The win-lose of the event marked by Easter.

[gordon 2]

The win-lose of the event marked by our Easter.
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26 During Elizabeth’s sixth month of pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27 to a virgin. She was engaged to marry a man named Joseph from the family of David. Her name was Mary. 28 The angel came to her and said, “Greetings! The Lord has blessed you and is with you.”

29 But Mary was very startled by what the angel said and wondered what this greeting might mean.

30 The angel said to her, “Don’t be afraid, Mary; God has shown you his grace. 31 Listen! You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of King David, his ancestor. 33 He will rule over the people of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end.”
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And so our Easter becomes especially significant.

 

[gordon 2]

The People of Jacob.

When I study in scripture who Jacob was and what he did, and after I know some of these things I ask myself some pointed questions. Would I want Jacob anywhere near to my life? Would I want him as a friend, at my table, in my business, in my house? When I read in scripture that Jacob was willingly a cheat, a deceiver, a thief and that he fought with the Messenger of the Lord I have to ask myself that if I owned and managed a business would I want Jacob in a management position in my business? The answer is no. No I would even go as far as to say that Jacob was/is a toxic person. There is something deep within him besides the prompting of his mother, a type of the temptress eve, that is depraved. I can sense it at the gut level.

To think that God would set himself to the task to rule o'er the people of Jacob forever is in keeping with His habit of keeping in touch with people like Jacob's. The example of the Hebrews is perhaps a first sure type for this.

The idea that God will rule forever from the perspective of the Ruler of a Kingdom is perhaps of another order than simply God keeping in touch, fighting with a people formed from Jacob's traits that are not very endearing. It is of a whole other order that Jacob's people would knowingly become citizens of God's kingdom which is forever and not fight with God's messenger angel(s). It is not only true for Jacob's people, it is true for the gentiles.

Now the church songs of the gentiles are of their redemption, of their resurrection. Of new beginnings those who claim salvation in the Lord and his kingdom. But wait is it a kingdom now or a kingdom to come? For if it is a kingdom to come that we are as Jacob and our salvation will only be in what is to come. God's rule on us is not as citizens that are to a kingdom yet, but for citizens that will be. We are no more than as Jacob's people were before Christ.

"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness" seems a strange thing to ask of the living who cannot find it as long as they breath.