By Deborah Kendrick

Untitled by MeHe via Pixabay. CC0 Creative Commons

 

 As the visions during the night continued,

I saw one like a Son of man coming, on the clouds of heaven;

When he reached the Ancient One and was presented before him,

The one like a Son of man received dominion, glory, and kingship;

All peoples, nations, and languages serve him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not be taken away,

His kingship shall not be destroyed.   Daniel 7:13-14

 

On a moment by moment daily basis, more than any other aspect of His being, I embrace Jesus as my King.  He is exalted, sitting at the right hand of His Father. He is continually revealing Himself as the Lord of Heaven and earth, having overcome Hell, death and the grave.  After two thousand years, at the mention of His name Jesus, devils tremble and flee, the sick are healed and broken-hearted lives are restored. There is no greater authority under Heaven and on earth.   

To establish His Kingdom on earth, Jesus continues to knock at the door of each living soul.  Once received, His loves melts us into tenderness and we embrace Him as the King of our hearts. On this earth, we become both the evidence and the ambassadors of His Kingdom of Heaven. 

As most of us are unaccustomed in the ways of honoring royalty, we habitually seek for Him to meet us in the places that we are familiar:  the tiny baby, the compassionate son, the faithful friend, the extraordinary teacher, the lonely man who was falsely accused and endured sorrows, suffering, pain, and grief and faced death.  We meet Him in His humanity where He also reached us by taking on the likeness of man.  Jesus is both fully man and fully God.  That same Jesus is calling us to reach up to Him in His Divinity as the King of Glory. For this, we have to come up higher.

If we hold back from entering the presence of the King, in all likelihood we have failed to see ourselves as members of His royal family.  Often we can live complacently with God as the Lawgiver and we are citizens or He as the Sovereign and we are the subjects.  By doing so, we deny Jesus the reward of His sufferings.  He has restored for us all that was lost through the Fall in the Garden of Eden.  As I was searching the depths of God’s relationship with us, the Holy Spirit breathed these thoughts into me:

You are an immortal soul created by the breath of God,

Nourished by the immortal Word of God,

Sustained by the immortal Body and Blood of Jesus,

Bearers of His immortal love and

Carriers of His immortal glory.

We are all in the process of recognizing our identity as God sees us.  It falls on us like a shower from Heaven when we begin to live our lives giving worship to the King.  A good place to begin is to pray on the interior, “Jesus, I love you. . . Jesus, I love you. . .” from our hearts to His.  It is so simple to enter into the Presence as the King when we put Him on the throne of our hearts.

 The prophet Isaiah shared his vision of Jesus on the throne. 

In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne,

He was high and lifted up, with the train of His robe filling the temple.

Seraphim stood above Him. . . .and one called out to another and said,

“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of His Glory.”  Isaiah: 6:1-3

David, the shepherd who became the king of Israel, lays out in Psalm 24 what is required to ascend to this Holy place of the Lord: clean hands, a pure heart and humility without deception.  He ends the psalm with this anthem.

Lift up your heads, O gates, and lift them up O everlasting doors,

That the King of glory may come in!

Who is this King of glory?

The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory.  Psalm 24:9-10

In the realm of His Glory, we enter into His rest.  We are lifted to meet Him where He dwells and where He has prepared a place for us for all Eternity.  As we experience this gift of His Presence, peace and provision, we are changed on the inside.  We live with less stress and anxiety as fears are vanquished.  Joy, hope and trust are increased as we grow in the experience of knowing He is the God who loves us.  What is hidden from the world in a mystery becomes the very breath of our own lives.

“. . . the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations,

But has now been manifested to His saints,

To whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery

. . . Which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”  Col 1:26-27

We are called to seek His face. I told my children (and now my grandchildren) when they were small, “You have to close your eyes to see Jesus and be really quiet to hear Him.”  This also works for grown-ups.  In these times of prayer we can lift our hearts and voices in worship spontaneously.  Doing so, we join with the angels, the hosts of Heaven and the great cloud of witnesses who continually behold the face of Jesus and worship Him throughout all Eternity.  Together we become the voice of the Bride, calling her Beloved to come quickly.

 Holy, Holy, Holy.  The King of Glory comes!

 You, O Lord are majestic in all Your ways. Create in us a clean heart. Teach us to number our days that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.  Show us Your Glory that we may be changed into Your likeness.  Melt us in Your presence that we may carry your fragrance and loveliness to a broken world.  For in You all things are made beautiful.  Amen.

 

About the author:

 Deborah Kendrick came into the Catholic Church in 2011 through her interaction with Catholics in ecumenical meetings though out Europe, where she was a conference speaker and led retreats for twenty years. During her testimony, she says, “The French Catholics just loved me into the Church.” Deborah’s heart is to see people know and receive the love God has for them which encompasses a New Pentecost for the new evangelization. “God is calling us closer in this hour. Open hearts bring an open Heaven.” She can be reached at jerusalempaintings@gmail.com.