The Great Muster
One day last summer my wife Cindy and I visited a local ranchers place to check out a stallion he had for sale. As we turned off of the main road and proceeded up the driveway toward the house and corrals, we saw the horses in the small pasture along the driveway moving with a definite pace toward the corral.
It wasn’t like the pace as horses going to water but a purposeful gait, (running walk – trot). Then we saw the dogs tracking behind, MUSTERING THEM into the corral.
I’m reminded of several references in The Book. One says, “No man can come to the Father unless the Holy Spirit draws him”. Another is “Follow me and I will make you fishers (gatherers) of men.
The action we observed, the dogs mustering the horses was in response to the ranchers command to the dogs, initiated by the rancher’s desire for them to be gathered.
The more I thought about this, the more I realized that what we don’t see is just as real and just as important as what we can see. It’s much like how we can’t see the wind blowing but only the effect it has on the elements around us.
Being drawn to the Father is first a desire in His heart for us to gather to Him. Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, both one with The Father God, implement the Father God’s desire to initiate the desire and to make the call to muster men, women, and children, to Him. He is the wind that effects what goes on inside our hearts that causes an outside action, a mustering to Him.
When Cindy and I watched the horses being gathered it was an action initiated and then implemented by what we couldn’t see. We didn’t see the ranchers desire to muster in the horses. We didn’t see the communication and the commands he gave his dogs to gather in the herd, nor could we see the desire inside the horses head and heart to respond to the pressure of the dogs. We only saw the actions it all inspired and the mustering toward the corral.
Jesus Christ, 2000 years ago, told His followers to pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send forth laborers. They did and they still do, and laborers are still being sent out into the harvest to muster in others just like you and me.
His voice is easy to recognize. He calls us to Himself to declare how much He cares for us and how valuable we are to Him. His perfect sacrifice on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins is proof of His love for us, and His desire, to restore us to our royal positions as sons and daughters of the most High God.
The mustering is a given. It is happening and it will be completed. All men and women are being mustered unto the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
If you where a horse being gathered by its master, what kind of horse would you be?
Would you be gatherered or would you break and run to the hills? Out there, in the wilderness is found a temporary and unfulfilling freedom.
We all need to belong and to have purpose and value. Jesus died because he valued you and me. He lives to give us purpose and an eternal destiny.
Doug Hobelman 11/12/2012
Genesis 49:10 (KJ) - The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.
