Imaging Jesus

So right now I'm going to Intersession at OU. I'm taking a 2 1/2 week, intensive class on macroeconomics. It is really interesting. I never really put much thought into economics until this class. It's completely foreign subject matter to me. I'm a hard scientist. I work with interesting equations; stuff pertaining to atmospheric vorticity, how big a rain drop will grow if it falls from the top of a cloud to the cloud base, radar meteorology. Economics is a "soft science." Dealing with human behavior. The behavior part is what is most interesting.

What is really interesting is something that I read in Ezekiel 28 where it is talking of Lucifer's downfall. The popular notion today is that he fell by pride. But Ezekiel says that before his pride, came the violence in his heart because of the violent trading he was engaging in (verse 16). Which confirms 1 Timothy 6:10, money is the root of all evil. And then Satan became filled with pride, and the rest is history. I can just imagine all of the "fireside chats" (*sarcasm*) Satan had with the other angels that he damned with him; how the economic benefit through the medium of violence to others, specifically God, would be of greater benefit to the individual (angel) then to living to serve Jesus. And I'm sure Satan did everything he could to make himself much more attractive than God; he is the like the cold witch in Snow White who believed himself the most beautiful in the Kingdom. And he failed miserably. But economic theory was at the heart of the beginnings of this war.

God is beautiful, perfect in every way, and he is incredible at everything. He's a genius; not to lower him at all to a human word, but he really is brilliant by all standards. He is the most brilliant Artist, Writer, Physicist, Economist, Chemist, and Lover. His glory, which we so regularly ascribed to some ethereal and unapproachable light, is in himself. It's in his heart, it's in his brilliancy (for lack of a better term), it's in his wooing of our hearts, in how he made quantum mechanics, how he can create and manipulate economic activity without a moment's notice to his desire, how he writes us love letters and kisses through the wind and the sunsets and a song and a cloud. Imaging God for us goes from being more astute in our ontological knowledge of the God who made the universe, from describing him as a watch maker who wound up the universe, sat back and watched, and through the process demands our worship, to living in a beloved's relationship with a passionate Lover God who desires our nearness, our intimacy with his Holy Spirit, and demands that we do he pursue him with a jealousy unknown in this world. He wants to release us into our image of him. We are given a name by him (Rev 2:17), one known only as a beloved of Jesus; a new identity that's given by his heart. We are to become experts in what our heart's desires our. Why? Because it delights us and gives us his glory to revel in. And his glory, is us. His beautiful bride made perfect only by his sacrifice and love.

So the person doing the cashier job from 11 pm to 6 am will be revealed as a child of the Father in his Kingdom and will finally be able to write that novel they've wanted to write since they were 15 years old. The person stuck in the dead end job, who's just trying to pay the bills, will one day be released when Jesus returns as the brilliant interior designer they've always wanted to be. God will ask them one day, "Have you ever decorated a castle before?" "No," we reply. And suddenly we are whisked off to a distant, but empty castle. "I want you to decorate it. Do whatever your heart desires with it! Because you love me and always desired me in your heart." We are given the keys to the castle with no restraints. We are co-heirs with Jesus and heirs of God to everything. And so Jesus will be right with us as we cut the curtains and pick out the furniture. No namers today will become pillars of glorified activity with and for Jesus in his kingdom. No social program or tax cut alive in politics today can compare with the reformation program Jesus is bringing with him.

But what can we do now with this? It sounds wonderful and all, but Heaven is so far away. And we sigh, put it aside, and get on with our daily work. Ever crouching lower to the ground from the weight of the load above us.

The Holy Spirit calls us to relationship with him now and to hope in him, a fruit of the Spirit; he calls us to what Paul so incredibly summed up in one of the most incredible and brilliant passages in the Bible:

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Romans 8:22-27, NIV

What God has for us, putting aside being able to do and be who we are meant to be, is for us to have a fairy tale forever coming with God as his sons and daugthers, and even as his beloved. God himself is wooing us to a marriage with himself. The world has nothing on this. Satan has failed. His dreams and economic plots were evil, they were awful, and they failed in every way. Let us put aside everything this world tries to pull at our heats with, and see things as they really are. I'd like to finish as Eldredge once wrote on Isaiah 14. How we will one day look at the antichrist, then a caged creature, and we will be in awe that this pitiful thing could do so much damage.

Those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate: "Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble, the man who made the world a desert, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?" Isaiah 14:16-17 NIV.

And we will stare. And then we will walk away in the embrace of our Lover. And never again will we remember what has been done to us.

The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create. Isaiah 65:17-18

My Lover spoke and said to me, "Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one come with me." Song of Songs 2:10-13

And one day we will. When he returns. Soon...

We who are still alive and are left with be caught up together with them [everyone who has already died in the Lord] in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore, encourage each other with these words. 1 Thessalonians 4:17-18 NIV