Psalm 23:5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.
God prepares... Our God is always prepared! No matter what has happened or is happening in our lives God knew about it long before it happened and will either deliver us from it, take us through it, or restore double blessing for our trouble. What we can be sure of is the fact that He is prepared and we need to come to His table to receive it by faith. It will be something fresh because it is in the present tense - He prepares a table.
The Lord's table is the place where we 'commune' with Him, where we listen to Him through His Word and through talking with Him. He has prepared the meal, the bread and the wine where we recognise He has made us righteous and no longer sees our sin but sees us holy in His Son. We realise, when we examine ourselves in the light of the cross that we no longer come with our sin consciousness, but we come with our 'righteousness in Christ' consciousness.
The Lord's table is where we eat the bread and thank Him He has born our every disease and every sickness in His own body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24) where He took our poverty and lack and gave us His riches. (2 Corinthians 8:9)
The Lord's table is where we drink the cup reminding ourselves of the precious blood of Jesus which He shed in drinking the cup of suffering in our place. He died the death we should have died and when He was crucified we reckon ourselves 'in Him' and we died with Him and were born again to new life 'in Him' when He rose from the dead.
This weekend I prepared a birthday buffet table for the family with all our favourite foods, cake with candles, clotted cream scones, yum! Did we all tuck in? Of course we did! Did we eat until we were full up? Of course we did! We enjoyed ourselves and each other. We laughed, we talked, we shared, it was a celebration.
When God invites us to His table, it's a celebration of all Jesus has done. I don't believe it's a place of doom and gloom but a place of rejoicing, a place of provision and yes, it should be a place we reverence. We all know it's not something we do flippantly.
The Lord gave me a picture one morning many years ago of His table loaded up with good things and He was inviting us all to come to His table and take off it what we wanted to. You could say He wanted us to 'tuck in' like at our birthday celebration.
God's table is laden with good things, the things we all need. Maybe you're lonely and you need a friend then come to the table and receive, believe God to give you a friend. It may be finance, then come to His table and receive the finance you need. Need health and healing? Then come and partake of the healing Jesus bought and paid for with His blood for you. Do you get the picture?
Do you feel like your enemies are pressing in on you? Enemies of fear or depression, enemies of sickness or lack, or whatever your enemy is? Then now is the time to come to God's table because God says He's prepared His table in the presence of our enemies!
What is your need today? Acknowledge it with the Lord and come to His table to receive whatever it is by faith. Get a piece of bread or a cracker, get a glass of water if you don't drink wine and come before the Lord anytime, every day if you need to and let Him minister to you. Let Him anoint your head with fresh oil and fill your cup up again till it overflows. He's a good God. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment