by Pastor Douglas Brauner

Stairway FROM Heaven!

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

Bow your heavens, O Lord, and come down! Touch the mountains so that they smoke! 
Psalm 144:5 English Standard Version

I was sort of a Led Zeppelin fan when I was in high school. The song that probably put them on the music map more than any other song, the song for which they are most often remembered is Stairway to Heaven. When you read the lyrics, this song makes no sense, yet it’s easy to remember the final words, “And she’s buying a stairway to heaven.”

That last line depicts well our human view of happiness, of heaven. We think that there is something that we can “buy” to gain this happiness. This need to buy happiness reflects our condition of loneliness and sadness.

My guess is that you also have battled sadness and loneliness, that there have been times when you were looking for a way to buy happiness. We might believe that our stairway to heaven, to happiness, is obedient to God. I’m not sure that picking up our cross and following Jesus makes us happy or is our way of climbing to heaven.

The psalmist prayed that God would come down; that the Lord would touch the mountains and that they would smoke. The stairway into the presence of God is one that he descends to us. Jesus  came down and touch mount Calvary and it smoked with darkness, pain, and death. We cannot buy heaven, instead God buys us, he redeems us in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

What is the gift of God coming down to us? It’s joy that is rooted in God’s love, mercy and grace. This gift of joy is better than attempting to buy a stairway to happiness.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”
Romans 15:13 ESV

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