Epiphany – a moment of sudden revelation or insight, manifestation, appearance.
Like Mary.
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to the Galilean village of Nazareth 27 to a virgin engaged to be married to a man descended from David. His name was Joseph, and the virgin’s name, Mary. 28 Upon entering, Gabriel greeted her:
Good morning!
You’re beautiful with God’s beauty,
Beautiful inside and out!
God be with you
(Luke 1:26-28 Message)
Like Paul.
When he got to the outskirts of Damascus, he was suddenly dazed by a blinding flash of light. 4 As he fell to the ground, he heard a voice:”Saul, Saul, why are you out to get me?”5 He said, “Who are you, Master?” “I am Jesus, the One you’re hunting down. 6 I want you to get up and enter the city. In the city you’ll be told what to do next. (Acts 9:3-6 Message)
Here are just two examples that crossed my mind today about sudden flashes of light, bringing with them change, revelation, and an angelic appearance. With an epiphany comes a purity in awe and wonder, rushing over a person in a divine exchange between heaven and earth.
I believe that we need epiphanies in our lives – divine interactions of the supernatural kind. Normal Christianity. We need to be awed again on a consistent basis, or at least I do. I desire that sense of wonder, filled with child-like faith.
The essence of life can be dull and crusty in the day-to-day, as we all know and experience. As adults, we file our days away into categories or to-do lists that deal with the reality of life as we know it. We speak in clichés because it’s easier than to speak from the depths of our being as we encounter Jesus Christ.
How about being so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good at times? After all, we are already seated in heavenly places in Christ so why not learn to move in that realm, live in that place right now, today.
I believe what I am feeling today is what C.S. Lewis so beautifully said:
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
Have you ever felt like this? I believe this is deeply experienced by those who have turned themselves over to the Lordship of Christ Jesus. That sense that all is so shallow compared to the express longing to know Him in deeper and more profound ways.
Perhaps that is what a longing for holiness is all about. Not retreating into law and trying to find the right rules, regulations or declarations to draw close to God but throwing oneself headlong into grace. A grace that transforms us in the midst of our humanness. A grace that brings us into glory, a deeper revelation of Christ in me. A grace that transcends living in this world while we are living in this world.
To know Him. To see Him. To be like Him. To be transformed in His glory to walk in the light as He is in the light. To allow that light to permeate from the depths of our being so that we are walking light-bearers, filled with the glory of God. Perhaps it all starts with an epiphany that come purposely to destroy our sense of normalcy and set us on fire again.
In Christ and In Process,
Debra
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Rivers of Eden Ministry
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