We have arrived at the final chapter of our study of the book of Isaiah. It has been a wonderful trip through this book as we grow in our understanding of the Messiah and His plan for His creation.
Here’s how chapter 66 begins:
Isaiah 66:1 “This is what the LORD says: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.”
We used to own more than we do now, but we still own several. There are two in the camper. There’s one in the laundry room that helps reach high places. There’s a two-step one in the pantry for higher places. There used to be one in the guest bedroom in front of the rocking chair. And there was another one in the basement storage area.
Every one of them is necessary for a person to be lifted up to accomplish a task. Some raise the grandkids up to higher levels of functionality. Some are available to adults for the same purpose, like reaching the top shelves of kitchen cupboards. Still others are used primarily for rest and relaxation, lifting tired feet off the floor.
But one thing is true of all footstools – they were designed and created to assist others by lifting them up. They never complain about the weight they must carry. They never argue with the user about how they are being used. They are kicked from one location to another so another task can be accomplished. They have cake batter and cookie dough spilled on them by grandkids that are learning to bake with grandma. They are spotted with paint. They have dribbles of another kind on them from little boys being potty trained. They have absorbed the smell of stinky feet placed on them after a long day of work. Dirty, battered, and sometimes with covers that are wearing thin, they just keep doing what they were designed to do – lifting up others.
Do you see the analogy? The earth is God’s footstool, created to lift Him up. Not that He needs help, but as a representation of its humble existence. We have no real power or authority. We are simply the servants of God and placed wherever He wants to use us to exalt Himself.
So, how are you doing today at lifting up your Designer and Creator? Or would you rather not be the footstool of the LORD God Almighty?
Pastor John
THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT OF THIS MINISTRY.
These questions, and many more like them, haunt us at various times of our lives. I have had my time with the Lord on this issue, and I have reached an absolute conclusion based on absolute truth. For me and everyone like me who is a born again follower of Jesus Christ the mission is the same – make disciples of Jesus Christ.
I’m praying that you do not stop reading. Listen, this is very serious business. It comes directly from Jesus.
Matthew 28:18-20 “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’”
We have been declared children of God and joint heirs of all things with Jesus Christ. We have been forgiven of our sins by being washed in His blood shed on Calvary’s cross as the full payment for our sin. We have been set apart as His chosen people and as such will never be judged or condemned for our sin. We have been given the Holy Spirit to reside in us – the very eternal Presence of God the Father in His fullness abiding in us. We have been granted access to the powers and provisions of God to meet every need. Yet daily we tend to choose to live by a culturally dictated and personally defined mission, rather than the mission mandated by the Master.
When Jesus spoke the words defining the mission to His disciples after He rose from the dead, He spoke them with all the authority of eternity. In His last words to His followers, as He passed the torch of God’s mission for the world to those who loved Him and were committed to follow Him at all cost, He had the authority to tell them anything. He could declare absolutely anything as His final words. As the One and Only earthly representative of God the Father, He chose to declare the Father’s mission statement for the rest of earth’s history. He said one thing and one thing only – “go and make disciples of all nations.”
It is called the Great Commission, but for so many in the church today it is the Great Omission. I have concluded that one reason is that we have been duped into believing that the Great Commission was given to the church as an organization, not to the church as an organism. As an organization, the church can program and delegate certain responsibilities based on skills, and many in the church claim no skill at making disciples. We don’t believe we are qualified to witness about our faith in public, and we don’t think we have the time or training to get involved in personal mentoring of those who are being saved. So, we assign committees, teams, and pastors to do those things, because fundamentally we believe the church is an organization.
But the church is not an organization, it is a living organism – the Body of Christ. As such it carries the spiritual DNA of the One who gave birth to it. For sure there are many parts to the Body, and each one has a specific function. But each cell of each part, no matter what its role, is fundamentally identical. Each cell – you and me – has the exact same Holy Spirit as any other cell. You have the identical purpose of every other person in the Church – “to go and make disciples of all nations.” We have all been given the same mission. We may have different functions and methods of accomplishing that mission, but we all agree on one thing – it is our mission!
But we must accept the mission and place the highest priority of our personal life on the accomplishment of that mission. Knowledge of the mission is irrelevant if there is no action to accomplish the mission. After all, to be brutally honest, how can we claim to love Jesus if we do not first serve Him rather than ourselves? Are not our choices and priorities ALWAYS an indicator of what we love most?
