Year 9, Day 59: Jeremiah 6

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There are three distinct messages in this chapter.  The first message is that the Lord wants the Hebrew people to know that He is not happy.  He is angry enough to bring judgment against His own people.  He knows that they won’t listen to reason so He has to teach the lesson the hard way.  God is not ashamed to use tough love.  Like most beings, God would rather accomplish love the easy and productive way, but tough love as a last resort is also a tool in God’s toolbox.

What is it that the Hebrew people have done?  This is a question often answered in the prophets.  They won’t listen to the prophets.  They won’t admit there is a problem, much less admit they.  They don’t even feel shame when they are sinning!  In fact, it’s gotten to the point that God finds their offerings detestable. 

This is a great point to learn.  So often we think that we can appease God by doing certain things.  We go to church every Sunday.  We pray at meals.  We wear a cross.  We put a Bible on our shelf.  But do our actions mean anything if the heart isn’t there to support it?  Do our actions earn anything if we have no meaningful relationship with God?  Do our outward appearances have any kind of lasting impact if we don’t have the inner spirit longing to be obedient to the ways of God?

To answer this question for the Hebrew people, God sets up Jeremiah as a litmus test.  God puts Jeremiah into the midst of the people to be the mirror that reflects the behavior of the people back at them.  He is to be the voice of reason among them, illustrating their error.  Jeremiah isn’t called to be the popular one, or the smart one, or the powerful one.  Jeremiah is called to be the voice of reason and the voice of truth.  It isn’t a role that is coveted or popular.  It is a role that is necessary and mature in the midst of a deaf and rebellious people.

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Year 9, Day 58: Jeremiah 5

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The Lord continues to give His case against the Hebrew people as we march through Jeremiah.  Much as we saw in Isaiah, the front of the book of Jeremiah focuses on the trouble in the land.  Before God gets to the judgment and consequences, He wants to talk about what’s wrong.  After all, you can’t fix what’s wrong if you never identify it. 

That is a key understanding in the prophets.  It is easy to feel like the prophets are simply going off on the people and wailing complaints against them.  They can come across pessimistic, angry, bitter, and uncompassionate.  They aren’t looking to humiliate the people or to show them as worthless.  The point of the prophets is that you can’t fix what you don’t recognize as broken!  The prophets are pointing out the issues of humanity so that we can try to work against our flaws and faults.  The reality is that since we don’t want to see our flaws and faults, we perceive them as angry, bitter, and spiteful communicators that have nothing positive to saw.

What is wrong with the people, then?  Today, God focuses in on the self-centeredness of the people.  The Hebrew people are ignoring righteousness and justice.  They aren’t standing up for the rights of the poor.  They aren’t standing up for the orphans or the widows.  They are blessed beyond measure and they are hording their blessings instead of sharing.  Because they are blessed, they are assuming that they are invincible; God won’t punish them, surely.  God proclaims them as hard of hearts, blind in the eyes, and deaf in the ears. 

This isn’t the last word with God, though.  While this chapter is predominantly judgment, there are a few voices of grace.  God tells the people that even in the midst of their judgment He won’t destroy them completely.  He tells them that should they return to Him He will receive them once again.  He informs them that when they mature and ask why judgment has come upon them, God will be there to present them with the truth of their rebellion.  God may loathe their behavior, but He does not loathe the people.  Even in the midst of impending judgment He has left the door open for the future.

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Year 9, Day 57: Jeremiah 4

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Jeremiah gives another warning.  It is always amazing to hear a prophet speak about the wrath of God.  They pull no punches; they do not stop when it is uncomfortable.  They speak truth as it is, not as humanity can tolerate.

Do you hear Jeremiah’s words?  The whole land is laid waste.  The cities are laid up in ruins.  The land is desolation.  The cities will be forsaken.  The anguish of Judah will go forth as a woman in labor.  It will be as though in the presence of murderers.

Sometimes I think human beings simply don’t get it.  If the Lord wants to bring destruction, He can do it!  He can burn up a city with fire from the sky.  He can send plagues upon a nation.  He can lead a nation into bondage.  However the Lord wishes to bring about punishment, He can do it!  How will want stand against Him should He desire to bring us to our knees – or worse?

This illustrates the importance of the earlier verses in this chapter.  Jeremiah calls the people to repentance.  He asks them to turn from their sinfulness.  Jeremiah knows that this is the only effective weapon in our arsenal.  The only thing we can do in the face of God’s wrath is to repent and hope that He relents!

