Trials - Races - New Names Written

Thank God for trials!  What would we ever do without them?  I can tell you what we would do.  We would shrivel up and blow away with the first strong wind; we would become as weak as newborn babes.  Why is this?  Because it is trials that make us strong, trials that make us grow, trials that bring us wisdom, and finally it is trials that will cause us to be a comfort to others when they come face to face with what we have left behind.  Then they eventually  will see how He makes all things beautiful in His time, even as in the lyrics of the song.   Hope can now be embraced as those who have been afflicted vow to rise again.  It will be these who will one day encourage others who will follow in their steps.  And in this way the armies of God move ever onward, retrieving from the enemy what in times past was theirs, though now returning to them with increase. 

When the truth is told, the believer will see that every trial that comes their way comes from above; actually it is a packaged gift from God.  The trouble is that the packaging is so difficult to remove, that doing so may make us feel like we’ve been through a bad train wreck.  But finally when our storm has passed, and the gift uncovered, the pearl of great price is before us; our joy is made full and a new season lies ahead.

Too often does the follower of Christ see the trial they face as though it were an enemy.  True that it will be the enemy who will take a flying leap right into the center of it all – and land hard.  But the testing itself has come to us from the Father of lights.  It is always He who initiates a thing.   And when He does, it is meant for our good – for strength, for growth, for wisdom, so that one day we may comfort another concerning their own affliction.  It is in this way that Joseph comforted his repentant brothers when he told them that what they had meant for evil, God had meant for good.  Always is it Him behind the scenes, working all things according to the good pleasure of His will.

Life is an obstacle course; it is the race that we run.  But to lay hold of the mercies that are new every morning, to embrace the grace that is ours by inheritance.  It will be by these that we will overcome all that is set before us.  And so we must forge ahead and not look back; we must not look to the left or to the right.  For it is the event of our life, with the eyes of many upon us, as we face testings and heartaches, anguish and affliction.  Still, victory is always within reach. 

Sometimes our trials may be due to sin.  But don’t beat yourself up too badly for this.  Nobody ever died sinless but the Son.  What we often fail to realize is that we are infested with this poison; and it goes right down into the bone.  On occasion I’ve heard some mistakenly say that God will never use an unclean vessel.  If they were talking about a vessel of flesh and bone – of body, soul and spirit, which is what we are, then I guess that the only vessel He has ever used is the One who came down from heaven. 

Men are sinners – all men, from the highest pulpit on down.  Sin isn’t just doing a bad thing.  Neither is it missing the target.  Sin is missing the bulls-eye.  And how often do you think that occurs?  But even beyond this, sin is the state of our human nature, which has caused us to become separated from God; it is our position as related to His.  Romans 3:23 reads, “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God …”.  This type of writing is called parallelism.  Parallelism can be found throughout the bible.  It’s the writer repeating what he has just finished saying, but now with a different choice of words.  And so, in the case of Romans 3:23, Paul would then be telling us that to sin, and to come short of His glory, is really one and the same.  Putting it another way, because we are found to be outside of His glory, we are also found to be in sin; we were conceived in it.  But take heart.  Here is the Good News.  When you read the five verses that surround Romans 3:23, we come to understand that despite our sin, He has lavished upon us Grace, Justification, and His very own Righteousness.  And one day, according to I John 3:2, we will be all that the Son is, while making up His very body, He being the Head.  And it will be on that Day that now even the glory will fall upon us, even as it clothes the Son; and this forever.

What I have just written is all for the sake of saying this.  Don’t put your focus on the conquering of your sins.  Most naturally we should fight off temptations when they come, and with all that we have at our disposal; and hopefully we will be the victors.  But to fix our minds on the winning of battles is not only the wrong way to do warfare in heavenly places, but it is a distraction.  How is that?  Because it takes our eyes off of where we should have them and sets them on the bathroom mirror – when it is not about us.  Our vision must ever be raised to where Jesus is seated at the right hand of God – in power!  He is our victory, and not our own fleshly endeavors.  And that is why the apostle Paul entreats us to have our mind stayed on things above, since we have died to our lives in this world.  If we follow Paul’s advice, we may not come out unscathed from our battles against the dark powers.  Though in the end we will be the conquerors; and that through Jesus Christ our Lord.