As parents, our mission is not to raise children to enjoy life and be successful– our mission is to disciple children to live for Jesus. As employees and employers, our mission is not to become wealthy and have more things – our mission is to make the most of every opportunity to serve others with the unconditional love of God so that they can be made into disciples of Jesus. As members of a church, our mission is not to proclaim self-righteousness through participation in programs – our mission is to worship the Lord in Spirit and in Truth by accepting His mission and doing it for His glory.
Nothing should be of higher importance in our lives than serving our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We must go and make disciples.
We have been warned to be very careful how we use words that express absolutes – words like never and always. Sometimes these words are added to a statement as an emphatic expression of the truth. But for most of us, they are words that are used to try to make a point and convince others of something that we may not be convinced of ourselves.
For example, after being caught for the third time doing something wrong, little Johnny says to his father as the discipline is being enforced, “Daddy, I’m sorry. I’ll never do that again.”
Or how about the married couple that is in a heated argument, and neither one is staying on point. Soon one or both are saying, “You always…!”
The words never and always are valid words when used to express truth. In fact, the word never is used 315 times in the Bible, and the word always is used 129 times. In Deuteronomy 28:13 we read, “If you pay attention to the commands of the LORD your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom.”
God is the God of absolutes. Everything He speaks is absolute truth. Everything He does is absolutely perfect. He never uses never inappropriately. He always means what He says.
As we look ahead to the coming Kingdom of Jesus Christ on earth the prophet Isaiah is given insight into its conception and culture.
Isaiah 65:20 “Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth; he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed.”
Jerusalem will be a delight to all the nations of the world rather than an enemy. (66:18)
The wailing wall will become obsolete as God promises that the sound of weeping and crying will never be heard again. (66:19)
Never again will a baby die. (66:20)
There will always be prosperity (66:21-23)
There will be perfect fellowship with God. (66:24)
There will be perfect peace on earth. (66:25)
What a glorious Kingdom that will be, and all of those who by faith in Jesus Christ have been washed of their sin and born of the Spirit into the eternal family of God will be a part of it.
As I ponder the splendor of our eternal glory in Christ, something has become clear to me that is especially meaningful at this stage of my life. It’s in verse 20 which I posted above. In the earthly Kingdom of Christ, “an old man will live out his years, and anyone under 100 years of age is still a youth.” So here’s the thought that is dominating my mind right now – I’m not getting older, but I’m actually getting younger.
That is totally true if I consider it from God’s perspective. Of course, if all I see and confirm is the flesh, then I am getting older. But I can renew my mind so that I see what God sees and until I am 100 hundred I have not yet reached maturity. The Kingdom of God will be like the first 2000 years of earth’s history when people lived to be over 900 years old. Imagine that. According to Kingdom lifespans, right now I have only lived 7.8% of my projected life expectancy. This is incredible. At the moment of my death, I actually become younger.
Now, for you theologians out there – LET IT GO! I know there are so many things wrong with the age arguments because all of us alive now will be raptured into our new glorified bodies before the Kingdom begins. But the point is this – there will be those who will live that long in the Kingdom, and the age we all are right now will be considered youth. So why not change your perspective on how old you really are and recognize that age doesn’t equate to value or usefulness. Come on, start thinking young again, and get busy for God.
Since God is in control, and all things are working out exactly as He has planned for His glory and for our ultimate good, then it makes perfect rational sense to not be critical complainers but rather to be filled with hope.
Maybe you missed the preliminaries from our study of Isaiah that led up to that statement. God has spoken directly to the issue of our past and our present and given us a vision of our future. He has declared the past to be forgotten and hidden from His eyes (Isaiah 65:16). He has declared that anything and everything about the past and the present will be wiped away in a new creation so that we will no longer remember the former things (vs. 17). Now, in place of complaining there can be rejoicing. In place of sadness there can be gladness (vs. 18).
Isaiah 65:18 “But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create…”
On one of my trips to the Philippines I was introduced to the now former Dean of Men at the Bible College that serves as the headquarters for the Evangelical Christian Outreach Foundation Incorporated (ECOFI), which is the ministry that I am privileged to partner with. His name is Christopher Bocboc. We talked for a few minutes, and then he helped me remember something from nine years earlier. I had been invited to an all-night prayer meeting with the students at the college, and he was one of them. I had spent an extended period of time counseling him about his spiritual life and God’s call on his life to full-time ministry. Now, nine years later, there he was as the Dean of Men at the Bible College.
