Eyes Wide Open

Living without the conscious awareness that our lives are progressing toward the consummation of history is like driving with your eyes shut. 

Tim Keller

For background, you might read Luke 2:22-40. 

God blesses the people who pursue him.  That is, for anyone who comes to God on God’s terms.  Like uh, he's God after all, right?  

Okay, let’s see how. 

Remember we're talking about Simeon, a mature adult (read "old man") in Jerusalem, back in Jesus' time.  The Spirit of God has made it clear to Simeon that he will see the Messiah before he dies.   Heady stuff.  

Simeon, despite his age, is not one to rest on his laurels.  He's driving forward as long as he has breath.  He goes to the temple just as (whaddaya know) Jesus’ mom and dad arrive.    

Eternity hack: God rewards the people who pursue him. 

Luke describes Simeon (and Anna too, remember her?) in ways to which most of us have a hard time relating.  His descriptions underscore to the ancient listeners that the messages are actually valid.  Bear with me.  

Simeon was:

1.   Righteous – in Bible-speak, that means that he walked the walk that he talked.  With Simeon, we have a man who understood God’s character and heart and expressed them in his life.  Here's one for you: he walked with God. Heady stuff. Was he sinless?  No, that's not what righteous in this sense meant.  But he lived with integrity.  As God himself is righteousness, Simeon was submissive to God in his heart and showed it in his actions. 

Pop quiz: how's your IQ, that is, your integrity quotient?  Really?  

2.   Devout – Simeon and Anna were intentional about their relationship with God.  They were proactive.  Conscientious.  They invested in it.  Simeon went to the temple, and Anna was there, waiting for him.  Anna never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Anna and Simeon sought first the Kingdom of God. 

If your relationship with God seems nonexistent, or stale for that matter, or he seems distant, as in he's long ago in a galaxy far, far away, this could be a huge teachable moment for you. If you're open.   

If you want more info on that, email or message me.  

And if you happen to be a Christian, it might be because you’re wounded, or complacent, or compromise has crept in.  Being devout is not about being fanatical. It is simply being intentional, being deliberate – taking responsibility for your relationship with God. 

Anna and Simeon were both "waiting on God."  They understood God is the Lord of history.  Simeon lived each day with a sense of anticipation.  Simeon was waiting for God to act, and he knew that somehow He would.  In waiting for the “consolation of Israel,” Simeon was waiting for the Messiah. The Spirit prompted him to go to the temple for just that reason. 

You and I are living the same history as Simeon, we’re just at a different point.  In this period following the resurrection, and preceding the second coming of Christ (both foundational to Christian faith), we anticipate something we can all appreciate: the restoration of all things.  That is, after a rough period of upcoming change, and personal responsibility all the while, there's this: 

"...the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.  Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God." 

2 Peter 3:10-12

But I digress.  Where was I?  Ah, number three. Simeon was:

3.   Guidable and therefore guided – and the two go together, after all, right? 

Look at the Spirit of God in Simeon’s life:

• The (Holy) Spirit of God was upon him. 
• It had been revealed to him by said Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ. 
• Moved by the same Spirit, he went into the temple courts. 

Some of us don't believe this can happen, but it does.  

Repeatedly, the Spirit is at work in Simeon, drawing him into step with Kingdom purposes. 

God has not changed. We’re not so different.  God might draw you and me as well.  

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

John 6:44

You, child of God, can walk with God.  Consider that.  It's worth devoting 10 minutes to.  At least.  Maybe your life. 

You can be intimately about your Father’s work.  But just as with the lottery, if you don’t play, you can’t win.  So, are you guidable?  Be guidable and you are sure to be guided. Anticipate the restoration of all things and do good while you can. 

Simeon is righteous – he expresses his relationship with God in his life; he is devout. That means he is conscientious – proactive – about his relationship with God; he lived with a sense of destiny, anticipating the coming of the Christ; he is guidable and so he is guided. 

God blesses the people who pursue him, and uses the least of us for the greatest good.