GM: Happy Emancipation day to everybody. As I awake, and go to prepare coffee for her, and hot ( Swiss already prepackaged...smile) chocolate for me, my wife turns on the radio and strains of Third World's hit song, " Now that you have found love, what are you going to do with it"?
And so while I am thinking, what have we as a country, done with this precious gift of freedom, secured by the blood, sweat and tears, of our forebears, the Lord led me to a very profound meditation.
But first last night's experience with Oswald Chambers.
TILL YOU ARE ENTIRELY HIS
Verse: " Let your endurance be a finished product, so that you may be finished and complete, with never a defect. James 1: 4 (Moffatt)
What CHAMBERS wrote, as inspired by this verse, was interesting, and I'll share it one day, by God's will. But remember the verse as we contemplate a serious challenge from the Lord on this Emancipation Day. A Day that Sam Sharpe, Paul Bogle, and the Clapham Sect led by William Wilberforce, all inspired by the Word of God, played an important role, enduring to the end, in securing our Freedom.
THE CONCLUSION OF THE TASK
Verse: Joshua 18:3
Joshua rebuked the inertness of the people. He said to the children of Israel, " How long are ye slack to go in to possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers hath given you?" 18:3 KJV.
At that point the twenty-one commissioners arose to walk through the land and surveyed it......It may be that the account of what they had seen was the means under God of arousing the people from the apathy into which they had sunk.
Too long have we been slack to go in and possess that fullness of the Holy Spirit that might be on us as a living spring, making us perfectly satisfied..
There is a knowledge of Jesus, a participation in His victory, a realization of blessedness, which are as much beyond the ordinary experience of Christians as Canaan was better than the wilderness. But how sad, that of all this we know do little.
How much we miss! The nomad life could not afford those seven tribes so much lasting enjoyment as their own freehold in Canaan. But the comparison is utterly inadequate to portray the loss to which we subject ourselves in refusing to appropriate and and enjoy the blessedness that is laid up for us in Jesus.
Let us come to Joshua at Shiloh, and ask him to lead us into each of these.
Comments:
1. I am constantly amazed how the Lord leads us, and provides material, at the right time, to reflect on. And more importantly to be obedient.
2. During my lunchtime yesterday, I was led to read Solomon's prayer as he dedicated the Temple to God. Which then led to the famous quote: If my people.....
And the thing that struck me was that, as he listed the many ways in which Israel had sinned against the Living God, kneeling on the ground in humble submission before God, and leading the Intercessionary prayers, he cried out: " Hear and forgive ".
I pray God that as individuals and as children of the Resurrection, we, contemplating how we have ' lacked the endurance to become a finished product'; and how we have ' slack to possess the fullness of the Holy Spirit', we like Solomon may cry out to God, ' hear and forgive'.
For the reality is that we have far too satisfied with a ' superficial Christian life', which poses little or no threat to the evil forces, ' the locusts', about which we read in 2 Chronicles, yesterday, which have captured our country. And the kind of superficial Christianity which blends into the life of the world, and the unredeemed, so that people often cannot tell the difference.
3. This kind of ' superficial witness' which has no power to effect change, is not what Sam Sharpe and others gave their lives for; and more importantly not what the shed Blood of Christ was given for.
For the reality is that ' unless the watchman builds the house they labour in vain'. And the only watchman which God had appointed is the Church of Jesus Christ. For unredeemed people cannot successfully and sustainably fight against the evil of #quadrupleMurder.
So the answer to the question of ' now that we have gained Emancipation what are we going to do with it', lies squarely in the hands and hearts of the Christian community.
Therefore if our anthem is not ' more about Jesus would I know', but more about the world would I experience, then Jamaica will continue to suffer under the hands of evil men.
4. Our role this Emancipation then, is to humble ourselves, kneeling on the ground before a merciful God, and cry out for ourselves and our Nation, ' O God, hear and forgive.
Then, and only then can we go out wearing our bandana and denim, and celebrate, celebrate, celebrate, 53 next week.
Peace.
Lucien Jones
From Jean Anita:
Dr Lucien Jones CD is a Medical Doctor and Convenor of the National Road Safety Council. He serves on numerous boards. He is an Elder at the St Andrew Parish Church and uses his Internet Ministry to promote God's Word and its relevance for every occasion. Thank you Dr Jones!
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