One day on Facebook, Chris posted this, and I wanted to share it with you to encourage you to become people of praise.
“Most of us give praise quite naturally. For example, we love watching our favorite sports heroes perform magnificent feats of athletic brilliance. Then we praise them to our friends as we share in their secret wish, just for a moment, that we could feel what it’s like to be in their spotlight! We also praise musical artists and bands when their music entertains or moves us .Do you praise your friends? How about a boyfriend or a girlfriend? There’s nothing wrong with giving praise to others or even receiving some well earned praise. Yet the one we often forget to praise is the One who is the most deserving of it—God. No person is totally praiseworthy in the same sense that God is praiseworthy. We’re all human. We make mistakes. We let others down. We let ourselves down. But God is faithful. He is always true to Himself and to his word. When was the last time you paused to give praise to God? Is it something you do naturally?
“THINK ABOUT IT! David recognized all God had done for Him and paused to praise God for God’s faithfulness. Second Samuel 22:4 says” the Lord should be praised.” The next time you hear a great song, instead of praising the band, praise God, the creator of music. The next time you watch an exciting sporting event, praise God, the giver of all talent. Set aside each day to praise God for who He is and what He has done for you.”
Be glad and rejoice in what God has created, and to Him alone be all the praise and glory.
How did it go yesterday as you intentionally sought to conquer discouragement by forgetting the past? I trust you started to see some victory and a smile is returning to your soul.
But it’s hard to forget, isn’t it? We have been created by God with incredible brains capable of storing countless pieces of information. The human brain consists of about one billion neurons. Each neuron forms about 1,000 connections to other neurons, amounting to more than a trillion connections. The neurons combine so that each one helps with many memories at a time, exponentially increasing the brain’s memory storage capacity to around 2.5 petabytes (or a million gigabytes).
For comparison, if your brain worked like a digital video recorder in a television, 2.5 petabytes would be enough to hold three million hours of TV shows. You would have to leave the TV running continuously for more than 300 years to use up all that storage. Now just think how long it would take to erase all those discs.
The process of forgetting is difficult. It starts with a choice to trust God with the outcome of every event that is bothering us. Another choice must follow the first one, and that is to begin to act as if we don’t remember what happened, even though we do. Eventually the event will become so insignificant that it will be as if we don’t remember it unless we choose to resurrect it.
The fact that our brains are incapable of truly forgetting anything is a reminder that we must trust God. We trust Him because He has promised not only to provide us with sufficient grace for each day’s trouble, but that He has promised to one day wipe our memories away.
I remember doing some computer work for someone and they wanted the memory wiped clean. I got to thinking about that – clean memories. Actually, that’s an oxymoron. You cannot have a memory that doesn’t exist. But you can have clean memory capacity.
Everything that still haunts us in our minds will one day be wiped away when God reboots the entire system. This earth will be destroyed, along with everything in the universe. Once again there will be absolute nothing apart from the spiritual reality of God and the souls of all human beings.
Then, in a grand and glorious event, God will create new heavens and a new earth. It will be inhabited by all those who were saved by the blood of Jesus Christ while on the old earth, while those who rejected Him will be sent to eternal punishment and have nothing to do with life as we will know it. And as a part of the new eternal bodies that we will possess, we will have clean memories. Nothing of the former things will be remembered. They will not pop into our head unexpectedly. There will be absolutely nothing to recall because God will apply His power to forget the past to our lives as well.
Isaiah 65:17 “Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.”
This brings an answer to all those who wonder whether or not we will remember things from this life when the new world is created. The answer is no. For now, there may be awareness of things from this life for the people who are already in the presence of the Lord – as is the case for all the martyred saints described in Revelation – but when the current heavens and earth are destroyed in God’s final act of judgment against sin, every single memory of the past will be gone.
What an incredible promise that is from our Great and Glorious God. When in His presence, no earthly thing matters. No earthly thing will ever be allowed to disrupt our perfect fellowship with Him.
Here’s the application for right now while we are still on this earth. Why are we working so hard to remember all that will someday be wiped clean? And how many of our current memories actually restrict our access to the fullness of the presence of God? I truly believe that God designed us intentionally to more easily forget the things of the past the older we get, so that in our last days of life in this sinful world we can more clearly see Him and enjoy His presence. I know that is true of me, and I’m not that old yet.
