Connecting Points

Thursday, January 05, 2012

Today’s Topic: Identify Me!

Today’s Text:  Isaiah 56:4-5 For this is what the LORD says: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant—⁵to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.

Who am I?

That question plagues people. We have tried to answer it in a variety of humanistic ways, none of which has succeeded nor satisfies. We may think that educational success will identify us as a genius. We may believe that advancement in the work sector will identify us as professionals. We have been led to believe that financial security identifies us as successful. We try to be humorous believing that will identify us as popular. We labor intensely to become accepted by others so that we might identify ourselves as worthy. We spend hours developing our skill at a sport so that we might be identified as a hero. We have granted permission to people and to our performance to identify us as valuable.

That, my friend, is why our lives are broken. But God has a wonderful plan for the restoration of broken lives. It is pictured in Isaiah 56 as God proclaims His promises to the broken down nation of Israel.

• First we are changed in verses 1-2 (https://lifelinkdevo.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/humanistic-faith/).
• Then we are included in verse 3 (https://lifelinkdevo.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/include-me/).
• Then we are given an identity in verses 4-5

Here’s some background information. God is speaking directly to eunuchs. A eunuch was a slave or captive that had been castrated for two primary reasons. First, it would make them less manly, thereby making them more manageable servants. Second, it would keep them from ever procreating and becoming a threat.

The practice was so detestable to God that there were laws implements in the Jewish nation concerning it. The law excluded eunuchs from public worship, partly because mutilation was often performed in honor of a heathen god, and partly because a maimed creature of any sort was deemed unfit for the service of Yahweh. Yet during the reign of the kings of Israel there were eunuchs in the nation that served in the palace. However, no eunuch was ever able to worship in the temple, nor were they allowed to own land or inherit property. They had no identity with the nation in which they served.

It is to these men of no importance or identity that God comes in Isaiah 56 and says, “I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.” WOW! That overwhelms me. Not only does God give these broken down men a name, but He elevates them to a position that is better than a son or a daughter. He gives them an eternal identity that will never be cut off (Note the play on words).

Doesn’t that restore your hope? Can you now see what grace does? No matter how broken your life; no matter how mutilated your name is; no matter how cut off you seem to be from the rest of humanity; God will give you an eternal identity.

No longer will you have to depend on people or performance to identify you. No longer will you need to ask the question, “Who am I?” Let God tell you who you are. And if you want to know who God says you are if you are in Christ, check out these links –

• http://www.sw-mins.org/identity.html
• http://www.persevering.org/perceiv.html
• http://www.ficm.org/index.php?command=textwhoamiinchrist

Pastor John

Connecting Points

Thursday, January 05, 2012

Today’s Topic: Include Me!

Today’s Text:  Isaiah 56:3 Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely exclude me from his people.” And let not any eunuch complain, “I am only a dry tree.”

My story is not unique. It’s painful for me, just as yours is for you, and it is a pain that must be resolved because ultimately it’s a lie. The pain comes from the belief that we never fit in. That pain is magnified by combining it with circumstances that we choose to validate the feeling. My circumstances easily validated my pain. I never had a town that I called home. I never had a friendship that lasted more than 5 years because we moved that often. Every time we moved I had to try to fit into a new culture and social context. I chose to believe that I was unaccepted and worthy of it. I chose strange behaviors to compensate, which only made it worse. My wife can verify the reality of my self-destructive behavior. I really believed I didn’t fit in.

We long for someone to accept us. We crave being included. We fear being told we are not welcome. It is so powerful in us that we begin to perceive every word and action of others as a statement of their unwillingness to make us their equal. It becomes a destructive thought pattern.

God knows that about us. When He created Adam and Eve He perfectly accepted them. But then the Enemy of God and of all God created entered the scene and convinced those first two humans that God didn’t really accept them because He was holding out on them. There was something He didn’t want them to know, and if that was true then they weren’t fully accepted. They believed the lie, and we do too. We believe it about our friends. We believe it about our family. We believe it about our boss or our co-workers. We even believe it about our church family and our pastor. Pastors even believe it about their congregations. We believe that we don’t fit in and will never really be accepted.

