In A Plain Box

I loved reading this story, I've only included part of it.

On January 25, 1905, at the Premier Mine in Pretoria, South Africa, a 3,106-carat diamond is discovered during a routine inspection by the mine's superintendent. Weighing 1.33 pounds, and christened the "Cullinan," it was the largest diamond ever found.

Frederick Wells was 18 feet below the earth's surface when he spotted a flash of starlight embedded in the wall just above him. His discovery was presented that same afternoon to Sir Thomas Cullinan, who owned the mine. Cullinan then sold the diamond to the Transvaal provincial government, which presented the stone to Britain's King Edward VII as a birthday gift. Worried that the diamond might be stolen in transit from Africa to London, Edward arranged to send a phony diamond aboard a steamer ship loaded with detectives as a diversionary tactic. While the decoy slowly made its way from Africa on the ship, the Cullinan was sent to England in a plain box.

Isn't this a graphic picture of how God has come to us, as it were hidden within the plainness of a human box, contained within our fleshly humanity. So many looking for something, someone who walked and lived amongst us for 33 years and missed seeing him.
Is it any different today, God the Father now clothed in us as us is like then, now also not seen by so many.

Rich

I Would Never Do That

How many times have you either heard that said, in fact even said it your self?
If all God the Father did in perfectly opening a door for us was to escape hell only to be beamed up into Beulah Land (heaven) and not provide a way of over coming our fixed opiated addiction to me-myself and I, then it’s NOT enough!

We think that simply because we have been re-birthed that all is well in Dodge City, in our heart-ha, try again.
I want to share a quintessential story many are more than familiar with but its applications have in most cases gone unheeded in my opinion, but don’t read or hear me shoulding on anyone, ok? I won’t should on you, and please do not should on me.

Before I share my illustrated story here, this actually leads into it. Jesus is about to be arrested, tried, convicted, and crucified shortly, but before this goes down He says, “All of you shall be offended because of me this night” (ALL)!
In another place and time Jesus said to his first cousin John the Baptist, “Blessed are you if you are not offended in me.” So what’s the deal, are we to be or not to be offended?

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers." But he said to Him, "Lord, with You I am ready to go both to prison and to death!" And He said, "I say to you, Peter, the rooster will not crow today until you have denied three times that you know Me."

There is so much crap that hits the fan in our lives as the result of our being out of sync from the center of the universe with our living Son, at a heart level, that we are just not (most of the time) even aware of.
It takes what it takes to bring each of us into whatever outer dungeon to address our inner dungeon, why, to work into us those much needed inner graces.

Somehow the, “I would never do or say that,” seems to be rooted in a lot of arrogance-pride, don’t you think?
There is in many places a fixation with trying to get the very best translation of the Scriptures, but what about us simply being translated into living expressions of the Word!

Father save us from coming across as arrogant self-righteous holier-than-thou, pompous pricks; continue to lead us to you our true center, that we might BE those living expressions of your heart.

Rich

The Planting of Eternity

I love this Scripture from Ecclesiastes 3:11-He has made everything beautiful in its time. He also has planted eternity in men's hearts and minds [a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy], yet so that men cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

Years ago I read a most intriguing book by Don Richardson called, “Eternity In Their Hearts” actually I read it several times, and eventually loaned it to my daughter to read.
Here is a brief bio on the book.

"Has the God who prepared the gospel for all people groups also prepared all people groups for the gospel? Don Richardson, author of the best-selling book Peace Child, has studied cultures throughout the world and found within hundreds of them startling evidence of belief in the one true God. In Eternity in Their Hearts, Richardson gives fascinating, real-life examples of ways people have exhibited in their histories terms and concepts that have prepared them for the gospel. Read how Pachacuti, the Inca king who founded Machu Picchu, the majestic fortress in Peru, accomplished something far more significant than merely building fortresses, temples or monuments. He sought, reached out and found a God far greater than any popular 'god' of his own culture. And there have been others throughout the world, like him, who lived to receive the blessing of the gospel.
Get ready to be amazed at these intriguing examples of how God uses redemptive analogies to bring all men to Himself, bearing out the truth from Ecclesiastes that God "has also set eternity in the hearts of men."

Oh to give into that divinely implanted reality that is totally available to us while momentarily living in this medium of space, time and history~”He also has planted eternity in men's hearts and minds [a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy.”

The harvest that is happening through out the earth is in my opinion first begun within the hearts of those he has received; He is the Lord of the harvest, he is the one who’s laboring within us, is bringing us into a knowing of whom He has already prepared to have eternity realized in the nasty-now-in-now of daily living.

Rich