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Saturday, November 27, 2004
In the Disney movie "The Lion King," Mufasa the king tells his son Simba about "the circle of life" when trying to explain to him about life and death. The context was that everything on the planet had a purpose in this life, and role to play. Disney glossed over the eating of other animals to make it palatable for little kids, but it's the same lesson we all learned late in middle school.
You know it: The sun and rain make the grass grow and bugs eat the grass and reptiles eat the bugs and bigger animals eat the reptiles and even bigger animals eat the bigger animals and so on and so forth until it gets to the humans. The humans then grill steaks while sprikler systems water their suburban lawns.
It's the circle of life.
And there's a spiritual parallel found in Psalm 132 as well. Remember from the last couple of entries on this psalm that it begins with a history of David being obedient in wanting to give the Ark of the Covenant a permanent home...a Temple. In verses 6--9, we saw that in David's experience, that was done, and they would be singing for joy in their close relationship with God.
Verses 10--12 read: "For the sake of David Thy servant, Do not turn away from the face of Thine annointed. The Lord has sworn to David a truth from which He will not turn back; "Of the fruit of your body I will set upon your throne. 'If your sons will keep My covenant, And My testimony which I will teach them, Their sons also shall sit upon your throne forever.'"
That's a very big "IF" in there...just in case you missed the "if-then" phrase in there: If they were obedient, then they would have someone on the throne forever."
They weren't obedient...they didn't keep the covenant. They didn't have someone on the throne forever. The circle of the spiritual life was broken.
Here's the nature of the spiritual life found in Psalm 132:
David was obedient.
This nurtured his hope in promises of God.
This leads to a more mature obedience.
This maturity leads to more strength to stand firm in faith.
Which leads to more obedience.
That's the "circle of the spiritual life." If you show faith by being obedient to God (which is done through us by the power of the Holy Spirit), it allows us to see that God's ways are best for us because of His love for us, which leads to a more mature understanding and living of the walk with God (generally described as a lifestyle of grace), which leads to more obedience for all the right reasons and motivations...
...which ultimately leads to the glory of God.
...Which is what we'll be looking at begining tomorrow as we kick off Head To Heart's final week.
Brent 5:57 AM
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