Of course, repentance is really what God is after.  It isn’t like our repentance tricks God into forgetting our wrongdoing.  When we repent, we demonstrate to God that we have gotten the message.  We show Him that we understand.  This is all God asks of us.   That’s why He respects repentance so much.  This is why Jeremiah encourages repentance.  It isn’t that Jeremiah wants to appease God, it is because Jeremiah knows that repentance is the very thing that God is after!

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Year 9, Day 56: Jeremiah 3

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There are three neat dynamics in this chapter.  First, we experience a great theme throughout many of the prophets, both major and minor.  God compares faithlessness to marital infidelity.  Essentially, God is saying that when we turn away from Him and out our trust in false gods, it is like a person turning away from their spouse and finding greater pleasure in another person.  Just as the rightful spouse is supplanted by an illegitimate lover, so too is God supplanted by an illegitimate god.

As easy as this concept is to understand, it is quite hard to appreciate and live out.  Human beings are all the time supplanting God.  Our hearts go to many different kinds of things instead of God.  Even good things take the place of God because they become the focus.  We love to invent all kind of ways to bring joy, peace, power, love, and other similar feelings into our life.  We love to ignore that God is the true lasting source of all of these things.

Perhaps even worse, even when we know this reality we cannot stop ourselves.  God is more harsh in His judgment against Judah than against Israel.  Yes, Israel was the first to rebel.  They were also the first to go int exile!  Judah had the benefit of seeing what happened to Israel when they went into captivity under Assyria!  They even had the benefit of seeing God’s mighty hand of power when He turned the Assyrian army around at the very gates of Jerusalem.  Yet, they did not learn the lesson.  They, too, fell into falsehood.  They, too, pursued other gods and profaned the relationship that they have with God.

Thank the Lord that this second truth is not the last truth in this chapter.  The third truth is the greatest one.  God is a forgiving God.  He will hand out consequences, surely.  However, there is forgiveness.  There is peace.  There is restoration.  All we need to do is to realize what we have done and return to Him.  He will always accept us back.  There is no sin that repentance and forgiveness cannot erase so long as the repentance and forgiveness is legitimately expressed.  God will restore both Israel and Judah.  He can restore us, too.

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Year 9, Day 55: Jeremiah 2

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Jeremiah first focuses on the complaint from the Lord.  He asks the important questions right up front in the very beginning.  What fault did the preceding generations find with God?  When reading  bit more closely, we realize that God is not actually believing that others found fault in Him.  God is not looking for the mysterious chink in His proverbial armor.  God is asking the Hebrew people why they have stopped being in relationship with Him.

God rescued the Hebrew people out of Egypt. From that moment, the relationship with the Hebrew people has always gone in cycles.  The people would fall away until God raised up a judge to save them.  Then there were the kings.  The faith was strong with David as king, and it waned until Josiah was king.  Then it was strong for awhile before waning until Hezekiah was king.  Then the people went into captivity.  What we see are cycles of faith and unfaith.

This should be able to teach us two things about humanity and our relationship with God.  First, people will naturally fall out of relationship with God.  We are inherently self-interested and self-serving; therefore, we will seek our own ways instead of God.  This is why we need the faith of the previous generations to speak into our lives.  The faith of the prior generations helps to correct us when in our youth we stray after our own desires.  Jeremiah recognizes this, which is why God asks what fault the fathers of the current generation found in Him.  God knows that the contemporaries of Jeremiah are straying because the generations ahead of them are not grounded in Him.

The second thing that we can learn about this chapter is that it takes a serious event to correct a people when they fall away from faith.  In the Hebrew people’s past, it takes a war.  Outside threats of domination bring people into a realization of how much they need their relationship with God.  It is when the Hebrew people are struggling against Egypt, or Syria, or Assyria, or Babylon that they ultimately turn back to God in earnest.

Learn the lesson.  We keep the faith because of the wisdom of the generations that come before us.  When that wisdom has evaporated and is no longer present, then it usually take a large event like a war to force people to recognize the gaping hole in their life that they can otherwise ignore.

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Year 9, Day 54: Jeremiah 1

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Today begins another major prophet.  Jeremiah deals with the same overarching issue with which Isaiah dealt.  The Hebrew people are falling away from God and judgment is coming.  Unlike Isaiah, whose writing spanned the fall of both kingdoms and even looked into restoration, Jeremiah will have a narrower focus.  Jeremiah tends to look at Jerusalem specifically, occasionally speaking to Judah generically, and deals more with the specifics of rebellion.

Unlike Isaiah, who gives us prophecy for several chapters before we hear his call, the call of Jeremiah begins this book.  It is the first thing we hear about after his introduction.  What makes the call of Jeremiah neat is that we can hear God’s plan for Jeremiah from the very beginning.  God intended Jeremiah to be a voice into the world.

