January 3, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God but Me. Who then is like Me? Let him say so! Let him declare his case before Me, since I established an ancient people. Let him foretell the things to come, and what is to take place.” (Isaiah 44.6b-7)

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” (Revelation 22.13)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

Here is another example of “Haven’t I heard that somewhere before?” In the previous chapter, the word of God is spoken as a challenge to those who contend they have done enough to effect their own salvation and deliverance. What was being challenged by God was the idea of “good intentions overcome poor attention.” Most every one of us deal with that idea as we transition into a new year with our resolutions. We declare our good intentions for self-improvement but do not have a good enough plan to follow-through. We have not paid “attention” to the details. Let’s see if we can trace this line of thinking: good intentions; lack of attention to details; leaves us to a state of contention defending our results with participation awards. Recently I saw a post which make the following declaration: May the tears we shed in 2024 water the seeds we plant in 2025. Dare we stop for a second to consider how that declaration honors another axiom, that of “putting the cart before the horse”? Quite honestly, I wonder how throwing seeds into pools, ponds, lakes, rivers and oceans will result in a harvest of blessings to feed a world that is hungering for righteousness. We may have spent a great deal of time grieving, and grieving is a valuable part of our life’s transitions from darkness back into light as we travel through the valley of the shadow of death. Yes, death comes before us and overshadows us in many venues. As followers of Christ, we have even found ourselves in the shadow of the cross. We may envision ourselves, because of our sin and His choice to die for our sins, kneeling at the foot of the cross looking up to the Crucified One. In faith, however, when we return our gaze, the Crucified One is no longer on the cross. By the time we recognize His absence on the cross, we did not remember our sins. We must have left them at the cross as we ran to the tomb. When we arrived at the tomb, the stone is already rolled away and the word is given “He is not here. He has been raised just as He said would happen. He is gone now to return to the work given Him. Go and find Him where He said He would be.” We may be like Mary Magdalene who experienced the transformation from darkness into light. The shadow of death passed over her again but in the Garden, Jesus appeared to her and gave her peace. She walked in the glory which was His to give. Maybe we are like the disciples who had returned to the Upper Room to worship, praise, remember and “hide out.” Jesus had called them out once to go into the Garden of Gethsemane to pray with Him not to fall into temptation. Now He calls them out again to go into all the world to make more disciples like themselves who pursue a relationship with the living Lord of All, Son of the Living God.

The point is that our residence is not in the land of Grief! We are not left, as could have happened to Peter, to drown in the sea of our fears and tears. Jesus had already planted the seeds of faith, hope and love long before the grief had appeared. Grief had to come. We have to challenge what it is that we believe. Our grief becomes a sign and signal that we had so great a love that the depth of our loss has to be filled. We struggle to keep ourselves afloat. We recognize that we are not able to do so alone and we “cry out” for Jesus. We think we see Him as a ghost only to realize He is as real now as He ever was. Our grief turns into relief. Our relief becomes belief. The seeds planted, now watered, become vines and orchards and fields white with harvest. Those fields are the beneficiaries of our seed sowing, watered by the tears and sweat of our labor and now gathered in to continue the cycle season after season.

That was a reflection on what was spoken in chapter 43. It was spoken to the mortal “men” of Israel. Chapter 44 speaks to a different mindset. Now God is speaking to the lands around Israel and to those lands where the people of Israel had been taken. The belief that they are on equal ground with God, or worse superior to God, is being challenged. God is directing their attention to another “present day.” It is not one they are currently living in but one that they will come to face in a day which has not yet arrived. We hear of that day in John’s Book of Revelation. There in Isaiah, we must imagine our present day as one of being in exile. Our pitiful efforts to please ourselves and God resulted in partial efforts in both directions. In effect, we pleased no one because our lackluster efforts resulted in half-baked results. We weep because there is no harvest. There is no harvest because we gave up planting seeds. We kept the best for ourselves and left gleanings in the field. We invested in our own needs and dreams but declined to pay the price need to accrue interest in our investments. Our faith become inbred so that there was no bread to eat. We became hungry for more but too weak to do what was required to effect a harvest. What was the next decision?

It was to believe we could order others to do the work for us. We required of them what we ourselves refused to do. We used our weakness to be the strength of dictating high standards for others. We played the part of mountain top and peak performance when in fact, we were still walking and wallowing in the valleys of the shadow of death. We claimed a power that was not ours with the intention and contention of being god-like without paying attention once again to the details. What were those details? Isaiah 44 reveals them to us as it did to those in the days of Isaiah: foretell the future; establish an ancient people; create images and ideas of power which have no real life and authority in them. The bottom line was and is: all our “say so” amounts to testimony against us. Placing our “say so” against God’s “said so” crumbles and bows down or worse- rebels against the truth to call it a lie. The truth then is shown in its ability to endure. That endurance John hears from the Resurrected and now Glorified Christ. His new title is “I AM- the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” All that was and will ever be from everlasting to everlasting is bound into relationship with the Living God.

Mighty ones of God, what shall we invest ourselves in? Will we pour all our efforts into ourselves and then be left to weep in our lack of production and completion? Or will we invest ourselves into the promise of God, Immanuel, who joins with us and us with Him to accomplish His will to make known? God is asking us to stand before Him and plead our case if we believe so much in ourselves and see what the truth of the matter is. Or shall we kneel before God and glorify Him recognizing that what matters is the truth, the way and the life which is Christ Jesus alone? Jesus declared, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all that is needed will be provided.” (Matthew 6.33) Sounds like solid advice and a worthy resolution for a people resolved to those who belong to the great I AM and will ever be!

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, before we were conceived in the womb, You had already formed us in Your love and by Your Spirit brought us into being. Each one of us is blessed with the opportunity of doing right, being good and producing the fruit of the Spirit in order that others be fed the truth of that same love so that the two will become one. It is our soul’s sincere desire to embrace the oneness You have in mind so we would know we are Your people and You are our God. Lead us in that discovery of the truth and the manifestation of that love for us all. In Jesus’ name, we pray. AMEN.