finding satisfaction in the beauty of holiness

Isaiah 40:10- “See, His reward is with Him…”

Psalm 46:10- “Be still, and know that I am God…”

I have just experienced the wind taken out of my sails. You see I have a band. You can catch my music at www.kevinriner.com. Well I have been informed that my bass player has decided it would be best for him if he stepped out. He is an amazing bass player. My heart swoons to his ability to lay the lows.

I had a vision as to where this band was heading. I had concerts being made into plans. Cd’s being recorded. Marketing gear being printed up. This band was about to take flight. Until…

So here I am with no wind. Sails are at bay and the waters are calm. I talked to my pastor this morning. He told me not to worry. God was gonna take care of it. God was gonna do this and do that. God knows what’s going on and God was going to be there. God is! In the midst of his little spill about what all God was gonna do, all I could think about is what am I gonna do. So I asked him.

Now mind you, if given some advice or encouragement, I don’t ask questions. I just receive it and move on. But I’m tired of receiving advice I don’t fully understand and moving on just as clueless as I was when I received it.

“So what do I do since God is doing so much? Where do I stand?”

He told me to read Isaiah 40. And Psalm 46:10 (So I did.)

First, In Psalm, I received from the Lord through His word, not necessarily to be still per se but to simply calm my frustrations, my heartaches and my fears and know (I mean to intimately with full understanding know) that God is who He says He is; that he can really calm the storms, He can really fix the broken, He can really move mountains. He’s God! He’s not a human. He’s big uh… giant no, He’s huge, umm no massive uh uh, no He’s AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!! He created EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!! So why can’t I just sit back and let Him send me a bass player when He sees fit? I will trust in Him to be God!

Second, He spoke to me in Isaiah (for the benefit of this entry) that in Him is His reward. What do we, as christians, strive for. The rewards and benefits of attempting to live an obedient life. Sure we live to honor God, but deep down inside, we’ve sometime asked, ‘What’s in it for me?’. Because regardless of what anyone says, it may not be about me, but it definitely involves me.

So, what’s in it for me. A reward. What is my reward? Heaven? A crown of righteousness? Streets of gold? My very own mansion? How about happiness? All I could ever want materially? Are any of these things my reward.

NO!

Mine and your reward is in Him. In fact, it IS Him! Jesus is our reward. What better reward to have than to be with the one who had a hand in creating all that we see, leaving a world where angels proclaim His holiness day and night, where there is none more beautiful than He to come into the world that we have desecrated and humbled Himself to the lowliness of poorness and obediently had Himself beaten and massacred by His own creation,(and rose to tell about it), continues to bestow grace and mercy upon all who cross Him and welcome them (if they repent and turn to Him) into His kingdom, where He has labored for so long to build mansion after mansion so that we might have a dwelling place there.

That is our reward!!!!

This is why we don’t live for earthly things, but we are to store up our treasures in Heaven. This is why we work for kingdom or eternal things and not for things that moths or rust will destroy, or thieves will steal. (Matthew 6:19)

So am I still bummed? Sure I am. Yet I have a new vision. That no matter what happens to our band, we will continue in our reward and in the knowledge of God that He is who He says He is and that He will do what He says He will do.

Thanks for the encouragement Bro. Rocky, and thank you Jesus for my reward.