It’s also neat to realize what isn’t said.  The book doesn’t talk about all the mistakes Jeremiah made along the way.  It doesn’t talk about the many things Jeremiah tried and did trying to figure himself out.  It doesn’t speak about his sinfulness, which we know had to be present, or his greatness, which we know shouldn’t be the focus anyways.  What we hear is God’s plan to use an imperfect human without focusing on the imperfection at all.  God is willing to use us, warts and all, if we are willing to listen.

We do hear about Jeremiah’s doubt, though.  His sinfulness is irrelevant to God’s ability to use him, but his internal doubt is important.  His sin cannot stop God, but Jeremiah’s doubt could stop Jeremiah from listening to God.  So often we get hung up on our past, our mistakes, our bad choices, and our sin.  God has dealt with our sin.  Our greatest threat to God working through us is our internal doubt and how easily we can convince ourselves that we cannot succeed.

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Year 9, Day 53: Philemon

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People often write and speak about Philemon in terms of slaves and masters.  I’ve done so in the past, it is part of what the book is about.  People also write and talk about Philemon in terms of how to write a letter that effects change in others.  I’ve also done that in the past.  It is a part of what this letter is about.  Today, though, I’m going to look at a different angle.

Philemon is also about relationships.  It is about how we lead.  There are many great sayings about leadership.  One such saying is that if a leader has nobody following, then the leader is simply a radical outlier and not a leader at all.  Another such saying is that all leaders must chose if they wish to lead through compulsion or through character.  I think both of these sayings are pertinent to Paul’s letter to Philemon about his slave Onesimus.

Paul tells Philemon that he has been working with Onesimus, a slave that belongs to Philemon but who has run away.  In working with Onesimus, Paul has convinced him to return to Philemon and return to the role in life that has been given to him.  Paul isn’t telling Onesimus to subject himself to utter slavery.  What Paul is doing is asking Philemon to examine his leadership style.  If he has been claiming to belong to Christ, yet his slaves won’t follow him, is he really being a leader in the church?  If his own slaves would rather run from him than submit to him, what kind of a leader is he?  Isn’t he simply an outlier, proclaiming belief in one thing but unable to get anyone to really follow?

Along with this question comes the question of character.  Anyone with enough power can lead through compulsion.  If you hold enough of the cards in people’s lives (their paycheck, their land, their livelihood, etc) you can compel them to act a certain way.  No person enjoys being led by compulsion, however.  It is better to lead by character.  It is better to invite people into relationship and show them why following you is better than the alternative.  True leaders lead because they have willing participants, not compulsive ones.

In the end, Paul raises an important question for Philemon to ponder as Onesimus is returned to him.  What kind of a leader is he?  What does his record indicate about those who follow him – or in this case, don’t?  Does he lead by willing example or through domination?

Most importantly, what is the example we see in Christ?

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Year 9, Day 52: Titus 2-3

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As Paul continues his letter to Titus, he looks more closely at the behavior of those who are in Christ.  Before getting to the behaviors, it is important to understand the perspective of Paul. Why is it that he asserts the behavior that he asserts?

Paul teaches, as Christ taught before him, that we are saved by the grace of God.  It has nothing to do with our greatness or our earning salvation.  We do not impress God with our accomplishments.  He wants relationship with us, so He provided a way for that to happen.  We are solely in a position of receptor, not at all in a position of deserving earner.

Because of this understanding, Paul teaches the followers of Christ to be humble.  We are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, and steadfast.  We are to teach the next generation to be the same.  We are not to be braggarts, or entitled, or people who make demands on others.  As people who receive grace, we are to pass along the same grace to others. 

It is God who is great. It is God who is generous.  It is God who deserves the praise and the glory.  It is God who deserves the focus.

Yes, occasionally we do something cool.  Occasionally we take a leap in understand that is worth acknowledgment.  What is important is not that we’ve done something amazing, though.  After all, what can we do that God has not already done or understood?  We acknowledge our growth, not our accomplishments.  We acknowledge God’s power behind our growth, drawing us closer and closer to Him, Hs ways, and His power.

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Year 9, Day 51: Titus 1

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It is neat to turn to a book like Titus after studying a prophet like Isaiah for so long.  Isaiah was about the movement in the people, their rebellion, and God’s point that God is most interested in what lies in their heart.  Isaiah was telling the people that the person is vastly more important than what they do.

Today, we turn to Titus and Paul’s advice.  Paul speaks about what it takes to lead in the church.  At first, it seems like Paul is taking the opposite side from what we heard from Isaiah.  Paul talks about external displays in the beginning.  A leader must be above reproach and the husband of one wife.

