April 27, 2011 (Isaiah 36-43, Psalm 76)

These chapters are filled with some wonderful promises. Here are just a few:

^40:27 O Jacob, how can you say the Lord does not see your troubles?
      O Israel, how can you say God ignores your rights?
 ²⁸ Have you never heard?
      Have you never understood?
   The Lord is the everlasting God,
      the Creator of all the earth.
   He never grows weak or weary.
      No one can measure the depths of his understanding.
 ²⁹ He gives power to the weak
      and strength to the powerless.
 ³⁰ Even youths will become weak and tired,
      and young men will fall in exhaustion.
 ³¹ But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength.
      They will soar high on wings like eagles.
   They will run and not grow weary.
      They will walk and not faint.

^41:8 “But as for you, Israel my servant,
      Jacob my chosen one,
      descended from Abraham my friend,
 ⁹ I have called you back from the ends of the earth,
      saying, ‘You are my servant.’
   For I have chosen you
      and will not throw you away.
 ¹⁰ Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.
      Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.
   I will strengthen you and help you.
      I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.

^41:13 For I hold you by your right hand—
      I, the Lord your God.
   And I say to you,
      ‘Don’t be afraid. I am here to help you.
 ¹⁴ Though you are a lowly worm, O Jacob,
      don’t be afraid, people of Israel, for I will help you.
   I am the Lord, your Redeemer.
      I am the Holy One of Israel.’

 ¹⁶
   Then you will rejoice in the Lord.
      You will glory in the Holy One of Israel.

 ¹⁷ “When the poor and needy search for water and there is none,
      and their tongues are parched from thirst,
   then I, the Lord, will answer them.
      I, the God of Israel, will never abandon them.

^43:1 But now, O Jacob, listen to the Lord who created you.
      O Israel, the one who formed you says,
   “Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you.
      I have called you by name; you are mine.
 ² When you go through deep waters,
      I will be with you.
   When you go through rivers of difficulty,
      you will not drown.
   When you walk through the fire of oppression,
      you will not be burned up;
      the flames will not consume you.
 ³ For I am the Lord, your God,
      the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.



^43:10 “But you are my witnesses, O Israel!” says the Lord.
      “You are my servant.
   You have been chosen to know me, believe in me,
      and understand that I alone am God.
   There is no other God—
      there never has been, and there never will be.
 ¹¹ I, yes I, am the Lord,
      and there is no other Savior.
 ¹² First I predicted your rescue,
      then I saved you and proclaimed it to the world.
   No foreign god has ever done this.
      You are witnesses that I am the only God,”
      says the Lord.
 ¹³ “From eternity to eternity I am God.
      No one can snatch anyone out of my hand.
      No one can undo what I have done.”


But there are also verses that describe a people that are deaf and blind. A people that are trapped and enslaved. As I read these verses I couldn't help but think how it seems that they are the norm for Christians.  There are so many Christians enslaved by sin, when Jesus has given us all power to break free of the chains that bind us.

^42:18 “Listen, you who are deaf!
      Look and see, you blind!
 ¹⁹ Who is as blind as my own people, my servant?
      Who is as deaf as my messenger?
   Who is as blind as my chosen people,
      the servant of the Lord?
 ²⁰ You see and recognize what is right
      but refuse to act on it.
   You hear with your ears,
      but you don’t really listen.”

 ²¹ Because he is righteous,
      the Lord has exalted his glorious law.
 ²² But his own people have been robbed and plundered,
      enslaved, imprisoned, and trapped.
   They are fair game for anyone
      and have no one to protect them,
      no one to take them back home.

 ²³ Who will hear these lessons from the past
      and see the ruin that awaits you in the future?

^43:21 I have made Israel for myself,
      and they will someday honor me before the whole world.

 ²² “But, dear family of Jacob, you refuse to ask for my help.
      You have grown tired of me, O Israel!
 ²³ You have not brought me sheep or goats for burnt offerings.
      You have not honored me with sacrifices,
   though I have not burdened and wearied you
      with requests for grain offerings and frankincense.
 ²⁴ You have not brought me fragrant calamus
      or pleased me with the fat from sacrifices.
   Instead, you have burdened me with your sins
      and wearied me with your faults.

