Good morning champions, here's some breakfast for you.
=BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO?=
Psalm 84: 5-7 (NKJV) Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.
I have been thinking of these verses a lot recently and have been considering how pilgrimage effects so many areas of our lives, also how it is not a bad thing but more often than not, a God designed thing for our lives. Here are some thoughts for you.
What is it to pilgrimage you may ask? The word pilgrimage means "to journey" so when God speaks of pilgrimage in this Psalm He is saying blessed is the person who sets His heart on journeying and that is so true, especially when it comes to our walk or journeying with God. Blessed (daily) is the person who sets His heart on journeying with the Lord. Other faiths in the world have a spiritual pilgrimage mentality but theirs are always to physical places and landmarks like Mecca and Lourdes, but it is not to be that way for us. Our pilgrimage is to a person, the person of Jesus, ever towards a deeper relationship with Him.
Christianity is not meant to be something or somewhere you totally arrive at instantly. In one way, yes, in the fact that when we believe we receive from God everything we are going to get (of His fullness we have received, John 1:16). But in another way, no, because we are called to spend the rest of our days (till we appear before him in Zion) journeying into everything He has given us, to understanding and embracing all that He has done and given to us in Christ. God wants us to "keep on movin". We are not to be parked vehicles, but ever-moving ones that walk, like Abraham, into all the promises and intentions of God for our lives.
So, our pilgrimage (journey) does not end when we reach a historical landmark because if it did, how sad would that be. You would be left thinking, "What next?" No, God commits to walk with us each and every day on this pilgrimage that He has called us to and every day it gets better and better. It's when we set our hearts to journey with the Lord that we learn all that we need to and He is revealed to us so we know Him closer and more intimately as the miles of our days pass by. Think about those 2 disciples that walked with the freshly risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24). For some reason Jesus had not allowed them to recognize Him, but appeared as someone they did not know. It was as they walked (journeyed) with Him that He made the mysteries of the scripture easily understood and then it was during the journey that He revealed Himself to them. As we set our hearts to journey with the Lord He helps us to daily understand His mysteries and daily reveals Himself to us as He did to them and He causes our hearts to burn within us as there's did.
Today, take another great step on this pilgrimage that will last your lifetime that He has called you to walk. Don't live like you have arrived but keep on moving ever forwards into new things with Him.
God Bless,
Andy
