Today we fast and pray. I have been thinking about what we have learned from our study in Revelation, specifically about how the Tribulation will be filled with hot and difficult weather. Blazing sunlight burns and hurts our fragile skin. This will be a very difficult time for those still living on earth!
What a contrast, and what a relief, to realize and be assured that when we get to Heaven, Jesus promises that “neither shall the sun painfully burn them any longer with a severe and burning heat.” Rev 7:16. But what are we to do while we still live in this broken world? We understand that we must have a shade over our heads when the sun heats the days. Isaiah 32:2 promises that Christ will be to us “a refuge from the wind and a shelter from the storm, like canals for irrigation or streams of water in a dry country, like the shade of a huge rock in an exhausted or a parched land.” The sun destroys what it touches. Christ makes for us a shade. His character and Divine qualities, like a rock in the desert, shade us from the blazing seasons. There is only one way for mankind to be assured of making it through the days that are ahead for this world…and that
is to learn to have Jesus as “our Shade”! This world can be the cause of much weariness. We watch the news and it almost seems to “fry our frail sun scorched minds”. We look to our political leaders and we “wilt” as though we sit under the surging rays of sun. So we move close to our Rock! We rest as we see its immensity, so strong and majestic that we are humbled in awe at the size of our “El Capitan”. His close Presence begins to lower the temperature of the heat of our days. It sometimes seems as though we can actually feel the lowering of the thermometer. I have often referred to my daily prayer walks as; “a walk in the coolness of the day…as Adam walked with God in the garden of Eden.” How easily we can burn out under the piercing sunrays. Staying near the Shadow of Jesus, our Rock, makes it possible to live in this exhausted or parched land. Gather your family and friends and lead them… alongside you… to the solid Rock of Christ’s eternal love, mercy, power, tenderness, faithfulness, holiness and truth! Fix your eyes on He who will outlast the “scorching heat” of this world and who promises to constantly keep you safe and cool. “O Father,
we hide under this image of You…our Rock! We praise Your Name and celebrate You as the Rock of our salvation! In Jesus Name, Amen.”
