Wedding Meal Tasting

 

“Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb.”

—Revelation 19:9

Wow! I didn’t know just how involved it gets to sample and taste foods for a wedding dinner. In looking on the Internet, I found a large number of articles similar to the following:

• “100 Things to Know About Wedding Tasting”
  
  
• “Eleven Tips for Wedding Tasting”
  
  
• “Questions to Ask When Attending Your Wedding Tasting”
  
  
• “18 Tips to Get the Most from Your Wedding Tasting - On The Bride’s Side”
  
  
• “Wedding Tasting Etiquette: 10 Things You Should Know”
  
  
• “What to Expect at Your Caterer’s Tasting - Vibrant Table Catering”
  
  

Let me just say how crazy it all sounds to this woman who served homemade Jello® salads and homemade “fancy” sandwiches at her very own wedding reception!

However, I do see some parallels between preparing for current wedding dinners and preparing for the Wedding Supper of the Lamb mentioned in the Scripture passage at the top of this blog post. For one, the invited guests truly know the Bride and Groom.

Often in Scripture, we read the title for the church: “The Bride of Christ.” If you truly know the Groom and His Bride, you will find yourself included in this invitation to the heavenly wedding. Notice that I didn’t say, “If you know about the Groom and His Bride.” But rather, do you “truly know” them.

In fact, those already invited can taste the heavenly banquet now, while awaiting the joyous full table, the laughter, the tears of gratitude, and the true company of the righteous in Heaven.

Now, in the present—even as we await the future celebration in the Kingdom of God—we can enjoy our fellowship with other believers, our sampling of the words of Scripture, Holy Spirit-filled prayer and preaching, and pleasure from the gifts given to us by God. Only those who truly know the Bride and Groom and experience these blessings now will actually get a full helping of the rich stores awaiting us in eternity.

I particularly like the familiar old gospel hymn that uses the word “foretaste.”¹

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
This is my story, This is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, This is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.

Right now, we believers experience a foretaste of what will someday come to pass. How blessed we are when we belong to God through His precious Son.

______________________

1 Crosby, Fanny, Blessed Assurance. Gospel hymn. Public Domain.

 

 

Old Maid

 

“One of those listening [to Paul and Luke] was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.”

—Acts 16:14

Perhaps it was my sleep deprived addled brain, but I swear I saw the “Old Maid” driving a car this morning! What on earth would have brought back the memory of that old childhood card game? Okay. I guess the lady driving did resemble the woman in the photo found on the box and in the graphic above!

In those days, and for much of human history, a woman without a husband had the reputation as a bit of a “loser” in society—just as the person who chose her card and ended up with a graphic of her on that card became the loser of the game.

I can’t say for sure, but I think Lydia from the book of Acts had no husband—at least the Scripture doesn’t mention one. She had a successful business dealing with beautiful, imported cloth. It wouldn’t surprise me if she actually was the one who founded the group that met together on the Sabbath near the river that listened to Paul and Luke preach.

Not only did Lydia open her heart, but her home. And, in Acts 16:40, we read that a church met in her house sometime later. These meetings had great significance in the furtherance of the gospel. Lydia became the first Christian in Europe. And, the first church met in her house! Rather than living with a stigma of not having a husband or children, God allowed Lydia a significant place in His new church.

Do you know women who have never married, but have given Christ the totality of their lives and have done magnificent things for Him? While God has used many such women, the life of Corrie Ten Boom comes immediately to my mind. This Dutch watchmaker, in her early years, helped in the training of children. In her fifties, she hid Jews in her small bedroom’s closet. Eventually, she became a prisoner of war in Germany.

She suffered in three concentration camps, including Ravensbrüch, from which God miraculously allowed her release. From that life in concentration camps, Corrie became what she called a “Tramp for the Lord.” She traveled the world telling her story and sharing the gospel with thousands of people.

Maybe you are living a single life, and see yourself as the most unappealing “card” in the “deck of life.” Surrender that pain to God. Let Him show you what wonderful things He has planned for you.

Perhaps you know other single women who need to hear words of encouragement that tell how God calls them to serve Him in some unique way that only their unmarried state would allow. Be Christ’s voice to lift them up. They, along with all the other “cards,” belong in His hand and He will use them!

 

 

By Hap

 

“She gleaned in the field after the reapers: and her hap was to light on the part of the field belonging unto Boaz, who was of the kindred of Elimelech.”

—Ruth 2:3 KJV

Sometimes the language of the King James Version of the Bible catches my attention in a way the modern translations don’t. When Charles Haddon Spurgeon wrote his devotional book, Morning and Evening, he used the word “hap”—a word that was quite familiar at the time of his writing in the mid-1800s. It means “by happenstance,” or “taking place by coincidence, or chance.”

