The Father Loves His Child, Always!

God, my Holy and Loving Father, please let these be Your Words, wholly and completely Yours for You Will. Thank You.

Isaiah 29:13-24.

The Lord says:

"These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men. Therefore once more I will astound these people with wonder upon wonder; the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish." Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the LORD, who do their work in darkness and think, "Who sees us? Who will know?" You turn things upside down, as if the potter were thought to be like the clay! Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, "He did not make me?" Can the pot say of the potter, "He knows nothing"?

In a very short time, will not Lebanon be turned into a fertile field and the fertile field seem like a forest? In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll, and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see. Once more the humble will rejoice in the LORD; the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. The ruthless will vanish, the mockers will disappear, and all who have an eye for evil will be cut down - those who with a word make a man out to be guilty, who ensnare the defender in court and with false testimony deprive the innocent of justice.

Therefore this is what the LORD, who redeemed Abraham, says to the house of Jacob:

"No longer will Jacob be ashamed; no longer will their faces grow pale. When they see among them their children, the work of my hands, they will keep my name holy; they will acknowledge the holiness of the Holy One of Jacob, and will stand in awe of the God of Israel. Those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding; those who complain will accept instruction."

As I type this I still don't know what is going to be written about this Scripture. Today I fell to a sin I struggle with and spent the day in repentance while reading from Isaiah 29:13 - 44:5. I now see why Paul was willing to call himself the worst of sinners. The more I find is sinful compared to the Holy example set by God's desires, I see myself as worse and worse of a sinner as I find the things I knew but ignored when God told me not to do them. Now I consider myself as Paul, the worst of sinners around me. I read through the judgment of the people who did not follow God's ways and felt discouraged over and over today, but the summary of what I read is in this passage alone. With the judgment always came the mercy that abounded for God's people. 

God frustrated my wisdom and called me out because I would still commit the sins that I didn't think meant anything and I ignored so many others. I was like the pot telling the Potter, "He knows nothing." But He knew it all and laid it out for me today. He frustrated my wisdom and intelligence with words I have read before that He made seem so new and convicting. How could we ever think that we can ignore this or that and then go to church or Bible study or a youth group and sing songs and read our Bibles when we are doing this to Him? How can we when our hearts are far from Him? If we think that we can do these things without facing our sins, we are so wrong. We are the clay that God is trying to form into what He wants but we are doing our own things and disrespecting Him all the way. So if we turn to Him for an honest second, God will take that second and scream at us with more than we can take until we are falling on the floor begging Him for Forgiveness.

That second becomes the time when the fertile field becomes a forest. When we who are deaf hear the words of the Scroll, God's Word; and out of the gloom and darkness of our sin, and we see. He allows us to see and fall down and humble ourselves in our disgrace and look to Him in our neediness. We are able to rejoice because God has punished us for our sins and broken us with His Word and Truth that we so desperately need. He punishes us for our sins for one reason and one reason only: He Loves us. Proverbs 3:11,12 says, My son, do not despise the LORD'S discipline and do not resent His rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those He Loves, and He punishes the son (daughter) He delights in. God rebuked me today for mine and showed me so much of my sins. My thought about that now is, there's still more to see that I do wrong, and there always will be, because I am a sinner. But now I welcome His rebuke and I rejoice in His punishment because He brings it according to His Love for me. So I want to be crushed, I want my bones broken by His conviction. I need it, God. My prayer is that we find pure Joy in it and see that it is God's Love. So let us see out His Wisdom and the rebuke that comes with it, for such is God's Love for us.

Then we will be able to repent and be forgiven by our Loving God above, and we will be counted as His children and will no longer be ashamed or feel like we are dead, because as we find our sins God allows us to repent and be forgiven by our faith in His Son, Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. We will look around us at the lives surrounding us and keep God's Name Holy. We will see His Glory and Mercy. Have you ever gone to church and just looked at the other Christians that are around you every service? Then have you remembered they are each another person that has been saved by Lord Jesus Christ just like you? If you haven't yet, DO IT! There is no greater Joy than to see God's Mercy and Love for His people in great congregation, and while singing to God. There is no greater Love than this: to lay one's life down for his friends. Then there is no greater Joy than this: To see those new lives that our Friend also died for.

This passage has moved me so much, I feel the need to shout this at those around me and say, "Don't you know this Joy yet? This is my God, and yours! I pray that you feel this way too. There is one more detail in this for us all to remember, those who are wayward in spirit will gain understanding, and those who complain will accept instruction. If any of us ever complains about what God wants us to change or we stray, God will do everything to us to have us listen to Him. I can account for this. He will bring change any way He can because He Loves us and wants us back in His presence for ever and ever.

