Ezra 4:7

The Letter to King Artaxerxes

In the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam and Mithredath and Tabeel and the rest of their associates wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia. The letter was written in Aramaic and translated.

This post isn’t going where you think.

In October of 2008 I suffered a stroke. The doctors called it a miracle stroke because none of them had ever seen anything like it before. No paralysis, no cognitive effect, no physical signs beyond that of blind spots in my vision. Not blindness, little areas in my field of vision were missing.

The stroke hit two places in my brain in the exact same area, the left and right translation centers that are responsible for translating optical signals into signals that the rest of my brain could use to analyze according to their cognitive responsibilities. 

When two co-workers visited me in the hospital the next day I noticed their mouths were missing. It was at that moment I realized how much I relied on reading lips to help me overcome some hearing loss from the war.

So how does this relate to my purpose of bringing the gospel message to a lost and dying world?

When a person who is blind from birth has their sight restored, the brain upon receiving the translation through that portion of their brain responsible for sending a signal to the cognitive areas of the brain that are seeing something they have no point of reference to understand. They cannot make sense of it. An apple is shaped like an orange but the brain cannot tell the difference between the two and cannot distinguish it as food because they have the shape of a ball which is not food.

Being spiritually blind for all your life is the same thing. Our brains don’t know what to make of it.

Thank God He dwells with us to help us understand. There is nothing better than to have the Author and Perfecter of our Faith living with us. Hebrews 12:2

Job 19:25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.

While this is true, that He will stand on earth to rule and reign during the Millennial Kingdom, until then we have His abiding presence.

Knowing that fully takes time to adjust our brains to a new way of thinking. The Holy Spirit will translate for us. 

John 10:26-30 English Standard Version

26 but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”

The Lamb of God becomes the shepherd.

This is a hard saying if you are not called.

• Isaiah 43:1 But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.
• Isaiah 43:7 everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

Revelation 13:8 and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.

It is sad to see the truth expressed alongside an extreme negative. The “it” that is worshipped here in 13:8 is the beast. Those that worship the beast will not find their names written in the book of life of the Lamb of God.

Those names that are included in that book can take comfort in this one issue; the book is sealed and no one can take your name out of the book. No one but the Lamb can open that book and read those names.

Revelation 5:5 And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

Those descriptions are tied to the lineage and identity of Jesus of Nazareth, the Lamb of God.

Reading and believing what is written about Jesus from the very foundations of the world will help us to understand that the only way we can hear Him calling us is by faith.

Don’t you want to hear Him calling you by name?