Come early and receive from him. Luke tells us at the end of this passage that the crowds gathered at the temple early each morning to hear Jesus. That may be what you're doing right now. Early in the morning, you've come to hear him. We live in a world in flux where city walls and kingdoms fall, where babies are born in perilous times like Moses. In that kind of world, where the earth shakes and oceans rise and fall, there's one thing that doesn't shift or collapse or crumble.
That one thing, Jesus says, is the word of God. When we see the rattle and the rise and the fall, the collapse and the chaos, when we see all these things take place, we can know that the kingdom of God is near. It ought to comfort us that when things are falling apart, the kingdom of God is rising up. Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will never disappear, says our Lord. When things are falling apart at the seams, the word of God keeps things sewn together. The messiah of Israel, the enduring word of God being spoken of here is a person. He is called the living word, and we can call on him like those in Luke 21. Early each day, amidst all of life's uncertainties, the ebb and the flow, the rise and the fall, we can come to him. He is our refuge and our strength, our comfort and wisdom.
We can come each day to be reminded of our new identity in him. We can discover what it means to abide in him, the living word, to live in him as he abides in us. We can come and experience the joy and the faithfulness and the goodness of it all. John recorded these words of Jesus. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. If you abide in me and my words, abide in you. Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. Let's discover more and more of this, every day of our life, in him.
Let's come to him, the living word, each day, like those in Luke 21. Magnificent buildings and even kingdoms, they come and go. Sometimes it all just falls apart. But there is a person, the living word of God, Jesus, and he will keep us together. Heaven and earth will fade away, but the living word of God, Jesus, remains. So let's keep coming to him each day to receive all that he has for us.
And that's the prayer that I have for my own soul. That's the prayer that I have for my family, for my wife and my daughters and my son. And that's the prayer that I have for you. May it be so.
