Gestation Period
But He said to him, “Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.” Luke 9:60 NASB
Dead – When do you think you will be born? When will God start what He has finished with you? It’s nice that the NLT adds “spiritually dead” to its translation of this verse, but I think it misses the point. If God’s intention is to birth human beings, that is, those who are fully alive to Him and obedient to His will, then we are all waiting to be born. We are all not-yet-alive (dead) because we have not yet become what He purposed. It’s just that the gestation period is seventy or eighty years or more.
Thinking of ourselves as being formed in the womb now helps explain a lot. First, it tells us that this is a growing process. When God is finally finished with making us who He intended, then we will be born as He purposed. Now we grow. We struggle, stretch, move, learn, eat, breathe and make lots of fruitless mistakes while we are being formed. Secondly, it helps us understand why things are so difficult here. God knows what He wants but we think we are already complete. So we try restoration and recovery work instead of birth preparation. Because we confuse consciousness with being human, we try to manage our own births. It doesn’t work. Finally, if we think of ourselves as children carried in the womb of the Lord, we may be comforted knowing that He is arranging the birth, not us. It’s not really in our hands. What He intends to bring about will be much easier if we stop trying to induce our own arrivals and let the process take care of itself.
There is also a profound implication in understanding life in this backwards way. It is perhaps the implication hidden within this statement from Yeshua. We are not on the way to death. We are on the way to life. We are dead now, that is, we are not conformed to the image God has in mind so from a Hebrew perspective, we are not serving our ultimate purpose. And in Hebrew thought, that means we do not yet exist. We are like the men in Plato’s cave, convinced that the shadows on the wall are the real world. We think this is it, when in fact, we are now waiting to become what He intended. But God will see to it that some day we will transition from death to life. Your birth is yet to come. Your death is a present reality.
Perhaps this explains why we become much more sensitive to spiritual realms when we approach what we call death. In fact, our birth is coming very near and we suddenly realize what really matters in all the death we have been experiencing is just a tiny sliver of those things that portend life.
In the end, we will be born and leave this body of death behind. A mother elephant carries its unborn child for twenty-two months before birth. Apparently God carries us for as long as we “live.” I, for one, can’t wait to be born.
Topical Index: death, life, born, Luke 9:60
THAT is a paradigm shift! So thought-provoking, thank you.
Love it !
” stop trying to induce my arrival & let the process take care of itself …….”
sounds trusting & restful , when I think I need to achieve……
The backwards Kingdom. From death to life are we born. The worst is already behind us!
In the wilderness, the ungrateful Children who missed the dubious pleasures of the chaos of Egypt were given what they thought they wanted, and they ate meat until they threw it up through their noses.
In this world, we start out thinking we are “ok’. We check with others around us, to make sure. Yep, we look ok. So we take off on a run, and give it a whirl. We spend the inheritance on gold, guns and girls: on worldly values, power, and the seductions of the yetzer ha-ra. We eat until it runs out our noses, but we still feel like something is missing. What is missing? Ourselves. Why? We are not alive. All is meaningless if we are not plugged into the Vine.
Not until the end of the rope; not until we have run our hardest, are we ever really convinced that what is there is not enough. It FEELS like life, it APPEARS to be life, and we BELIEVE it is life; but is it?
There is life in the blood. That was what the Hebrews were taught. Only blood can give life. We cannot have that life until we are born. In this world, we are born in the flesh already dying. In iniquity do our mothers conceive us, and we think we would have it so. Only when we become convinced that it is not enough, and we have eaten the husks of rebellion with the Unclean until it is running out our noses, yet still are not satisfied, do we think of home, and of our Father. “I will arise, and go to my Father”. The pleasures of serving sin we have to throw down. We become willing to serve Him once the inheritance has been squandered, and we perceive we have nothing. Now He has us where we, born in that iniquity; that inherited PROPENSITY to sin – which we are born already in so full agreement with that we cannot even see it as sin, and therefore choose against it – would never go. Righteousness IS service. Righteousness IS willing to be last. That is something iniquity will never understand. We are certainly not born with that understanding!
