We Are Going Up To Jerusalem . . .

This is from The Mission blog:

"He (Jesus) said to them (His disciples), Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem..." (Luke 18:31)

Oswald Chambers writes: "Jerusalem, in the life of our Lord , represents the place where He reached the culmination of His Father's will.  Jesus said, "I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent me." (John 5:30).  The greatest thing for us to remember is that we go up to Jerusalem to fulfill God's purpose, not our own.  Remember Jesus said, "You did not choose Me, but I chose you.  (John 15:16)."

My prayer.  Dear Heavenly Father I ask you in the name of Jesus that you'd keep pushing me, pulling me, driving me to go with you to Jerusalem, to seek your compelling purpose, never allowing me to falter or turn my sights on anything else but Christ and going with Him.  I can and will do this by your great grace through faith in the accomplished work of the cross. Amen!

Comments:

Tim Shey:
 

"Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem." "Take up your cross and follow Me." When you obey the Lord, you die to self and, in my experience, you will be delivered of many demons.

Too many people go to church to fulfill some social contract. They go to church to run away from God and so that they don't have to deal with their besetting sins. They go to church, so that they don't have to go to Jerusalem--the death of the cross--dying to self--so that the Lord can be glorified in their life of self denial.

Self-willed church people have never gone to Jerusalem: dying to self is too abhorrent to them.

Traveler (Randy):

Wow, Tim I never saw it like that before, "They go to church to run away from God...They go to church, so they don't have to go to Jerusalem." So revealing and frankly it leaves me with a great impression to ponder this deeper. I tremble in fear before our Lord.... But for the grace of God go I... Dear Lord in Jesus' name please by your grace never leave me to my own will and devices... Pull me lead me, put an aul in my ear, a yoke on my neck. Lead to Jerusalem, to the cross each day. It is all about you and not about me. Be it unto me according to your will. Amen!

The Mission

_____

Luke 18: 31-34:  "Then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished.  For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on:  And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again.  And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken."

"And they understood none of these things:  and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken."

It is rare for the Lord to reveal Himself (His will/wisdom/knowledge) to a vessel that is not surrendered to Christ and that does not die to self.  The rain from heaven (revelation knowledge) is gratefully soaked into fallow, humble ground--dead to self will.

I Corinthians 2: 14-16:  "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.  But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.  For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ."

To the Jews Spiritual, who are of the Seed of Abraham Spiritually

Immigration: Doing It The Right Way

This is from Bill Patchett's Conservative View Point blog:

Sometime ago, when I was in the electrical business full time, I answered a service call in the town of Federalsburg, which is located in the tax and spend state of Maryland. I had the opportunity to meet an elderly lady who owned the house and lived there by herself. She was a very nice lady, who reminded me of every good thing that people should be. When we entered her house it was like going back in time. She was, in fact, American as any person could be. My son who was with me on the call said that she was remarkable for her age. She must have been in her late eighties.

While we were there fixing her electric problems we noticed that she had Fox News on the TV and they were showing illegal Mexicans coming across the southern border of our country. The elderly woman was watching and listening to the story. After the news story ended she turned and with tears in her eyes, said: "This is not the way my husband and I came to this country"  I asked her if she was okay and that is when she pointed, without saying a word, at two framed documents on the wall that were side by side. One had her deceased husbands name on it and the other had her name on it. I then noted the location on the wall were they were and they were put so anybody, who entered her house, could see them.

The framed documents were certificates showing that the lady and her husband were from Romania and had immigrated to this country in 1945 by entering Ellis Island and had fulfilled all the unnecessary requirements to enter this country. One of those requirements was to learn the English language and to study the history of this country. She spoke perfect English. If she did not tell me that she was not born in this country I would not known it. She was as American As a person could be.

As we finished the job she offered me coffee and as I sat there with her she told me about some of her life. She came from a country that was poor, no jobs, no opportunities to make things better. She said when she came to this country she considered herself blessed. She did not bring Romania with her to be a part of this country. She wanted to be an American, not change America. Her husband and her never asked once for help or assistance of any kind. They worked different jobs, bought their self a house, and just blended in, to become a part of America and her ideals.  I walked out of that house blessed, thankful to have met this woman. I thanked God that I met this woman and was allowed to hear her story of the American dream that came true.

Conservative View Point
U.S. English

A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Wilderness Road: Part 2

This is from Rick Fry's blog:

Acts 8:26-40

 26 Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) 27 So he got up and went.  

 When I was in my early twenties I hitchhiked across the United States. I can’t explain the exact motivation. I wanted to see my cousin in Arizona, but that’s not why I left. The only way to come close to an explanation is to say that I had a sort of fever, or that I felt like a wild animal with its paw caught in a trap- I’d gnaw my hand off to escape my hometown and to get out onto the road.

I was feeling the desperation and restlessness of my age, the awful yearnings that are most acutely felt during youth. I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I had the sense that time was fleeting, and that any hope of discovering something larger than myself, any justification for my living and breathing in this world, had to be found not just now, but NOW.

I was searching for unnamable things. My spirit soared with my thirst and ambition, a desire to reach up higher and higher in search of these things. I knew they were not to be found in my Ohio hometown, but out in the Western Plains somewhere, or out past the Continental Divide, or maybe in Arizona near my cousin. And if they weren’t in any of these places, well, to hell with it, I’d go further and further west until I reached the Pacific. And if what I was searching for wasn’t there either, I’d hitchhike south, maybe into Mexico or something. With the wind cutting through my hair, hitching a ride in the back of some stranger’s pick up truck, I would single handedly wrest these things from the hand of God.

One day I was standing by the side of the road in the Nebraska Panhandle, close to where I-76 and I-80 diverge. I got a couple of offers from people heading down 80 to Cheyenne. But I wanted to take 76 and work my way south towards Arizona. Finally after a couple of hours of waiting, a tough-looking man with a haggardly beard pulled over on the side of the road. He was wearing well worn blue jeans and a black Harley Davidson T-shirt. I was a little hesitant to get in the car with him. He told me he was heading to Colorado, but that he had to stop in Sidney, Nebraska first. I decided to take the ride and we headed west. We rode to Sidney, but when we left town he told me there was a state highway that led to Denver. I didn’t want to leave the heavily populated interstate for some deserted highway. Who knows where he would take me. But what could I do? We left the interstate and we drove out into the wilderness. I gazed upon beauty that I couldn’t see from the interstate. The expansiveness of the west Nebraska plains was awesome. The setting sun in this land was breathtaking.

But as we drove, my travel partner began talking to me about the Bible. It quickly grew bizarre, as he explained his odd rapture theology. I was a little freaked out, talking about the Anti-Christ and apocalypse, but at the same time I felt safer. He was talking theology. I knew he wasn’t going to harm me. He was a lonely man who wanted someone to talk to about God. Like me, he didn’t have time for small talk. He was, in his own way, searching for those unnamable things. There wasn’t any epiphany, as there was for the eunuch that Philip met on the road. No great revelation. No chariot--just his rusted old Chevy.

But there was, for a short time, fellowship, a human connection, and a mutually felt desire to touch the hand of God. I wasn’t much different from him. I was certainly just as lonely. That’s what searching for things you can never grasp will do to you. On this wilderness road we were both alien travelers in a world we didn’t belong to. 
  
It was night when he dropped me off in South Denver. I felt a little disoriented, buzzing on the after effects of his strange theology. But I thanked him for the ride and we wished each other well. I zipped up my jacket to protect myself from the cold mountain air and pressed on in the night. The Denver city skyline was at my back. Streetlights were shining above me.

Wilderness Road--Rick Fry