There is however another place that we can raise our vision to, where the Son of God stands waiting for us.  It is at the finish line of the race we run.  But this also is in the heavenlies, even as is our warfare.  It is all important then that I keep my eyes fixed on the goal where waits my reward.  His name is Jesus.  And on that Day when I cross the finish line, I will receive a new name.  That means that I will no longer be known as Joe Pecoraro.  And why would this be?  It’s because Joe Pecoraro is my slave name.  How is that?  Because when I was born into this world, I was born into the slavery of sin.  I inherited it from the man Adam, the father of us all.  I was given the names of my forefathers before me, who were also born into sin’s slavery.  But on the Day that I finish my course I will no longer have to bear the shame of my slave name.  Because on that Day, I will be given by the Lord a name that says I am free, even as it will be with all who are born from above.  How would it make sense for the names that we have borne in this fallen world to follow us into the kingdom of His dear Son?

Yes; names to say we are free!  And made up of heaven’s alphabet, I believe it only suitable that an eternal weight of glory should be upon the sound of every name given.  God speed the Day!

J. Pecoraro

The 7th Day

Hear the words of the author of the book of Hebrews.  At the beginning of the fourth chapter they read, Since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it . . . But we who have believed do enter that rest.  Following this we are told, He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: And God rested on the seventh day from all His works.

For the child born of God, there eventually will come faith; but at some time later, FAITH will need to be expressed.  It takes but a small amount of faith for one brought up in the tenets of Christianity, to believe that we can ask God to cause us to be born of His seed – and it will be done.  However, this is not the same caliber of faith that is needed in order for the believer to enter His rest. 

There was a day when God, after creating everything but one thing, said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.  It was done.  The evening and the morning were the sixth day.  All of creation was finished.  And on the seventh day God rested from all His works.  Do you know what?  I believe that when God entered His Rest, surely He entered it to stay.  And no power in the universe will ever bring Him out from it.  I believe that when our God came into His rest on the Seventh Day, that He entered an eternal rest.  I’m sure that this is why the scriptures never speak to us of an eighth day.  It is because He is forever at rest in the Seventh Day.  Do not even the days of the week become a witness to us in this matter?  In the world in which we live there runs seven days – one right after the other.  However, when we get to the end of our seventh day, it does not become eternal, as does our Maker’s seventh day.  Instead we begin all over again with day one.  And so, round and round we go.  Solomon knew of this concept: One generation passes away, and another generation comes.  The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it arose.  The wind goes toward the south, and turns around to the north; the wind whirls about continually, and comes again on its circuit. And such are the seven days of the week.

So what’s new?  This is what’s new.  One day we are going to join our King and Creator in that eternal day of rest.  But actually we will be quite busy – and loving it; for His rest you see is going to be within us.  Still there is more good news – this being that we do not have to wait to leave this world in order to enter God’s rest.  In the fourth chapter of Hebrews we are informed both in verse one and verse six that we have been invited even now to join our Lord and Saviour in this Rest.  In fact, our Father in heaven really doesn’t appreciate taking no for an answer.  After all, His Son had paid a tremendously heavy price, so that every believer can even now come to abide in His Rest.  So why is it that we choose the alternative?  The alternative is slave labor – hard and cruel punishment put upon us by the enemy of our soul.  And his favorite weapon is the lie.  By way of the lie he causes us to worry; he causes us to fear; through his deception we are convinced that we are useless, inferior, undesirable, and the list goes on.  To live day after day, and to struggle beneath the weight of all of his lies, becomes tremendously hard work.  This is the exact opposite of the life-style that we have been called to live.

In the book of Hebrews, chapter seven, verse five, we read that those who have come to make up the Hebrew nation have all come from the loins of Abraham.  If this is true, then every man, woman and child, that has ever walked upon our globe, have all come from the loins of Adam.  Adam unarguably was created in the sixth day; and so weren’t we all?  It could then be that on our darkest day, every one of us chose to eat of that tree.  Still, the point I’d like to make is that man was created of God in the last day of the works of His hands.  Yet it was never the will of the Almighty for us to remain in that day.  Instead He has called for us to cross over into the Eternal Rest of the Seventh Day.  And in this do we rise to the highest heights of the New Covenant of our God.  It is for this that the Son had died – so that Eternal Life in Him would be ours, even as it is His.  Now we have become abandoned unto Him – our very Life being hidden away in His own.  From the day of the flesh to the Day of the Spirit has He brought us.  The work has been done.  Now all of the universe is made glad – and to this will there be no end. 

