January 12, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been sustained from the womb, carried along since birth. Even to your old age, I will be the same. I will bear you up when you turn gray. I have made you. I will carry you. I will sustain you and deliver you.” (Isaiah 46.3-4)

“Truly, truly, I tell you, when you were young, you dressed yourself and walked where you wanted. But when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” (John 21.18)

REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

Having recently gone through another snowstorm in my life, I am reminded of the image and associated word of God that comes to mind. I lived in a place where, at least in the late Autumn of 1983 into the early Spring of 1984, it snowed often. I remember looking out my upstairs window at the empty lot (which was a part of our property) between our house and the house next door where the local grocery owner lived. Between us stood a large cherry tree that in the late Spring would burst into full color and by the early fall would provide more cherries than we could harvest and eat. (So, we shared the opportunity with anyone who had a desire for fresh, sweet cherries.) During those snowy months, the ground was covered white. It was pristine and glistening. Well, it was until a rabbit or a dog or a human would go tromping through it. Or when they plowed the street in front of our houses from the river road up the hill to the college and the highway beyond it. Or when we got industrious enough to shovel our sidewalks so that we would not be held accountable for delaying college students from getting up the hill or me to get to work which I loved walking to in the cold weather. It was only six blocks. Of course, when the next snow flurry came, and that was often, all the work that had been done previously was covered up. The world was pristine and glistening as before. This went on from November to March, except for a two week January thaw. It was then that the snow melted away nearly as fast as it had come and been sustained. Underneath that snow was lush green grass. I even wondered if I should get out and mow for fear that it would be deeper come Spring. I didn’t. But the thought occurred to me as I looked from my window to see the renewal process that God’s grace must be something like that. In our desire and need to interact with the world, we get messy. Even the sacred and holy parts of that which we said are given fully to God, get dirty like the snow plowed onto the ground between the street and the sidewalk. Even these last couple of days, driving down certain streets provide a Hallmark landscape and then you get to the grocery parking lot only to find mounds of muddy, oily, greasy, salty snow and ice. Aren’t our lives just like that? Even amidst our best intentions, life in the world happens and it seems that heaven is but a distant vision, hope and dream.

Then it snows again. We know the effects and residue of the world still exists beneath the cover of white. The world regains an appearance of clean and whole and new. Our hope and wonder is restored and then there is the reminder that we must once again go back out in “that cold, cruel world” and do it all again. And, mighty ones of God, that is the same with our condition. We are renewed as with the strength of eagles to soar again when the weight of the world bears down on us. Our wings are meant to use the wind to lift but the downdraft of sin exerts its power to enhance the gravity of the situation. We stay grounded or make small hops from one place to another in an attempt to loose our bonds. If not for the mercy and grace of God, we would stay grounded. Worse, we would return to the dust of the earth from which we came. We would no longer be the dwelling place of the spirit of God. Would that spirit which inhabits our soul become equally soiled and thus condemned to the world of darkness? That is too far a reach for me to span. Instead, I will cling to the promise found in Isaiah and in the words from chapter 46. Hear His promise. God says, “I AM never changing. You are made by Me; by My hands and by My Spirit. Even when you become a different color turning gray with age, I will not lose sight of who I have made you to be. I will carry you. I will sustain you. I will deliver you.” The power of God’s promise and God’s word goes without question. The only question is “Will be accept it, believe it and receive it?” Further, “We will commit our lives to abide by it?” When things look bleak, foreboding and inescapable will we trust in God and His word or the emotional thinking which haunts sinful humanity. That is the type of thinking the Fallen Lucifer appealed to in the Garden whether it was Eden, Gethsemane or the valleys of the shadows of death. Stirring our emotions to overwhelm our common, spiritual sense, fear takes hold and the vista spread before us with avenues of escapism grows wide. What did Jesus declare: “Wide is the gate and broad is the way which leads to destruction; therefore, I tell you enter through the Strait Gate and the narrow way.” (Matthew 7.13) That word needs to be heard profusely today! The profundity of its wisdom and truth are desperately needed among the many voices which lead away from the promise of God’s provision and deliverance. In the hope of appealing to a vast array of people with a simplistic gospel of “enabling love and acceptance without transformation,” we are leading blindly those who are blinded by the world. Jesus said, “I AM the way, the truth and the life and no one may enter into the eternal habitations of God where peace and joy exist forever.” (John 14.4)

Only God can do such a thing. In the Old Testament, the appeal was made through the logic and reasoning of faith in the Law and Covenant espoused by the elders, judges, prophets and kings who committed themselves to being led by the Holy Spirit. In the New Testament, the appeal was made through Jesus the Christ and then through those in whom His Spirit was invested. While it is by faith and illustrates the fullness of the Law and the Covenant, it is more than that. It is the leading to the new creations which we are in Christ. It is the Word that abides in us and not around us. But that is as it was meant to be. To declare “Immanuel,” God with us, was not merely to acknowledge the surrounding and encompassing presence of God. It was to profess to the world that oneness which exists as “we are in Him who is in us.” It is only possible when His mercy and grace become real to us, in us and through us to all the world. We are made whole, righteous and true so that the testimony of hope which can deliver us from evil is made visible and tangible and believable and receivable by those who will accept its truth and be made new themselves in the name of Jesus.

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.