“The House of Jacob shall possess their possessions ,” said the prophet Obadiah. Sounds almost like a contradiction in terms. How can you go on to possess what you already possess? By actually experiencing it firsthand. By appropriating it into our lives in a practical way.
This can be well illustrated by our experience with our new smart phone, which is continually outsmarting us. There are so many of its functions that we are not yet utilizing. As a consequence we are laboriously contending with a host of tasks on a daily basis which the smart phone, given the chance, could make surprisingly easy for us, and will one day. We own the phone, but have not yet personally owned or laid claim to all of its many features and facets.
It felt like such a disaster the day our first smart phone clattered to the pavement outside our home and refused to work ever again. But the new one that replaced it came with so many luxurious options and bells and whistles at no extra cost, that it exposed its predecessor for the dinosaur that it was! So the so-called disaster turned out to be providential after all.
Thus it is too with all that was won for us by Jesus Christ’s finished work on the cross some 2000 years ago. Though it seemed like a disaster to the disciples, and though it happened long ago we are only now beginning to catch up to it in the sense of starting to understand and tap into all of its treasure and significance. The new covenant sealed with the blood of the death of Jesus so superabundantly replaces and fulfills the old (in which innocent, unblemished animals had to bleed and die) that it will probably always seem like we are just skimming the surface of the immensity of what has been accomplished for us!
As with the human body so with the human spirit, even when illuminated and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, our reach will always exceed our grasp……
trbarlow 