One of the biggest challenges followers of Jesus express on a constant basis is hearing God's voice. I can relate at times.
I cannot imagine the context and implications to passionate people of God who lived in the era of 400 years of God's silence. This was the period of history between the Old Testament and the emerging of John the Baptist in the New Testament.
Scholars have called this time when God did not speak to His people 'the echo of God'. Try as they may all that came back in response to their calls out to God was the sound of their own petitions. What replaced it was a sterile attempt to follow God's teachings or a flimsy hope that one day in the distant future God would 'show up'!
What was lost was the covering and protection of a loving, gracious, forgiving God whose sole aspiration was (and is) to restore broken relationships, heal broken people, reinstate His dream for His creation. The Old Testament reveals an active and involved God in His creation and people. When lost He directed, when disobedient He brought to our attention the self destructive inclination, when off the right path He called for a national turning around, when obstinate He disciplined, and when discouraged He reminded of His promises.
A far cry from the options we tend to default to! Religion that doesn't fulfill and idealism that doesn't bring resolution here and now. The Jesus Chronicles reveal another option. Jesus came that we might have life. He offers not a sterile teaching that with gut retching effort makes us 'o.k.' or a distance hope that doesn't address our present circumstances. But a presence that brings joy, peace, and place of rightness with him, others and ourselves.
With John the Baptist's emergence the Jesus Chronicles begin in the New Testament. His message was that God was taking action, His voice was once again fresh, that He was going go protect us, and our aspirations He placed in us can be realized.
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