However, when we continue through the list we understand that these outward displays are actually signs of internal spirituality.  The leader should be hospitable.  The leader should not be arrogant or quick-tempered.  The leader should not be violent or greedy.  The leader should be a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, disciplined, holy, and holding firm to God’s ways.

In short, the leader is someone who is humble.  They know their place.  They know their strengths and weaknesses.  They know when to step up in the confidence of god and when to back off because of their own failings.  The leader is humble and contrite, genuinely knowing themselves and who they are in God.

On the other hand, there are the bad leaders.  These are the ones who are after their own agenda of power or prestige or wealth or comfortable living.  They upset families and devour the people around them.  The quote this chapter, they profess to know God but their very works reveal the true character that lies within.

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Year 9, Day 50: Isaiah 66

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Isaiah 66, the chapter in this prophetic book, ends with a bang.  Remember from where we’ve come.  The Hebrew people were drifting away from God.  They weren’t keeping the Law.  They weren’t staying close to God.  They were falling away from the ways of the Lord into their own desires and their own idolatry.  These people went into captivity and Isaiah is now giving them words for when the captivity has ended.  He’s setting the record straight.

What is it that God has to say through him?  He tells them quite clearly that it is humbleness that He prefers.  Of all the traits, characteristics, and qualities that God could lift up, humbleness is the one that gets the spotlight.

What is perfection to a perfect God?  What is sacrifice to a God who can create anything He wants?  What is a big temple to a God who calls the earth His footstool?  In fact, God compares the one who sacrifices like a murderer.  He compares the one who lifts up offerings as one who commits idolatry. 

Isaiah is telling the people that it is time they mature in the faith.  Straight obedience, when it isn’t rooted in the heart, doesn’t last.  Obeying laws for the sake of obedience doesn’t lead to anything worthwhile.  It is the heart of man that God is after.  It is an understanding of what we truly are that God wants.  He wants us to know our strengths and our failings.  He wants us to understand how much we need Him.  He wants us to understand how much better life is in Him and not just with Him.

This is the natural conclusion of the Old Testament.  God called Abraham because of his heart, but as generation after generation came about the people didn’t have the same heart.  When they were oppressed in Egypt, God called them out in spite of their rebellion.  He gave them the Law, but because their heart wasn’t in it they couldn’t keep the Law.  They continued to descend further and further into depravity until another captivity was brought about.  God’s point in all of this is that it is the heart of mankind that is important, not our external displays.

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Year 9, Day 49: Isaiah 65

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Isaiah is wrapping up his message to the people.  He has 3 great points to make as the book closes.  These points pick up and summarize much of the content of the whole book.

First, notice that God says that He has proclaimed Himself to a people who are not His.  These are clearly Gentiles, as the reference to eating pigs makes clear.  The point is that God is all about revealing Himself to the world, seeing who is interested in relationship and who is not. He is wiling to invite people even though they might ignore Him and refuse the invitation. For God, He wants to give people the opportunity to meet Him.  That’s why He called forth the Babylonians and the Assyrians and even the Persians!  He is willing to make Himself known, even to people who aren’t His.

That being said, God does take rejection seriously.  He will take notice when people refuse His invitation into relationship.  He will cause judgment and wrath to come where it is needed.  Those who forsake the Lord will be met with destiny: the sword.

Note, however, that the judgment comes because of humanity.  We choose to forsake Him.  We choose to not listen.  When judgment comes, it comes at the hand of the Lord but we have nobody to blame but ourselves.  He judges us for our choices.  He doesn’t judge us because He is mean or vindictive but because we have made our rebellion clear to Him.

This chapter ends with a look at those who receive Him.  They are promised a new heaven and a new earth.  They are promised the opportunity to live their whole life without it being cut short.  They are promised the reality of reaping what we’ve sown.  They are promised a reality in which God knows our call even before we utter it!  They are promised a relationship with God that is fulfilling in ways that we can only imagine.

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Year 9, Day 48: Isaiah 64

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One of my favorite aspects about the prophets is their deep understanding of the judgment cycle.  Yes, there is judgment, repentance, and forgiveness.  That’s an important cycle to understand.  There is more to it than that, however.  Judgment, repentance, and forgiveness is what happens after God gets involved.  That’s what happens after He comes to judge.

The prophets always include a step we would prefer to overlook.  The prophets know that judgement only comes upon people who are guilty.  The thing that the prophets consistently get right is that we as a people are guilty.  We have sinned.  We have aroused God’s anger.  We have brought judgment upon ourselves.  We are not the innocent bystanders caught up in the wake of a great evil as we would really prefer to believe.  We are the great evil itself.

