Isaiah 45: 18 – 25
I found God! I searched high and low, looked in every nook and cranny, under every rock, and behind every corner, and suddenly, there he was.
Why was God hiding?
Was God hiding?
We can be quite arrogant in our thinking that it is we who searched for and found God, when all along he was there waiting for us to stumble blindly into our need to have a relationship with him.
In my bathroom, I have a group of affirmations placed on the bookcase next to the toilet, where they can be easily seen. One of which reads; “I didn't find God, He found me, right where he wanted me to be”.
He was waiting at the end of my rope, he was there all the time, truth be told, he was everywhere in my life, I didn't have to look for Him at all.
18 GOD, Creator of the heavens—he is, remember, God. Maker of earth—he put it on its foundations, built it from scratch. He didn’t go to all that trouble to just leave it empty, nothing in it. He made it to be lived in. This GOD says: "I am GOD, the one and only.
19 I don’t just talk to myself or mumble under my breath. I never told Jacob, ‘Seek me in emptiness, in dark nothingness.’ I am GOD. I work out in the open, saying what’s right, setting things right.
20 So gather around, come on in, all you refugees and castoffs. They don’t seem to know much, do they—those who carry around their no-god blocks of wood, praying for help to a dead stick?
21 So tell me what you think. Look at the evidence. Put your heads together. Make your case. Who told you, and a long time ago, what’s going on here? Who made sense of things for you? Wasn’t I the one? GOD? It had to be me. I’m the only God there is—The only God who does things right and knows how to help.
22 So turn to me and be helped—saved!—everyone, whoever and wherever you are. I am GOD, the only God there is, the one and only.
23 I promise in my own name: Every word out of my mouth does what it says. I never take back what I say. Everyone is going to end up kneeling before me. Everyone is going to end up saying of me,
24 ‘Yes! Salvation and strength are in GOD!’" All who have raged against him will be brought before him, disgraced by their unbelief.
25 And all who are connected with Israel will have a robust, praising, good life in GOD!
The Lord is near to all who call;
He promised in His holy Word
That if we will draw near to Him,
Our faintest heartcry will be heard. —Hess
Have we been looking for God in all the wrong places?
1 comment:
Your teaching reminds me of the one that I guided last night. It was about Step 2 and being restored to sanity. In the devotion piece it mentioned reading Romans 1:19 "since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them." (NIV) I suppose this verse even taken out of context does have some merit when meditated upon for Step 2.
The reason that I said guided is it was my suggestion that all of Romans Chapter 17 and on through verse 1:32 be read. I suggested that now think about what we just heard in terms of our world today, talk about a need to be restored to sanity! Everyone seems to be finding God all over the place as well complete with the idols of wood. I think it was Solomon who stated there is nothing new under the sun.
Romans 1: 17-32
"17 For in the gospel arighteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
19 ¶ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools
23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is for ever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.
27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worth while to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,
30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;
31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practise them."
May the wisdom, grace; peace of the Lord, Christ Jesus, be with you always Sir.
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