“Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.”
(Psalm 62:8)
Throughout the day, we find ourselves pouring things. We pour a cup of coffee or juice in the morning. We might pour milk on our cereal. We pour oil and gasoline into our vehicles (not fun these days!). Medical experts are continually reminding us that pouring water into our bodies is essential to maintaining good health and a robust immune system. Even though pouring things is most often a common or mundane act, it can also be a reminder of things with stupendous spiritual significance. Our Lord Jesus came into the world to be God’s special, anointed High Priest for us. Whereas the Aaronic High Priests of the Old Testament were anointed with the pouring of oil upon their heads (Leviticus 8:12; 21:10), the Lord Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:18; Acts 10:38). Being made perfect by the things that He suffered (Hebrews 5:8-9), our faithful and merciful High Priest “poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12). Bearing the sin of the world while He hung between heaven and earth, the Lord cried in His heart, “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels” (Psalm 22:14). The Scriptures declare that the Lord’s enemies “shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation” (Revelation 14:10a). As our substitute sacrifice, the propitiation for our sins (Romans 3:25; 1 John 2:2) this was the very cup that was poured out upon the Son of God at Calvary. The motivator of this awesome and mysterious transaction was love. “Herein is love,” wrote the apostle John, “not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Having received Christ for salvation, we earthen vessels (2 Corinthians 4:7) have become the receptacles into which the love of God has been poured, and this by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). This reminds me of the miracle of the widow’s oil documented in 2 Kings 4:1-7. Here we read how the Lord was able to fill a large number of containers with oil from an apparently meager amount in a single flask. Just as every empty container gathered was filled to the brim, so too every born again heart is filled with the love of God. Love cannot be contained, however; it of necessity overflows and pours out into the world. Like Jacob who poured out costly oil upon the rock as an act of worship (Genesis 28:18) we are, like Paul, called to pour out our very lives as an expression of love for the God Who loved us first (2 Timothy 4:6). Let us pour out our hearts before Him today, trusting that He will lead us in the way we should go, even as he provides for our every need.
God bless,
Pastor John
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