The unknown author of the Old Testament Book of Ruth tells the story about how Ruth, seemingly by chance, gleaned in the field of her mother-in-law’s relative Boaz. Here’s what Spurgeon wrote about the story:¹

Ruth had gone forth with her mother’s blessing, under the care of her mother’s God, to humble but honourable toil, and the providence of God was guiding her every step. Little did she know that amid the sheaves she would find a husband, that he should make her the joint owner of all those broad acres, and that she a poor foreigner should become one of the progenitors of the great Messiah. God is very good to those who trust in Him, and often surprises them with unlooked for blessings.

If we stop to consider carefully the days of our own lives, most of us would see times when things that seemed “by hap” actually turned out to have occurred by the design of our Sovereign God. Along this vein, I read an account of the day Christian artist and author, Joni Eareckson Tada, had the diving accident that left her a quadriplegic for life.

Joni’s sister, Kathy, was at the beach with Joni. She stayed near the shore and suddenly felt a sharp pinch by a crab and screamed to Joni to watch for crabs. Because Joni didn’t respond, Kathy immediately went looking for her and ended up saving her from drowning. Kathy writes, speaking of God:²

From the big events in life down to the tiniest of details, he is great, he is sovereign, and he is in control.

When we are tempted to think that we have experienced a coincidence, we must remember that as God’s dearly loved children, our Heavenly Father sovereignly looks out for us, directs our ways, uses us in the lives of others, and yearns to have us honor Him with our thanksgiving for all that He so graciously does for us.

In the lives of those of us who belong to God through the Lord Jesus Christ, there simply is no such thing as “by hap”!

______________________

1 Spurgeon, Charles Haddon. Morning and Evening. McLean VA: MacDonald Publishing Company, Public Domain. p. 599.

2 Tada, Joni Eareckson. Pearls of Great Price. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing Company, 2006. Devotional for July 19.

 

 

Get Over Yourself

 

“Humble yourselves therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”

—1 Peter 5:6

Picture two brothers, ages five and seven, fascinated enough to come up close every Sunday during the Postlude to watch me play the organ. They liked the action of the pistons, the movement of my fingers, and especially the movement of my feet, as the music filled the sanctuary.

One Sunday, the older brother posed the question, “Do you ever make mistakes?”

Considering that his question provided a “teachable moment,” I said, “Sure I do.”

To which he responded, “I thought so!”

I’ve thought of that encounter quite a number of times over the years, as I tried to camouflage an errant note or two while I played.

Most of us have plenty of opportunities for God to humble us. Whether it’s a piece of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of our shoe, a wardrobe malfunction, or a “tied tongue” when speaking in public, we know how it feels to experience humiliation. Sometimes we even know why God has brought us down with an embarrassing event.

When we think too highly of ourselves, our Lord says in Isaiah 42:8:

“I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another.”

In so many words, God is saying, “Get over yourself!”

When we compare ourselves to others and boast, even to ourselves, about our imagined superiority, God, in His love and discipline, will allow us to suffer humiliation to remind us that we possess nothing He did not give us, even our well-honed skills. Again, in Isaiah 66:2, our Lord says:

“This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”

God wants humble servants—grateful for all we are and have—not self-assured, boasting performers who feel superior to those around us. When we, in pride, carry out our work—or even our service to Him—we steal His glory. When we bow before Him in humility and thanksgiving, we lift Him up and reveal His glory!

We need to get over ourselves, but never over Him!

 

 

We Had Heard

 

“As we have heard, so have we seen.”

—Psalm 48:8

I had heard about and seen pictures of Pikes Peak in Colorado for many years. In fact, I showed pictures to classes as I taught “America the Beautiful” written by Katherine Lee Bates from the top of that mountain. But, I had never seen it for myself. Then one summer my husband and I traveled to Colorado Springs and drove up the mountains to the Peak. I experienced something much broader and bigger than I imagined.

The winding, treacherous road, the clear air above the timber-line, the steep climbs, the breathtaking views from the summit, all gave me a much more vivid view of this great mountain.

In Scripture, we find several examples of persons experiencing the wonders of God for themselves that they may have only heard about before. In Psalm 48, the people recount the deliverances of the Lord in their past history. They exclaimed together:

“We had heard about God’s mighty acts. We heard the stories from childhood, but now, in our own time, we have actually seen them for ourselves.”

In the book of Job, we read the story of God’s servant whose life God allowed Satan to devastate. Job suffered great torture and never knew the reason. Yet, he didn’t give up on God. At the very end of his story in Job 42:5, Job confessed to God:

“My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.”

Job’s experience far outweighed the stories about God.

In 1 John 1:1, the Apostle describes what he and others had experienced of God:

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.”

Here again, the early church gave great significance to the experience of seeing and knowing Christ.

Paul recognized the importance of a personal knowledge of God. In Philippians 3:10, he yearned:

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

Do we want to know Christ in this way, by experience? God invites us to come near, to know Him, to experience the way of life He offers, and to no longer live only on the encounters of others.