In the days of Isaiah, God was declaring that when the salvation of God appears and His righteousness is revealed, all the people of the world could find a place of acceptance. It would not matter if someone was a foreigner or a slave, they would be given an equal place in the Kingdom. Acceptance in God’s Kingdom would not be based on one’s nationality, one’s gender, one’s abilities, or one’s heritage, but rather on one’s acceptance of God’s covenant.

If you are feeling like you don’t fit in anywhere, then the truth of Isaiah 56 is for you. It is time to stop living your life as a response to a lie, and time to start living in response to God’s love. If you read the following Scripture carefully and honestly, you just may discover, as I have, the great truth of God’s grace – we are accepted. When we cry out to God and say, “Include me!”, He does. Hallelujah.

Isaiah 56:3-8 (NLT)

“And my blessings are for Gentiles, too, when they commit themselves to the LORD. Do not let them think that I consider them second-class citizens. And my blessings are also for the eunuchs. They are as much mine as anyone else. ⁴For I say this to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath days holy, who choose to do what pleases me and commit their lives to me: ⁵I will give them—in my house, within my walls—a memorial and a name far greater than the honor they would have received by having sons and daughters. For the name I give them is an everlasting one. It will never disappear! ⁶“I will also bless the Gentiles who commit themselves to the LORD and serve him and love his name, who worship him and do not desecrate the Sabbath day of rest, and who have accepted his covenant. ⁷I will bring them also to my holy mountain of Jerusalem and will fill them with joy in my house of prayer. I will accept their burnt offerings and sacrifices, because my Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations. ⁸For the Sovereign LORD, who brings back the outcasts of Israel, says: I will bring others, too, besides my people Israel.”

Pastor John

Connecting Points

Wednesday, January 04, 2012

Today’s Topic: Change Me!

Today’s Text:  Isaiah 56:1 “This is what the LORD says: “Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed.”

I saw it again. I saw a lot of it. I didn’t like seeing it. Seeing it in others made me realize how much of it is in me as well, and that scares me. It will change me. I pray that it will change in others also, but that is not really up to me. I must participate with God to change me. I desire to be less humanistic about my faith.

Vacations are good for a lot of reasons, but for me the greatest benefit to a trip away from normal life is that the Lord gets more of my attention. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is. Busyness with all our stuff and our agendas is one of the symptoms of the disease that has invaded our spiritual lives. We know the symptoms exist, and we can even identify them, but we are in denial about the disease that causes them. The disease is humanism.

That’s right, we Christians, who are to be followers of Christ, are much of the time followers of self. We have chosen a humanistic approach to life, to goals, to success, to decision-making, to everything, and then to attempt to satisfy the longing of our soul we have wrongly added what we call faith in God to it all. We have made a religious choice that we think complements our humanistic choices, when we should be destroying all dependence upon the flesh and living continually in the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

What do we think Jesus meant when He said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life  will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?

Deny yourself. Lose your life. Those are the things that mark a follower. But for some reason we have assumed a right of leadership not granted by God. We have arrogantly and probably ignorantly decided to ask God to fulfill our wishes and desires. We have become the leader of God rather than the follower of Christ.

What we don’t understand is that God will not be led. Instead, He lets us go ahead, but all on our own. Oh, He never forsakes us, and never really leaves us, but He stops listening to our demands for what we want. He stops providing fixes for our failures. In His jealous love for us He allows us to fall on our humanistic faces so we are in the proper position to pick up a cross.

But even when we are on our faces, we tend to justify how we got there, and we develop plans for how we are going to get up. We make resolutions to save more, spend less, eat less, and exercise more. We make commitments to watch television less, study more, pray more, and sin less. But far too often those resolutions are prescriptions we choose to take to relieve the symptoms when we have done nothing to cure the disease.

The only cure for the disease of humanism is death. Now before you get carried away and jump to a conclusion not intended, I am speaking in spiritual terms. The right to self-government of our lives must die. The right to fleshly fulfillment must die. The right to social success must die. The right to financial security must die. In other words, the right to our own rights must die.

