A Third Testament

The only serious quest here on earth [is] for God, and [the] way to Him [is] charted in the Old Testament, sign-posted in the New, and illuminated by faith.
–Malcolm Muggeridge

Malcolm Muggeridge in his book "A Third Testament" offers in brief a look at the spiritual journies of six disciples of Jesus, St. Augustine, Blaise Pascal, William Blake, Soren Kierkegaard, Leo Tolstoy, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Each of these men lived in different times, distinctly different cultures, and had very different personalities, but each also had a particular tang to their lives, a spark, a call as a prophet of God. Each of them carried the light of the Gospel like a torch through darkening times of their age and surroundings that it might survive and burn bright for the next generation.

Muggeridge makes a point that each of these guys (and many known and unknown before and since) called people back into a life of faith and abandoned trust in the One Who Saves, much like the prophets of the Old Testament. Jesus was himself, in a sense, his own prophet in the gospels, calling His own people back to His heart and the heart of the Father. Then comes, of course, the disciples and the apostles. But, although the canon of the Scriptures have closed, the testaments of our own lives lived in the Light of Christ have not. They continue on as testaments to this Awesome God who wildly desires His own to know Him and be known by Him. These men pointed out by Muggeridge, and, I would add, dozens of friends that I have had the privilege of getting to know in my brief stint on earth, declare by their lives and by their love the one Reality of the Gospel. They are prophets. They are the Third Testament declaring the love of God unto the ends of the earth and unto the ends of the age, even all the way to me.

There is room for my own life lived large and bold and abandoned for God. There is room and need for my own words and passion and love and dreams. The world needs my heart fully alive. Since the Cross, it has always been, and remains so still, by the blood of the Lamb and (remarkably) by the word of our testimony that we will overcome. And overcome we shall.

And so I will continue to find and use my voice, live out of the passion of the deep well of my heart, and desire wildly my God and learn to love those He loves with a fierce, jealous devotion.

Unto Him, then, who is able to keep us from falling and who is able to present us spotless as a bride before her wide-eyed groom, may we throw off everything that hinders us and fix our eyes on the Author and Perfector and Pursuer - the One who will have His way with us, no matter what.

Heart pounding, I sing my Yes to You, Jesus. Come, that my life may declare Your praises and be lived as a living worship -and testament- to You.