Tag Archives: Isaiah

God remembers His people

 

Light / Dust – Josh Yeoh (feat. Jon Cho)

 

When I read the Old Testament I see that when judgment was coming, God found a way to show His mercy to His people – He remembered them. I think He still comes down a pathway that we might encounter Him and to walk and not to expect to meet Him would leave us without joy and definitely a holy remembrance that could become a key milestone in our journey. I find that when I walk my paths He meets me graciously, and seems to be working for me, revealing things to me that matter even if no one else seems to have been able to know, hear or see before. I think of others who He has met along the pathway – Adam in Paradise, Mechizedek. Jesus too met Mary at the grave, Peter in the garden, the two that walked to Emmaus and then the disciples at early morning by the lake. I love that He still meets me. So my morning prayer gives me strength and joy for the entire day and when evening comes I find myself consoled and encouraged. I find this to be true – I can be doing the most menial task of the day, when suddenly I am encountered by Jesus and He pulls me into another world. Here He walks with me, helps me and sustains me. If I believe He is not changeable, then I will expect that wherever I am in my journey He will meet me and bless me.

From of old no one has heard
or perceived by the ear,
no eye has seen a God besides you,
who acts for those who wait for him.
You meet him who joyfully works righteousness,
those who remember you in your ways. – Isaiah 64:4-5a  ESV

Charles Spurgeon gave a clear description of what a disciple of Jesus looks like when they take hold of God.

He is deeply sincere and thorough in all that he does. Shams and pretences are his abhorrence. He feels the solemn importance of dealing in spirit and in truth with the Lord, and of taking hold upon God himself and not on mere names and words and forms. He says within himself, “I am a Christian, and I will be so, by God’s grace, not in name only, but in deed and in truth. I know that the outward form of religion is only a husk, and I resolve to feed upon the kernel. I intend to have the substance of religion, and not its shadows. I will take hold of all the outward which God has revealed; but I will mainly look to the inward, and my soul and spirit shall deal with the living God himself. If I live, I will live for him; nothing short of this shall satisfy me.” Such a man opens his Bible and resolves to find out what God’s will is, and he judges for himself, for he knows that he will have to render a personal account. He intends to take hold for himself of every revealed truth, for he does not wish to be taught by man alone, but to be taught by God. He arouses all his wits to understand the doctrine and precepts of God’s word; for he has become a disciple, and he therefore wishes to learn. His cry is, “I want to be thorough, I want to go to the soul and centre of things, and know truth by the teaching of the Spirit of God in my own heart.” Not content with searching the word alone, he takes everything he finds there to God, and says, “Lord, I long to lay hold of you in this truth. I desire not merely to know concerning Christ, but to know Christ. Not only to believe the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, but to feel the power of the Holy Spirit himself upon my soul, for I have said in my heart, ‘My God, I want to know you and commune with you, love you and serve you. My soul follows hard after you; when shall I come and appear before you?’ ” Such a man, dear brothers and sisters, when he once knows the will of the Lord, has made up his mind to act promptly upon what he knows; his mind is expressed in the language of one of old, who said, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” It is nothing to him what others may do, except that he regrets that they should do amiss. He puts his foot down and will not run with a multitude to do evil. He has made the word of the Lord to be the guide of his life, and he will not depart from it. His is no borrowed faith; he has embraced the truth of Jesus for himself, and he intends to follow him at all costs; and, as far as he can, he will have his household so ordered that all who come around him may see that Jesus is his Lord. Come fair or come foul, his hold is taken, and he will not leave it.

These thoughts come from these verses in Isaiah.

There is no one who calls upon your name,
    who rouses himself to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
    and have made us melt in[c] the hand of our iniquities. – Isaiah 64:7  ESV

Here are some other thoughts from Sandu Sundar Singh.

The Disciple,–Master, if Thou wouldst make a special manifestation of Thyself to the world, men would no longer doubt the existence of God and Thy own divinity, but all would believe and enter on the path of righteousness. The Master,–1. My son, the inner state of every man I know well, and to each heart in accordance with its needs I make Myself known; and for bringing men into the way of righteousness there is no better means than the manifestation of Myself. For man I became man that he might know God, not as someone terrible and foregin, but as full like to himself, for he is like Him and made in His image.

These thoughts relate to this verse in Isaiah.

Will you restrain yourself at these things, O Lord?
Will you keep silent, and afflict us so terribly? – Isaiah 64:12  ESV

All of this challenges me to grow and I cannot grow if I do not pray. My fellowship with God becomes stagnant.

 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—  that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. –  Colossians 4:2-4  ESV

Jesus, thank you for being such a key role in my salvation, for pointing me to God with Your life. Thank you God for being the centre of my story. 

Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
    for his steadfast love endures forever!
 Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
    whom he has redeemed from trouble – Psalm 107:1-2  ESV

Standard

Calling

 

Deborah Joy Winans – The Master’s Calling

 

I remember the calling of Isaiah – he thought he was doomed..

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train[a] of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”[b]

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” – Isaiah 6:1-8  ESV

One thing about callings – does it seem that God chooses the least expected ones? What a blessing to know that no one is beyond the reach of God’s call, no one is too sinful to do God’s work. Just this thought alone keeps me going deep, and yet keep small. It allows me to work to build up the church, the people of God. I can express love and I can recognize what I need to throw overboard in my life. So I never stop studying, learning and practicing what Jesus taught. I have come into a place where I fear transformation less as I see my likeness to Christ show up.

The goal seems simple enough – stay consistent with God’s Word and in the power of the Holy Spirit – when God calls, He also provides everything necessary to accomplish His will.

I would say the danger does not lie with the call, it is what happens when we respond and become stronger and more confident. Somehow there is a temptation to become strong in our own conceit. Too the point where we credit ourselves with whom we have become when in fact it is due to the grace of God. Look at Uzziah’s life.

In Jerusalem he made machines, invented by skillful men, to be on the towers and the corners, to shoot arrows and great stones. And his fame spread far, for he was marvelously helped, till he was strong.

But when he was strong, he grew proud, to his destruction. For he was unfaithful to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.  – 2 Chronicles 26:15-16  ESV

It happens to all of us I think and I know I find myself going back to the basics all the time.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. – Romans 3:21-27  ESV

There is no salvation in any other – my calling and works have no ground for boasting. So I enjoy my calling knowing that God continues to work in me and His work has made the calling what it is.

Standard