All He ever needed out of us was us on our knees – no matter HOW we got there! The willingness to serve is the hallmark of the Kingdom, but only after we have tasted the full dregs of death, do we become convinced that the requisites of true Life are better. It is only on our knees that we find ourselves in the right place to forgive those who trespassed against us, for only there can we truly understand the basis for our own forgiveness, which is the understanding that they were as bamfoozled as we. Only there will we ever understand that greatest of all exemplary prayers “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. They really didn’t! And neither did we! Only on our knees of exhaustion and bewilderment can we even consider the thought (new paradigm!) that perhaps we really didn’t know what we were doing! And it is only on those knees that we are in the right place to lay down our swords of rebellion and resistance, and let Him, Who was lifted up on that Cross, do what He does best; lift us up. We have to go down before we can go up. He tasted those dregs for us. We have to drain that cup, too. Death is humiliating. Humbling. Totally unnatural, our every cell and sense screams against it. We have to experience that horror and that shame, so that we can remember forever. This we must do, so that we can remember what He did. Only in death is the choice of Life truly available, for if we are not there, we will (naturally!) continue to sin the sin of ungratefully appropriating the inheritance; life unearned and squandered.
The Cup and the Bread only makes sense to people who have been Born again, and been washed in that Blood. His Body, which that Broken Bread represents, was bruised and beaten for our healing, and His Blood was shed to give us that new Life. On this present earth, this is our only portal. In the earth made new, we will drink directly from that River of Life, and eat the fruit every month and leaves of our healing, too, of that Tree of Life instead, but I think we will still always do, in Remembrance. Death is just not something I think we will ever forget! Halleluah!
Just a little note, Laurita, as you mentioned “The Cup and the Bread”. They are not rituals to be observed weekly, nor monthly, as in some assemblies, but strictly on Pesach/Passover. And the “Bread” is matzah, which is unleavened, just as the “Bread” of Life, Y’shua is unleavened. It’s translation issue/agenda.
ἄρτος is composed of flour mixed with water within eight minutes, to prevent leavening and baked, has no leaven, unlike bread.
Shalom.
This was so thought provoking, yet so clearly simple.. What comfort this concept of true reality brings to the appearance of meaninglessness we have on earth..
Thank You Skip, and I too can’t wait to be born!!
You are in good company, Skip. I’m reminded of Romans 8:22-28 on several different levels. “We know that until now, the whole creation has been groaning as with the pains of childbirth; and not only it, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we continue waiting eagerly to be made sons-that is to have our whole bodies redeemed and set free.” To think that creation can hardly wait until it is out from under the bondage man has put on it. Sad. Second level: “..the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we don’t know how to pray the way we should. But the Spirit Himself pleads on our behalf with groanings too deep for words; and the One who searches hearts knows exactly what the Spirit is thinking, because His pleadings for God’s people accord with God’s will. Furthermore, we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called in accordance with His purpose..” What an amazing- wholly Loving God who suffers labor pains until we come to birth…..and turns all the enemies’ own weapons against himself..so we can be victoriously born! Awesome!
“What He intends to bring about will be much easier if we stop trying to induce our own arrivals and let the process take care of itself.”
Amein! Speaks of arrogance and pride that one has “arrived” with no further need for gestation, which is a wonderful protected environment.
Naturally, way-too-pre-matured babies are difficult to care for. They need so much more care and attention to ensure their normal growth. Speaks for those who choose not to walk in humility.
SO, are we truly “born again”?
Good question. I am not sure about the “born again” theology. It is not found in Scripture except in an invented word in Peter. The real research should be done as to when this idea came into the Christian faith. I suspect we would discover it is a result of the antebellum revival period, but I would have to do a lot more study to trace its history.