Come Now

Devotional Christian Poetry

Come Now . . .

Come to the table of My Heart,

the table of reasoning.

We can discuss

issues tripping you up

and work together on them.

I am the one

who washes your scarlet

transforming it to pure snow.

Please don't resist or hide.

The door to My Heart

is always open.

You can't do this alone!

The table of reasoning

becomes the table

of Friendship and Exchange.

Rags for riches,

Righteousness for unrighteousness!

It's free to exchange

As you trade

the rights to your life,

losing your life . . .

To Gain It.

© 2019 Lloyd Portman - All Rights Reserved

Reflection

God is amazing how He draws us with loving kindness to exchange our sin for His righteousness. Humanity needs this table of exchange regularly, as we journey through the areas which trip our lives up.

The ultimate exchange we ever make is when we wholeheartedly give our Heart over to Him. In so doing we give up our rights to our life and this is the process of washing the Scarlet.

Isaiah 1:18 AMP

“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord. “ Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be like wool."

The interesting part of this verse is the invitation from God. "Come now and let us reason together." This is an amazing statement from God asking us to bring and state our case. The keyword here is Reason and in the Hebrew it means to bring your case ie a legal case to be vindicated or reasoned TOGETHER.

This invitation to discuss points with Him really underscores God as one whom you can discuss things with and reason with. I get a picture here of God putting His arm around my shoulder and entreating me to state my case so we can discuss it. I don't feel condemned by Him.

In Psalms 51:10 Passion Translation, David cries out to God. Create a new, clean heart within me. Fill me with pure thoughts and holy desires, ready to please you.

After God wins our heart, He then wants to establish a friendship with us. This is when we judge ourselves as being unworthy because of many of our own reasons that we can't, e.g. we are not perfected enough yet to be granted that privilege. God loves us unconditionally in spite of the traditions of society we have had instilled in us that everything in life is conditional.

How could we not respond to an invitation to be one of God's friends? Abraham was called a friend of God and he had his issues and looking at David "a man after God's own heart" his track record is well documented.

The wonderful revelation about "the Table" is the incremental work which happens within the friendship. This is where the transformation takes place as we give more of ourselves and our heart, and die to ourselves.

On one occasion when I was preparing a couple prior to their wedding, I had a revelation of them both standing at an altar. It wasn't a traditional ultar as one would imagine it was an altar of sacrifice. What I saw was each of them laying down their life for the other. It was a case of Self sacrifice, the ultimate of dying to self. God then showed me if they don't die to themself the marriage could eventually fail.

The more I walk with God I realize how important this meeting table of developing friendship is.

Questions

# - If you looked at your life as an orange cut in half, how many segments of it are still yours and unpeeled?

# - Have you ever "traded" any of these segments and in time found out you never really gave them over? This is part of dying to yourself and a process we all go through one step at a time.

# - Whatever God builds He tests, have you noticed any of these tests happening after you have been to the table of exchange? List them to encourage yourself and build your faith.

Here is this post on my website