Thank You For Reading

Long Live Jesus Christ

Amen 

Psalm 130: Forgiveness

Psalm 130

Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD;
O Lord, hear my voice.
Let your ears be attentive
to my cry for mercy.

If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins,
O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness;
therefore you are feared.

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.

O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing Love
and with him is full redemption.
He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.

O Lord God, please make these Your Words. Your beautiful, powerful, and moving Words that we all need to hear. Amen.

It has been a long time since a post on a Psalm, but I have been inspired by the Words God has spoken through my pastor in a Psalm series. This Psalm has been on my tongue for a couple years for my sin has always been before me. But even in the darkest of sins and times, when I have thought that there was no way for God to forgive me, this Psalm has humbled and reassured me. God willing, I will now show you why.

The Psalm goes in sections spaced out in paragraphs. Starting in the first is a desperate cry for mercy. In desperation a cry is made to God in fear because the Psalmist knows that God can choose to condemn him, but also that God is the only One that can pull him from the depths. The depths of his misery that his sin has brought that break him down in pain. He is begging God to let His ears turn to hear his cries. He wants God's mercy because he knows there is no other way except in God's mercy and forgiveness. Even today I have felt this way, seeing no light in the depths of darkness I have fallen into by my own actions and thinking. Seeing no way for a Perfect, Beautiful, Almighty God to forgive me and Love me. To cry to Him with almost no faith in Him hearing me, almost.

The Psalmist continues facing the fact that if God kept a record of sins no one could stand. No one, by God's standards, would be able to keep from being crushed by the guilt and death of their sins. He points out God's Righteousness and Power and Purity. To feel this heart wrenching feeling of how unworthy I am and the ultimate fear of God's power that He could crush me instantly. But then the realization that the question the Psalmist asks has the word "IF" in it. IF God kept a record of sins. But He does not. For God is Love and 1 Cor. 13 says Love keeps no records of wrongs. God keeps no records, He throws them out with the sins themselves to where all evil goes, never to come against us again. This changes the fear of destruction to a fear of understanding that our God is Truly Powerful and able to channel that Power to our destruction, but has instead channeled it to His Love for us causing All Powerful Forgiveness of our sins. Trough this Forgiveness the God of justice justified us by His Son's sacrifice. Then He gave us the Holy Spirit that came together with our own spirit to bring it to life and make it into something new, to make us a new creation. 

This new creation, our new living soul within us, waits on the LORD. Why did the Psalmist write that he was waiting on the LORD? Because he knew that to wait on God is to wait on the time that God will take him up to Heaven, for the Psalmist knows now that he is forgiven. He waits, even his soul with its own conscience of the sinful nature of the flesh waits eagerly for God to come. Knowing this brings our souls, my soul, to wait and stir at the sound of Jesus Christ's Name because it knows the Salvation coming soon. Because of this instinctive knowledge of our souls we put our hope in God's Word that promises this in words. We hope in it and the commands and blessings written in it about the time we eagerly and patiently wait for here on earth. This is why our souls wait more than a watchmen waits for the morning. Because we are in the night, vulnerable, watching for attacks, but when the dawn comes and the King returns to relieve us and free us we will be free of the chance of attacks, of sinning again for our sinful nature will be gone. 

The Psalmist then speaks to Israel, the nation around him, and tells them to put their hope in God. He finds this Forgiveness and Love and then feels the need to use the end of the song to tell them all to choose this God of Forgiveness and wait for Him too. He tells them what he has found in His Word and Forgiveness, that with God is unfailing Love and full redemption. He needs to tell them to choose Him because he knows that all need Him. Don't we see this unfailing Love and full redemption and feel the need to tell all the people around us? If we don't, we need to. Because our God felt the need to tell us that He can save us, we need to feel that need to tell others to hope in God. We need to do this for the exact same reason as the Psalmist, because he knew that only God Himself could, and would, redeem Israel and all other nations from all their sins. And God did so by the sacrifice of Lord Jesus Christ.

This Psalm has meant so much to me, and I know it will continue to be all my life as I and my soul wait for Jesus Christ's Second Coming or my death in this life, both being my assured beginning of eternal life with my Lord. My pain now comes from others living without this security and their need for God. My own pain and hope drive me to share Jesus Christ with others. I start college classes and possibly work in less than a couple weeks. Those places to me now are my nation to share Christ. My prayer is that we all see the world around us this way and endlessly share the Gospel. God is so much more than Good, He is the only Way.

Thank You For Reading

Long Live Jesus Christ

Amen