Discouragement happens. But what causes it? Our first impulse is to blame our circumstances. But if we would conquer the very essence of our sin nature which denies personal responsibility and transfers blame (check out Adam and Eve after they sinned in the Garden of Eden), we would see that our circumstances have no real power in and of themselves and should have no power over us. They do not dictate or control our emotional responses – we do. We are responsible for our responses. We made the choice to be discouraged.
One choice that we make that leads to discouragement is to continually focus on our past, especially the failure parts of it. D. L. Moody once said, “Some people go back into the past and rake up all the troubles they ever had, and then they look into the future and anticipate that they will have still more trouble, and then they go reeling and staggering all through life.”
It has been said that the past is valuable as a guidepost, but dangerous if used as a hitching post. When God’s vision for the future is darkened by our longing for the past, our minds and our hearts become similarly dark. If we are to once again see the light of God’s grace and glory we must recognize the truth that “the past cannot be changed, but our response to it can be.”(Erwin Lutzer)
Isaiah 65:16 “For the past troubles will be forgotten and hidden from my eyes.”
There are several choices we have when it comes to the past:
We can dwell on it and hope to change it by the power of our imagination, leading ultimately to discouragement, despondency, and death.
We can hold it in our memory ready to be used at a moment’s notice to manipulate, suppress, or attack another person.
OR, we can learn from its mistakes, accept God’s forgiveness for it and look to the future as if it never happened.
Bernard Meltzer, the host of the 1970’s syndicated radio program entitled “What’s Your Problem?” spoke this truth – “When you forgive you in no way change the past—but you sure do change the future.”
In Isaiah 65:13-16, the LORD offers forgiveness of the past and change for the future. Here’s the hope He offers each of us.
My servants will eat
My servants will drink
My servants will rejoice
My servants will sing out of the joy of their hearts
To His servants He will give another name.
Contrast that with what happens if we stay focused on the past:
You will go hungry
You will go thirsty
You will be put to shame
You will cry out from anguish of heart and wail in brokenness of spirit
You will leave your name to my chosen ones as a curse
The Sovereign LORD will put you to death
The Apostle Paul said it well when He wrote, “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13-14)
I pray that today you will allow the Holy Spirit to have access to your heart. As the great writer Oswald Chambers said, “If you. . . begin to find that the Holy Spirit is scrutinizing you, let his searchlight go straight down, and he will not only search you, he will put everything right that is wrong; he will make the past as though it had never been.”
All the above statements are contradictory to faith in God. Think about it. God is sovereign. He is always in control of all things. He has a specific purpose for our lives, and that purpose has already been revealed in the command of Jesus to “go into all the world and make disciples.” He has already determined our destiny based on our acceptance of or rejection of His Son Jesus Christ. He has condemned the practice of seeking guidance from the stars because it is the worship of creation rather than the Creator.
I admire the way the Dr. Woodrow Kroll ends his “Back to the Bible” radio broadcasts – “Have a good and Godly day; for of what value is a good day if it is not also a Godly day?”
Pay attention to the warning of God in Isaiah 65:11-12. It is entirely possible and most probable that we have forsaken the Lord for the worldly worship of Fortune and Destiny.
Isaiah 65:11-12 “But as for you who forsake the LORD and forget my holy mountain, who spread a table for Fortune and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny, I will destine you for the sword, and you will all bend down for the slaughter; for I called but you did not answer, I spoke but you did not listen. You did evil in my sight and chose what displeases me.”
Both terms used by God in this passage refer to pagan gods. According to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, “the two names Gadh (the Hyades) and Menı̄ (the Pleiades) taken together give the meaning of the “Fortunate Number,” i.e. seven. The spreading of the table and mingling the wine to Gadh and Menı̄̌—at the beginning of the year to secure good fortune throughout its course, were therefore held about the time of the Passover, as if in parody, if indeed they were not a desecration of it: heathen rites added to one of the most solemn services of Yahweh.”
People were actually perverting the Passover – God’s ordained feast to reveal His plan of salvation for people through the shed blood of a Lamb – by seeking the favor and good fortune of false gods. They were throwing the dice as it were hoping to hit seven all the time. They sought the counsel of the stars when they should have sought the Creator of the stars.
It was the propagation of the problem of Eden, when Eve was convinced by Satan that God’s purpose and provision were not sufficient to fully satisfy the human heart. How could the people of Israel, after all God had done for them in delivering them from the bondage of slavery to sin and directing them to the Promised Land, turn their backs on Him and declare that He alone was not sufficient for them? How could they turn instead to the gods that are not gods to seek their fortunes and destinies?
