A Memorial for a Very Important Person

I heard Him whisper, “Lynn they are having memorials for me. They have My picture on their walls. But I am alive.”

We gather, young and old.

Many do not know Him personally.

But He was a very important person.

The best.

He was a good teacher. He was truly sent by God.

We should follow His example. Especially if we want to go to heaven when we die.

Any person of reasonable mental faculty would make the decision to purchase fire insurance.

Just in case. Hedge your bets. Do the right thing.

Do not forsake the assembly.

But it is a bloodless ritual.

HE CAME.

In the flesh.

Messy, bloody business. In real life.

In real flesh and blood, He came and was a son, a brother, a cousin.

Lord and Friend to His disciples.

He followed the law. He went to the temple (church of the day)

He also showed us much more than that.

It was not about form but Substance over form.

The life is in the blood.

The sacrificial system established in the Old Testament was not done away with. It was fulfilled.

IN HIM

IN HIM we live and move and have our being. In Him we could be like Him.

Flesh and blood.

Messy, bloody business.

Why does a form suffice? Why are we content with walls that divide us from the rest of the world?

How are different from the Kinsmen or Rotary Club?

Meeting places, times, and rules that guide the activities in ways that can be safely repeated weekly without interruption.

I am not a rebel, no enemy of structure.

I just want more.

Friendly smiles and small talk no substitute for lives entwined with honesty.

Show me the underside. Show me your struggle.

Are you wrestling with God or His laws? Is it not difficult to conform yourself and desires to His word?

How have you made yourself come into submission to them? To Him?

We are meant to struggle together. Where there is life there is struggle.

Not neat tidy rows of services that ‘went without a hitch’ our duty fulfilled.

Services are local gatherings of a global “celebration of life” for a very important person.

We come because He is important. We do the things we do thinking in the doing of them we are remembering Him. We do want to please Him.

Is it enough to be seen there and live an ordinary life in the week between.

I have read “Be holy, for I am Holy”.

I wrestle with it.

Knowing the words doesn’t make it so. He knew that when He said it.

Both a command and invitation for He knows we cannot do it without Him.

He is the door we must enter more often than the one at the front of the church.

Every day. Every hour we have an opportunity.

James 5: 13 Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; 15 and the prayer of faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. A prayer of a righteous person, when it is brought about, can accomplish much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. 18Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit. 19 My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you strays from the truth and someone turns him back, 20let him know that the one who has turned a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

Those verses describe a messy AND supernatural life.

They are not mutually exclusive they are entwined, as they were when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

I started this post with the Lord reminding Me, He is ALIVE. We do so much in His name to remember Him. “Remember Me” does not mean have a service in my name. It means daily opening the door to let Him live His life in me.

This is something I can sign up for, how about you?

Pray with me?

Lord, like the velveteen rabbit, I need to be made real. I need Your love to heal me. Help me to be honest with You and those around me. Please forgive me where I fall short, and where I am outright resistant to You. Forgive me for limiting Your power in my life  by spending such little time on Your Potters table. Help me Lord, to open my mind and heart to you. To work out my salvation. To ever become more like You. I want to live like You did. Always abiding in Your Father. Amen.

All the love my friends.