Only in death can there be life. We have done our best to try to prove that wrong. We have tried to add life to death. We have attempted to bring eternal life into the context of our humanism and call it salvation, which denies the resurrection power of Jesus Christ. How can we know His resurrection power if we do not die? But we have tried, and we are in denial of how badly it is turning out. To admit it doesn’t work is to admit human failure and to de-value our lives, neither of which is acceptable to modern man’s philosophy of self-worth.

But it is only at the point of death to self that the life of Jesus can be experienced. Many of you know that, and have lived that way. But maybe we have lost or minimized our first love for God’s incredible grace. We have, whether in a few or in many areas, replaced it with love for humanistic pursuits. I know I have. It must change.

Today begins a new adventure of denial of self. I will need help from God. I want help from you. When I am guilty of exalting self rather than denying self, tell me. Do it with love and a humble heart that recognizes that you may be doing the same thing in some area of your life. Together we will die to self and be transformed by the renewing of our minds so we can prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. (Romans 12:1-2)

Pastor John

Connecting Points

Friday, December 23, 2011

Today’s Topic: He’s Here!

Today’s Text:  Isaiah 56:1 “This is what the LORD says: “Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed.”

God established a connecting point. Since the Garden of Eden there had not been one. Oh, there were numerous events where God allowed sinful mankind to approach Him, hear Him, and obey Him, but He had not yet established a point in time where people could be reconciled to Him permanently. Man was separated from God by his sin, and could do nothing about it. All of human history prior to this one event was preparation time for that problem to be fixed. It had been proclaimed prophetically for thousands of years. Now it was here.

Seven hundred years before it happened, the Prophet Isaiah declared that it was close at hand and ready to be revealed. Salvation was near. God would soon be with us, making it possible for Him to be in us. God established a connecting point.

It was a two-part plan. First, God would connect with us. God would become one of us. The angel announced it to shepherds on the hillsides of Bethlehem. “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.” God connected with us.

The second part of the plan was to establish a place where we could connect with God. That place is called Calvary. It is where Jesus died on the cross as one of us, yet undeserving of death because He was also sinless God. He became our sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus paid the price of death so that we, through repentance from our sin and belief in Jesus as our Savior, could be saved from our sin and given the gift of eternal life. To confirm the gift and its payment, God resurrected Jesus from the dead. God established a place where you and I can make a permanent connection to Him.

That’s what Christmas is all about. ALL about! Everything we do at this season – the gifts, the family, the friends, the food, the football – is ALL about God establishing a connecting point with us. Take all the fluff away, and I will still joyously proclaim “He’s Here!” I need nothing else to be able to say it is the best Christmas ever!

Thanks for the Connecting Point God!

Pastor John

P.S.  Sit down with your kids and watch this sometime this weekend. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v__QaCsdvQk

Connecting Points

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Today’s Topic: Which Team Are You On?

Today’s Text:  Isaiah 56:1 “This is what the LORD says: “Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed.”

I know – you are probably very tired of sports analogies, but I must do this because it is a good illustration of the truth God has placed in my heart this morning.

In my closet are five articles of clothing that represent the football team I support. Now for those of you with humorous minds, I know what you are thinking. “And that’s where they should stay.” But I don’t have them to hide them. I wear them. In fact, it is so well known that I am a fan of this team that even when I wear that color of clothing without any reference to the team on it, people make comments about my team. It happened last Sunday at church when I wore a purple sweater.

In the past few years, when another team that is popular in this area has played for the championship, I have supported my friends by wearing the colors of their team. One year I even wore an official team jersey of that color to a church event. The people who saw me when I came in with that jersey on were shocked. They were confused. They knew that I was taking a stand for something that I had never supported before. I felt out of place. It was awkward. They had no reason to believe that I was being sincere, for there had been no past experience upon which they could base their trust.

