Today is the day of my birth. I thought I would celebrate with a little of my dry humor. Gotta love the expression on this cat!
While we are talking about birth, let's all understand that my birth was merely the day I was brought forth into this world.
My creation was planned in God's mind from infinity past. I actually came into being, became a person, some nine months before I actually screamed my way into this present world.
So it would seem that I was actually created, physically, somewhere in January.
As I started today's devotions, I was a little bummed that today's reading was Psalm 51, and 2 Samuel 11. These both describe David's sin with Bathsheba. Hmmm, that's not a very nice birthday story. My namesake gazes upon a beautiful woman, commits adultery, and then kills her husband to cover up his sin.
I then move on, in today's reading, to Ezekiel 11:14-25, where we have in view the promise of a new kind of relationship with God, which is more fully explained in Ezekiel 36:22-28:
“Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. 24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. 28 You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God."
I had a very difficult time yesterday, reading of God's glory leaving his temple in Israel. Yet here, I am reminded that we live in the age where we are the temple, and God's glory dwells in bodily form within each of his elect.
Who can understand this mystery?
Therefore, while I am pleased to have possessed this physical body for now 53 years, it is my second birth, the day of my salvation, through the calling of Messiah, that I am most pleased to celebrate.
I don't know exactly when that was. Sometime in the early 60's, in a little country Baptist church.
For this birth, I am infinitely pleased, and feel that it is something greatly to be celebrated.
Does this make sense to you? Have you experienced this second birth of God, or do these words sound foreign, and bewildering?
Please dear reader, family, friends, in all your getting, get your name in the Lamb's Book of Life!
We are all called to two birth's and one death. If not, then we suffer the horror of one birth, and two deaths.
The greatest birthday gift you could give me today, is to let me know that your name is written in this Book of Life, and that we will have the pleasure of eternity together in the presence of God.
