What Revelation Have You Received?
Good Morning Friends,
Consider this morning how God reveals his nature and his will to mankind. God clearly speaks to us through His creation and through history and in a special way through the spoken and written Word of Christ. And if we are seeking a relationship with Jesus we will soon realize that it is not much of a relationship without a sharing of information beyond that feeling of peace and hope we have in being forgiven. This sharing is how relationships are formed. So today we seek inspiration and insight into a supernatural connection and an interaction and rapport with the divine. What Revelation Have You Received?
Scripture: Ah Lord God! It is you who made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.
Jeremiah 32:17 (NRSV)
From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live,
Acts 17:26 (NRSV)
They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them
Romans 2:15 (NRSV)
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
Isaiah 40:5 (NRSV)
Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.
1 Corinthians 2:12 (NRSV)
“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”
Matthew 7:7-8 (NRSV)
For God shows no partiality. All who have sinned apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.
Romans 2:11-16 (NRSV)
Message:
The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines Revelation, as, “‘The disclosure of knowledge to man by a divine or supernatural agency’, and secondly, ‘something disclosed or made known by divine or supernatural means.’ With that in mind today we seek a revelation about revelation. And the beauty of seeking this is that the Lord desires to speak daily revelations into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. God tells us that we will find out something if we seek after it. So a revelation is when God reveals something to us that we did not understand before. Now there are some things we can understand and there are somethings we cannot. So how does revelation and specifically the revelation of salvation occur? What can I know and still have faith. Well some theologians note that history is His – story. The Bible clearly indicates in numerous places that God is moving the course of history and is controlling the destinies of nations. It should then be possible to sense God at work within history. A careful analysis of the history of the nation of Israel should provide more evidence than is needed. But we begin our Christian life in something more personal… by believing what we are told to believe, but then learning to assimilate our beliefs so they work out in a way that contributes to the glory of God. You see there is a difference between a global revelation and a personal one. For some, I think their understanding of the divine, on a personal level, comes first when they receive a revelation of God’s words becoming their reality. And this generates a power that the person of faith respects because these words are believed to come from God for our benefit. This revelation is knowledge we can have no other way than by being told. And that is why it makes sense for God to be revealed not just in creation and our nature as humans or in history but also in an incarnational way. What we see in scripture is a God who speaks, a God who walked and talked with Adam and spoke to Abraham and then to the prophets of Israel. But then, in the Incarnation of Christ, God spoke directly, as man to man, face to face. Along the way He inspired His prophets and apostles to write His words to man. So friends what we need to seek is a personal revelation where our reality is redemption and not just the experience of redemption. God must speak the language of our conscious lives in a way that births in us an identity with Christ that takes us right out of ourselves while at the same time keeping us at the source of it all. What was concealed must be revealed.
Pray we have a real relationship with God. Pray we realize that God has revealed His righteousness in Christ, and readily given His redemption, but it requires our reliance on Him to activate it. Pray we realize that God has given us the Bible to reveal His will and the Holy Spirit to guide us along the journey of life. Pray we realize that there is more to revelation than the experience of the peace found in the reality and truth of God revealed in Christ. Pray that God’s Holy History becomes part of our Holy History. Pray we take the Bible and History and Creation itself seriously. Pray we not just experience but become in a personal and relational and ethical way a revelation. Pray we never nourish experiences that do not have God at their source. Pray that God is written on our hearts. Pray we confess our history as a witness of God to the Glory of God. Pray we have a direct revelation from God of Jesus being not only our Savior but also Lord. Pray we let the Holy Spirit flow in and through us unimpeded for God’s glory.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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