Soon and very soon the Salvation of the Lord will be upon the earth. Soon God’s righteousness will be revealed by the Righteous One appearing on the earth to establish His kingdom. It will be a kingdom ruled with justice and perfect righteousness. The weak will be made strong. The poor will have all their needs met. Victims will cease to be victimized and every act of sin will be exposed. Hate will disappear in the presence of perfect Love.

When all this happens, what will the people of the world say about you and me?

• Will they know that we have been consistent supporters of God’s kingdom?
• Will they recognize the banners now flying over the earth because they have seen us wearing the same colors proudly every day?
• Will they be thankful for the foundation that we laid in their lives and in our culture that prepared the way for the King to take His throne?
• Or will they wonder with good reason why at the last minute it appears we are switching teams?

Think on these things.

Pastor John

Connecting Points

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Today’s Topic: Get Wet

Today’s Text:  Isaiah 55:12-13 “You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.  Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the LORD’S renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed.”

This morning I am in awe of the immensity of God. Never mind that in my mind I know the fact that He is limitless – today my heart has captured it in a fresh way.

I saw this picture in a National Geographic magazine this morning while I was waiting for my car to be finished at Aerco Auto Body. Take a look:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/12/magellanic-clouds/magellanic-clouds-photography#/06-centuries-old-supernova-670.jpg

This is a centuries-old supernova remnant. Its rose-tinted shock wave is blasting outward at more than 11 million miles an hour. It hangs in the Large Magellanic Cloud orbiting the Milky Way like an iridescent holiday ornament.

When I read the description of this picture, and saw that for several hundred years the shock wave of this exploding star has been travelling at 11 million miles an hour I was blown away. My mind cannot comprehend how big the universe is that God created and He holds in the palm of His hand.

For example, let’s just randomly assign an explosion time of 200 years ago; it could be older than that. Let’s see – 24 hours in a day times 365 days in a year times 200 years equals one million seven hundred fifty two thousand hours. That means the rose-tinted ring has already traveled over 19 trillion miles. Yet when you look at the picture, the ring has not yet reached the nearest neighbor stars. The heavens truly declare the glory of the Lord.

This is really significant today as we consider the closing verses of Isaiah fifty-five. They put a cap on several chapters of Messianic promises concerning the restoration of Jerusalem after its abandonment and destruction caused by the people’s sins which led them into captivity. God says that the day is coming when the people will return to the city in renewed glory, and when they do they will go out in joy be led forth in peace. Everything in nature will burst forth into praise to the Lord, and what had once been a land filled with thorns and thistles will now be a land of productivity and promise.

As I thought about that, and looked at the picture again, I realized that the thorns and thistles of my life that are so burdensome to me are less than specks to an awesome God who holds the universe in His hands. The problems of my life are not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed in me when Jesus returns. We have the certain hope – the guarantee of God – that everything we consider hardship right now will be replaced with joy and peace when God finishes His work in us.

Just think – God’s Star exploded on earth 2000 years ago. The shockwave of His glory is filling the earth. You can see it. You can know it. You can live in it. Let everything in your life come under its influence. Don’t let the thorns and thistles speak. Instead, let every part of your life burst into song – Joy to the world, the Lord has come! After all, God is bigger than any problem you have.

Pastor John

Connecting Points

Friday, December 16, 2011

Today’s Topic: Get Wet

Today’s Text:  Isaiah 55:10-11 As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Even when it’s not raining, we tend to carry umbrellas.

What a strange way to start a devotional. But think about it. The reason we carry an umbrella when it’s raining is so that we won’t get wet. We have big ones attached to our golf bags and little ones stashed in the pocket on the back of our car’s front seat. We have them leaning against the wall next to the door of our house, and we even carry built in umbrellas called hoods attached to the collar of our jacket. We don’t want to get wet. Wet is uncomfortable. Wet is cold. We want to stay dry and warm. Hooray for umbrellas!!!

Unfortunately we have carried our love of umbrellas into the spiritual realm. You see, just as it is impossible to not get wet when you stand unprotected in the rain, it is equally impossible to not get wet when exposed to the Word of God. But that makes us uncomfortable, so we put up our spiritual umbrellas.

