the phenomenon of sin or rebellion against God’s good order. Once we are redeemed by faith and grace in Christ Jesus, we are also not immune or exempted from suffering. We need to share the baptism or immersion of suffering like Christ. We need to identify ourselves with Christ by sharing in the suffering of Christ. Every believer or follower of Jesus by definition needs to drink from a cup of suffering. Each one ‘s suffering is distinct and different as willed or allowed by the Lord. For some drink the cup lifelong, for some it is a serial of trials , for some it ends after a season. Our response should be to endure it with hope of coming out of it better not bitter even though we may not exactly enjoy it. After the suffering has passed, we can look back and thank the Lord even for the suffering as the psalmist affirmed, “ It is good that I was afflicted that I might learn His holy will.” We should, therefore, not push away with resentment or sadness or self pity when we are offered the cup of suffering to drink from. We should not complain or murmur or doubt the goodness of the Lord. Instead, we should ask the Lord for grace to drink it.
The enemy of our souls brings suffering to destroy us, to rob us of our health, peace and well being. Christ does not willingly want His children to suffer but when He sees it inevitable, He allows it for our greater good, our long term refinement or sanctification. Suffering is allowed by the Lord for a variety of reasons : to test the strength of our faith, to deepen our faith and knowledge of Him,to prune and correct our character, to build patience and endurance in us and to give us opportunities to testify and witness the redeeming glory of God. Suffering is compared to the hardship of training an athlete goes through in order to take his position on the victory stand.
Our suffering for Christ will always have a good ending either in earth or in heaven, here and now or in eternity. It is His sovereign decision or prerogative when and where and how our suffering ends or we are rewarded by the Lord. It is not for us to question His will or to doubt if our suffering was in vain. One thing we can be sure is that when a child of God suffers, He is not alone but Jesus is close and nearest to him, pleading or interceding. He is nearby doing what He is best at - healing, wiping tears, encouraging, comforting by sending the Comforter to us, teaching us the true meaning and significance of His words in the context of suffering. He proves to us that He is not a fair weather friend but one who stays the course with us during our fiercest storms. If the Lord is a Master Weaver, one of the needles and threads and patterns He uses is suffering, the other being well being. Sometimes, suffering and well being co exist, sometimes these alternate, sometimes cut across each other and sometimes run parallel to each other.
Prateep V. Philip
Thursday, January 25, 2018
The Firewall and Blood Shield
UV 2892/10000 The Fire Wall and Blood Shield
Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
Job 1 v 10
Scripture talks of God Almighty being a shield to Abraham, an encompassing 360 degree shield to David, a hedge to Job,a fencing, a wall to Moses, everlasting arms holding up the Israelites, a wall of fire and glory in our midst, a camp of angels surrounding and guarding the faithful, the wings of a hen that protects the tiny and vulnerable chicken from predators. The progression of godly protection culminates in Jesus being a blood shield that protects us every visible and invisible threat, every earthly or terrestrial threat as well as eternal danger or threat. As the blood shield that covers every believer, He first and foremost protects us from the deadly and just wrath of a holy God.
Not only are we protected from both godly anger and worldly danger, the Lord blesses the work of our hands and the words of our lips. He reveals or manifests His glory in us and around us. The glory of the kingdom of God does not consist in vast armies, pomp and splendour but in the eternal well being of His people. To secure our well being, He builds and maintains several layers of protection around us as satan in the words of Jesus is a killer, robber and thief. God is not in the business of causing human suffering. That is the work of the enemy of our souls who like a sinking man wants to drag more people down with him. He however does give permission to the enemy to test our faith and character even as He did when satan sought permission to afflict Job. He robbed Job of his possessions, family, cattle and flocks and yet Job withstood the severe test. A lesser man would have denied God and repudiated his faith in Him. Job only said with characteristic patience, “What God has given, He has taken away.” He respected the sovereignty of the Lord and even praised Him for the act of “taking away.” Ultimately, Job’s story has a happy ending of restoration with double of whatever he had and owned before he was afflicted. He thanked God like David that it was good that he was afflicted that he might learn His holy will.