STOP! We cannot condemn in others, past or present, what we ourselves do. There are things in our lives that we trust to add fulfillment, joy, peace, and prosperity that stand in direct contradiction to absolute trust in God. Bank accounts, retirement plans, recreational activities, vacations, possessions, sports, social media, and the list could go on and on. If even one aspect of this list is allowed to become a means of providing personal value and worth to our lives, we are guilty of forsaking the LORD. We spread a table for Fortune and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny every time we use the creation to attempt to fulfill what only the Creator can provide. We are guilty of false worship. We even forsake corporate worship with God’s people to pursue these other gods.
My friends, we are all excited about the opportunities ahead of us to enjoy activities and adventures in this life. Be very careful that all of it is done in the context of worship to the Creator, not as an attempt to replace what we have chosen to believe God can’t give. Our choices truly do reveal what we love and whom we worship. Do not forsake the LORD, or forget His holy mountain.
Pastor John
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Have you ever had raisin juice? Me either. Raisin juice is an oxymoron. You can’t get juice from something that is dried – at least not enough to be practical.
The nation of Israel had dried up spiritually. Not only were they no longer ripe for a harvest of righteousness, but they were also juiceless – the Living Water of God was no longer in them.
Isaiah 65:8-9 “This is what the LORD says: “As when juice is still found in a cluster of grapes and men say, ‘Don’t destroy it, there is yet some good in it,’ so will I do in behalf of my servants; I will not destroy them all. I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah those who will possess my mountains; my chosen people will inherit them, and there will my servants live.”
But not all of them were spiritually shriveled. There was a remnant of people who had remained juicy with the joy of the Lord. They were justified by their faith in Jesus, the coming Messiah. They were plump with promise. They were fat with faithfulness. They were sweet with servant hearts.
The LORD spoke to Isaiah and said, “At first glance it looks like the grapes are becoming raisins, which are useless to me. But if you squeeze them you will discover there is still juice in them. That juice is good, so I will not destroy those grapes, but will instead use them for their intended purpose of possessing a new Kingdom.”
There are at least two lessons here for us:
We are surrounded by people who are shriveling up spiritually. Maybe you are one of them. By your own evaluation or according to the scrutiny of others, you have determined that there is nothing good left in you. Many people around you have the same belief about themselves. But there’s Good News! God sees good juice in you yet. You are not a raisin. You are a grape plump with promise. God is calling you to an inheritance on His holy mountain. You! Wrinkles and all. You are still valuable to the Savior.
We must be squeezed a little for the good to come out. This may hurt a little, but the squeezing of grapes produces wine. Wine is very symbolic in the Bible. Wine is the symbol of redemption through the blood of Jesus Christ squeezed out on Calvary for the forgiveness of sins. Wine is the symbol of judgment, as God squeezes sinners in the winepress of His wrath in mankind’s last days on earth. Wine is the symbol of rejoicing, when Jesus again drinks it with all His faithful followers when the new Kingdom is established. Wine is the symbol of the adultery of mankind in false religions and self-serving spiritualism. So here is the point: when you feel squeezed by the circumstances and hardships of life, what is coming out of you? Is it good, God-honoring juice that will become new wine for the celebration of the King, or is it raisin juice that needs to be destroyed?
Your response to the squeeze is your responsibility. Your response reveals your real character. When God’s people are squeezed, good juice of righteousness comes out.
Is it possible that there is a time limit on God’s grace?
Before you try to answer that, be advised that the question is fundamentally flawed. When we attempt to put any sort of human limitations like time and space on God then we have asked the wrong question. God is God because He never ceases to be perfect. He does not set aside justice to be merciful – He is both always. He doesn’t set aside love to judge sin and sinners – He is both always.
Beyond our understanding, God is eternally perfect, not limited as we are to time and space, and certainly not limited to single expressions of the heart. He is always fully God in every way all the time.
But when God became incarnate in human existence in the life of Jesus, He took on time and space. Humanity was able to see, for the first time, the glory of God. It’s described for us in John 1:14 when the disciple Jesus loved wrote under the power of the Holy Spirit of God these words: “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.”
Grace and Truth – the glory of God. Both always. In human time, He showed love to those who were lost, while showing truth to those who claimed to already know it. He spoke words of grace and compassion to the needy and spoke words of anger and judgment to those who were self-righteous. Different times – same Jesus who was God in human flesh. He was Truth when He showed Grace, and He was Grace when He spoke Truth.
