“He said to them Behold we are going up to Jerusalem…”
Luke 18:31
Jerusalem/Yerushalayim/יְרוּשָׁלַיִם in the life of Messiah represents the place where He reached the culmination of His Fathers will. When in Jerusalem as a child of 12 He told His earthly parents ‘don’t you know I must be about my Fathers business..’ Luke 2:49. Here we should ask ourselves are we truly about our Fathers business each and every day? And a further question would arise concerning the identity of our father, spiritually that is.
What day to day business we conduct will show clearly just who our spiritual father is. Messiah Yeshua/Jesus told the Pharisees of His day, ‘you are of your father the devil’. What we spend our time doing and whose will we follow, reveals much of our lifestyle and who we belong to. Yeshua said in John 5:30 ’I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father Who sent Me’ Are we seeking our Heavenly Fathers’ will or just our own, pleasing ourself and doing what we want to do?
Seeking to do the will of the Father was the one dominating concern throughout our Messiahs life. He was never deterred from His purpose and final goal by whatever He encountered along the way, whether joy or sorrow, failure or success; He set His face to go to Jerusalem/Yerushalayim, Luke 9:51.
We too must remember that we go up to Jerusalem/ Yerushalayim to fulfill our Heavenly Father’s purpose, not our own.
Before we gave our lives to Messiah we had ambitions of our own, but if our lives truly belong to Him we gave up our right to ourselves and what we want and therefore no longer have goals of our own. We hear people talk of decisions for Christ and choices to be Christians, our decisions to do this and that; but is this what the scriptures tell us? In John 15:16 We are clearly told ‘You did not choose Me ..I chose you.’
This is the compelling purpose of our Heavenly Father. We are taken into His purpose with no awareness of what that purpose actually is; it’s not initially a conscious agreement with His purpose. We really have no idea what His goal may be or entail because we are too near sighted to see the final target and as new believers we have our own ideas as to what His purpose is. We say things like ‘God has called me to this special work’, or ‘He means for me to go over there’ and we do what we think is right. In reality the work we do is of no account when compared to the compelling purpose of our Heavenly Father, it’s simply the support scaffolding surrounding the work and plan.
In Luke 18:31 we are told, ‘He took the 12 aside.’
And He will take us aside from time to time because we have not fully understood all there is to know of His compelling purpose.
We tend to say that because a person has natural gifts and abilities they will make a good Christian but it’s not a matter of our talents but rather the lack of them that our heavenly Father prefers. It’s not a matter of what we bring with us into the Kingdom but of what our Father puts into us. People are placed into areas in the church often because of gifting and it’s not always where Father wants them. As long as we think we are of value to Him He cannot choose us because we have purposes of our own to serve; but if we will allow Him to take us to the end of ourselves, the end of our own self sufficiency, then He can choose us to go with Him to Jerusalem Luke 18:31. And He almost always does not tell us the details beforehand. He means us to become poor so that we can become rich in Him we are to humble ourselves so that He can raise us up .
However, as we continue, His purpose becomes clear 1 Cor. 26:31
26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
29 That no flesh should glory in his presence.
Paul reminds the Corinthians of their humble beginnings. He highlights that not many of them were considered wise, influential, or of noble birth according to human standards. This serves as a reminder that our worth and identity are not based on worldly achievements or status. In Christ, is about emphasizing that God chooses those who are considered lowly and foolish by human standards to confound the wise and strong, so that no one may boast in their own abilities but rather boast in the wisdom and power of God.
His compelling purpose for our lives is our relationship with Him, to become His friends. The friend of God is a person who knows their poverty and cannot do anything without Him, He cannot accomplish anything with the one who thinks they are of use to the Lord. As believers we are not here for our own purposes at all – we are here for the purpose of the Father and the two are not the same.
Even when we do not know or understand what our Fathers compelling purpose is, we must maintain our relationship with Him. It is critical to never allow anything to damage our relationship with our Heavenly Father and if anything does, we must immediately take steps to restore that relationship. The most important aspect of being a true believer is not the work we do but the relationship we maintain and the surrounding influence and qualities produced by that relationship. This is our Fathers emphasis and what we are to make a daily priority not just a couple of meetings a week, we need to pay constant attention to it because it’s the one thing that is continually under attack.
Yerushalayim/Jerusalem spiritually represents the place where Messiah reached the culmination of His Fathers will, it was also the physical location, where The Father has put His Name and where He gave His life for us. He asks us to go with Him to this spiritual goal, are we ready to die to this life of flesh, carnality and idolatrous lusts; today we must ask ourselves is Jerusalem our goal too? Are we willing to go all the Way, to the culmination of our Heavenly Fathers will? The choice is ours…chose this day …and choose life.
Shalom, shalom mishpachah/family
and cheverim/friends!
It’s all about Life and Relationship,
NOT Religion.
You are greatly loved and precious in His sight.
NOT SURE?
YOU CAN BE..
SAY THE FOLLOWING FROM YOUR HEART RIGHT NOW…
Heavenly Father I come to you in the Name of Jesus/Yeshua asking for forgiveness of my sins for which I am truly sorry. I repent of them all and turn away from my past.
I believe with my heart and confess with my mouth that Jesus/Yeshua is your Son and that He died on the cross at calvary to pay the price for my sin, so that I might be forgiven and have eternal life in the kingdom of Heaven. Father I believe that Jesus/Yeshua rose from the dead and I ask you to come into my life right now and be my personal Savior and Lord and I will worship you all the days of my life. Because your word is truth I say that I am now forgiven and born again and by faith I am washed clean with the blood of Jesus/Yeshua. Thank you that you have accepted me into your family in Jesus’/Yeshua’s name. Amen.