We need to continually cultivate a hedge of prayers around us, maintain the fencing of specific promises for specific issues of life, build a wall of faith, a shield that turns in all directions- in and out, up and down, in good times and tough times, in plenty and in famine. The Holy Spirit is the firewall of protection the Lord lays deep inside our souls and lives. Above all is the blood shield of Jesus, the armour of God that protects us from our inner vulnerabilities and external threats.
Prateep V Philip
Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
Job 1 v 10
Scripture talks of God Almighty being a shield to Abraham, an encompassing 360 degree shield to David, a hedge to Job,a fencing, a wall to Moses, everlasting arms holding up the Israelites, a wall of fire and glory in our midst, a camp of angels surrounding and guarding the faithful, the wings of a hen that protects the tiny and vulnerable chicken from predators. The progression of godly protection culminates in Jesus being a blood shield that protects us every visible and invisible threat, every earthly or terrestrial threat as well as eternal danger or threat. As the blood shield that covers every believer, He first and foremost protects us from the deadly and just wrath of a holy God.
Not only are we protected from both godly anger and worldly danger, the Lord blesses the work of our hands and the words of our lips. He reveals or manifests His glory in us and around us. The glory of the kingdom of God does not consist in vast armies, pomp and splendour but in the eternal well being of His people. To secure our well being, He builds and maintains several layers of protection around us as satan in the words of Jesus is a killer, robber and thief. God is not in the business of causing human suffering. That is the work of the enemy of our souls who like a sinking man wants to drag more people down with him. He however does give permission to the enemy to test our faith and character even as He did when satan sought permission to afflict Job. He robbed Job of his possessions, family, cattle and flocks and yet Job withstood the severe test. A lesser man would have denied God and repudiated his faith in Him. Job only said with characteristic patience, “What God has given, He has taken away.” He respected the sovereignty of the Lord and even praised Him for the act of “taking away.” Ultimately, Job’s story has a happy ending of restoration with double of whatever he had and owned before he was afflicted. He thanked God like David that it was good that he was afflicted that he might learn His holy will.
We need to continually cultivate a hedge of prayers around us, maintain the fencing of specific promises for specific issues of life, build a wall of faith, a shield that turns in all directions- in and out, up and down, in good times and tough times, in plenty and in famine. The Holy Spirit is the firewall of protection the Lord lays deep inside our souls and lives. Above all is the blood shield of Jesus, the armour of God that protects us from our inner vulnerabilities and external threats.
Prateep V Philip
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Lion, Yet Lamb-like
UV 2893/10000 Lion, Yet Lamb-like
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.
Genesis 49 v 10
The promise to Judah was fulfilled through the royal lineage of David as well as that of Jesus. Jesus is therefore known as Lion of Judah. We, His brothers bow down before Him. The sceptre of heaven and earth is in His hands. Yet, Judah at the start of his life was not someone who one would connect with nobility of character. He joined his brothers in conspiring to do away with the dreamer Joseph. In later years, he did not keep his pledge to a widowed daughter-in-law and ended up having an intimate and illicit encounter with her when she disguised herself as a prostitute. His transformation is seen in that when Joseph, now as Pharaoh’s right hand and mighty minister, asked that Benjamin be left in his custody. Judah offered to take the place of Benjamin in order to prevent their aged father Jacob from dying from grief. In this single action, we see that Judah had a change of heart. His action of offering himself was a foreshadow of Jesus offering Himself for the sake of all human beings. Though possessed of lion-like or qualities of a ruler, we too should be ever ready to make the sacrifice that we are called to make as a gentle lamb.
Likewise in our lives, the Lord shapes our character through many experiences, suffering, highs and lows, mountains and valleys. Judah died to himself finally in a spiritual sense even as Jesus died physically to redeem all mankind. This is the mark of a true follower of Jesus as well as true servant leader. He should be ready to give himself up as a sacrificial lamb though he had the strength of a lion. The Lord God overlooked the unsavoury past of Judah to look at his good qualities which He endorsed through the final blessing of Jacob who spoke this uni-verse under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
The expression in this uni-verse “to him shall the gathering of the people be” is also a prophetic foretelling of the historic leadership of Jesus of the moral and spiritual world. His living and resurrected presence is with believers even if two or three gather in His name. The Lord rules, judges and redeems the world through the followers of Jesus. The sceptre or the emblem of the kingdom rule of the Lord shall never leave us. We rule over the spiritual world as spiritual descendants in the line of Judah. The principles and precepts that govern our lives are derived from the word, not from the world. The example of Judah gives us hope that however unsavoury our past, He can make our lives and our legacy impactful and attractive to people of our generation and succeeding generations.