We sit in church listening to the message from the Lord, and whenever the Word of God starts to makes us uncomfortable, we pop up an invisible yet very real umbrella to protect us from the conviction.

We put up umbrellas of many styles and colors, representing a variety of personal interests and objectives, but they all have the same purpose – to keep us dry and comfortable in our present little world of experience. We have them stored all over our lives, so that at any moment we can pop one up to protect us from any rain that might fall. Every umbrella is designed to distract us from the reality of the rain that is falling around us. Up it goes and off we go into our own little thought world of self-indulgence, seemingly protected from the shivers of self-examination.

Yet the benefit we think we are receiving by staying dry is actually leading to our demise. The shivers we are avoiding are actually making us shrivel. It is when we get wet that we flourish. It is the rain of God’s Word that produces fruit. When we are saturated with the rain of God’s truth we are able to see God accomplish His purpose in us.

We are stained people. Stained with sin. We must get wet to be washed. That is why Jesus came to earth, to wash us in the water of God’s Word. He uses the Apostle Paul to tell us that in Ephesians 5, where God says, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing  her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

You and I cannot be holy, stainless, unwrinkled, and blameless if we don’t let ourselves get wet. We must take down our umbrellas and let the water of the Word wash us. Every stain needs a good soaking. Every protective covering we have put on or put up to shield us from the rain of God’s Word must be removed. We must do what little children do when it rains – take off all our clothes and run naked in it, letting it soak every part of us. Our shields – our umbrellas – will never do what God’s Word can do. As Agur, the author of Proverbs 30:5 says, Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

In my church there is a dear old saint who comes to me consistently after worship and shakes my hand. As she does, she says these words – Thank you for washing me in the Word today.

She has no umbrellas. She’s ready for rain.

Pastor John

Connecting Points

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Today’s Topic: Making Sense

Today’s Text:  Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

We have a family game that I have only played twice. It is a game that doesn’t make sense. Each player is required by chance to do some strange things that are seemingly disconnected from the ultimate goal of winning. I can’t even tell you if there is a way to declare a winner or not. I’m sure there is, but the nonsensical nature of the game detracts from winning. That’s really the point of the game, but it is very hard for me to adjust to that. I am outcome driven, and the process to the outcome has to make sense.

How many times have you heard the statement, “That makes no sense?” I’ve said that at times. I’ve had that said to me many more times. It is especially true when it comes to listening to God. I’ve said it to Him way too much.

God is really working on me in this area. He is filling my mind with tough questions.

• What is it about ‘My grace is sufficient for today’ that you don’t understand?
• What kind of faith do you have if you need to know everything before acting on what I said?
• Why do you think it has to make sense to you?
• Do you really think you can be that much like me?
• Do you really trust me?

That last question is the toughest for me. I know how untrustworthy my heart is, and I transfer that distrust to my heavenly Father. I know how manipulative I can be based on my motivation to serve self. I transfer those qualities onto others and believe they are doing that to me. I know how much pride I take in how many answers I have and how much I can get done. I dare to stand in the presence of Almighty God and demand to know.

I am going to have a tough day today. These thoughts are going to pound on me until I learn to trust the truth of Isaiah 55:8-9. Unless I crucify my pride, my ways will always be higher than His ways, and my thoughts will always be higher than His thoughts. I will consider myself first and Him last unless I surrender my need to know. I will fall flat into failure when I live life according to what makes sense, when I could fly into fullness of faith by following the Father even when it makes no sense.

This is my goal – to use the statement “That makes no sense” as the starting gun to a race of faith, rather than a hurdle over which I stumble. When God speaks, and it makes no sense, then I will know I am exactly where God can use me the most.

To help me trust God more, I’ve written a little acrostic for the word trust. Maybe it will help you too.