 ²⁵ “I—yes, I alone—will blot out your sins for my own sake
      and will never think of them again.
 ²⁶ Let us review the situation together,
      and you can present your case to prove your innocence.
 ²⁷ From the very beginning, your first ancestor sinned against me;
      all your leaders broke my laws.
 ²⁸ That is why I have disgraced your priests;
      I have decreed complete destruction for Jacob
      and shame for Israel.

What is our story? What is my life? Do I burden God with my sins and faults or do I offer the sacrifice of a life spent in service and devotion to Him? Do I offer Him the fragrant incense of prayer, or do the words that come out of my mouth betray what is truly in my heart. Heavenly Father - thank you for Your word that convicts. Forgive me for walking so much in the flesh instead of in the Spirit.  Jesus, continue to teach me how to 'die to self' but be 'alive to You'. Thank You for Your grace and through Your blood and sacrifice allowing me to be faultless before the Throne. You alone are worthy.

April 26, 2011 (Isaiah 31-35)

The footnotes in my Bible weren't very helpful today. It seemed as if the chapters I am reading are dealing with 'the end of time', instead of God dealing judgement to Assyria. The reason I say that is because of this section:

^34:1 Come here and listen, O nations of the earth.
      Let the world and everything in it hear my words.
 ² For the Lord is enraged against the nations.
      His fury is against all their armies.
   He will completely destroy them,
      dooming them to slaughter.
 ³ Their dead will be left unburied,
      and the stench of rotting bodies will fill the land.
      The mountains will flow with their blood.
 ⁴ The heavens above will melt away
      and disappear like a rolled-up scroll.
   The stars will fall from the sky
      like withered leaves from a grapevine,
      ^{or shriveled figs from a fig tree.}

Verse 4 especially reminded me of the end times. Somewhere else I had read that in those days the stars will fall from the sky. I thought about verse 4 - "The stars will fall from the sky like withered leaves....."  That is going to be a terrifying day. He continues telling about the destruction of the land:

¹⁰ This judgment on Edom will never end;
      the smoke of its burning will rise forever.
   The land will lie deserted from generation to generation.
      No one will live there anymore.
 ¹¹ It will be haunted by the desert owl and the screech owl,
      the great owl and the raven.
   For God will measure that land carefully;
      he will measure it for chaos and destruction.
 ¹² It will be called the Land of Nothing,
      and all its nobles will soon be gone.
 ¹³ Thorns will overrun its palaces;
      nettles and thistles will grow in its forts.
   The ruins will become a haunt for jackals
      and a home for owls.
 ¹⁴ Desert animals will mingle there with hyenas,
      their howls filling the night.
   Wild goats will bleat at one another among the ruins,
      and night creatures will come there to rest.
 ¹⁵ There the owl will make her nest and lay her eggs.
      She will hatch her young and cover them with her wings.
   And the buzzards will come,
      each one with its mate.

And then I was struck by this section -

¹⁶ Search the book of the Lord,
      and see what he will do.
   Not one of these birds and animals will be missing,
      and none will lack a mate,
   for the Lord has promised this.
      His Spirit will make it all come true.
 ¹⁷ He has surveyed and divided the land
      and deeded it over to those creatures.
   They will possess it forever,
      from generation to generation.

It will all come true. This will happen. And it reminded me of Peter's admonition in 2 Peter 3. I was going to reference just a few verses, but decided to list the whole chapter.


 ¹ This is my second letter to you, dear friends, and in both of them I have tried to stimulate your wholesome thinking and refresh your memory. ² I want you to remember what the holy prophets said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles.

 ³ Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. ⁴ They will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created.”

 ⁵ They deliberately forget that God made the heavens by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. ⁶ Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. ⁷And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.

 ⁸ But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. ⁹ The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. ¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment.

 ¹¹ Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live, ¹² looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along. On that day, he will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames. ¹³ But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness.