Prateep V Philip
The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.
Genesis 49 v 10
The promise to Judah was fulfilled through the royal lineage of David as well as that of Jesus. Jesus is therefore known as Lion of Judah. We, His brothers bow down before Him. The sceptre of heaven and earth is in His hands. Yet, Judah at the start of his life was not someone who one would connect with nobility of character. He joined his brothers in conspiring to do away with the dreamer Joseph. In later years, he did not keep his pledge to a widowed daughter-in-law and ended up having an intimate and illicit encounter with her when she disguised herself as a prostitute. His transformation is seen in that when Joseph, now as Pharaoh’s right hand and mighty minister, asked that Benjamin be left in his custody. Judah offered to take the place of Benjamin in order to prevent their aged father Jacob from dying from grief. In this single action, we see that Judah had a change of heart. His action of offering himself was a foreshadow of Jesus offering Himself for the sake of all human beings. Though possessed of lion-like or qualities of a ruler, we too should be ever ready to make the sacrifice that we are called to make as a gentle lamb.
Likewise in our lives, the Lord shapes our character through many experiences, suffering, highs and lows, mountains and valleys. Judah died to himself finally in a spiritual sense even as Jesus died physically to redeem all mankind. This is the mark of a true follower of Jesus as well as true servant leader. He should be ready to give himself up as a sacrificial lamb though he had the strength of a lion. The Lord God overlooked the unsavoury past of Judah to look at his good qualities which He endorsed through the final blessing of Jacob who spoke this uni-verse under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
The expression in this uni-verse “to him shall the gathering of the people be” is also a prophetic foretelling of the historic leadership of Jesus of the moral and spiritual world. His living and resurrected presence is with believers even if two or three gather in His name. The Lord rules, judges and redeems the world through the followers of Jesus. The sceptre or the emblem of the kingdom rule of the Lord shall never leave us. We rule over the spiritual world as spiritual descendants in the line of Judah. The principles and precepts that govern our lives are derived from the word, not from the world. The example of Judah gives us hope that however unsavoury our past, He can make our lives and our legacy impactful and attractive to people of our generation and succeeding generations.
Prateep V Philip
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Treasures and Pleasures of the Heart
UV 2891/10000 Treasures and Pleasures of the Heart
For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.
Proverbs 3 v 2
The word of God holds all the treasures and pleasures of the heart. These are the treasures that thief cannot take, moth cannot destroy or rust decay. These are the treasures that we bring out from time to time to meet our various human needs. These are the pleasures for evermore at the right hand of the Lord that satisfy but do not satiate us. When we store it, it is a treasure. When we use it, it becomes a pleasure. When we store the commands, promises, precepts, examples and models of the word of God in our hearts, we obtain productivity of our days, longevity of our lives and peace. If our days are productive, it implies that we will over a period of our lifetime, also become prosperous even though prosperity is not mentioned as part of the ‘package’ God promises in this word. A little later in this same chapter, it also says that when we rely or depend completely on God’s wisdom contained in His word, fear the Lord and shun evil, it will bring health to our bodies and nourishment to our bones. In short, all our ways of living and behaving are godly and pleasant, not ungodly and unpleasant or nasty. This scripture underlines the inter connectivity of spirit, mind and body. A person who is in an intimate relationship with the Lord will never agree with the world view of Hobbes that “life is short, nasty and brutish.” An absence of such a relationship can certainly make life short, nasty and brutish.
The Lord rules us by adding and multiplying while the enemy of our souls rules people by subtracting and dividing. He adds life to our hours and hours to our lives. He adds His wisdom to our lives so that we know how to navigate the complex choices and challenges we face day to day. Proverbs chapter 3 personifies wisdom as a woman and states that His wisdom will bring longevity in her right hand and riches and honour in her left hand. It implies that health and longevity are more significant in our lives than riches and honour.