The

Rational

Understanding

Surrendered

Totally

Pastor John

Connecting Points

Friday, December 09, 2011

Today’s Topic: Hide and Seek

Today’s Text:  Isaiah 55:6-7 Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

In 1969 an entertainer named Joe South recorded a song that became a hit in the world of secular music. It was called The Games People Play, and won two Grammy awards. If you are interested here is a link to the lyrics. If read them carefully you will see some truth to what he is saying – that we play games with one another and have fallen victim to pride and vanity. It is basically a protest song against hate, hypocrisy, and intolerance. But there is also a deep current of humanistic thought running through the song. Essentially it says that each of us is to be content with who we are and not let anyone, especially Christians, influence us to change. All change is a game we play, and God is only there to grant us the serenity to remember who we are and be content with that.

One of the games we play so well with each other is Hide & Seek. It’s a childhood game that has become a childish game played by adults. We mostly play the hide part as we seek to be undiscoverable by others. We hide our true feelings. We hide our true intentions. We hide our true thoughts. We hide behind psychological trees we think are big enough to completely protect us from view. We dare not let anyone get to close or we may even try to run to a new hiding spot without being seen. We must not let anyone see us for who we really are.

The motivation for finding a good hiding place as a child is so that we won’t be found first because that would make us “it”, and no one wants to be “it”. No one wants to be the seeker. It’s no different for adults. We have avoided being the seeker since the very first sin. When Adam and Eve experienced the guilt and shame of sin for the very first time, the game of Hide & Seek began. They first tried to hide behind tree leaves. Then, when they heard the Seeker coming, they hid themselves more thoroughly in and amongst the lush growth of the garden. They did not want to be found.

They had good reason to not want to be found – they were guilty and deserved punishment. It’s that same sense of guilt and deserved punishment that drives us to hide today. We hide our guilt from others, but more significantly we attempt to hide our guilt from God.

I remember a time when I was a child playing this game in the woods of Michigan with a group of friends. The hiding place I found was so good that they never found me. I waited there for a long time, relishing in the pride of my hiding ability, until it started to get dark. So I wandered out of that place, carefully making sure no one saw me to protect the location for future use, and I walked back to my friend’s house. They were all inside playing. They had stopped looking for me. I had to look for them. They had not reported me lost, they just went on with their lives. Ouch! Eventually all hiding ends in loneliness.

It is time for the hider to become the seeker. The days of hiding are done. It is time to be found. The guilt and shame that motivate your hiding can be gone. All you have to do is choose to be “it”. God wants you to play the seeker role, and find Him. He is not hiding from you. He is not waiting to punish you because He already punished His Son for you. He will have mercy on you. He will pardon you. Open your heart. Expose the darkest parts of your life to the Light of God’s grace. For when you find Him, the games are over.

Pastor John

Connecting Points

Thursday, December 08, 2011

Today’s Topic: Come!

 Today’s Text:  Isaiah 55:1-2  “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.  ² Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.”

On June 19, 2000, then Presidential candidate Dick Cheney held a $2,500-per-plate fundraising dinner for the upcoming election campaign. Among those who received an official invitation was an inmate in an Ohio federal penitentiary.

Imagine how the prisoner felt when he received that invitation. Is this for real? Will I actually be released for the event? Why would I be invited? What does Mr. Cheney see in me?

That’s how I feel when I read Isaiah 55:1-2. Has there ever been a better invitation sent out than this one? I was a prisoner of my sin. I was unable to pay for it. I had wasted all of my resources on things that never satisfied me. Then Jesus said, “Come! What I have for you is worth more than you could ever afford, but I will give it to you free. Come, and you will be satisfied.”

My friend, this is the invitation of Jesus to you today. Come! Accept His gift of salvation, and your soul will be released from the prison of sin.

You may ask, “How?”  Here’s what God says you must do:

• Admit you are thirsty. Embrace the longing of your soul for satisfaction.
• Admit you are poor. Confess to God that you have no options left to satisfy yourself and that you cannot afford the gift He is offering.
• Repent (turn your back on) of all your past efforts to satisfy yourself.
• Turn to Jesus and listen to what He says. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
• Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved! Put your trust in His death and resurrection as the full payment for your sin, and God will give you eternal life!

The invitation has been sent. How will you respond?

Pastor John