Heart Tracks - Unshakable Kingdom

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Matthew 23:37

Sheila Walsh tells a story from her childhood about a neighboring farmer who suffered a devastating fire on his property. The fire consumed all he owned, barns, sheds, land, and all his lifestock. All that was left standing was the stone house he lived in. Walsh tells of how, after the fire, she walked to the farmer's land to survey the devastation. As she did so, she saw the farmer come out of his home and walk up to a hen, burned, scarred, dead. He gently nudged the hen aside, and underneath were six live chicks. Her child's heart was deeply moved as she saw the above Scripture come to life before her eyes. Such is the love of Christ, who went to a cross, suffered, was scarred, and died that you and I might live. As the old hymn says, "Such love, such wondrous love."

James Robison speaks of the unshakable Kingdom that Jesus Christ invites us to. I see that Kingdom as being just like that farmer's stone house, that mother hen's sacrificial life. In it, we are protected. Yes, we too suffer loss, pain, affliction. Christ never promised that we would not. What He did promise is that we would be able to say with Paul that, "None of these things move me." He meant that the fires, storms, and losses in life would not be able to move us from the foundation that is Jesus Christ. That while they may affect our body, our emotions and feelings, they could never affect, move our souls from Him. We, like the stone house, like the six chicks, would still be there after the worst of the world's afflictions.

Jesus spoke the words of Matthew 23 as He stood on the hill overlooking Jerusalem. He knew the devastation that would befall the city and nation in little more than 25 years; that the city would fall to Rome, it's people enslaved. More, He knew that these people, those He'd been sent to, had almost all of them rejected Him. More than the physical fate of the city and people, He knew the spiritual and eternal cost of their rejection: death. Spiritual, eternal death. They rejected the unshakable Kingdom and chose one that offered no protection and no foundation. They would be exposed to and consumed by the fires of this world and those of eternity.

Jesus calls us to His unshakable Kingdom. He calls us to build our "house," our lives, lives that stretch into eternity, upon the Rock that is His life. He said all other ground was sand, "sinking sand." Two kingdoms call us; the unshakable One that is built upon Christ, and that which is built upon the sand of this world and the enemy who rules it. One built upon His Light and Life, the other upon darkness and death. In His is safety for eternity. The other, only eternal lostness. To the One, Christ seeks to gather you to. The other seeks to scatter you from. Rock or sand. In which is your life rooted today?

Blessings,
Pastor O