Tag Archives: Hope

WHAT SIGN IS NEEDED?

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LifeLink Devotions

Thursday, December 7, 2023

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.”

In 738 B.C., Ahaz became the king of Israel. His enemies were numerous, and fear of being overthrown captivated him. He was a king imprisoned in his own kingdom because he would not listen to God’s voice and trust God’s promises. God sent the prophet Isaiah to him to assure him that the enemies who were plotting his demise would not be successful. We learn from later historical records that these enemies twice tried to overthrow Jerusalem and were unsuccessful both times. But for now Ahaz would not believe God’s words. So, God offered to give him a sign that would prove His words were true. Ahaz, in a moment of apparent humility, refused the sign, saying, “I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test.” Yet Ahaz was already negotiating with Assyria to be Jerusalem’s ally and defender in the event of an invasion, and he was already stripping the temple of gold to pay for the alliance. Ahaz was refusing to trust God until his own resources were exhausted.

There’s a quick and powerful lesson for us already, and we haven’t even gotten to the best part yet. Like Ahaz, we tend to trust our own abilities and resources before we trust in God. I wonder how many roads we have travelled thinking we were on the right path when they were only detours from the main road of God’s will. We chose those roads because they seemed correct and convenient within the context of our own conscience, but they did not conform to God’s communication with us. We ignored His signs and proceeded down the path of our own experience. We looked only at the immediate, at the expense of God’s future. In our pride, we depended on our own knowledge, abilities, and resources when we could have had God’s. What a mess we have made of life by not listening to God!

When he refused the sign God offered, God said He would choose one for him. Now think about this for a minute. What sign would you want to see? You could ask for anything in the “deepest depths or the highest heights.” (verse 11) Would you ask for a mountain to rise out of the middle of the ocean with a mansion already built on top? Maybe you would ask for the stars in the sky to be permanently arranged to spell your name for everyone to see every night. What sign would you seek that would prove to you that God is both real and trustworthy?

God chose this sign – a virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a baby boy who will be God himself. God could have chosen to reveal His power over creation, but instead He chose to reveal Himself to His creation. Instead of showing us what He can do, He showed us who He is. Instead of enhancing the mystery of who He is, He solved the mystery by coming as one of us so we could know Him. Rather than risk the rise of fear by demonstrating some miraculous power over nature and further separating Himself from us, He eliminated fear by revealing to us His nature of love and drawing us to Himself. God’s sign for all the world to see is Jesus, God in the flesh, saving man from his sin.

Ahaz would never get to see that sign because He refused to trust God’s Word. Millions have not seen the sign today either because they are looking for the wrong kinds of signs. Or maybe they aren’t looking for a sign at all because they believe they are still capable of managing their own outcomes. They are not listening for God’s voice, and even if they hear it they refuse to trust what He says.

Immanuel – “God is with us” – is God’s sign to the world. We who have heard His word and have seen His sign, become the sign to others who do not yet believe. God is with us. Let His sign be seen clearly.

Pastor John

What an Honor!

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Connecting Points

Thursday, November 08, 2012

Today’s Topic: What an Honor!                                                         

Today’s Text:  Psalm 119:49-50 (ESV)
49 Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. 50 This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.

On Sunday afternoon Denise and I left the house with our suitcases packed and loaded in the back of the van. We stopped at the house of our church office administrator and loaded up hers and her husband’s suitcases. Then Pastor Dennis and Jan drove into the driveway, and we transferred their luggage to our van. It was time for a staff retreat at Oak Forest Center. For the next 48 hours we would be fed spiritually and physically, and take time to rest and relax and be refreshed.

Our speaker this year was Dr. Richard Swenson from Menomonie, Wisconsin, who has written such well-read books as Restoring Margin to Overloaded Lives and Hurtling Toward Oblivion. What an incredible gift from God he was to us all as he challenged us.

One of the things he said at the conference is stuck in my mind this morning – and I hope for a long time. As he shared a wealth of information about the current status of our social, economic and political order, and mankind’s race to go faster and faster towards more and better that will end in a cataclysmic crash, he said this: “But in all of this there is zero fear. Our Sovereign God, who created, directs and chooses all things, has chosen us to represent Him in this time. We are privileged and honored to be here.”

What a great perspective! What a Biblical one. You and I, as God’s chosen people, are living in perhaps the single most exciting time of the world’s history since the arrival of Jesus on the earth. We and our children very well could be the last generation to be involved in the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ before He returns.

As the human race hurtles headlong into the hurricane of economic and political collapse, we can stand on the promises of God. We have the hope the world needs. We know the promise of salvation that gives life. Our hearts have been captured by the love of God who is not mad at us even though we were responsible for the necessity of the death of His Son. His love for us while we were still sinners has birthed in us a love for Him that conquers sin. No longer do we need the world, nor even want the world. All we need and all we want is to bear fruit for the Father even as the world around us collapses.

Jesus said it this way in John 15:14-16.  You are my friends if you do what I command you.  No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I  have made known to you.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

I am convinced that our attitudes have not been right in this regard. We have succumbed to the cynicism that results from trust in the world’s system. We have taken the mark of the beast and declared our dependence on the economic and political policies of the day. We have decided to enter the race to get more and more and to get it faster and faster. We have rejected biblical contentment and thereby also rejected the godliness that goes with it to produce great gain. We believe we are gaining, but only if the world is our standard of measure.

As a result, as the world system around us begins to fail us, we lose hope. We lose strength. We try harder to fix it and to keep the race going. And we begin to wonder why we are here, and why we have to suffer the way we do. We fix our eyes on what’s wrong with life and the world rather than on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the pain of the cross and suffered death. Where is that faith in our lives today?

More than ever my eyes are fixed on God’s finish line, not the world’s. I have been chosen by the Sovereign Creator to live in this day for His purpose and for His glory. I have His promises. I have His Presence. I accept His purpose. I commit to His daily plan. I embrace His people. I proclaim His peace to lost people. I am passionate about loving Him above all else because He was passionate to love me even when I didn’t love Him.

He picked me to live at this time. He picked you to. What an honor!

Pastor John