Thankfully, we serve a God we believes in what we can become, not what we are.  Isaiah reminds us that God meets those who work righteousness with joy.  Instead of scrapping the whole of creation, God anticipates when we will choose Him over our sinfulness.  He longs for when we will recognize our sin and repent.  That’s the key that the prophets all understand.  Judgment will come one way or another.  The thing that takes judgment and helps it lead to repentance and redemption is our own ability to acknowledge our sinfulness.

When we acknowledge our sin, we can cry for mercy.  We can look for redemption.  We can ask the Lord to make His judgment not last forever, but rather to pass over us quickly so that we can demonstrate our repentance to Him.

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Year 9, Day 47: Isaiah 63

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Isaiah 63 begins with a gruesome view of destruction.  Isaiah reports that a person comes, dressed in crimson.  At first, He appears rather splendid.  Then we hear why the garments are crimson.  The speaker says that He has been treading the winepress.  In other words, the person has been about destruction and judgment.  He has been treading people under His feet.  He has been doing it alone, because it has been done in righteousness.  There was nobody righteous who could be counted on to participate with Him.

In other words, everyone was guilty.  On the scale of righteous versus condemned, the entire world fell upon the side of condemned.  Everyone was sinful.  As we hear elsewhere in the Bible, all have fallen short of the glory of God.  The reality is that our sin causes us to be guilty and worthy of His judgment.

Fortunately, the words of judgment are not the last we hear.  After judgment, we are reminded of God’s mercy.  He rescued the Hebrew people out of Egypt.  He spared them from the desert.  He is not only the only person who can judge in righteousness, He is the only one who can redeem the judged and restore.

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Year 9, Day 46: Isaiah 62

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One of the neat things about a major prophet like Isaiah is that we get a chance to see the full spectrum of faith.  We started 60 chapters ago with threats of judgment.  We then watched as the threats became reality.  Now we hear words of restoration and redemption.  It’s a great perspective to hear.

When we talk about salvation, we are inherently connected to the idea of restoration.  God is giving the land back to the people to whom He promised it.  God tells them that they will reap the benefits of their own land and hard work.  God doesn’t give them a substitute.  He certainly doesn’t give them a consolation prize.  With redemption comes restoration.  When God saves, He saves true.

There’s more to it than this, though.  The Lord isn’t just about returning property, He is about restoring rights and responsibility.  The people will work for their own benefit.  When the Lord restores, human beings won’t benefit from the work of others.  People won’t steal, they won’t take, and they won’t coerce goods from others.  When God restores, there will be equity and peace among people.  We will reap what we sow.

This is an idea near and dear to the heart of the Lord.  God has always known that among humans, there would be the wealthy and there would be the poor.  He also knows that there will be those who think nothing of taking from others.  God shows more concern for orphans and widows than any other collective in the Bible.  He cares for those whom people take advantage.  When the Lord redeems, He sets that record straight.  He upholds the rights and responsibilities of those who are easily targeted by others.  God’s redemption  reaches out to the places close to His heart and it ways that are deep and meaningful to Him.

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Year 9, Day 45: Isaiah 61

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Psalm 61 is a continuation of the praise that began a few chapters ago.  We have familiar words in the opening lines.  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me … to bring good news to the poor … to bind up the brokenhearted … to proclaim liberty to the captives … to open the prison for those who are bound … to proclaim a year of the Lord’s favor.  Of course the words continue, but these are the most remembered.  They are words of restitution.  They are words of redemption.  They are words the set the record straight and declare and end to oppression and exile.

After all, the Lord loves justice.  He is faithful and desires an eternal covenant.  Yes, He judges when necessary.  He knows that through judgment comes purification and eventually restoration.  He knows that consequences are necessary when people aren’t self-correcting.  But His role as redeemer is everlasting, His role as judge is as needed.  He does both jobs perfectly and righteously; He mentions the redemption and restoration in terms of the eternal.  He wants relationship with us forever, choosing to judge us and give us consequences as needed in the moment.

He do we respond to this?  We should rejoice.  We should long to bask in the righteousness of the Lord.  We should desire to be clothed in His grace, love, and mercy.  We should await His righteousness and praise as it sprouts up in us.

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Year 9, Day 44: Isaiah 60

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As we approach the close of the book of Isaiah, we get a great chapter of hope.  Here is a great vision of the future.  The scattered nation will be rebuilt.  The Lord’s people will be returned from across the globe.  In fact, the nations themselves will rebuilt it.  A nation scattered will be bought together and made whole again by the very people into whom they were scattered.

As we move through the promises of restoration, I love how the reason for the restoration comes out.  Why is it that the people will be regathered?  They will be regathered for the sake of the Lord.  They will be regathered because He is righteous.  It is God who scattered; it is God who will restore.  This is done so that the people – and the whole world, really – shall know that the Lord is the true Redeemer.  He is the only one who can restore satisfactorily.

