TABLE FOR ONE
Exodus 38:11b And he made the meal table from Gold.
Galatians 1:15-16 But when God promised to select me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace to reveal His Son in me, that I might address with good tidings (preach) among the nations, I immediately did not confer upon flesh and blood.
Table for One
Tangibles like gold meal tables and flesh and blood from a mother’s womb are for the doubters, can be seen with the naked eye… touch with the hands, see it with the eyes. I suppose much like Thomas when he insisted that unless he touched the nail holes in Jesus’ hands, he would not believe the report from fellow-disciples that Jesus was alive.
Practicing the presence of God, an experience not conferred upon by flesh and blood is Divinity practiced only in spirit. Partaking in the Divine nature of God (2 Peter 1:4) is like sharing a king’s meal from a table of gold, but sharing a table with Jesus is really a table for one.
In a world full of bad news, Divine Discipleship is glad tidings, good news for every person in every nation. Everyone is welcome to this table, but this table for one is an intimate encounter between a believer and God, as private as the sexual relationship between a husband and a wife. Nothing or no one else is permitted in this space.
The Church is for gathering, for koinonia, fellowship, but partaking, koinonos, in the Divine nature of God is the “personal” in “personal relationship,” a term used often, but so often is not explained. A Divine-Human encounter does not happen in a large gathering, but in the quiet early hours that usher in the dawn; the time that Jesus walked on the water; the time when the women went to the tomb, when the waters of the Red Sea spilled back over the Egyptian chariots, and when Abraham took his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice atop the hill that Jesus was ultimately sacrificed. I wouldn’t trade anything in for my sacred time in the early morning hours.
The good news, that the Holy Spirit will meet each and every person from some one-on-one time has to be shared among the nations. With this good news comes some extended information, that prayer is so much more than a call for help or a request for strength. “Do you not know that you are the temple that houses the spirit of God?” New Testament writer, Paul, already laid the ground work for the spiritual nature that accompanies a baptized believer. God is already in close proximity because of the holy nature of my temple.
No reservation is required at this table, but time is. Solomon wrote, among the hundreds of other proverbs, not to value sleep. Sleep is a commodity like other necessary commodities which require calculation and prudence, like managing money. I manage money; money does not manage me. In the same vein, I manage sleep, but sleep doesn’t manage me. Sleep is always there, and if left unchecked and unmanaged, it can and will rob me of my early morning Divine-human encounter. I manage sleep; sleep does not manage me. “Do not value sleep,” the proverb warns, the same way that God’s Word warns against valuing money. God knows what is best for me, and He also knows that only the self-disciplined will meet Him at that table for one in the early morning sacred hours.
Partaking in the Divine nature of God is a privilege to be respected, not a casual acquaintance that can wait until there is a more convenient time for me. The Ephesian believers abandoned their first devotedness, as noted in Revelation 2:4. The believers in Laodicea were lukewarm in their approach to God, and they were said to be a people that Jesus would spit out of His mouth, as noted in Revelation 3:16. Agreed, the book of Revelation has a great deal of obscure language, but there is nothing obscure in those early chapters about lukewarm faith and lukewarm devotion.
Get hot, get hungry and get out of bed! Don’t miss your very own Divine-human encounter. God is there everyday at your own table for one.
