|
|
Daily Transcripts
|
09/26/2015
|
|
Isaiah 48:12-50:11 ~ Ephesians 4:17-32 ~ Psalm 69:1-18 ~ Proverbs 24:5-6
Today is the 26th of September. I was about to say April and I have no idea why. Okay, for sure it is not April. We’re many months ahead of that. We’re in September but we are at the end of September, crazy enough as it is. September 26th. I'm Brian. It's good to be here with you today. We’re moving our way through the book of Isaiah, reading from New International Version this week.
Commentary
Oh, there is just so much authority that came in the chapters that we read from the book of Isaiah today. For me it was like water. It has been a long, long week for this guy. I mean, sometimes it is just like that. It's like that for all of us. So even when I sit down in front of the mic, it's like I need it worse than anyone. I need it as bad as anyone. I need God to speak through his Word. I need it to wash over me and there are days where there is just so much authority in the scriptures that it does exactly that. It's kind and yet it's willing to tell the truth in rebuke. It's patient and yet it's not passive. God's Word, ah, it's just such a remarkable gift for us if we’ll just still ourselves, check out of all the things that are going on, and just allow it to speak to what is true in us, let it call out what is true in us and let it speak and transform our identities. You know what I mean?
I am the Lord your God who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your wellbeing like the waves of the sea.
Just let that sink in for a minute. The Lord said that thousands of years ago. He has been saying it all along. We can look in the scriptures and go ‘what’s up with the wrath of God?’ But this is what is really going on here.
If you had just listened to me this didn’t have to happen. You brought this on your own self.
I was having a conversation with one of my kids just the other day. You know, dirty room related stuff and consequences for some of that. They were just not cool with it, not cool that the room couldn’t be inspected right away and had to wait it out so that the phone could come back into their lives. “I was up there yesterday and said, ‘you’ve got to straighten this place up or there will be some consequences,’ so now you want me to jump out of my chair, run all the way up there and do the inspection and I can’t do that right now. So don’t be upset with me. I didn’t do this. None of this had to happen at all if you had just listened to me in the first place.”
You parents who have kids that are old enough to clean their own room, you know what I'm talking about. God is our Father and he is saying the same thing. If you had just listened to me, if you had just followed me, if we had just stayed lockstep in this relationship, none of this had to happen.
That is the heart of our Father. When we find ourselves in these predicaments in life, whether they’re big ones or whether they’re little ones or we’re just unsettled, it is so easy for us to say, yeah, God has forsaken me. He's nowhere to be found. But we’re not willing to own our part in how we got to where we are. And that is even in today's reading.
The Lord has forsaken me. The Lord has forgotten me.
And God responds.
Really? Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has born? Though she may forget, I will not forget you. See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.
That is the heart of our Father toward us. May we just take a moment to be reminded of how good he is and how good his heart is toward us. May it inspire us to awe. May we be moved in our spirits so that we can be moved in our flesh toward him. There is no other hope.
I was thinking about this the other day. I don’t want to just move things around in life. I mean, we can spend our whole lives just moving things from place to place just like busy little ants, moving things from place to place, trying to get this sense of accomplishment, when the real idea here of our humanity in our lives is that we get to do this life together with God in relationship. If we’re not present in that, we’re living subhuman. We’re just not living like we were made to live. We were made to live with a very present intimacy with God who wasn’t about getting things done or moving things around or setting goals and accomplishing them. It was about being present on a beautiful, beautiful place that he created for us to live. May we move back toward that.
God is in control until we step in his way, ask him to come down from the throne of our lives so that we can be our own god then we set about the business of destroying ourselves. We’re not made for that. May we rest in the fact that God is in control and all we have to do is be with him because he will move heaven and earth to be with us.
Prayer
Father, we come into your presence thanking you for your patience and your kindness and your mercy and your goodness. There are no words in any language and I have not the words in this English language that could even come close to articulating the wonder of you. So we just don’t have the vocabulary. We just have our lives and all you seem to want is our hearts devoted to you, not like just some sort of pledge of allegiance but in love. You have loved us as a father and you have simply asked us to fall in love with you. We just get so distracted, just so completely taken out with obligation and busyness. Holy Spirit, come, slow the world down for a minute. Let us see what is really going on here. Let us see the beauty of what you’ve created for us. Let us drink in the majesty of your kindness. Let us feel the inhale and exhale of breath, the breath of life, every single one a gift from you. Let us look about us at all of creation and all of the life bursting forth from everywhere and drink it in. You are good. You are great. You are glorious. You are sovereign. You are that you are and you are our Father. So come, Holy Spirit, lead us to our Father. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
SONG played on today's DAB. "Good Good Father" Housefires http://apple.co/1jfziBp
|
|
Tamarie 09/26/2015 13:17 |
|
|
