08/26/2023 – Our mission: “You are a child of Yerushalayim. Therefore, choose to live this day not as you are, but as you will yet be, the perfect and heavenly.” /Day 159 / Psalms 122; Psalms 147: 2-3; Revelation 21: 1-2
Good morning! I think I am going to post more often from my all time favorite daily devotional: “The Book of Mysteries” , by Jonathan Cahn. For each of the 365 daily devotionals, there is a fictional conversation between a “teacher” and a “student”. I have always wanted to learn Hebrew; this particular devotion is just one example of how a seemingly small nuance can shed more light on His truth.
Let’s get started!; This is titled: “Yerushalayim” , day 159 in the book.:
“Over there,” SAID the teacher, “beyond those mountains, far beyond them, is the city of Jerusalem. That’s the direction in which Jewish people have prayed for ages … to the Holy City.”
“I’ve never been there,” I said. “I’ve heard it’s like no other place.”
“it a city of rocks on the edge of a desert… And yet there’s something about it, a beauty, a glory, an awesomeness one can’t quite put into words … as in no other place. The mystery is in the name.”
“The name Jerusalem?”
“In its real name… Yerushalayim. Notice what is ends with?”
“The im. So the word is plural.”
“Yes. so Yerushalayim doesn’t really mean Jerusalem, but the Jerusalems. And the mystery goes deeper. It’s not just an im at the end, but an ayim, a unique ending that speaks specifically of duality, as in two. In other words, Yerushalayim means the two Jerusalems.”
“What are the two Jerusalems?”
“They are the Jerusalem you see and the Jerusalem you don’t … the Jerusalem that is and the Jerusalem that it is yet to become… Jerusalem, the earthly, and Jerusalem, the heavenly… Jerusalem of time and space, and Jerusalem, the Eternal… Jerusalem, the flawed and imperfect, and Jerusalem, the perfect, the beautiful, and the glorious. And the mystery of Jerusalem has everything to do with you. For if you belong to God, you are a child of Jerusalem… a child of Yerushalayim. Therefore you share in her nature.”
“How?”
“As it is with Jerusalem, so with your life. To your life is an ayim. It means there’s always ore to it than you see with your eyes. There are two realms, two lives… the life you see and the life you don’t see… the person you are and the person you are yet to be… you, the earthly, and you, the heavenly; you, the imperfect and flawed, and you , the perfect, the beautiful, and the glorious. So no matter what you think of your life, in God, the truth is always more and better. And even jin your lowest places, there’s a glory beyond anything you see or feel or understand… any ayim, a duality… and therefore a choice. Choose, therefore, to live not by the earthly, but the heavenly. Believe not what is, but what is yet to be. Dwell not in the flawed, but the perfect. For you are the Jerusalem of God… His Yerushalayim.”
“The Mission: You are a child of Yerushalayim. Therefore, choose to live this day not as you are, but as you will yet be, the perfect and the heavenly.
Psalm 122; 147: 2-3; Revelation 21: 1-2″
Soli Deo Gloria indeed!