Christ being the word embodied and wisdom personified, He fills His followers with wisdom. He gives us grace to obey the commands of the Lord, to believe, trust and claim the promises, learn the lessons of life from the examples, good and bad, positive and negative that are spread across the Bible, emulate the heroes of faith. We take shelter or refuge from the world and its troubles and temptations by hiding in Christ and He satisfies us with long life and after that show us His salvation on the eternal plane. Peace and holistic health are our primary needs and priorities while prosperity is a secondary goal.
Christ as a divine heart surgeon works from within our hearts using the variety of tools available in the word and with the help of the Holy Spirit to justify or straighten out our naturally perverse and crooked hearts. Our regeneration is a lifelong process but we need not wait for the end of the process for every moment with Jesus, we enjoy heaven or eternal life which is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. We obtain everything we need and desire in and through Jesus. But Jesus also taught us that life in Him is not about gratification of our desires but it is about denial, about identifying with His own suffering by taking up the cross. It implies that we need to embrace suffering and sacrifice with equal zeal as enjoying the blessings of the Lord. Denying ourselves implies negating all our evil impulses and ending our bad actions, reactions and habits. In so denying ourselves, we are affirming that Christ lives in us, that He rules over us as Lord and King.
Prateep V Philip
For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.
Proverbs 3 v 2
The word of God holds all the treasures and pleasures of the heart. These are the treasures that thief cannot take, moth cannot destroy or rust decay. These are the treasures that we bring out from time to time to meet our various human needs. These are the pleasures for evermore at the right hand of the Lord that satisfy but do not satiate us. When we store it, it is a treasure. When we use it, it becomes a pleasure. When we store the commands, promises, precepts, examples and models of the word of God in our hearts, we obtain productivity of our days, longevity of our lives and peace. If our days are productive, it implies that we will over a period of our lifetime, also become prosperous even though prosperity is not mentioned as part of the ‘package’ God promises in this word. A little later in this same chapter, it also says that when we rely or depend completely on God’s wisdom contained in His word, fear the Lord and shun evil, it will bring health to our bodies and nourishment to our bones. In short, all our ways of living and behaving are godly and pleasant, not ungodly and unpleasant or nasty. This scripture underlines the inter connectivity of spirit, mind and body. A person who is in an intimate relationship with the Lord will never agree with the world view of Hobbes that “life is short, nasty and brutish.” An absence of such a relationship can certainly make life short, nasty and brutish.
The Lord rules us by adding and multiplying while the enemy of our souls rules people by subtracting and dividing. He adds life to our hours and hours to our lives. He adds His wisdom to our lives so that we know how to navigate the complex choices and challenges we face day to day. Proverbs chapter 3 personifies wisdom as a woman and states that His wisdom will bring longevity in her right hand and riches and honour in her left hand. It implies that health and longevity are more significant in our lives than riches and honour.
Christ being the word embodied and wisdom personified, He fills His followers with wisdom. He gives us grace to obey the commands of the Lord, to believe, trust and claim the promises, learn the lessons of life from the examples, good and bad, positive and negative that are spread across the Bible, emulate the heroes of faith. We take shelter or refuge from the world and its troubles and temptations by hiding in Christ and He satisfies us with long life and after that show us His salvation on the eternal plane. Peace and holistic health are our primary needs and priorities while prosperity is a secondary goal.
Christ as a divine heart surgeon works from within our hearts using the variety of tools available in the word and with the help of the Holy Spirit to justify or straighten out our naturally perverse and crooked hearts. Our regeneration is a lifelong process but we need not wait for the end of the process for every moment with Jesus, we enjoy heaven or eternal life which is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. We obtain everything we need and desire in and through Jesus. But Jesus also taught us that life in Him is not about gratification of our desires but it is about denial, about identifying with His own suffering by taking up the cross. It implies that we need to embrace suffering and sacrifice with equal zeal as enjoying the blessings of the Lord. Denying ourselves implies negating all our evil impulses and ending our bad actions, reactions and habits. In so denying ourselves, we are affirming that Christ lives in us, that He rules over us as Lord and King.