 ¹⁴ And so, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in his sight.

 ¹⁵ And remember, the Lord’s patience gives people time to be saved. This is what our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him—¹⁶ speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And this will result in their destruction.

 ¹⁷ I am warning you ahead of time, dear friends. Be on guard so that you will not be carried away by the errors of these wicked people and lose your own secure footing. ¹⁸ Rather, you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

   All glory to him, both now and forever! Amen.

As I reread this chapter I was struck by the phrases that I went back and 'bolded'. The black bolded phrases deal with 'remembering what we have been told' and the red ones are admonitions as to how we are to live.

Peter's words still echo to us today. We can't just read the Word and go on our merry way. We are to really remember what has been written and allow it to change the way we live. God, continue to purify me through Your Word.

April 25, 2011 (Hosea 8-14, Isaiah 28-30)

I just finished reading a little book about a mom 'feeling invisible' - about how her children and her husband seemed to ignore her. And then a friend gave her a book about the great cathedrals in France. As she read that book, she read of the how some took a hundred years to build and she was struck by the fact that those workers knew they would never see the fruits of their labor. Yet they sacrificed and labored to build a beautiful structure, without so much as even having their names listed as those completing the structures. They were 'invisible', yet they were dedicated to their work. Some even made intricate carvings in beams they knew would be hidden by ceilings, and when asked "Why?", they replied "God sees."  They were motivated by doing their work for God. I thought of that story as I read this:

^{Isaiah 29:15} What sorrow awaits those who try to hide their plans from the Lord,
      who try to keep him in the dark concering what they do!
   “The Lord can’t see us,” they say.
      “He doesn’t know what’s going on!”
 ¹⁶ How foolish can you be?
      He is the Potter, and he is certainly greater than you, the clay!
   Should the created thing say of the one who made it,
      “He didn’t make me”?
   Does a jar ever say,
      “The potter who made me is stupid”?

Just prior to those verses I read:

¹³ And so the Lord says,
      “These people say they are mine.
   They honor me with their lips,
      but their hearts are far from me.
   And their worship of me
      is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote.
 ¹⁴ Because of this, I will once again astound these hypocrites
      with amazing wonders.
   I will show that human wisdom is foolish and even the most
      brilliant people lack understanding.”

God, again tells us He wants our hearts. He sees and He knows what is in our hearts.

As always in these chapters, there are lots of warnings, and rightfully so. But there are also lots of verses that pertain to God's love:

^30:15 This is what the Sovereign Lord,
      the Holy One of Israel, says:
   “Only in returning to me
      and resting in me will you be saved.
   In quietness and confidence is your strength.


¹⁸ So the Lord must wait for you to come to him
      so he can show you his love and compassion.
   For the Lord is a faithful God.
      Blessed are those who wait for his help.


¹⁹ 
   He will be gracious if you ask for help.
      He will surely respond to the sound of your cries.
 ²⁰ Though the Lord gave you adversity for food
      and suffering for drink,
   he will still be with you to teach you.
      You will see your teacher with your own eyes.
 ²¹ Your own ears will hear him.
      Right behind you a voice will say,
   “This is the way you should go,”
      whether to the right or to the left.

April 24, 2011 (Hosea 1-7)

As I read this verse I thought of how through Christ, we can be freed us sin and chains that bind us instantly. He has the power to break these bondages. Sometimes He doesn't instantly to teach us to trust Him and rely upon Him, but sometimes He does:

^1:7 But I will show love to the people of Judah. I will personally free them from their enemies—not with weapons and armies or horses and charioteers, but by my power as the Lord their God.”