Of course, in all of this glory the warning right in the middle of the passage should not be lost.  The nation and kingdom that will not serve you will perish; those nations shall be utterly laid to waste.  That is a stark warning completely.  God called Assyria.  They failed to serve Him.  Therefore, they ended up in judgment themselves.  The same is true for Babylon.

In the end, there are places of grace and places of judgment.  We will all know them, for we all ebb and flow between obedience and rebellion.  God desires us to be with Him.  In fact, he desires it so much that He will bring us into judgment when we should stray from Him.  But He doesn’t judge us permanently if He knows our heart can become contrite.  He will judge us so that we can find ourselves in a place of restoration.  He judges us, like the Hebrew people, so that we can be rebuilt in a better and stronger relationship with Him.

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Year 9, Day 43: Isaiah 59

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I love the way that Isaiah 59 opens.  Is the hand of the Lord shortened so that it is unable to save?  Of course not!  God can save.  Are the ears of the Lord so dull that they cannot hear the cries for salvation?  Of course not!  God knows all things and can hear all things.

Isaiah’s point is that God is still God.  He is omniscient and omnipotent.  God is capable of living up to His promises.  God is capable of bestows grace and mercy.  He is capable of saving and redeeming.

What is the issue, then?  If God is capable, why do people find themselves in positions of needing salvation without being rescued?  Specifically, why do the Hebrew people go off into exile when their god is more than capable of protecting them?  The answer is simple.  It is the iniquity of the people that have put up the barrier.  People do it to themselves.  We create separation from God, not the other way around.  Our sin drives us from Him, not Him from us.  We are the guilty and incapable, not God.

All of this being said – and all of the consequences of our sinfulness taken into account – there is a really neat prophecy of hope given at the end of this chapter.  In spite of the rebellion of the people, god promises that His Word will always be among them.  This goes back to what was said earlier.  We drive ourselves from God, not the other way around.  We put distance between us and God, yet God never leaves us.  His words are with us always, even when our sin forces us to turn our back upon Him.

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Year 9, Day 42: Isaiah 58

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Isaiah 68 poses a great question from the Lord.  When we claim to observe His statutes and follow His ways, what is our motivation?  At the heart of this question is the idea that motivation is every bit as important as action.  God isn’t happy when we do the right thing for outward show if there is no inward desire.  A sacrifice isn’t a sacrifice if we are doing it for the show and not because of our understanding of our own guilt.  Fasting is pointless if we put our fasting on display for others and have no inner recognition of our sin.  If there is nothing meaningful within us, then at best we have put on a show.  At worst, we have manipulated the ways of God to feign genuine righteousness.

This is a common theme throughout the prophets.  God loathes sacrifices done without meaning.  What is a burnt offering to Him, who created the world?  Can He not make His own sacrifice?

What God longs for is a broken and contrite heart.  What God longs for something that He cannot force, which is for our hearts to turn to Him and desire His ways.  He wants us to want Him!  That’s why He gave us free will in the first place!  If God wanted smooth running sacrifices that happened perfectly at the same time every year, He could have created automatons to execute the plan.  He didn’t, because He wants us to want Him in return!

God speaks to His people.  He wants them to fast because they recognize their guilt.  He wants them to care for the poor because they understand how God has cared for them.  He wants them to watch out for the orphan and the widow because they genuinely desire the pursuit of righteousness for themselves.  God wants us to want His ways, not just execute them.

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Year 9, Day 41: Isaiah 57

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Yesterday we started with a message of hope for the people and ended with a verdict of judgment against the leadership.  Today we do the opposite.  Today we start with a message of judgment against idolatry and end with a message of peace to the lowly in spirit.

This is a very stylistic approach in ancient writing.  It is called a chiasm, and is named after the Greek letter chi (X).  If you think about how an X is written, it starts in one place (high or low) and goes to the other place (low or high).  The next stroke starts at the same height as the previous one ended (low or high) and then goes back to the same height that the first one began (high or low).  It is a stylistic type of writing that is geared towards making contrasts.  Start with an idea, state it’s opposite, continue with the opposite in a new direction, and return to the original idea from a new perspective.

Yesterday we heard the great contrast between the hope of the people and the corruption of the leadership.  Today we start again with corruption.  Instead of talking about the corruption of the leadership, however, Isaiah speaks to the corruption of idolatry.  The idols are unable to provide the same kind of peace and prosperity that God can.  They were unable to deliver the people from Assyrian or Babylonian oppression.  They were unable to free the Hebrew people from exile.  Idolatry is corrupt because it is unable to deliver on any promise!  Idolatry is corrupt because it steals us away from God, promises lies, and then walks away letting us hold the bag of deceit!