Prateep V Philip
Monday, January 22, 2018
Now Knowledge
UV 2890/10000 Now Knowledge
Now know I that the LORD saveth his anointed; he will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand.
Psalm 20 v 6
Salvation is not something that happens in the distant future or after our deaths but it is “now knowledge”. It is firm and blessed assurance that Jesus is an all sufficient Saviour in all of life’s struggles- our moral struggle with sin, our struggle with suffering, our struggle with disease, our struggle with scarcity and poverty of different kinds, our struggle with spiritual adversaries as well as those in flesh and blood. It is knowing for sure that the Lord will intervene and give us ultimate and certain victory over all these visible and invisible forces and factors.
Our knowledge that we are a saved people is the source of joy, hope and strength. We are not saved on our own merits or our own resources or strength but by the grace of the Lord. He anoints us or enables, equips, empowers us to wrest victory over every force and factor. When something seems beyond us to wrestle with and gain victory, we cry out to the Lord and He hears and delivers us from where He is seated at the right hand of the Father. David had this experience. He was given the triple anointing of the sinner or leper that delivered him of his own inner weaknesses, lusts, pride and folly; the anointing of the priest that enabled him to worship the Lord with abandon and in spirit and beauty of holiness, to pray for his people, to prophesy and preach to the people; the anointing of the king to reign, to rule, to administer, to serve, to lead, to conquer, to judge, to render justice, to bless and reward, to punish. For most people, the right hand is the dominant hand. Likewise, the Lord demonstrates His closeness to His anointed people with “right hand” proximity and power. He delivers us with the saving power of His right hand. Death, danger, disaster was always close at hand in the life of David in different phases of his life but the Lord as his redeemer was always closer. David was personally strong, personable, skilled, multi-talented, courageous, magnanimous but he did not depend on any of his personal qualities and strengths but only on his ‘now knowledge’ of the awesome salvation prepared for him by His Saviour and ultimate ruler. Salvation in Christ has two aspects- immediacy or acts to save or rescue us here and now and ultimate salvation of our souls after our demise. Both these aspects together constitute eternal life in Christ.
Prateep V Philip
Now know I that the LORD saveth his anointed; he will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand.
Psalm 20 v 6
Salvation is not something that happens in the distant future or after our deaths but it is “now knowledge”. It is firm and blessed assurance that Jesus is an all sufficient Saviour in all of life’s struggles- our moral struggle with sin, our struggle with suffering, our struggle with disease, our struggle with scarcity and poverty of different kinds, our struggle with spiritual adversaries as well as those in flesh and blood. It is knowing for sure that the Lord will intervene and give us ultimate and certain victory over all these visible and invisible forces and factors.
Our knowledge that we are a saved people is the source of joy, hope and strength. We are not saved on our own merits or our own resources or strength but by the grace of the Lord. He anoints us or enables, equips, empowers us to wrest victory over every force and factor. When something seems beyond us to wrestle with and gain victory, we cry out to the Lord and He hears and delivers us from where He is seated at the right hand of the Father. David had this experience. He was given the triple anointing of the sinner or leper that delivered him of his own inner weaknesses, lusts, pride and folly; the anointing of the priest that enabled him to worship the Lord with abandon and in spirit and beauty of holiness, to pray for his people, to prophesy and preach to the people; the anointing of the king to reign, to rule, to administer, to serve, to lead, to conquer, to judge, to render justice, to bless and reward, to punish. For most people, the right hand is the dominant hand. Likewise, the Lord demonstrates His closeness to His anointed people with “right hand” proximity and power. He delivers us with the saving power of His right hand. Death, danger, disaster was always close at hand in the life of David in different phases of his life but the Lord as his redeemer was always closer. David was personally strong, personable, skilled, multi-talented, courageous, magnanimous but he did not depend on any of his personal qualities and strengths but only on his ‘now knowledge’ of the awesome salvation prepared for him by His Saviour and ultimate ruler. Salvation in Christ has two aspects- immediacy or acts to save or rescue us here and now and ultimate salvation of our souls after our demise. Both these aspects together constitute eternal life in Christ.
Prateep V Philip
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