Your Redemption Draweth Nigh

 It means that each of we, who are believers in Jesus Christ, and willing to follow him with a cross slung-over our back, chooses a purpose for our life that is not driven by the circumstances reported on CNN, but rather directed by a sense of quest in the life of Christ.

Prayer and Plodding – this is how we react to the culture wisely. This is a balancing act certainly. It is not for the faint of heart. It is for those willing to surrender their hearts to a purpose which is eternal.

Look at the insert in your bulletin…full of opportunities to plug-into places where God needs your hands and heart. There is a whole team of people just waiting for your willingness to be a person of prayer and plodding.

Prayer and Plodding doesn’t seem very grand or noticeable in a culture where sizzle and sensation abound. It means you probably won’t get your 15 minutes of fame on the local TV channels. But it does mean that when you think of what Jesus said about lifting up your head to look over the trouble of this world – you really have something drawing-nigh – you really have redemption coming in the clouds with great power and glory. [5]

Is that what you’re anticipating this morning? Are you being quiet this morning of Advent? Are you reading the culture in which you live so you can react with Kingdom-wisdom; are you planning to bind yourself to God’s will and plod every day in the work?

If so, there is strength running in your spiritual veins; there is strength to work-through all the difficulty of circumstances and the frightening experiences of life. And there is strength to stand before the King of Glory in judgment. There is still power in that blood!

If you are praying (binding yourself to God’s will at the foot of a blood-stained cross), and you are plodding (loving God and your neighbor every day with all you’ve got, no matter what CNN reports) there is a redemption – a saving grace that is drawing nigh. It will come on clouds of glory with great might…His name is Jesus! Lift up your head, saint of God – your redemption draweth nigh.

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ENDNOTES

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1] NRSV

2] http://www.markbarry.com/lawnchairman.html

3] Ben Domenech, Bonhoeffer’s Sacrificial Love, (http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001213.cfm)

4] Matthew 22:36

5] Mark 13:26