LifeLink Devotional

Tuesday, December 3, 2019

Ted Koppel, in a speech to the International Radio and Television Society, said this:

What is largely missing in American life today is a sense of context, of saying or doing anything that is intended or even expected to live beyond the moment. There is no culture in the world that is so obsessed as ours with immediacy. In our journalism, the trivial displaces the momentous because we tend to measure the importance of events by how recently they happened. We have become so obsessed with facts that we have lost all touch with truth.

Guilty.

In varying degrees we all are. We have succumbed to the Satanic deception that there is no bigger picture. We cannot see that we are playing bit parts in an eternal plan of an Almighty God. Instead, we see only the drama of our current situation. We would be greatly blessed to resolve that.

Isaiah 9:2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.

The prophecies concerning Jesus in the Bible proclaim the bigger picture. Today’s prophecy of the coming Messiah is best understood in the context of the cultural era in which it was given by God. Let’s carefully read the context. It starts in the previous chapter where Isaiah is declaring his trust in the God of the bigger picture.

I will wait for the LORD, who is hiding his face from the house of Jacob.  I will put my trust in him. Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me. We are signs and symbols in Israel from the LORD Almighty, who dwells on Mount Zion. When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.

This passage paints a picture of the consequences waiting for people that live only for the immediate. Distress. Anger. Despair. Hopelessness. The pursuit of the immediate with no faith in the truth of a bigger picture leaves us wondering and wandering.

But read on as chapter nine begins.

Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan—The people walking in darkness  have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.

I love that word nevertheless. It proclaims hope. True hope. What do I mean by that? True hope does not depend upon my activity. Real hope does not consider the failure of my past but the grace of my God. In this passage there are no requirements placed upon people for the earning of their freedom. The burden of self-fulfillment and self-accomplishment is removed by God’s free gift. The darkness of despair in the shadow of death is dispelled by the Light of the Lord’s love in Jesus.

When mankind was incapable of change, at just the right time in history (Galatians 4:4), God sent to us a gift we did not deserve and could never afford. God’s love for us conquered our rebellion against Him when Jesus came to save us from the sin that had overwhelmed us.

That’s incredible! I have found the Light! Now I can see the bigger picture, and it has brought me peace.

Pastor John

LifeLink Devotional

Monday, December 2, 2019

The Book of Isaiah in the Bible is filled with prophecies about the coming of Jesus the Messiah. As I study them it helps me prepare my heart for Christmas. I hope the next few weeks of devotionals will do the same for you.

The first prophecy given to the people by the prophet Isaiah is this:

Isaiah 7:14  Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

Many of the Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament are in the context of the current circumstances of that day’s culture. If the people had spiritual perception, they could understand the prophecy in the context of God’s eternal purpose. But if they were spiritually dull, living according to the mind of the flesh, they would see only the immediate application. In this way, God protected the integrity of the prophet, for his words were always able to be proven true, either short-term, or, as we now see from the other side, long-term.

The immediate context of today’s prophecy about Jesus is this: the Lord God is trying to convince Ahaz, the king of Judah, to trust Him with the outcome of a war. God offers Ahaz the chance to ask for a sign that proves how God is in control. Ahaz refuses, so the Lord, through Isaiah, says that He will give Ahaz a sign anyway.  In that current cultural context, the prophecy would be fulfilled through the prophet Isaiah, who would marry a young woman (see Isaiah chapter 8) and they would have a son. But according to Matthew 1:23, the angel that appeared to Joseph to announce that Mary would have a baby states that this would be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.

There are several points of application to our lives.

• When we read Scripture, we will benefit from always looking for references to Jesus. The Bible is the inerrant written revelation of God to us, but it always points to the living revelation of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1 states, In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The written Word always leads us to the Living Word.
• Isaiah married a young woman and they had a child according to natural procreation. Joseph was engaged to be married to a virgin who was found to be with Child by the Holy Spirit of God. The virgin birth of Jesus is absolutely essential to the Gospel because it eliminates the nature of sin from the humanity of Jesus, therefore making Him the sinless sacrifice for our sin.
• His name will be Immanuel, which means, God with us. While being born into human existence, Jesus maintained His eternal deity. I cannot comprehend this mystery, but I praise God for the faith to believe what Jesus said – I and the Father are one. I praise God for the testimony of the Apostle John who wrote under the divine influence of the Holy Spirit of God and said, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

For me, this is the perfect way to start this Christmas season. The truth that Jesus, the eternal Son of God, came to earth to be one of us so He could save me, is overwhelming. I am grieved in my heart by the words of the atheist’s billboard I saw in the paper which says, “You know it’s a myth. This is the season for reason.” How sad. How pathetic. To deny the historical record is one thing, but to deny the spiritual truth is devastating. It has eternal consequences.

Jesus is the Reason for the season. True reason can come to no other conclusion. God came down from glory and dwelt with us to redeem us from our sin. I praise God He has redeemed me!

Pastor John