Thursday, March 28

Revelation in context

“I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him. Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom the one Which shall not be destroyed.” Daniel 7:13, 14 NKJV

This is without doubt a magnificent vision of Christ, His glory and rule.

However, it is good to understand that Daniel as a Jew would have had some understanding of the concept of a Son of Man. He knew of a Messiah to come and may have very well known Him to be God’s son.

His vision then of the glorious rule and dominion of God’s son came in this context. God showed him this magnificent vision on the foundation of his context.

When we hear God, or have a revelation it will most often come out of the context of what we already know or see. God fills out our understanding of Him. He magnificantly enlarges our view of Him.

Even the apostle Paul knew about Christ and recognised Him when knocked off the horse and had such a dramatic encounter on the road to Damascus.

Therefore, as important as a revelation is, we need to build our context well. A healthy context for healthy revelation is your church, your church’s small groups, your regular reading of the Bible and prayer. All our essential to progressive revelation and even dramatic insights as Daniel had. Such moments are informed by these contexts.

Your salvation is understood in context. Fight for your context, work it out in your context … You will see more fully your own salvation as you see it in others, In the Word, in His presence. Fight for these things.

There is one final important thought then. If context is important and we want to see someone have a revelation of their need of Christ, they will usually need context also (although some who have never heard of Jesus have had Him dramatically revealed to them in dreams). This means we need to tell them – how will they know if we do not tell!

You can do it! Bring someone to Church this week.