As I am reading Hosea, I am struck by how much God loves His people and how it is He who provides everything for us. God instructed Hosea to marry a prostitute so God could use their lives as an example of Israel's idolatry. God makes this comment about her: "She doesn't realize it was I who gave her everything she has - the grain, the wine, the olive oil. Even the gold and silver she used in worshiping the god Baal were gifts from me!" The thing that stuck out to me there was that even the things used to worship a 'false god' were gifts from the true God. So he talks about allowing her to be punished for her ways - to receive 'the fruit of her doings'. But then - again - always the gift of mercy and His love:

^2:14 “But then I will win her back once again.
      I will lead her out into the desert
      and speak tenderly to her there.
 ¹⁵ I will return her vineyards to her
      and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope.
   She will give herself to me there,
      as she did long ago when she was young,
      when I freed her from her captivity in Egypt.
 ¹⁶ In that coming day,” says the Lord,
      “you will call me ‘my husband’
      instead of ‘my master.’
 ¹⁷ O Israel, I will wipe the many names of Baal from your lips,
      and you will never mention them again.
 
 ¹⁹ I will make you my wife forever,
      showing you righteousness and justice,
      unfailing love and compassion.
 ²⁰ I will be faithful to you and make you mine,
      and you will finally know me as the Lord.

 ²²
   And they in turn will answer,
      ‘Jezreel’—‘God plants!’
 ²³ At that time I will plant a crop of Israelites
      and raise them for myself.
   I will show love
      to those I called ‘Not loved.’
   And to those I called ‘Not my people,’
      I will say, ‘Now you are my people.’
   And they will reply, ‘You are our God!’”

And although we are not quite here, it seems we are heading this direction more and more:

^4:1 Hear the word of the Lord, O people of Israel!
      The Lord has brought charges against you, saying:
   “There is no faithfulness, no kindness,
      no knowledge of God in your land.
 ² You make vows and break them;
      you kill and steal and commit adultery.
   There is violence everywhere—
      one murder after another.
 ³ That is why your land is in mourning,
      and everyone is wasting away.
   Even the wild animals, the birds of the sky,
      and the fish of the sea are disappearing.

And then God lays into the priests - who had turned corrupt because of greed.

⁴ “Don’t point your finger at someone else
      and try to pass the blame!
   My complaint, you priests,
      is with you.

 ⁶ My people are being destroyed
      because they don’t know me.
   Since you priests refuse to know me,
      I refuse to recognize you as my priests.
   Since you have forgotten the laws of your God,
      I will forget to bless your children.
 ⁷ The more priests there are,
      the more they sin against me.
   They have exchanged the glory of God
      for the shame of idols.

 ⁸ “When the people bring their sin offerings, the priests get fed.
      So the priests are glad when the people sin!
 ⁹ ‘And what the priests do, the people also do.’
      So now I will punish both priests and people
      for their wicked deeds.

There are a couple of great quotes in the remainder of chapter 4:

^4:11 Alcohol and prostitution have robbed my people of their brains.

¹⁴ 
   O foolish people! You will be destroyed, for you refuse to understand.


¹⁶ Israel is as stubborn as a heifer, so the Lord will put her out to pasture.
   She will stand alone and unprotected, like a helpless lamb in an open field.


18 Their love for shame is greater than their love for honor.

And then some wonderful verses about knowing God:

^6:2 In just a short time he will restore us,
      so that we may live in his presence.
 ³ Oh, that we might know the Lord!
      Let us press on to know him.
   He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn
      or the coming of rains in early spring.”

⁵ I sent my prophets to cut you to pieces—
      to slaughter you with my words,
      with judgments as inescapable as light.
 ⁶ I want you to show love,
      not offer sacrifices.
   I want you to know me
      more than I want burnt offerings.

And then more verses about the wayward:

^7:8 “The people of Israel mingle with godless foreigners,
      making themselves as worthless as a half-baked cake!
 ⁹ Worshiping foreign gods has sapped their strength,
      but they don’t even know it.
   Their hair is gray,
      but they don’t realize they’re old and weak.
 ¹⁰ Their arrogance testifies against them,
      yet they don’t return to the Lord their God
      or even try to find him.


¹⁴ They do not cry out to me with sincere hearts.


¹⁶ They look everywhere except to the Most High.

On this Easter Sunday, I will cling to the verse that exhorts me 'to press on to know the Lord'. Thank you Jesus for loving us enough to go to the cross for us. For not wanting our sacrifices, but our hearts.