The following is from my own daily meditation on joy. I pray it blesses you.
– shawn
Bread, Wine, White Garments, and Oil (From my daily meditation on joy)
Ecclesiastes 9:7-8 Go, eat your bread with joy, And drink your wine with a merry heart; For God has already accepted your works. Let your garments always be white, And let your head lack no oil.
Where there is life there is hope. At death there is no more choice (see Ecclesiastes 9:4-6). Some people choose a road to despair, living only for ‘today’. They seek acceptance from others. And then other people by faith find acceptance in the Father through Christ (the bread and the wine, His body and blood). Jesus is the “bread of life,” the “manna from heaven” (both John 6) and He shed His blood for us … the wine “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13).
God approves of Jesus and His works (see Hebrews 1:9) and “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18). In Christ we are clothed in white garments and anointed with the oil of gladness. We are saved, not by what we have done, but by what He has done. With joy we partake of what He has done for us.
Watchman Nee said, “Most Christians make the mistake of trying to walk in order to be able to sit, but that is a reversal of the true order. Our natural reason says, If we do not walk, how can we ever reach the goal? What can we attain without effort? How can we get anywhere if we do not move? But Christianity is a queer business! If at the outset we try to do anything, we miss everything. For Christianity begins not with a big DO, but with a big DONE. Thus Ephesians opens with the statement that God has ‘blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ’ and we are invited at the outset to sit down and enjoy what God has done for us; not to set out to try and attain it for ourselves.”
Leave a Reply