J. Pecoraro

Jesus - Lover of Our Souls

I think that the great majority of the people of our world have at some time witnessed a man and a woman exchanging vows at an altar.  All of the words spoken by them have been beautiful to be sure, even bringing some of the onlookers to tears.  Nevertheless, we need to face the facts; the facts being that words are simply that.  Words are nothing more than words, and by themselves will never hold a marriage together, let alone cause it to be successful.  And so, unless those words that are spoken at a marriage ceremony are accompanied by something else, then the chances of that union surviving would indeed be scarce.  What might that something else be?  It would be nothing other than a strong commitment, that if practiced, will lead to an ever growing love.  Yes, the more that we commit, the more love will grow; then the more love grows, the more we come to know that person.  All of this is what needs to be added to the words that two people once spoke upon an altar.

 But what does it all have to do with the title of the article?  What do the words, Jesus – Lover of Our Souls, have to do with anything that I’ve written up to this point?  I would say that the answer to this question is simple.  Just as the exchange of words alone will never make for a successful marriage union, then in like manner, when we acknowledge that the Son of God has become our true marriage partner, and there is no other, then He is not made glad if the words we have spoken do not confirm a true and a working union with Him.  But if commitment is the reality, then just as with an unfailing marriage between a man and a woman, there will follow an ever growing love for Him; and the more that we commit, the more our love will grow; then the more that love grows, the more we will come to know the One who died for us. 

When it comes right down to it, there is but one thing that will cause us to not commit to the Lord all that we are.  That one thing is called Idols.  There is no sense in trying to identify them all.  If you jumped into bed one night, but before falling asleep you decided to name as many of these as you could, you’d probably still be at it when your alarm goes off in the morning.  And if you really put your mind to it, you would begin to discover that some idols can be rather deceptive, not exactly the kind that would stand tall and strong before you.  If you earnestly and sincerely asked the Lord to reveal these, you may become stunned at the type of things that we give precedence to over our beloved Saviour. 

We who believe are much like our father Abraham – that great father of the faith.  It is written of him that he looked for a city that has foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God.  The book of Revelation speaks of that city.  Can you imagine a city fifteen hundred miles, its length and width and height being equal, and all of this of pure gold?  I think that if we were to behold something like that in our mortal condition, it would do much more than simply boggle the mind.  But being in our glorified state by that time, we will surely be able to take it in.  Yet we shouldn’t get too carried away with the idea of such a city.  As magnificent as it will be, it is going to be viewed as but a small part of what the kingdom of God in its fullness will be then.  At times we may make too much of those beautiful and no doubt towering structures that will go for fifteen hundred miles in every direction.  Yet even with this, it will never be what the kingdom of heaven will be all about.  The kingdom of heaven will for all eternity be about the Son of the Living God – our eternal Partner.  If it wasn’t for His presence there, then that city would stand in darkness.  It is why John writes, And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb.

But do we at times make the kingdom of God out to be things that it is not?  In other words, do we feel that we would be perfectly content in that incredible metropolis, while just living among all of our family members and friends, and this throughout eternity?  Or what if Jesus told us that He was going to bid us farewell at some point?  Would we be okay with that, as long as there would be no other changes in our situation?  We should hope not.   And why?  It is because it is He who will be our eternal Friend and Lover of our souls in a union to last forever – our Lord as our Head, and we constituting the members of His body; and this in a kingdom created for Him.  Through all of eternity past has it been the Father’s plan for the Son, to rule and reign over a new creation of which there will be no end- both He and the bride who the Father has called out. 

Is He great? Does He surpass knowledge?  Is He unshakable?  Is He almighty?  Does He exceed even His universe?  The fact of the matter is that He is beyond description.   He is far beyond what words can ever convey.  He has no measures.  And He supercedes all that we can imagine.  This is the One who loves us.  And there is no other prize for the children of God but the One who has laid down His life and has taken it up again.  Forever Reigns The Son!

J. Pecoraro