Why have I spent time on this? Because God reveals to us today through the prophet Isaiah that from a human perspective there is a time coming for many people when God’s grace will come to an end. For now, though they reject Him, He is still making Himself available to them. Even though they do not ask for Him, He is still responding to them. When they are not looking for Him, He keeps showing up in their lives. He is offering His grace to them.
Isaiah 65:1-5 “I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, ‘Here am I, here am I.’ All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations—a people who continually provoke me to my very face, offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick; who sit among the graves and spend their nights keeping secret vigil; who eat the flesh of pigs, and whose pots hold broth of unclean meat; who say, ‘Keep away; don’t come near me, for I am too sacred for you!’ Such people are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day.”
God’s grace is being extended even to those who are in constant rebellion against Him. But the time is coming when He will manifest His judgment on them. Look at what else Isaiah says: “See, it stands written before me: I will not keep silent but will pay back in full; I will pay it back into their laps—both your sins and the sins of your fathers,” says the LORD. “Because they burned sacrifices on the mountains and defied me on the hills, I will measure into their laps the full payment for their former deeds.” (verses 6-7)
Do you see it? Do you see the truth that God is both always? While He is extending grace, it stands written before Him that He is also just and will impose judgment on all those who have rejected Him.
The time of His judgment has not yet arrived. We are living in the age of grace. Yet we tend to seek justice before its time. We tend to be judgmental and critical rather than the expressions of grace and love. We who cannot be all things at all times as God is have chosen to be the wrong thing. We have chosen justice over grace when we are to live as the expressions of God’s grace until His time of judgement comes.
We are called to a mission to make disciples, expressing the love of God to a lost world that rejects Him. It is by our love for God and for one another that the world will know we are the followers of Jesus. Repeatedly we are both commanded and encouraged to grow in love and grace, but never in judgment. It is time for us to rise up as the people of God and reflect the expression of God’s grace to the world around us. Let us boldly and courageously live according to the heart of our Lord so that it may be said of us –
“To those who have not asked; to those who have not sought; to those who have rejected and rebelled; WE SHOWED THEM GOD’S GRACE AND LOVE.”
Isaiah 64:4 “Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.”
It’s still true today – since ancient times no one has heard about, heard from, nor have they seen any God besides YHWH – Jehovah – the One and Only God who exists as the Triune Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Every proposed option for God is the fabrication of man’s imagination and designed as an imitation of the One and Only so that ultimately man can be his own god.
Need proof? Isaiah 64:4 offers it. God acts! He acts on behalf of those who wait for Him. No imaginary God can. For a time, it may seem that our imaginary gods are acting on our behalf, but ultimately no action has taken place therefore no enduring benefit can be realized.
Our gods of resources, responsibilities, relationships, recreation, and religion produce only temporary satisfaction and fulfillment that never truly satisfy. But we are such creatures of the immediate that we are content with those temporary feelings, and we embrace the false belief that we will somehow avoid the pain and loss that have been experienced by everyone else.
The reality is that there is eternal fulfillment for every soul that surrenders by faith to the One True God for salvation. Yet even those of us who have done that still struggle with the need for immediate gratification. We have acceptance issues. We have value doubts. We have personal ambitions that we believe will compliment what God has given and supplement what He hasn’t.
But God acts on behalf of those who wait for Him. We are not good at waiting. We want what we want when we want it. Yet God says some things are worth waiting for. The apostle Jesus loved was directed by the Holy Spirit to write these words: “It does not yet appear to us what we shall be, but we know this, that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (1 John 3:2)
We work so hard at our appearance in this world, when what we should be waiting for is Christ’s glorious appearance. Why is it that how we appear now is so important when that will all be changed when we see the One whose appearance we will become? There is only one appearance that we should desire right now, and that is to be the reflection of our Savior’s appearance. Then, when He returns and we see Him as He is, our transformation into His appearance will be an easy step rather than a shock to us.
We all have other gods we have chosen to fulfill some need we believe we have. They are all a product of our imagination based on what we believe is best for us. We are our own gods, and it will end badly. Today, get rid of the idols you have determined bring value to your life, and trust the One True God to totally satisfy and fulfill you. He is acting on your behalf if you choose to wait for the eternal good He has in store. Let the world see that your appearance is nothing but a reflection of Jesus.
Pastor John
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