Then we move to the end of the chapter.  Once more we hear about hope.  Those in this world who are contrite – or low in spirit – will find God’s restoration.  Those who wait upon the Lord will know what it is live to have Him build up, have Him revive the spirit, and have Him invite us to dwell with Him.  It is not the perfect who get this opportunity.  It is not the powerful, the wealthy, or the popular who get this experience.  It is the low in spirit, the humble, the contrite who get this opportunity.  It is the contrite who will hear God declare His peace and feel His healing.

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Year 9, Day 40: Isaiah 56

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Isaiah 56 is a chapter in contrast.  In the beginning we have a message of hope to the people who are oppressed.  Their redemption is coming.  They merely need to stay the course and they will know God’s rescue.  That’s a really cool thing with God.  He is a master at doing the exceptional.  While He is doing the exceptional, all we need to do is the normal.  He can take our normal and make it into His exceptional.  He does it all the time.

There’s more, though.  This isn’t just a message to the Hebrew people.  God has a message for the foreigners, too.  The foreigners who have come to know Him during the exile of the Hebrew people will not be abandoned.  When God takes His people and brings them back to the Promised Land, He will remain with them.  God will remember their faithfulness, because God is the God of all people who come to Him, not just the Hebrew people or those we think are right.  God is the God of all people who turn to Him.

At the end of the chapter, we get contrasting verses to the initial verses of hope.  God speaks to the leaders of the Hebrew people.  He speaks to those who should have been setting the example, who should have been encouraging His people into righteousness, and who should have been upholding justice.  He admonishes them, reminding them that instead of behaving the way He expects they have been seeking their own gain.  They have been selfish, abusing their power to make their lives better.  Instead of leading people to God, they were filling their own bellies and growing lazy in what should have been righteousness.

Leadership is an interesting thing.  Leadership comes with power.  Most people seek the power, notoriety, and prestige.  Leadership also comes with responsibility.  Many who seek the power of leadership actively shirk the responsibility and expectations that come with the position.  This is God’s point as we end this chapter.

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Year 9, Day 39: Isaiah 55

Theological Commentary: Click Here

What a phenomenal chapter of the Bible!  It is filled with great hope and joy.  It is filled with familiar expressions.  This chapter is like sitting beside a warm fire with a good book and a cup of fragrant tea.  It is like food for the soul.  There is much to love here.

Look how this chapter opens.  “Come, everyone who thirsts.”  People may make the case that there is an implied Hebrew audience to these words.  I, however, choose to read them as written.  God desires that anyone who thirsts come to Him.  Anyone who seeks His restoration and refreshment can come to Him.  I feel this is especially appropriate when considering Isaiah 55:5.  “You shall call a nation you do not know, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you.”  God desires that all – anyone, anywhere – come to Him should they desire to come.  God is exceptionally inclusive in His desire to be found by anyone who truly seeks Him.

The grace and the mercy listed in the opening verses has a bit of a footnote, though.  We are to seek the Lord while He is to be found.  This verse can be taken several ways.  The most obvious way, and I also to believe an incorrect way, is that there is a time that God does not want to be found.  I don’t believe that a God who desires that anyone who wants to come to Him would intentionally hide so it is impossible to find Him. 

Rather, I believe that this is a warning to seek the Lord while we can still find Him.  There are many ways that we will be unable to find Him.  The most obvious is upon our death.  Once I am dead, I will no longer be able to seek the Lord.  My time will be done, I’ll have breathed my last.  I need to seek the Lord before that point.  However, I don’t think death is the only interpretation here.  The further I go away from God, the harder it is to turn to Him.  The further into my own rebellion I go, the more difficult it is to retreat out of it.  It is certainly not impossible, but it does become more and more difficult.  God will always be found to those who want to seek Him, but if a person grows too engrossed into their own pursuit of sin they may not be able to overcome the difficulty associated with repentance.  God’s warning is clear.  We need to seek Him while He is to be found.  It is not His desire to hide but our inability that keeps our relationship with Him from being discovered.

We can be confident in this, because we know that the words of the Lord do not return empty to Him.  His words come to us, feed us, and bring about His will.  If we but turn to Him, He has the power to bring us to Him.  He has the ability to bring us into joy and gladness.  He has the ability to take a broken and contrite heart and turn it into an expression of joy and splendor.

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Year 9, Day 38: Isaiah 54

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Isaiah 54 is a great word from the Lord.  In fact, it speaks to the subsiding anger of the Lord.  The Lord was angry, but He is getting over it.  The Lord executed judgment, but He is getting past it.  It sounds rather like God’s judgment of the flood and Noah, doesn’t it?  In fact, God thinks so, too.  In fact, He makes the comparison Himself in this passage.

This goes to two great points.  First, it reminds us that the Lord is consistent.  We can be sure that He moves past His anger.  We can be sure that He does forgive and continue to seek relationship once He moves past His anger.  He got past His anger with Noah.  He got past His anger in the Exodus.  He now gets past His anger here.  The anger of the Lord is fleeting compared to His search for love and grace.  That is consistent throughout the ages.

The second great truth is that God is truly a God of love.  Some people accuse God of being vindictive and judgmental.  If that were the case, He would not continue to seek love and put aside His anger.  Instead, God demonstrates that He is love.  It is love that stays consistent with God.  It is love to which God returns when His anger subsides.  His nature is love.

In the end, God wants the best for us.  He wants to claim us for Himself.  He wants to make sure that our choices lead to His ways and what is best for us.  He does not leave us in our despair or to wallow in our sins.  He calls us in love.  He restores us.  He redeems.

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Year 9, Day 37: Isaiah 53

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Isaiah 53 is a neat passage through which Christians can read the work of God.  It is next to impossible to read these verses and not hear Christ.  These verses find an absolute fulfilment in Christ, His coming to Earth, His teaching, His rejection, His death, and His resurrection.  Each and every verse has a very intentional meaning into the life and work of Christ.  This lens for Christ is an exceptionally important – likely the most important - lens for these words.

It is not the only lens for these words, just the most obvious for Christians.  It is possible to ask the question: To whom is Isaiah literally referring in his own day?  Sure, from the Christian lens these words find their ultimately fulfilment in Christ.  But to whom goes the first fulfilment?  Who is the servant of the Lord in Isaiah’s day about whom Isaiah pens these words?

Many people say that these words are designating a collect servant.  In Isaiah, there are four main “servant passages.”  They are Isaiah 42:1-9, Isaiah 49:1-13, Isaiah 50:4-11, and Isaiah 52:13 – Isaiah 53:12.  These passages collectively seem to indicate all of the Hebrew people – or at the very least, a righteous remnant within the Hebrew people – as God’s servant.  The Hebrew people were the ones called to do God’s work, therefore they are His servant.

This should make sense.  Abraham was called by God to be in relationship with God.  In effect, he was the father of all who are in relationship with Him.  Moses, the bringer of the Law, was called God’s servant.  Hebrew kings were called God’s servant, specifically David.  More generically, we know that the people of God in general bear the responsibility of revealing God to the rest of the world!  God came to the Hebrew people so the world might come to know Him through them.  In effect, that brings us back to Christ and His disciples and the people of God who have followed them.

When we think about it that way, this becomes a very important reading of this passage for Christians.  Yes, this passage certainly points us to Christ, who died for our sake so that we might know the grace and redemption from God.  But this chapter is a call for all of us, not just Christ.  We all can be God’s servant.  We all can know the rejection of the world.  We can all know what it is like to be bruised for His sake.  We know what it feels like to be pierced by the sinfulness of the world.  We can continue going on with these comparisons.  This chapter is a calling for each of us, beginning with the Hebrew people themselves, to bear our God out to the world.

Keep in mind, though, that the ultimate fulfilment still lies in Christ.  Only He can take away the sins of the world.  Only He can be the perfect sacrifice.  But we are called to be like Him, that is a theme throughout the New Testament.  This chapter lays the framework for that very thought.  God wants us to be the bearers of His will to the world, much like Christ bore His ultimate will for us to see.

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Year 9, Day 36: Isaiah 52

Theological Commentary: Click Here

In Isaiah 52 we have a glimpse of restoration.  There are songs of praise to be sung.  There are vessels to be brought in and out.  There are broken places to be built up.  There are things to be purified.

This is what it feels like to know the Lord.  When the Lord bares His mighty arm, none shall be strong enough to resist.  When the Lord comforts us, we will know peace.  When He publishes peace and salvation we will proclaim that our God reigns.  The world can come against us and fight against God, but when our God comes to the world and fights against them He will win.  When the Lord comes, we will know His restoration.

In saving the last few verses of this chapter for tomorrow, to which they rightly belong, it is good to end with a discussion of where the first section of this chapter ends.  When the Lord comes, what will be our response?  When we know the salvation of the Lord, what shall we do?

We will go out and remain pure.  What the Lord purifies we cannot undo.  What He makes clean cannot be made unclean.

We will also go out slowly and not hastily.  When we are with the Lord, we can know His surety.  When we are with the Lord, we can know His confidence.  We will act in the Lord’s will, not our own human uncertainty.  There is a confidence that comes when we meet the redemption of the Lord.

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